Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Here in Reuters studio right on Times Square with NHK host Hidetoshi Fujisawa, Francois Heisbourg of the Paris-based Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique and Fawaz Gerges of Sarah Lawrence College from New York (by way of Lebanon).

We tape 2-3 hours in a studio with Times Square as background for a 100-minute show ("World Current") to be shown in Japan on 12 March (Sunday).

We shall see how it goes.

The pic is of map NHK made up on poster board for my use during the show.

Pretty cool background for the show:

Shot of the studio with host and Heisbourg getting set:

Chinatown near Five Points: Having Peking Duck with speaking agent Jenn Posda. Our first serious F2F, which is nice since she runs so much of my sked.

Posted by at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Back in Times Square after flight from Orlando

Raytheon speech went well. Got a bit vocal in Q&A over China, but good theater. Hosts seemed happy. I was followed by Dick Armitage.

Now in Manhattan, hitting my favorite ribs place (Virgil's--sorry my Treo couldn't handle the neon better) just off the Square with my brother Jerome.

Tomorrow is the taping of the Japanese public TV show. I am told by my hosts that Francois Heisbourg from France will be a fellow panelist. Should be interesting...

[posted by Sean for Tom]

Posted by at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In Orlando today to present to big annual Raytheon marketing meeting.

Here's a picture of ballroom/stage set-up. Typical slick set-up for worldwide corporation like Raytheon.

[posted by Sean for Tom]

Posted by at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Regular reader and commenter Menno sens in this excellent and extensive analysis of FRONTLINE: the insurgency.

I don't know if you've already heard about this, but PBS FRONTLINE recently aired a program on the Iraq insurgency. I haven't had the chance to see the program yet myself, however their website has several transcripts of interviews with a variety of individuals (Col. McMaster, an Arab journalist, a TIME Magazine bureau chief, etc). Outside of Col. McMaster's interview, of which variations have been reported elsewhere, TIME Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware went into detail about certain aspects of the insurgency that indirectly mesh with your recommendation to co-opt Iran:

"[There is] an Iranian-backed, Iranian-directed, Iranian-funded and, at the very least, Iranian-inflamed insurgency in the south of Iraq and in parts of Baghdad...So essentially, just as the Americans did in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda -- an alliance of native opposition groups were backed, funded and then led by special forces -- that's precisely what Iran did to America here in Iraq. So they seized real and effective control of the south. ...as British military intelligence describes to me, as secret U.S. intelligence documents clearly show, as members of these militias have told me, and as the Iranians' own documents betray -- what they're doing is, it's like an occupation by stealth. In all the things that the American occupation is trying to do on all the levels -- military, political, diplomatic, economic, humanitarian -- the Iranians are mirroring this. They've got military forces here performing certain functions. They're pumping in money using front companies. They're trying to take advantage of and dominate the economy of the south. They're particularly interested in the oil and other forms of commerce. They're just pumping people and money and literature into their madrassas, the mosques, the universities. What has happened to Basra University is mind-boggling -- all this kind of thing. So in every way, on all the levels of a civil military operation, the Iranians are nearing, and with enormous sums of money. These opposition groups that were formed to oppose Saddam, and some of which have been formed after the arrival of the Americans, are ... answering to and being funded by the Revolutionary Guard just across the border. The main aim of the military aspect of this Iranian-backed campaign is to bog down the coalition forces without actually provoking them. So the idea is to just chip away, say, at the British presence in the south, just unsettle them so much that they never feel stable, so, as a very senior British commander in the south told me, "so that we must remain in force-protection mode.

...Iran has played on some levels what one could describe as a very smart game in Iraq. They've backed every horse in the race, waiting to see which ones will come good. Since 2003, I've had Iraqi Sunni Baathist commanders telling me about the Iranian money they get. It's not funding their operations. It certainly wasn't then. In fact, these Baathist commanders, the biggest complaint to me about these damned Iranians was that they're too smart by half: "Instead of just giving us the money in one big lump sum, they feed it to us in little bits so we've always got to go back to them asking for more." That way they can maintain the contact and keep getting the intelligence."

Obviously grand strategy is beyond the realm of this journalist, but it seems evident that the quickest (and least bloody) method to bottle up the more militant militias of Sadr and the like -- not to mention taking some wind out of the sails of the Sunni insurgency -- is your recommendation to co-opt Iran. At the very least it'll take a great deal of heat off of our British allies.

In one of the interviews with an Army officer, he obliquely makes the case for a SysAdmin force:

"I go out there, … and I'm talking to everybody, and I'm saying, "Well, we're bringing you hope," and they're looking at me like, "Yeah, so?" … What these people want is a job. They want food. They've got all these kids. They want a sense of security. It's all about [Abraham] Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You've got to satisfy this down here if you want them to self-actualize.

So as I approached the fight, I wanted to be able to face the challenges that were inherent in the fact that there wasn't an economic alternative. I'm a soldier; I can't build jobs. So I'm wrestling with that. I'm wrestling with the fear factor. I'm wrestling with all these components, and I'm trying to figure out how to get at the enemy, because to me it wasn't good enough that if I put a couple of tanks and Brads [Bradley fighting vehicles] out there and deter the enemy from attacking, that ain't winning. So how do I win?

The way that I've told you that I think we're winning is this: I'm not still providing an economic alternative really that much, although we do hire some folks to clean canals and do that, but that's not an overall economic alternative. I can't do that; the Iraqi government has to do that. But no one is going to come in here and provide jobs or invest in Iraq until they believe that the environment is stable and secure enough so that they can invest in that.

This is what I try and reinforce to the Iraqis that I talk to all the time, is you've got to take risks to break the cycle, because it's a cycle that will continue. [If] there's not a stable and secure environment, nobody will invest in Iraq. You can't hire folks, so they don't have a job; they don't have a job, so they join the insurgency. Then we kill some of the insurgents or we detain them, and then we grab large numbers of folks, and we add to the insurgency, and the cycle continues."

Going back to Michael Ware's interview, there was a point he made that I wanted to ask you about:

"By these guys' own admission, they do not have any inherent or fundamental grievance with the United States. These were soldiers and security officers and intelligence officers who served Saddam or Saddam's regime. There's many of them, including the guys in this grainy night-vision footage, [who] have made clear to me, "Saddam was my commander in chief, but I served Iraq." They're professionals, some of whom were trained by the Americans in the '80s, some of whom had Ranger training in the '70s. So these guys had no inherent beef with the United States; it was the occupation.

Even after the toppling of Saddam, many of the insurgents I know and some of the men in [my] early film would tell me, "Look, we've got no real problem with you removing Saddam." Some of them are actually grateful [because] they came from tribes that had always been part of the regime. At the slightest hint or moment of paranoid delusion, Saddam would institute a purge against all the officers from their tribe. Some of them had even been jailed by Saddam. ... So in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, most of these guys in the insurgency as a whole ... gave the Americans a chance; they gave them a window. They stood back and watched them [come in]; they went home like they all were told to do. They served either for the Americans, or they left their intelligence headquarters and they went home and they sat and they waited.

And then they started to see what happened, and that's when they started picking up their [guns], and then they started picking up RPKs [Ruchnoi Puleymot Kalashnikova, light machine guns] and then they started picking up RPGs, and then they started picking up surface-to-surface missiles, and then they started making IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. Then they started launching complex ambushes. Then they started coordinating with Zarqawi's nascent Al Qaeda organization. There was a moment in time when all of this could have been avoided in so many ways."

The "limited window" theme (generally a couple of months, though obviously it varies depending on the situation) is one that has been constantly mentioned whenever the US intervenes militarily, whether its Desert Storm or OIF, Afghanistan, the Balkans (I remember reading about plenty of those "missed opportunities" a few years before I was deployed there), Haiti, and even Katrina. Depending upon the dynamics, the results of missing that window varies.

What I wanted to ask is whether or not you've ever considered "wargaming" the SysAdmin force as a follow-up to the "New Map Game" awhile back, in the sense of how quickly and efficiently you can get a country back on its feet economically once this force enters, whereby most civilians see immediate humanitarian and economic benefits. I don't mean that to be used as a bragging argument [I CAN GET YOUR COUNTRY BACK ON ITS FEET AND THEN SOME IN 45 DAYS!], but as a method of determining if such a "limited window" can possibly be met. I ask because NATO's ground intervention in the Balkans got the security element right (for the most part), but was quite slow on the economic front -- despite the presence of plenty of UN/NATO economic experts and other such officials -- and as a result lead to local disillusionment and later political problems; in other words, we missed the window. I'm sure organizing such a wargame would be difficult (let alone finding the right scenario), but in my opinion I think it would add greater support and understanding for the SysAdmin force if you somehow tackled the initial kickstart economic element of the force (before the FDI flows in), as you did already with the force's military and international institution aspects. I know you state that you don't consider it wise to give specifics outside of your area of expertise, which is more than understandable, but maybe a wargame-like event would allow you to bring in such experts.

Keep up the great work and I hope you end up feeling better soon.

Tom's answer to Menno's question:

This is the natural extension to the New Map Game and it's an exercise I want to pursue. Once Enterra Solutions has a deeper relationship with Oak Ridge National Lab (something we're working hard to achieve), I'm hoping we can pursue that sort of thing there with our concept of Development-in-a-Box.

So, great idea. Agree completely. Welcome any further thinking on the subject.

Tom adds later:

Later, after I landed in Newark and read Menno's full email (restricted on my Treo), I realized that I had already explored this question twice: In the Y2K project (see the Scenario Dynamics Grid) and in the Systems Perturbation workshop I ran for Art Cebrowski and his office in the post-9/11 period of the NewRuleSets.Project.

Point? Not only do we have a host of recent experiences to miine, there is plenty of previous thinking to mine. Both realizations make me even more eager to someday be part of such an effort: mapping post-whatever scenario dynamics.

Come to think of it: Barnett Consulting (meaning Bradd Hayes and I) did such an after-action on the Station Nightclub Fire disaster for the United Way of Rhode Island. All these efforts modeled the same "golden hour" phenomenon.

Thanks again, Menno, for pushing my thinking and reminding me to consider past efforts (to include Enterra colleague Bradd Hayes own book "Doing Windows" on postwar ops).

Thank you, Menno, for your good work and for sending in this review.

Posted by at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

From the newsstands: Notable magazine offerings from February and March issues

Iraq, three years later

Esquire, March

"This is going to be a long war," writes Thomas P.M. Barnett, a strategic consultant for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 2001 to 2003. "In the two dozen interviews conducted with top American military officials for this article, the overwhelming consensus is that the boys are not coming home, that these conflicts will not be ending anytime soon. In fact, the generals have taken to calling Washington's war on terrorism the Long War."

The brass say that means the Army's going to have to keep many of its forces overseas continuously, and they're going to have to learn quickly from their mistakes in Iraq. The front-and-center lesson: Figure out the culture and learn to work with the locals. Intelligence, especially the political kind, is vital.

Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who has commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, is quoted as saying: "If we go into Pyongyang [North Korea] and we're fighting there six months from now against a mechanized unit, 100,000 Special Forces would be running around doing what they're doing to our rear area now. So guess what? This is the best training ground in the world. For the German troops [before World War II] it was Spain, right? Well, Iraq is ours."

Posted by at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's the Barone blog post from last week, sent to me by a CentCom USAF reader:

February 22, 2006

Mind the gap

Here is a map showing the location of riots protesting the Danish cartoons. And here's a link to Thomas Barnett's "nonintegrated gap." Notice the similarity? Barnett, as faithful readers of this blog will know...

Here's the full post: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneblog/home.htm.

I just love this sort of stuff, because it proves the strategic concept is eminently "reproducible".

Posted by at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My Mom informs me that the next weekly issue of the Boscobel Dial contained a correction about my profile in the previous week's edition, noting that I no longer work at the Naval War College.

We are now in synch, my hometown and I.

Posted by at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Still novel enough for me to be quite exciting!

The piece, as I said earlier in the blog, focuses on China.

Here's how it starts:

China should not be ignored in global economy

By Thomas P.M. Barnett, tom@thomaspmbarnett.com

February 26, 2006

While it seems like America's foreign policy debates are dominated by current events in Iraq, Iran and North Korea, if you really want to start an argument in Washington right now, "rising China" is your best bet.

Why? That's where you'll find the most divided opinions.

On one side stand congressional protectionists and defense-industrial hawks who are convinced that China's burgeoning trade and military power spell inevitable conflict, if not over Taiwan today then over Persian Gulf oil and African minerals tomorrow.

That's why our Navy is moving ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific: Pentagon hardliners argue that, if we don't show a strong hand today, China will inevitably grow more aggressive in its frantic search for raw materials.

On the other side stands America's high-tech industry, including a slew of multinational corporations coyly hiding just how much of their profits are derived from outsourcing manufacturing or, more to the point, final assembly jobs to China ...

Read the full column here.

Pretty happy with the piece. As I said earlier in blog, I wasn't trying to put my entire China argument into one piece, but rather to start a line of argument that I can continue in future pieces. Funny thing about this column is, I wanted to write the bit about China's present being spread over the last 125 years of America's past, but I never got to that point in the article: once begun, it just never quite fit within the proscribed 720 words. So I guess I will keep that notion for a future column.

My only complaint is the title, which I left to my Knoxville masters. I don't think anybody "ignores" China in the global economy.

But I only have myself to blame on that. The Knoxville people have been very nice to me on editing and giving me serious freedom. The answer is, I need to come up with my own titles. Sure, they will edit those (editors always do), but I have to lay down my own marker or I can't complain about the outcome.

One innovation this time is that I used a different byline. Last time I used the Oak Ridge "distinguished strategist" title, but this time I went with:

Thomas P.M. Barnett is a distinguished scholar at the Howard H. Baker Center of Public Policy at the University of Tennessee and author of "Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating." Contact him at tom@thomaspmbarnett.com.

I feel like I should alternate between the Baker and Oak Ridge titles in my biweekly column, because Oak Ridge arranged for both the column and the affiliation with Baker, so best to serve both masters equally over time.

Next up? Feel an Iran piece coming on.

Posted by at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ARTICLE: “U.S. Lawmakers Receive Global Criticism for Objections to Ports Deal,” by Aaron O. Patrick, Wall Street Journal, 25-26 February 2006, p. A4.

ARTICLE: “A Ship Already Sailed: America Ceded Its Seaport Terminals to Foreigners Years Ago,” by Simon Romero and Heather Timmons, New York Times, 24 February 2006, p. C1.

OP-ED: “Ports in a Storm: Do we believe in free trade, or don’t we?” by Zachary Karabell, Wall Street Journal, 23 February 2006, p. A16.

EDITORIAL: “Ports of Gall: The new protectionists use national security as their cover,” Wall Street Journal, 25-26 February 2006, p. A10.

ARTICLE: “Thwarted Attack At Saudi Facility Stirs Energy Fears: Officials Worry Terrorists Are Targeting Oil System; Crude Futures Jump 4%,” by Bhushan Bahree and Chip Cummins, Wall Street Journal, 25-26 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “In Ports Furor, a Clash Over Dubai: Debate Exposes Conflicts Between Security Needs And Foreign Investment; PetroChina Hangs On in Sudan,” by Bernard Wysocki Jr. and Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal, 23 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “How Foreign Banks Scaled the Chinese Wall: Titans Acquire Minority Stakes With Little Control of Their Own; Will the Strategy Prove Wise?” by Kate Linebaugh, Wall Street Journal, 23 February 2006, p. C1.

ARTICLE: “Intel to Build Vietnam Chip Plant, Raising Nation’s High-Tech Profile,” by James Hookway and Nguyen Pram Muoi, Wall Street Journal, 24 February 2006, p. A4.

ARTICLE: “U.S. Funds Take On Global Flavor: Foreign Companies’ Equities Increasingly Populate Portfolios As Returns Pick Up Overseas,” by Tom Lauricella, Wall Street Journal, 24 February 2006, p. C1.

America has been the single biggest kingpin in outward-bound foreign direct investment since the Second World War, meaning our cumulative total of investment in other countries is bigger than anybody else on the planet. Sure, when you bundle up Europe’s numbers, they are huge (2X ours), but that’s including all the intra-European investment, which is like counting Florida investing in Michigan. Strip away all the self investment, and America is more than equal to Europe’s overseas investment total.

Have we benefited from all that overseas investing? Sure. We’re sought out cheaper resources and labor over the decades, pushing American firms to become ever more efficient and to move up the production value chain to new heights of technology and productivity. Have such investments forced our economy and society to leave behind industries that once defined our labor pool? Sure, but that’s progress, unless you think it’s better defined by every child performing the same job as their parents once did, and their parents once did, and their parents once did, and so on.

All that investment has built up this magnificent global economy, which is bigger now than it has ever been, and features less violence and danger than it has ever had to withstand before. That’s right. You go back in history and you will find an ever increasing percentage of humanity either actively involved in or preparing for mass violence. Today, that percentage is lower than it has ever been, because the numbers and cumulative size of conflicts around the world are lower than they’ve ever been.

The spread of the global economy is responsible for that, and our immense role in exporting investments around this world has been preeminent in creating that future worth living.

And yet we are so fearful of the mutually-assured dependence we’ve created with all this investment, especially when it comes back at us in the form of other countries investing in the U.S., something that’s been a hallmark of our development for decades and decades stretching back to our infancy. I know, I know, America was a perfect democracy from the start and we built this entire economy on our own, with no help from anybody except the immigrants who showed up. This is the American mythos, and we love it. But the truth is we've had huge inflows of foreign direct investment throughout our history (Number 1? The Dutch.), as lotsa foreigners “exploited our cheap labor” and our natural resources. And we benefited hugely from this.

Truth be told: no country develops without access to foreign money in this global economy. So FDI must flow. In reality, it’s the Dune-like “spice” that drives our global economy—more than oil does.

So we are rightly criticized as hypocrites when our lawmakers object to the UAE ports deal. Not just because it’s anti-trade, but because it flies in the face of current reality: the countries that run the world’s ports, including ours, are those that most heavily depend on trade (Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Denmark, China, Germany, Taiwan and that city-state called Seattle). Seafaring centers rule that trade (can I get a “duh”!).

This is our game, the one we created after World War II to keep great power peace, and it’s worked like a dream. Now, great powers and wannabe regional ones all play by our rules. So when one of them does unto us what we’ve been doing unto them for decades, it’s pretty strange for us to cry foul, and even worse to cry national security.

Did DP World have an advantage in bidding for the British company that currently runs a number of our ports? Sure. And we should we wary of letting states-masquerading-as-companies pretend they are playing on a level field? All things being equal? Yes. But all things are rarely equal. And if we’re seeing connectivity result that otherwise would not be there, then I say we choose investment over fear. Do I want Dubai to become a Hong Kong/Singapore of the Middle East? Sure. Because I want the Middle East to connect up to the world. In fact, that’s the whole purpose behind our Big Bang strategy of toppling Saddam: connecting the Middle East up to the global economy faster than the jihadists can disconnect it.

The Al Qaedaists of the Middle East know damn well what they’re doing: they want to sabotage the regions’ economies, disconnecting them from the world, and reap the whirlwind of social distress. Thus we should expect more attacks on port and energy facilities like the one that targeted the Abqaiq facility recently.

I know that some op-ed strategists want to play that game as well, arguing we should cut the global economy off from the Middle East by denying ourselves its oil as quickly as possible, but I argue for just the opposite approach. I want shared economic and strategic interests, not some rapid-fire economic divorce.

That’s the essential nature of the military-market nexus that we ourselves have forged in this era of globalization. I know we are called a debtor nation, but in reality we are a security exporter, one that overspends our public funds in order to pay for the world’s security, which only our power-projecting military is capable of providing. For that service, the world pays us by buying our debt. But that process can only go so far, as we’ve seen with Japan years ago and China today. After a while, our trade partners can accumulate only so much of our money in reserves. When saturation is reached (beyond the fear of currency speculation), then these countries naturally want to diversify their holdings; they want to own us as much as we own them.

This is natural and good and a furthering of the mutually-assured dependence that defines the Functioning Core of globalization. In fact, to move from the Non-Integrating Gap to the Core, such interdependency must be an avowed goal of the migrating nation (in this case, Dubai). We either welcome that mutual dependence or we renounce the very system of growing global peace that we engineered.

We are too far down this road to change course. Invest in a “U.S.” mutual fund today and you’ll find that much of its money sits abroad, seeking greater opportunity--as it should. Some can call such activity akin to being "economic traitors," a charge so foolishly wrongheaded as to deserve complete condemnation. Instead, such investments do more to secure our national security than all the efforts of our defense establishment.

And yet it is so sad to see American leaders, right at the moment of our emerging historical triumph, becoming so amazingly full of self-doubt and fear. What do we need to continue to succeed in the world we’ve created? A highly educated and ambitious labor pool of entrepreneurs. How hard is that to achieve? You tell me.

Other countries are responding to this challenge of Friedman’s “Flat World,” and they’re doing so with less fear. China lets our banks buy into their banks. Vietnam lets Intel come in and build a big chip factory that, a few years back, would have gone to China. Everyone is striving mightily to move up the production chain and all America does is fret over industries we’ve let go abroad instead of focusing on what we really need to do next: invent the next wave of industries that will define our future.

But I am being too harsh here: those industries are appearing across the dial in America. We just need to revamp a lifelong educational system to make American labor confident enough that we can collectively migrate our skills and labor to what comes next, instead of vainly trying to hold onto what came before.

Yes, yes, easier said than done. But what do these “far-sighted” protectionists offer us instead? Look closely, because upon further examination it comes off as a sort of economic back-to-the-future escapism that comes uncomfortably close to Osama’s arguments for civilizational apartheid: “Don’t deal with this challenging future; instead retreat into a more homogenous imaginary past.”

We need confidence now more than ever because we are closer—now more than ever--to the global future we’ve been crafting for decades and decades. I feel a huge debt to the Greatest Generation, one that requires I keep pushing the pile throughout my career. I have never felt more connected to both past and future as I do today, and it fills me with a sense of great optimism.

But optimism requires confidence. You have to see the world you’ve created. You need to feel a pride of ownership and a sense of parental satisfaction.

And at some time you have to let go of your fears. You have to accept countries for what they’re becoming, not what they’ve been. You need to seize the opportunities to turn enemies into partners and partners into close friends.

We are at that moment in history.

We need that confidence and that optimism that’s defined America’s past and will shape this world’s future even more.

We all live in a world of our making. Some deride that self-awareness as naïve or delusional.

I call it real power and tell all the fear-mongers to f--k off.

Posted by at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Went to bed Tuesday night so convinced I was heading to doc on Wednesday (had appointment and all) that I was counting the minutes to the Amoxycilin.

Then woke up Wednesday feeling decent, thus the big post output.

Got even better yesterday, which was lost mostly to house stuff and prepping my taxes and a concert in which my son performed.

Then back to feeling bad today. At first, I thought it was my accountant telling me I needed a lot more cash on 15 April (saw him today, son of a Packer player from the 1950s, no less). I am becoming more Republican each year my income goes up!

But over day I realized this virus is not over. Of course, my usual ear for infections starts to ache just as Friday afternoon comes around (amazing how that works--never appearing until the weekend).

But I remain optimistic. I have heard so much about this flu-ish virus that goes on for two weeks and ebbs and peaks and morphs and so on and so forth. Virtually all my network has had it already. Guess it's just my turn.

Last night during son's concert (Kev has the most beautiful voice), I get two very interesting speaking invites: first is to address 30 or so national military chiefs in Asia next fall in Malaysia (I am reminded of "Zoolander" every time I hear that country's name ...) and second is to address a mega-church in Texas (all four Sat-Sun services). Now there's an interesting pair of invites that I'm guessing not every grand strategist manages to attract!

I may be closer to my Joel Osteen moment than I realized ...

Ah well, at least such interesting asides divert my attention from the fact that I will owe the IRS a frightening amount of money between 15 April and 15 June. My Dad always said it was the killer time for the self-employed.

Neat thing is, of course, I'm trying to finance a new house in the same timeframe. Is that strategic planning or what?

Come to Jesus? Come to the Uncle Sam!

Posted by at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Jim and I go all the way back to 1990. He was in the Strategic Policy and Analysis Group (SPAG) that I joined just as it was being absorbed into the Center for Naval Analyses. Jim was one of my first mentors--a really great guy. Jim was also the first guy to say to me, "You're going to ruin this military!" I remember it well. I was standing at the Xerox. He said it jokingly, but he also meant it, even as he agreed with the logic behind wanting to "ruin the military."

Jim was also the guy to bring me to speak with Kerry's Pentagon people in the summer of 2004. An interesting, well-connected guy.

Rob Holzer is the co-author. He wrote for Defense News for years, being the first journalist to profile me as director of the NewRuleSets.Project (the one with Cantor Fitzgerald. He later went on to become public affairs guy for the Office of Force Transformation. Very smart, very good guy, who helped me a lot over my time in OFT--and beyond.

They write a nice piece here in C4ISR Journal:

Disruptive voice

Cebrowski understood the value — and inevitability — of revolutionary change

By James Blaker and Robert Holzer

January 09, 2006

Retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, who died Nov. 12, joins George S. Patton, Billy Mitchell, Hyman Rickover and others in that great brotherhood of military innovators who revolutionized national security affairs.

It is a heroic cadre, because changing things and pushing into new frontiers in military affairs inevitably means challenging convention and hierarchy in the most inherently conservative of American institutions.

Like Patton’s insights into the promise of armor, Mitchell’s unerring faith in the potential of aircraft and Rickover’s advocacy of nuclear-powered submarines, Cebrowski’s keen appreciation of the power of information technology opened new passages of military strategy. But he searched for much more than just how to adjust military functions to emerging technology. He drove the debate from the eternal military question of how to use the wisdom of experience to the far more disruptive question of how to change past wisdom to meet the new challenges of the time. And he understood that to do so meant shifting from the military focus on questions of “how” to the more profound questions of “why" ...

Go here for the full article.

Posted by at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[UPDATE: Reposted for those who missed it]

OP-ED: "From 'Connectedness' to Conflict," by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 22 February 2006, p. A15.

Here's the key bit on me and PNM:

Among military strategists, the bible of connectedness is a book called "The Pentagon's New Map," by Thomas P.M. Barnett. He argues that the world today is divided between an "integrating core" of orderly commerce, stretching from America and Europe across to China and India, and a "non-integrating gap," which is his shorthand for the messy rest of the world. The task of U.S. foreign policy is to connect the two. Thomas Friedman's influential book, "The World Is Flat," argues that technology is driving this process of integration, and that it's creating a richer, smarter global community.

So why does the world feel so chaotic? Why is there a growing sense that, as Francis Fukuyama put it in a provocative essay in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, "More democracy will mean more alienation, radicalization and -- yes, unfortunately -- terrorism"? I have been discussing this conundrum with friends, and I've heard two interesting theories worth sharing.

The first comes from Raja Sidawi, a Syrian businessman who owns Petroleum Intelligence Weekly and is one of the most astute analysts of the Arab world I know. He argues that Barnett misses the fact that as elites around the world become more connected with the global economy, they become more disconnected from their own cultures and political systems. The local elites "lose touch with what's going on around them," opening up a vacuum that is filled by religious parties and sectarian groups, Sidawi contends. The modernizers think they are plugging their nations into the global economy, but what's also happening is that they are unplugging themselves politically at home.

Now, I am tempted to retort here on a variety of levels.

First, the entire notion of PNM is that the spread of the global economy creates tumult and change that ultimately but not instantly leads to connectivity, which in turn leads to stability. If connectivity led instantly to stability then I wouldn't have needed to call it the Pentagon's New Map, because there would have been no role for the military in this process. In truth, I am arguing Huntington's "clash" on many levels, just rendering that concept dynamic in relation to globalization's spread, so my Seam is basically the moving front of globalization that reformats "olive tree" places into "lexus" venues, to borrow from Friedman. PNM's advance was to combine Huntington's sociological determinism with Friedman's economic determinism by adding the third leg of the stool: political-military determinism--as in, where globalization is encroaching, look for conflict.

Second, PNM's entire discussion of the Big Bang as strategy not only admits the greater likelihood of more violence, it welcomes it. This is a notion I continue at great length in BFA, which I know Ignatius has read, yet, for some reason, he chooses not to explore in print. (I know, because he told me in person how much he liked BFA when I saw him at the "Diane Rehm Show.")

Third, my entire notion of "The Train's Engine Cannot Travel Faster Than Its Caboose" is a purposeful exploration of just this point. But again, David, for whatever reason, chooses to curtail his public understanding of my ideas to PNM, when in so many ways I moved beyond that initial expression by publishing Blueprint for Action. So I don't "ignore" the elites question, I just didn't get to it in PNM.

Fourth, I actually do a better job of defending Fukuyama's "End of History" argument in BFA than Fukuyama does in his NYT Mag article of last week (cited by David)! The whole "wars of the spirit" stuff was always part and parcel of Fukuyama's argument. In fact, it was the punch line of the entire book!

Fifth, my exploration of the Middle East ("Winning This War With Connectedness") in BFA argues that our pursuit of the GWOT will not lead to lower levels of violence, but instead--as I so often point out in this blog--speed the killing.

Sixth, in BFA I offer a detailed exploration of the possible sequencing of Gap shrinkage, and in that process I reiterate a point I make in Chapter 2 on "Winning This War": the fight, if done well, heads south into sub-Saharan Africa, meaning not less violence over time, but a geographic shifting of its center of gravity. This is why the term Long War is a good one.

It's hard for me to pick a fight with Ignatius, because I admire his writing so much and because he's been quite generous with me in the past. I will admit to being too damn prolific, and thus forcing a sequel into the marketplace while book #1 is still spreading in its impact. But I mean, it's not like I'm just pointing to my blog, or my new column, or my articles for Esquire in defense here. I'm actually pointing to an entire book already in print!

Still, "bible" and comparison to World is Flat is hard to complain about, and frankly, now that I write a column, I appreciate what it is for someone like Ignatius to work an issue, bit by bit, across columns.

My second column for the Knoxville News Sentinel is sort of an intro piece by me on China. Do I get the Internet stuff in? No. Do I explore Taiwan? Not really. I get what I can get in across 720 words. It's good stuff, starting a conversation, but I easily could have used about 5,000 more words to deal with this or that aspect. But my sense, especially with a biweekly, is that I need to build a case and an understanding over time. So I do a little bit in my first column on China, then a bit more a couple of months later when I revisit, and so on.

Sure, it would be different if I were 2x a week like Ignatius, but if and when I achieve that frequency, my guess is that I'll be singing the same whiney tune on this subject (so much to cover in 720 words!), that I really don't think Ignatius has it any easier. Ignatius' real point in this piece was to introduce the yin-yang-like interplay of connectivity and chaos as globalization spreads, a concept I stake my entire vision on. So he uses me as a bit of a foil here, understandably straw-manning me a bit, but doing so in a very nice way and plugging me just fine in the process.

Would I love to push Ignatius into some treatment of BFA? Damn straight, but I have to accept the fact that I'm a bit too prolific for my own good. The marketplace of ideas will catch up eventually, and BFA is sitting there, waiting to answer so many of the criticisms leveled at PNM like this one. That is a very cool position to be in.

I am also reminded of what Barry McAffrey told me when he saw the original PNM brief: he said that the vast majority of people would need multiple exposures to the material before adequately absorbing it. In fact, he said I would need to brief most people several times before they actually "got it." I know what McAffrey meant by that, because--quite frankly--I needed several dozen "exposures" to get the material myself! So how can I expect anything better from anyone else? In the end, then, Ignatius is carrying my water, so it's hard for me to complain. By giving PNM repeat exposures in his column, he does me a very good turn. Understandably, he will "abuse" the material a bit here and there to make larger points, and you have to accept that. As someone who's written a lot himself, I know I do that to people all the time. Remember, my original text for the "Monks of War" Esquire piece as about 14k, so you're always battling the reality of limited space, meaning you advance the argument as much as you can in any one piece and make your peace with that limitation.

Richness versus reach, my old mentor Art Cebrowski liked to say. So very true.

It's like that (largely) critical review I got from the high school kids in the Indy Star last week. Sure, I would have liked it better if they had actually read either book, but I got what I could across in that brief (highly shortened due to time and my perception of bit rate with the audience--no insult, you simply adjust to the audience from the stage). So you're happy with the exposure and you recognize the richness/reach tradeoff is inescapable. I mean, look at how many people misinterpret Fukuyama simply because of that title (End of History) and the fact that almost no one has actually read his book to the end!

Readers are constantly pushing me to push myself and my ideas into new venues, acting like I should be as impatient as they are. I appreciate that desire and sense of urgency--immensely. But it's been my experience of the last 16 years that the acceptance comes when the marketplace is ready. My job as visionary is to keep the pipeline full, not get all antsy about the timeline. The grand strategist's greatest strength is his sense of patience. Spending a weekend back in my hometown of Boscobel reminds me that I've been dreaming these dreams for a good three decades. I have been patiently working on this trajectory since I became aware of a larger world in the 1972-73 timeframe, so I refuse to get all wrapped around the axle at any one point in the process, which I still see unfolding over decades, not 24-hour news cycles.

I have written about this weird phenomenon before here: PNM was the big hit among the media types but it is BFA that has dramatically elevated my facetime with policy players and military leaders. So here is my conundrum: PNM is taken more seriously by commentators but BFA is taken more seriously by practitioners (meanwhile, the academics largely condemn both for not citing them enough).

I am beginning to think the Schopenhauer bit about truth going through three cycles (ridicule, opposition, "acceptance" as self-evident) is dead on.

But again, no game clock for the grand strategist ...

Know your role in life and stick to it. Do history the favor it needs from you and remain true to your beliefs.

Posted by at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Director’s Commentary: Chapter Two: Winning the War Through Connectedness

This chapter was, in some ways, the hardest to write, and it came to me in terms of content rather late in the game (the February 2005 Esquire article that dealt with Iran and the Wired article of the same month that proposed a new rule set on dealing with individual terrorists).

Now, if you remember my blogging at the time, I was writing BFA across January and February of 2005, so how could that material have come so late? Remember this about magazines: a February issue comes out in early January, which means it goes to the printer NLT early December, which means you’re editing it in November, having basically written it in October. In other words, I had the material in hand well before starting the book.

This chapter was envisioned as a bottom-up chapter that would start with Iraq, then move onto the region (dealing with Iran), and then propose the system-level rule set for the Core (the World Counter-Terrorism Organization). However, because I covered so much of what I wanted to say on Iraq in Chapter 1, the planned first section was jettisoned in the great reorganization that settled the book (which also involved moving “chapter 0,” called “Blogging the Future,” from the front of the book into the Afterward). Mark and I went back and forth on this first section, with Mark complaining increasingly over time that he felt he couldn’t make the material work in a two-fold sense: first, it felt repetitious as a result of Chapter 1’s exploration of Iraq; and two, it just had a kitchen sink feel to it (bit of a grab bag of concepts I wanted to cover but that didn’t hold together particularly well). When I finally agreed to cut the section (at that time we were in the first major edit of Chapter 1), Mark was eminently relieved and we quickly came to the side agreement on moving “chapter 0” to the back of the book.

At that point, both Mark and I were in strong agreement on how the rest of the book would unfold in terms of editing, so the decision was a real tipping point in the process (growing tension until it occurred, and growing confidence from that point on).

What I ended up doing with the section was to yank out the bits I really felt most strongly about and then stick them into various points of Chapter 1. I had been reluctant to do that prior to the decision, fearing that Chapter 1 was growing too bulky, but then I counted up the total words there and realized it was still smaller, even after these additions, than Chapter 3 had been in PNM. Since Mark and I always considered Chapter 1 in BFA to be PNM-3’s equivalent, I soon got over that fear and made the additions.

In the end, it was due to this decision making process that Chapter 2 becomes the only one of the five chapters to have only two sections instead of three, but I got over that as well, despite my legendary anal attitude about such things (i.e., I like symmetry and I especially like trios).

When all was said and done, I was surprised by how much I liked this chapter. I felt like I got everything into it that I wanted. I mean, I know the arguments on Iran are controversial by today’s standards, but I really write for the long haul, and over the long haul, I know that some sort of co-optation process with Iran is inevitable and that a new, more transparent rule set on dealing with individual terrorists is inevitable, so it was important to me to get these points down now--in print.

chapter into
I really wanted to get the stuff in (p. 71) about how the Chinese policy types interpreted the yin-yang mix of idealism and realism somewhere in the book, and I knew it would be too hard in my later description of adopting Vonne Mei, so the intro seemed like a decent place to explore the concept.

So I start with a quick para on the wide disparity of reviews that PNM got, and then quickly segued into the segment on PNM being a mix of idealism (long term) and realism (short term), a nifty interpretation that was introduced to me by an audience member (Army National Guard chief for the northeast) in a brief a while back. The ANG flag compared that balancing act to the description offered by Admiral Jim Stockdale in his memoir of long-term captivity in the Hanoi Hilton: the guys who kept hoping for release by this or that date (“home by Christmas”) were the guys who lost it, whereas the ones who remained optimistic about the long term (“I will get home!”) but ruthlessly realistic about the short term were the ones who survived.

Since Chapter 1 was so big, I put in a para reminding the reader of the three major proposals I offered there on page 73.

Then I wrap it up (p. 74) with the bit about the grand strategist not getting it alone, just getting it first, segueing into a brief preview of the two career stories (CENTCOM and SOCOM) that I would use in the subsequent two sections. The last para makes a Star Trek reference (Jim Kirk’s “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario” from “Wrath of Khan”) and marries it to a Lincoln reference (“house divided against itself”). This may seem strange to some, unless one remembers that Kirk and Lincoln actually “met” in the third season of the original series.

Ahem!

Connecting The Middle East To The World
Start off here (p. 75) with how the visionary and the military interrelate, and I preview a bit with the “Dirty Harry” quote.

I liked both the “suck eggs” (a bit I’ve always wanted to work in) and the “requirements” explanation (cribbed from Hank Gaffney). Yes, the first few pages (pp. 75-77) have a bit of a pre-writing feel to them, but I love that kind of meandering detail that pulls back the curtain a bit. Warren would let me do it a bit here and there to start certain sections (“a bit of misdirection is okay if you don’t go overboard,” he would say), but we always stuck to the notion that career stories had to move the narrative along or they had no purpose.

Then I work in the Mac Thornberry quote (p. 77), which is a story told to me by Greg Jaffe from his interviews for the May 04 WSJ page-one profile on me. It didn’t make it into the piece, but I liked it so much, I knew I would find a way to stick it into Vol. II. I am still amazed that he took time out of his schedule to review PNM in the Washington Times.

The recollection (pp. 78-80) of the interactions with Central Command’s J-5 staff is, I think, really cool. This is something I was bold enough to try in PNM, with Mark Warren’s encouragement, and I think it worked well in BFA too: giving readers a sense of what the work is really like, especially the careful dance between senior military officers and civilian strategists.

That story gave me the excuse of laying out my “seams” arguments for the Middle East WRT to the Big Bang (pp. 80-84), which includes my not-too-bold prediction about African Command (p. 82). I had worked this out with CENTCOM’s people, just like I describe here, so it felt very organic to preface the material with the story of its origins.

Once I got to the end of the piece, it felt natural enough to then engage in some self-congratulatory quoting from David Ignatius’s very complimentary December 2004 op-ed about PNM (p. 84), in which he wrote about how much my thinking seemed to have penetrated CENTCOM. The only way I could include a quote like that was to really build the story from A to Z, otherwise it would have come out of left field.

At that point, the career portion of the section is done, and we go straight into the policy arguments and analysis, so the section really pivots on page 85 when I go into the Marc Sageman (a guy I met at SOCOM) material on the global Salafi jihadist movement.

Then a quote from Olivier Roy (P. 87) to introduce him, segueing into my typology of troubled Muslims that starts with those generally disgruntled with American policies in the region and drills down to Osama himself. I got this stuff from a variety of reference web sites that seek to lay out a basic understanding of “radical Islam.” I also use this exploration to take some additional pot shots at the hardcore Fourth Generation Warfare types like van Creveld and Kaplan (pp. 88-89).

Then we’re into my main points that I want to make about the Middle East (pp. 90-96), focusing most on demographics and making my general point that it’s the expansion of the global economy that’s driving a lot of this tumult.

My long pivot to the Iran material, which is itself an extensive reworking of the February 2005 Esquire argument, is the notion of “overlapping races” (p. 97), which naturally becomes a nifty slide in my current brief on BFA. That’s a quintessential sort of summary strategic concept that you find in my work: collapsing a lot of other people’s analyses into a meta-analytical singularity that’s fairly accessible--as in, simple.

My shorter pivot (p. 98) is my backhanded dismissal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the perceived center of the Middle Eastern universe. We’ve had our vision of Mideast change held so captive to that concept for so many years now, it must seem insane to see it treated so summarily in a section focused on the region, but that’s what I believe. For too long, we’ve pretended that if we got a perfect “peace plan” on Israel and Palestine, then somehow everything would chill in the region, when in reality, there is no peace on that subject until the region as a whole is transformed from its rancid authoritarianism into something better. Is Israel put at risk by this process? No more than normal.

But that’s the underlying message of the Big Bang: speed the killing. And that’s my message on Iran: get to the rapprochement we all know must happen. Definitely scary terrain to cover between here and there, but no risk, no reward.

Then I blow up the Iran segment of the Esquire article (pp. 98-104), turning paras into pages. This section naturally get caricatured as “forging an alliance” with Iran as though we’re throwing in our lot with the mullahs (or worse, “giving Iran the bomb”), when really what I’m talking about here is the best and fastest version of the “soft kill” we used to defeat the Sovs.

I feel very good about getting this idea down in formal print. I think the strategy will be amply proven by history, or the Big Bang will simply go down in flames. Our choice, really.

Creating the New Rule Set on Global Terrorism

In many ways, I am most proud about this section, because if I had neglected to make this argument (something I wasn’t planning on doing prior to being asked by Wired to write on the subject) I really would have regretted not addressing the subject.

Plus, it just rounded off my rule sets to propose one for states and one for individuals in the GWOT.

I basically use the same format as the previous section, this time recounting interactions with the Special Operations Command and in particular the experts group brought together for a weeklong effort with the commander, General Doug Brown and his senior planners (pp. 105-114).

Now, to reveal some of the names implied on page 106…

The “psychiatrist” is no surprise, since I used his book (Understanding Terror Networks) so much in BFA: Marc Sageman. Smart as shit, but not the easiest guy to be around. When people say I have a big ego and a brusque manner, I just remember what it was like to spend that much time with Sageman. He makes me look like a child in comparison. Still, no arguing the competency. It’s just that he’s a drill-down artist supremo, so no surprise that he and I didn’t mesh.

The “noted futurist from the business world” was Peter Schwartz. He was the great middle-ground type who kept trying to maintain the peace in our discussions. Very good at this. Pretty easy to get along with.

The “best-selling author of science-fiction novels popular with military offices” was Orson Scott Card, who wrote “Ender’s Game.” Not surprisingly, he was the big storyteller of the group. Nice guy to hang with.

The “expert on the online activities of youth” was J.C. Herz, who was the NYT’s first videogame critic. Interesting lady who tends toward the dark. Still, fun to be around. Imagine Winona Ryder with a 160 IQ.

There were a few others, but those were the ones that stuck in my mind.

My standard for SOF guys is the current vice commander, Vice Admiral Eric Olson. Spend some time with him, and you will be left with a strong impression. I hope he becomes eventual commander. As much as I like Brown, I like Olson’s more pure take on trigger pulling.

I mentioned Kerry’s proposal for enlarging SOCOM (p. 112) because he had just made it during the campaign prior to the week I spent down there, so it was something Brown addressed in our consultations. Funny thing is, Kerry is defeated and then his proposal for plusing up SOCOM is pursued by Rummy as the big answer on the GWOT. Funny how that works out, no?

What Rummy hasn’t seemed able to get through the system is the return of Civil Affairs to the regular Army. That’s part and parcel on his apparent desire to put Iraq behind him by making SOCOM the center of the GWOT universe. Wishful thinking, say I.

The bit about not fighting states any more and drawing a clear line of events all the way back to Just Cause (p. 114) is a verbal thing I just started spontaneously in the brief around the time PNM hit the stores. I really liked using it in the brief, so I wanted to get it into Vol. II.

I really like the Kaiser Soze bit on page 115. My brother-in-law and surrogate reader Steve Meussling really objected to that in the first draft, saying it was criminal to give away a “gotcha” ending for a movie plot in a book on international relations, but I figured it was just too good to pass up, especially after I read a bunch of the crazy rumors about AMZ, as the military likes to shorthand him (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). Also liked mentioning Dennis Miller.

Can’t believe I misspelled “millennarian” twice in the book (99 and 117). Wait a minute? I didn’t misspell it according to MS! Seems it really does only have one “n” in the middle.

The section critiquing the mystique of Al Qaeda (pp. 118-122) relied heavily on Sageman, whose book is really without peer, as I say in the endnotes. I kept using his name in the text across these pages in the first draft, along with Roy’s, but Warren made me cut those out. He kept saying, “Write the material in your own voice and cite them, but don’t turn this section into a book report.”

I manage to pull my desired trifecta in this chapter by working in the bit about sitting down with the senior officers of the Joint Staff’s J-5 on page 123. I thought it was pretty amazing that PNM brought me to SOCOM, CENTCOM and the Joint Staff all in one summer (2004) like that.

The time I spent with the J-5 people in the Joint Staff made a real impression. The PNM brief changed a lot after that interaction, as it did after the SOCOM and CENTCOM consultations.

What was cool about the Joint Staff story was that it allowed a smooth segue into the argument for a new Core-wide rule set on dealing with individual terrorists, which gets me to the Wired article.

But before that, I go into a lengthy bit about why a new rule set will prevent bad things from arising in the Core (pp. 124-128). Within that space I work in a bit about the DC sniper and give my NASCAR “yellow flag” concept, a bit that Art Cebrowski always loved (we actually planned a workshop on it, but I could never get the Naval War College to bite on it).

I didn’t really blow up the Wired piece all that much, because in its original format, it was a fairly lean and meaty piece, so it plugged in here quite nicely.

I finish the chapter with a neat but quick (one para, really) bit on how the GWOT’s outcome is crucial to globalization’s future advance. Didn’t try to get too poetic here. I mean, I knew the first two chapters, in sum, were long (133 pages!), so I wanted to move the book along.

* * *

The first five sections of the book (3 in Chapter One and 2 in Chapter Two) really close off the “Pentagon” portion of the series for me. At this point, I really felt I had said everything I needed to say on the military (no drill-down artist, I), and what I wanted to do over the rest of the book was explore the solution set beyond the five-sided building.

In many ways, Chapters One and Two belong more to PNM than to BFA. I just didn’t think I could go that far in PNM, since the bifurcation notion was radical enough.

Still, the five arguments in these five sections make for a nice opening handful of “blueprint” bullets WRT the Pentagon and the U.S. Government.

But I have to admit: I was relieved when we were done with these sections. To me, the book really starts in Chapter 3 in terms of expanding my vision to its full breadth. Not coincidentally, the Pentagon effectively disappears as a character from this point onward. That surprised me deeply when I was writing the first draft. In retrospect, though, it makes perfect sense.

Posted by at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Great story reposted on Real Clear Politics on how Pacific Command is quietly beginning an officer exchange program with the Chinese. This is Fox Fallon's personal decision to exploit his time as head of PACOM to leave the U.S.-Chinese mil-mil relationship stronger than he found it.

Good stuff, done with some risk for Fallon, since it puts him at odds with Rumsfeld and the Pentagon. Word is, he's been called on the carpet, so to speak, for this sort of stuff. But the good thing about ending your career at PACOM is that you really are king-for-many-days. Most guys look at it like that, which is why it's a serious job for those who know how to use it.

Thanks to Bill Millan for alerting me on this story.

Posted by at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

OP-ED: "Diplomacy for the real world: Without changes, the State Department isn't ready to meet today's challenges," by Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 22 February 2006.

Hmm, maybe my little column in the Knoxville News Sentinel has more pull than I realized!

Okay, okay, I put away the delusions of grandeur for a moment ...

Neither Kaplan nor Boot actually call for a Department of Everything Else, my amazingly bold term. Instead, both reference the British Colonial Office, bringing up my always fierce aversion to anything Niall Ferguson!

Okay, okay, I regress ...

Both Kaplan and Boot are historians by nature, so they reach for that paradigm, just like Ferguson, and there's a lot of validity in the comparison--except everything has totally changed in the meantime!

Seriously, the fact that all these big brains come to the same conclusion says something about the inevitability of a Department that does the . . . you know . . . everything else connected with nation-building.

Here's how Boot puts it:

And why not set up a new nation-building department built, perhaps, on the foundation of the Agency for International Development? The new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization is doing good work, but it is unlikely to get sufficient support from Congress or its own department as long as it's subsumed in a larger bureaucracy.

In any case, the skills needed for nation-building are more akin to those of the old British Colonial Office than to those inculcated by the State Department. We should open up our own version of the Colonial Office at USAID. Instead, the trend seems to be toward more closely integrating USAID into the State Department, repeating the mistake that was made with the USIA.

Don't nod off. Diplomacy may not be sexy stuff, but it is vitally important if we are to deal with looming problems before they turn into a crisis requiring tens of thousands of U.S. troops to fix. We actually need to spend more and hire more people to tackle these issues. The entire international affairs budget — which includes funding not only for the State Department and other agencies but also for foreign aid — is just $35 billion, compared with about $500 billion in defense spending. And the State Department has just 13,000 employees, not enough to fill one Army division.

But before making a bigger commitment to diplomacy and related disciplines, we need to make sure we have the right structure in place to address the challenges of the 21st century.

Hmmm. I'm still feeling pretty shitty, but not so beyond the mainstream as many of my critics would have it.

Grand strategists deal in inevitabilities. You can quote me on that.

Posted by at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Can't find you an online version. Boscobel's a bit Gappy in that way (as if the title of the piece doesn't tell you that).

Here's the text (I will comment at the end; do not read any of the asides in the text as being mine, as I reprint the article here exactly as it appeared):

Boscobel author breaks new ground with his look at global transformation: Barnett works for the U.S. Naval War College

[no author listed, although it seems to be someone from Lancaster WI, the county seat]

Boscobel Dial, 16 February 2006, Second Section, page 1.

Thomas P.M. Barnett of Boscobel can trace his ancestry to several Grant County Civil War veterans, Barnetts as well as John Callis of the Iron Brigade. His parents were both attorneys and his father practiced many years in Boscobel.

In 2004, Thomas' book, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley Books, NY), was published. The book cites a review by The National Review which is a good summary of the book:

"In many respects, the book is brilliant and innovative. It offers a persuasive analysis of the post-9/11 world as well as policy prescriptions flowing from that analysis ... He is an entertaining writer and offers many interesting insights into the workings of the bureaucracy and the travails of those who would seek to transform its workings ... Despite attempts to caricature Barnett as a warmonger becaause he endorsed the war in Iraq, the fact is that he is optimistic about the blessings of 'connectivity' and globalization--indeed he is extremely close in outlook to [Francis] Fukuyama. He believes that globalization can create prosperity anywhere only if it creates prosperity everywhere."

Barnett works for the U.S. Naval War College, held many positions in the government and think tanks, and has a Ph.D. from Harvard in governmental affairs. The most striking note in the book is that he was on stage during 9/11 and he was scheduled during that month both for a meeting at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center [They lost much of their staff that day] and he was scheduled to meet at the exact location where the plane struck the Pentagon.

The book sets a world stage with the terms "the Core" and "the Gap," the Core being the countries that are functioning in the global economy and the Gap being the countries that are not well integrated into the global economy. He believes the answer is to facilitate the Gap becoming participants in the global economy which will reduce/eliminate terrorists. [This is a Grant County overview of a 400-page book.]

He believes that the U.S. should be "the system administrator" to oversee the transformation of the Gap into the Core. While the book "uses an easy conversational language that instructs rather than condescends" [Fort Worth-Star Telegram], its concepts and presentation can be difficult to follow or even agree. There are portions of his ideas that are troubling, such as "much needed regime change" or a new "9/11 trigger to set the end game in motion."

He includes a reference to Boscobel in the book:

"I was both unwittingly and unwillingly introduced to the concept of asymmetrical warfare as a young child growing up in my small hometown of Boscobel, Wisconsin. My dear father was the city attorney, which meant he sometimes had to enforce city ordinances with townsfolk who, for example, saw no reason why raising pigs in their backyard might disturb their neighbors. I sometimes found myself standing up to fairly sizable bullies who were determined to make me pay for the fact that my dad had mad their dad lose the livestock.

"Like anyone smaller facing someone larger, I engaged in asymmetrical warfare to defend myself. In other words, I pulled every dirty trick on them that I could think of, always trying to exploit their weakest points. While I got roughed up now and then, I never really ever got beat up, because I was willing to pull out all the stops to defend myself. I knew I would never survive a straight-up fight, so I would run because they were slower, hit them below the belt because they were taller, or joke my way out of the situation. But I never did try to punch them out, because punching was their strength, and it simply made no sense for me to fight their way."

He mentions Wisconsin in the book:

"Washington, D.C. is a lot different from rural Wisconsin, where I grew up. In Wisconsin, people ask you what you do because they are really interested and--if possible--they would like to help you get ahead in life. But in Washington, people ask you what you do because they want to check your status relative to theirs, and getting down your particulars proves handy if they ever need to bring you down a peg or two."

He also retains his Green Bay Packers season tickets and takes his two oldest children to a game each at Lambeau Field each fall.

He also mentions his brother and, just before acknowledging his wife, he says this about his parents:

"It almost goes without saying that this book is yet another small down payment on the enormous debt I owe my parents, John and Colleen, for everything they have done for me across my lifetime. All the great convictions expressed in this vision began originally with them, my life being an extension of their own."

The president of our high school class served in the White House under Reagan and his aunt expressed concern about him losing his faith. Barnett mentions his religious upbringing several times in the book. One wonders if they looked at 1 Cor. 1:18. Man since ancient times [see Roman Empire] has attempted to control his own fate. Has he ever succeeded? Thomas is optimistic about our future but it still remains frightening.

COMMENTARY: All joking aside about it taking almost two years for news of my book to reach my hometown newspaper, this is actually a pretty good write-up, which naturally favors the local excerpts. The bit about the local kid who works for Reagan is, my Mom told me, probably about some guy from Lancaster. My Mom was told by the local editor of the paper that this piece was written by someone in Lancaster, where the Barnetts originally landed in Grant County in the 19th century. I like the bit about the Bible at the end. It's very Boscobel Dial-ish

The piece is ended with a joke quote from "Senator Soaper" which reads: "Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management."

Works for me.

Posted by at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: "Trying to Turn Its Image Around, U.S. Puts Top CEOs Out Front: State Department's Ms. Hughes Rallies Companies to Play Bigger Role in Diplomacy," by Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 17 February 2006, p. A1.

Ms. Hughes is recruiting for the Department of Everything Else, trying to bolster the State Department's rather thin ranks on the subject with private sector CEOs.

Read this article and you'll see what I mean. Despite the title suggestion, this isn't about diplomacy anywhere but inside the Gap, and we're always talking postconflict/postdisaster/post-whatever situations, as in, serious SysAdmin territory.

This article suggests that our best diplomacy will involve efforts like the notion Steve DeAngelis and I are working on right now--that notion of Development in a Box, the ultimate push-package that recognizes peace as the ultimate aftermarket.

I mean, see my previous post about emerging markets becoming the driver for the global economy and then realize that shrinking the Gap is in everyone's best interests--and profit motives.

The danger here, is, of course, more flash than substance, which is a continuing problem of leaving these sorts of efforts to State, which is in the process of ruining the U.S. Agency for International Development, so why would they be any better with Development in a Box?

State is good to run the Core, and Defense is getting better (despite the continuing recalcitrance of the Big War crowd) at running the security issues of the Gap. In the end, though, we need that department that works the transition from Gap to Core.

So great idea, just wrong DC address.

Posted by at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: "2020 Vision: How and where we will be traveling in the year 2020 and beyond; The Hot Destination: China will draw tourists from everywhere," Indianapolis Star, 19 February 2006, p. K1.

As I noted in BFA, tourism industry officials have long predicted that China itself will provide the world about 100 million tourists a year. This article predicts that China, already the fourth-biggest tourist destination in the world today, will be number one by 2015.

Clearly, the Beijing Olympics and China's burgeoning film industry will accelerate this trend, as both will showcase China. And Shanghai, as the article argues, is poised to become the new New York, with double the Big Apple's number of skyscrapers already and plans to build 1k more.

Still think those alleged 40 million Chinese males who can't find a wife due to skewed sex ratios won't be able to get a date?

Posted by at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

COLUMN: "Protectionism Threatens Emerging Engine of Growth," by Frederick Kempe ("Thinking Global"), Wall Street Journal, 21 February 2006, p. A4.

Cool bit on how the New Core increases drives the global economy in terms of demand. So more and more it's not just the U.S. that drives global demand. The EU and Japan haven't driven demand in a while, and show no signs of doing so any time soon.

Instead it is countries like Brazil, Russia, China, India and the East European countries that used to belong to the Warsaw Pact that are accounting for an increasingly larger chunk of global imports (rising from about 28% back in 1980, when Globalization III began, to an estimated 40% by last year (I date Globalization IV from 9/11).

That's the percentage growth. The actual growth is more impressive: emerging markets accounted for about a trillion in global imports in 1990, but draw in four times that amount today ($4T).

Says one banker, "The baton of global consumption is being passed from the U.S. consumer base to the millions of consumers in developing nations."

Still think there's no money to be made in shrinking the Gap?

The big hitch? Congress' rising penchant for protectionism.

This is myopic in the extreme. As this article points out, "One-third of U.S. corporations' foreign-affiliate income, which is a proxy for their foreign earnings, came from emerging markets in the first three quarters of last year, a record high and up significantly from 25% in 2002."

As the same banker (Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist at Bank of America) puts it at the end of the piece: "Bad trade policy could upset this emerging consumer class as a powerful consumption force just when we need them."

As I wrote in PNM: we shrink the Gap for the most selfish of reasons. Neo-Marxist bullshit (Iike Immanuel Wallerstein) says the Core needs to keep the Gap the Gap in order to stay rich, when history is amply proving the exact opposite is true--just as I argued in PNM and BFA.

Posted by at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: "In South Africa, Insurer Gives Points For Healthy Living: Frequent-Flier-Style Program Rewards Diligent Members; Model for U.S. Overhaul? (A Diabetic Wins Elite Status)," by Ron Lieber, Wall Street Journal, 21 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "How the Amish Drive Down Medical Costs," by Joel Millman, Wall Street Journal, 21 February 2006, p. B1.

Fascinating pair of articles. In first, South Africa shows an interesting, carrot-laden way of improving the behavior of its medically-insured population. People love freebies, and they love point systems. Same basic drill as frequent flier accounts: the system rewarding those who give it the highest profits.

I know, I know, South Africa's New Core status seems thin to some, and how could America ever take any tips from such a public health basketcase as that?

But that's the essential point of my notion that the New Core sets the new rules: it's the countries experiencing the most growth and rapid development that tend to come up with the most innovative solutions for all sorts of social stress issues. So China is becoming a global center of innovative research on cancer (all those smokers), whereas India pioneers medical tourism (flying to Mumbai or New Delhi for that heart bypass at one-quarter the cost--flight included!).

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the New Core countries experience the bulk of necessity right now.

The second article would seem a Gap-within-the-Core argument, until you read far enough: turns out those Amish are winning their demands for cheaper care from U.S. providers by threatening to abandon them completely for long trips to Mexico for cheaper care. The Amish are basically trading their time, which they have in abundance, to threaten switching to New Core medical providers in Mexico in order to win price concessions from Old Core providers in the U.S.

Seems like the Mexican tail wags the American dog again!

Posted by at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got an email over last weekend from lawyer Michael Tang in NYC, who helped set up the deal with Beijing U Press and worked as part of the translation team, saying that BUP now wanted to renege on our previous deal of cutting only a minimum of wordage regarding the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan (so long as BUP could caveat the book as reflecting my personal opinions and not reflecting any official BUP stance).

Now, apparently out of fear of recent government sackings of editors who got out of line, BUP's senior managers have returned to their demands that everything mentioning Iraq, Iran and North Korea be removed from the text, otherwise they threaten to abandon the publication, which was set for January (basically, the book is completely set for printing).

Well, I thought about for a few minutes and decided to refuse their demand, instructing Tang to tell them we'd seek publication elsewhere.

I have a couple of options through other friends in China. Neither may pan out, and my agents here in the States have warned me that BUP may simply publish the book with the cuts they desire, pretending it never heard back from me or simply ignoring what I've decided. This is, apparently, an old trick.

If this occurs, I will obtain the Chinese translation of the full book and post it on the web myself, or I will arrange for my own separate translation of the cut parts or the book in its entirety and post one or the other on the web. May take a while, but I will try to do this if this scenario unfolds.

Meanwhile, I will seek out other interested parties in China through the contacts I have, and I will instruct my agents not to approach BUP regarding Blueprint for Action.

Posted by at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ARTICLE: “Rumsfeld Aims To Elevate Role Of Special Forces,” by Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 18-19 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “The Future of U.S. Warfare,” Julian Barnes Q&A with Peter Schoomaker, U.S. News & World Report, 27 February 2006, p. 25.

ARTICLE: “Army Teaches Officers to Think Globally,” by Associated Press, Washington Post, 21 February 2006.

ARTICLE: “U.S. Counterinsurgency Academy Giving Officers a New Mind-Set: Course in Iraq Stresses the Cultural, Challenges the Conventional,” by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 21 February 2006.

OP-ED: “Musings About the War on Drugs,” by George Melloan, Wall Street Journal, 21 February 2006, p. A19.

OP-ED: “Send in the State Department,” by Robert Kaplan, New York Times, 21 February 2006.

Usual great piece from Jaffe, this time on Rummy’s plan to expand Special Ops Command by growing 14k more bodies (this will take time, Schoomaker points out).

Here’s the worrisome bit:

The Pentagon chief’s focus on these elite forces reflects his conviction that the Iraq war--in which about 140,000 U.S. troops are struggling to rebuild a country from the ground up--is an anomaly that is winding down and won’t be repeated, say senior defense officials.

“We are not going to invade and occupy our way to victory in the long war against Islamic extremism,” said Michael Vickers, who served as a senior adviser on the secretary’s recently released review of Pentagon spending and strategy.

This is an okay argument, if not taken to extremes. Reality is that postwar reconstruction ops are here to stay, whether or not we repeat the largely go-it-alone approach we applied in Iraq. Remember, Bush the Elder started the first go-around on Iraq (beginning, we now know, our successful nation-building process in Kurdistan) and Somalia, and Clinton started efforts in Haiti (resumed under Bush the Younger), Bosnia and Kosovo. Bush then started an effort in Afghanistan (small footprint model) and then restarted the effort in Iraq (go-it-alone model), so you have to be careful to avoid the notion of many Big War hawks in the Pentagon, of which Vickers is certainly one, who want to push off the entirety of the GWOT (not to mention the entire Gap) to SOCOM, leaving the Pentagon free to dream up big wars against a big opponent, as in China.

There is no way SOCOM is going to handle the Gap on its own, and civil affairs will remain largely a niche function so long as it’s ghettoized in SOCOM instead of the Army. Plus, as Frederick Kagan points out in the Jaffe piece, Rumsfeld’s belief in the model of letting the locals handle as much as possible “is unshaken even in the face of multiple setbacks over the last few years.”

As Jaffe notes:

One of the most striking features of the Rumsfeld vision as outlined in the review is that it doesn’t provide much new for the conventional Army and Marine Corps units who are now doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, it suggests that these sorts of wars are an aberration that won’t be repeated any time soon.

And here I think we finally locate Rumsfeld’s version of MacNamara-like guilt over Iraq. It is a classic out-of-sight-out-of-mind concoction, this QDR, that proclaims the Long War and then immediately outsources it all to SOCOM, as in, “Will no one rid me of this GWOT?”

Schoomaker’s remaking an entire Army for the Long War, but this force, and the Marines, seem missing in action in Rumsfeld’s QDR, which prefers, deep down, to keep planning on great power war with China. Despite all the rhetoric and new support to SOCOM, this is still Rumsfeld trying to lowball the GWOT, reasserting its status as lesser included when compared to “disruptive” threat China.

This is a shame, because the Army, the Marines, and CENTCOM are busting ass to refashion themselves sufficiently for the tasks that lie ahead, whereas Rummy seems intent on farming the entire effort out to an already tapped SOCOM that won’t magically cover the Gap with 14k extra guys.

This low-balling approach is what gets you the multi-decade, no-progress effort called the (global) War on Drugs, or GWOD I suppose. In the GWOD, we’ve transferred most of the costs to American society (roughly $50B a year) that would be better spent on increasing our foreign aid budget... oh, about 10-fold!

But here’s the rub in the end, as Schoomaker points out, and as the new COIN (counter-insurgency) doctrine points out, the winning mix is about 20% kinetic and about 80% non-kinetic. SOCOM, even expanded, comes nowhere near handling the 80% non-kinetic, which invariably involve the Army and Marines big time, along with a lot of civilian US government personnel.

Everyone knows this, except perhaps Rummy and the China hawks in the Pentagon, who want desperately for things to return to the way they were.

Even Robert Kaplan, in an excellent NYT piece, finds himself reaching for an interagency-focused federal department in the model of the British Colonial Office.

Can anyone say “Department of Everything Else”?

Apparently, Bob Kaplan can.

Posted by at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: "Bush, Congress Head for Clash Over Ports Deal: President Promises a Veto, As Republican Leaders Move To Block Dubai Acquisition," by Greg Hitt, Dennis K. Berman and Daniel Machalaba, Wall Street Journal, 22 February 2006, p. A1.

EDITORIAL: "Ports of Politics: How to sound like a hawk without being one," Wall Street Journal, 22 February 2006, p. A14.

EDITORIAL: "Paranoia about Dubai ports deal is needless," Financial Times, 21 February 2006.

After lecturing the Europeans over the cartoon flap, it's awfully weird to watch the paranoia, racism, and pure political nonsense at work on the proposed purchase of a British port-managing firm by a Dubai corporation.

The message we send on this is clear: if you're Arab, you're immediately untrustworthy. Dubai seeks to become the Singapore of the Middle East, and watching that rather progressive model of capitalism + Islam reach out for this strand of connectivity in a venue it knows all too well (shipping) makes perfect sense, just like CNOOC reaching for UNOCAL last summer.

Is it the pretense of these "hawks" that America somehow "secures" itself in a globalized world, not being able to trust any others in this process?

This thing is so overblown on so many levels as to be truly, madly, deeply stupid as a political football. Shame on any presidential types for grabbing this one and running with it. Our goal in the GWOT is to connect the Middle East faster than the jihadists can disconnect it, so again, what do we say here to the people of Dubai,who have--believe it or not--done plenty to aid our efforts in the region at great personal risk to their national security?

This is something I harp on in BFA: either we reward countries trying to make the journey from Gap to Core or we stop pretending we're in this GWOT for anything other than our own profiteering--political or otherwise.

The biggest joke? This labeling of the contract as somehow putting the company in question in charge of our port security, when it's only about managing commercial activities. The Coast Guard runs security for our ports--always has and always will. This is misrepresentation of the worst sort, and it's why I argue against a strategic communications strategy with the Gap: our own politicians screw up that sort of effort on a daily basis. Better to police our own loose lips than seek any singular voice abroad.

People act responsibly when you give them responsibility. Dubai has earned that trust. Either we're true to our word or let's just go Tom Friedman's 'cut-them-off-at-the-gas" proposal and tell the entire Islamic world that we accept Osama bin Laden's offer of civilizational apartheid.

I'm with Bush on this one. He's showing some serious maturity on a subject about which too many in Congress are acting childishly.

Posted by at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Nice email from a reader:

Mr. Barnett,

Just wanted to let you know that The Pentagon's New Map is on my top 5 books of all time. I think you should receive a Pulitzer for it. I've read all of your articles and am looking forward to Blueprint for Action.

I spent a few years in the Navy after college, finishing up as an Anti-Terrorism Training Officer just as 9/11 came on the scene. Have since spent my career as a Criminal Investigator for the banking industry and the last couple of years as an Investigator for an international shipping company. I'm also working on my M.A. in Criminal Justice. I only mention this because your work has inspired me to draw a parallel.

I think your Core-Gap principle as well as the "lessons learned" cited in the most recent Esquire magazine article could be completely applied to our domestic crime/corrections/judicial problems. We have developed our own internal "quagmire" because we are fighting the wrong war. I'm all for locking up the bad guys but this is ultimately a dangerously narrow-minded proposition. I think we in the Criminal Justice world need to think more dynamically and work on shrinking the Gap within our own country. In fact, my Masters Thesis might be on this very issue.

Just wondering if you've ever thought of this (you probably have) and hoping that you might someday consider an article on it?

Anyway, just wanted you to know that I'm a big fan. Keep up the good work and God bless.

M.B. (actual name witheld pending okay)
Phoenix, AZ

My reponse to M.B.?

I've been confronted a number of times with this observation, and believe it to be incredibly true. I know it's true from the months I spent with Enterra Solutions colleague Bradd Hayes doing strategic planning for the United Way of Rhode Island, and from my interactions with the Providence police chief on this subject.

Beyond that gut feeling, I have little to offer because I need people like yourself to educate me on what comes next--beyond this basic realization. So, naturally, I'd be thrilled to see your masters involve this question. The exploration of essential resiliency inside the Core's own Gaps should tell us a lot about how best to shrink the Gap with time.

Remember what I've said in the books and here in the blog: there is nothing going on inside the Gap right now that we haven't encountered and conquered (or attempted to conquer in the past). All we need to do in order to understand how best to shrink the Gap is to look inside ourselves and remember our past--and our present, as this excellent email points out.

But no, don't wait on any Pulitizers, which naturally go to books that do more reporting than I ever hope to achieve in my work. Not sure what the appropriate award is for grand strategy books, but I'll gladly take one of those!

Posted by at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Alerts pointed me to the press release "Sapient Releases Findings from Change Agent Research; New Paper Provides Roadmap for Government Innovation".

From there I clicked to GovernmentChangeAgents.com

There I found a post dated February 10th entitled "Tom Barnett, a Change Agent and 'Horizontal Thinker' No One Can Ignore". In that post, Dan Forrester thanks Tom for all of his help with the paper Dan wrote for Sapient "The Government's New Breed of Change Agents, Leading the War on Terror". Tom is featured very prominently in that paper (Acrobat search returns 7 hits). Dan links Tom's original post from February 2005 where Tom mentions doing the interview. (How's that for circular linking! ;-)

In the next post at GovernmentChangeAgents.com, Dan writes about Art Cebrowski, Tom's mentor. Dan credits Tom for helping them get an interview with Admiral Cebrowski for the paper. The coolest thing about that post, to me, was the link Dan had to the tribute page the Office of Force Transformation has put up in the admiral's memory. One of the tributes they link is Zenpundit (have you seen it, Mark?). Strangely, they don't link anything by Tom, though Tom didn't write a tribute per se.

Tom writes:

This report is worth checking out. It's a rare piece that explores what it takes to create change leadership within the government, and Dan does an amazing job of describing and categorizing the types of change leaders, so much so that I learned a good deal about my relationship with Art Cebrowski by reading it.

The paper reminds me of Gladwell's categorization of connecting types in Tipping Point, but again, pursuing a venue (the government) that's very rarely explored with this sort of approach, so truly path-breaking.

Posted by at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Knoxville News-Sentinel reports (some registration required):

The March 15 [Knox County Public Library] book discussion will focus on "The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the 21st Century" by Thomas Barnett, and "Allies: The U.S., Britain and Europe and the War in Iraq" by William Shawcross.

The News-Sentinel is on the way to becoming "The official newspaper of Tom Barnett". ;-)

Posted by at 7:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

DATELINE: in the Shire, Indy, 21 February 2006

Back from nice trip to Boscobel WI, my hometown. Fun times with two of my six siblings and one of my nieces.

Hit the Chicago Shedd Aquarium on Friday on drive up, which was really cool. Only problem: I have so many kids (4) that the family membership pack was actually cheaper!

Oddly enough, a nice article about me and PNM in my hometown newspaper this week. I will try to blog later tonight, but no promises.

Got what was winding its way through the family finally, on ride home last night, and it's already blossomed into the usual right-side ear infection/sinus infection combo. Got a doc appointment for tomorrow, which means I will be close to brain dead until Thursday morning, when the antibiotics have had a chance to work some magic.

Good week to get sick, as I am not traveling at all and need to work on my taxes.

Toured the house today: floors all done now, including the garage's special coating. We talk more and more about the closing, moving in, etc. Much of outside work won't be done, due to weather restrictions, but big French tile/drain already put in along back line of property, so drainage permanently fixed now, which is a big relief given the huge rains recently. Closet people and appliances coming soon.

Will try to work some tonight, but I have my doubts. Looks like the Olympics for me.

[posted for Tom by Sean]

Posted by at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I guess i was surprised to see this from Fukuyama ("After Neoconservatism," New York Times Magazine, 19 February 2006).

It seems like he's gotten more defensive on the whole "end of history" thing as he's gotten older, so he seems more fixated on these camp arguments that I think, over the course of time, will be considered rather overblown.

In the end, Bush is Bush just like Reagan was Reagan. W sees the world in rather stark terms of good and evil, and he believes in defending the good and attacking the evil. Dressing it all up with Leo Strauss and neocons and Paul Wolfowitz secretly running more of the universe than is normal for a DEPSECDEF is all cool, in that DC-who's-up-and-who's-down sort of way, but it's not actually very descriptive or particularly helpful to our understanding of where we've been or where we going.

9/11 gave us a strong sense of where we are in history right now, along with where globalization is right now as well as Islam adapting itself to its encroaching embrace of its predominantly traditional culures. Bush acted on that realization and forged a host of new rule sets that will not go away. Some want to chalk that all up to "neocons," but I honestly think it's a whole lot deeper than that.

So Bush got us in deep in the Middle East on the basis of his view on how to respond to 9/11, and we're somewhat stuck right now with what's already on our plate. So don't expect any major military interventions any time soon. Bush is probably done for his second term, and much will depend on who comes next.

But guess what? That next president will face the same basic international environment: same problems, possibly new solutions in addition to the ones we've tried so far, but unlikely to abandon the right and the propensity to use the same tools Bush tapped, to include the military. As I like to point out: the entire post-Cold War period has seen three presidents so far use the military a whole helluva lot. I don't see that essential dynamic, or what I call the military-market nexus, going away any time soon.

What innovations a new president should bring is a more flexible definition of who can be our allies in this process. You can call this whatever school of thought you want, and many names will inevitably be employed with little common sense (but academics have rarely required that in their works) and result in numerous goofy bestsellers that explain nothing that readers don't already know and simply want reinforced.

But in the end, much will depend on the person in the Oval Office. If I could get a Bill Clinton-like player on economics and a Bush-like guy on security, I might actually have the peanut butter-chocolate combo of my dreams, and the best packages on both sides right now are probably Hillary v. Hagel, although I think there are several on both sides who can grow into that understanding over the course of a very long campaign (Warner, Brownback, maybe Feingold, very possibly Bayh). Kerry and Rice are strangely attractrive long shots, made so primarily because it's hard to imagine the transformation from--respectively--past-losing candidate and single/rather closed-off personality who's never run for office. Then again, watching Hillary's trajectory makes one realize that such transformations are completely possible.

But again, what neocons-up-or-down has to do with any of that is rather amusing but pointless to consider.

But I guess it's okay for a period of navel gazing that the wonks and academics do so well.

I, however, will do my best to resist, because I think that scorecarding is the death to big think.

Posted by at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I get this question a lot: "How do we know if your vision is correct?"

Problem with this question: visions aren't exactly binary outcomes, as in succeed v. fail.

Strategic vision, in my opinion, is like the optometrist switching lenses and asking, "Does this seem better or worse?

That is the measure of the vision: Does it make your perception of the future more clear or cloudier?

Failure, thus, for me is any and every realization of the distance between what I'm saying right now and what I should be saying in the future. Any theory is only so good. Throughout history, great theories are proposed and some hold court for quite some time, but all are being constantly improved by the collective thought. Like I say in BFA, the grand strategist doesn't go where no one else can go, but if he or she does the job right, the vision guy gets there first--for now. But the "there" is always moving forward, and thus so too must the strategist. Like the shark, you either move or die.

So the binary questions just make me rotate my head like the dog that hears something weird in the distance: there is no fail nor succeed. There is only getting better, and doing so--hopefully--with greater speed over the course of one's career.

Posted by at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: "Teens examine theories on peace: Author's plan for better world intrigues youth", By Rachel Troy, 16 Robin Wetherill, 16, Izaak Hayes, 15, and Zoë Hayes, 17, Y-Press, IndyStar.com.

When Tom spoke last month at the Indiana Council on World Affairs at Butler University four members of Y-Press (youth staff) for the Indianapolis Star averaging 16 years of age went to listen. Then they reviewed what they heard. Short version: one for, three against. The 'againsts' generally think Tom is too optimistic. What's wrong with kids these days!?! ;-) But, seriously, go read their thoughts for yourself.

Posted by at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Dan Abbott (tdaxp, or The Dan Abbott Experience) has written plenty on PNM and BFA at his blog. Recently he asked me to fill out a "Questions for Extraordinary People" survey that has most to do with one's creative talents (or talent in general, I would guess) for some research work he's doing as part of classwork.

It took me a while to find time to do the interview, but I jumped into it on Friday during the drive to Chicago and then finished it as we drove to a brunch at an old Victorian inn in Soldiers Grove in Wisconsin this morning.

The timing of this thing couldn't have been better, because I've been spending a lot of time contemplating such things with a view to shaping what I want to say in my imagined Vol. III of the New Map series (also larglely a fignewton of my imagination).

My only complaint with this interview? It never did ask me what my talent domain is. How I define that makes my answers far more understandable. Do I think of myself primarily as defense analyst? No. Foreign policy type? No. Political scientist? Not really. Writer? No. Public speaker? No.

In the end, I identify myself as a popular conceptualizer, or more simply, a professional visionary (often shorthanded as "the vision guy").

Is that a self-aggrandizing definition? Maybe. Actually, I think of it as a very narrow thing, but one talent domain that is identifiable, and what I want to do in parts of Vol. III is to explore and explain what it is to become a successful visionary, or future-oriented strategic thinker.

Since I put in the time on this, I decide to post it here, because that way it's easy for me to file the material, so to speak. Anyway, it's all part of TTPMBXP--at turns narcissitic and mundane, at times quite profound, but always bloggable! (and the very essence of blogging, by my way of thinking):

Dan's post of this material (with comments)

Questions for Extraordinary People

1. How is talent recognized or judged in your talent domain?
Big ideas that move others to change or action, and a body of thought built up over a career that is consistently provocative and challenging to conventional wisdom.

2. What is your own talent level relative to the field?
My talent lies in arbitraging big concepts across fields and stitching them together in comprehensive visions of systemic change; also the ability to think systematically about global futures; also the ability to explain the same to broad audiences of both experts and neophytes alike through compelling writing and high-end storytelling in a live theatrical performance.

3. Tell us how you became as talented as you are. In particular, tell us what factors contributed to your talent.
Great storytelling capacity; top-notch conceptualizer; the ability to explain and analogize very complex processes and systems; the capacity to imagine successful outcomes and solutions.

4. How did you first become interested in your talent area and at what point did you know you would pursue it seriously?
Getting a chance to move beyond acetate viewgraphs in early 1990s and start with PowerPoint. Then Office 95 allowing for transitions between slides that could be used to simulate animation, although that approach required hundreds of slides to achieve the effect. Then PPT 7.0 with animation within slides and my whole approach of using PPT as a storytelling format takes off. At that point I am still working in a traditional studies and analysis firm (Center for Naval Analysis) in DC and my use of animation was frowned upon as fluff and nonsense, as was my study of globalization as the dominant definition of global security trends. Big break for me is to move to Naval War College and get to run two projects in a row where I had a lot of freedom and the subject matter lent itself to my storytelling approach (Y2K and globalization). Plus, in each study, I spent almost all my time with industry and operational commands, as opposed to the academic/research community, and so I got away with a lot of presentation formats that went far beyond the normal bounds. The second study on globalization got me deeply involved with Wall Street firms, and that exposure convinced me I had my broader appeal than just the national security community. Once that realization was clear to me, things really took off.

5. Describe early experiences that might have contributed to your success in your talent area
Key step forward for me came with Esquire profiling me in their Best and Brightest issue in 2002. Crucial for redefining my talent as broader than just explaining the world to the national security community (instead, I realized my bigger talents would be revealed in explaining the national security realm to the world).

Mentors have also been huge for me, as I talk about in PNM.

6. Describe the role your family played in your success. Specifically, a) what was their involvement, b) how did they support you, and c) what sacrifices did they make?
Key role of parents in modeling reading, love of history and current events and politics. Lots of support in going to college and making transition to grad school. Sacrifices were many, in that I had 6 siblings who all did the same.

7. Who else influenced you?
Mentors I describe in PNM: Gaffney at CNA taught me the biz of studies and analysis, as well as an understanding of global politics; Cebrowksi taught me the military angle; Flanagan taught me the global economics. Other mentors and connectors throughout career made a point of introducing me to the right people and audiences for my material.

8. Who were your teachers and what influence did they have?
Key teachers in high school encouraged my capacity for meta-analysis and my love of presentation. A key one: Mrs. Haley, who taught freshman history at Boscobel High School. Had a Russian teacher in college who taught me a lot about life and culture. Someone at U Wisconsin pushed to have me elected Phi Beta Kappa my junior year, which was big, because it gave me the pick of grad schools. At Harvard, Huntington was key in being first prof to recognize my big-think talent. Nye also gave me a lot of credibility by sitting on my PhD committee. Biggest influence on philosophy was Judith Sklar and her devotion to concepts of justice, tempered by a sense of realism regarding the role of security (she was a Baltic Jew who had fled the Nazis). Richard Pipes influenced me similarly (another Jew who fled). Finally, Adam Ulam was biggest influence (another Jew who fled). So I guess while I never heard or read of this Leo Strauss that all the neocons refer to, I did get my share of strong moral compasses from European Jewish academics who fled the Nazis. But that makes sense to me, because WWII was the great moral turning point for a century I was born near the middle of (1962), so I grew up in its shadow in a really profound way. Being trapped in the Cold War, I worried that I would never get the chance to do anything similar to these great thinkers (I write this in PNM), but then the Wall comes down, we drift for a while, and then 9/11 makes things clear. Right now, Steve DeAngelis and Mark Warren are my big influences, both of whom take my storytelling skills and writing skills to new heights by connecting me to the right opportunities and stages.

9. Did you travel to various places to work with others in your talent area?
Traveled East for 21 years basically to get where I am today, but far happier being back in the Midwest, so I guess that counts. Moved to Harvard for that experience, then felt the need to do some time in DC, then felt the need to work directly with military in DoD (up in Newport), then felt the need to get out of government, so moves throughout my life to put me where I felt I needed to be next to advance my thinking. I don’t know how people get into an academic job and then sit there for decades (even with moves), because I would think that the lack of varied experience would kill thought. So I see my career in phases (Harvard for academics, DC for research, Newport for high-end conceptualizing and mastering presentation skills, and now Indiana for high-end consulting and writing). Now I travel all over country and world for episodic versions of all of these things, and I’m no longer tied to place.

Travel abroad has been a huge influence for me: summer in Soviet Union in 1984, two-week seminar with young pols from around world in Austria in 1992, week-long high-level trips to Moscow and India, the month in China, and a month in Central America doing intell stuff, a week teaching at the Norwegian Naval Academy. All of these trips have been big eye-openers. I plan to pursue more such opportunities with great regularity.

10. Did your schools help you develop talent in any way?
Exposure to languages helped a lot, because it taught me how to master new tongues, not just actual languages but lexicons of fields. Studied French, Russian, German and Romanian. Big research papers were big development periods for me: Senior Honors Thesis at Madison, and PhD at Harvard. Schools mostly taught me how to think. Real content came mostly in work environment, although studying the masters of political theory and philosophy was crucial.

11. What personal characteristics do you have that help you be successful in your talent area?
Crucial to have strong ego and showmanship abilities. People will shit all over you as much as possible to stop your ideas from spreading. But trick is to have thin skin at same time, because feeling disturbed about criticisms is how you improve your arguments, so ideal is to have very thin skin but hide it very well. Many will consider you an egomaniac, and at some level you will be, but you just have to get used to that charge while remaining sensitive to the implied dangers. But if you’re self aware, that’s not that hard, because large ego is always balanced by huge self-doubt, and if you’re self-aware, you can see that in yourself. Religion helps in this regard, Catholicism in particular.

Sense of humor, especially self-deprecation, is key.

Sense of wonder about everything also key, which means staying childlike in observation. When you’ve “seen it all,” please get out of the business.

Most important is ability to think laterally, so you’re definitely the fox, not the hedgehog, even as you aspired to the hedgehog’s big singular ideas (reproducible strategic concepts).

12. What limitations or weaknesses do you have that might hinder your pursuit of expertise? How do you handle these?
The thin skin is essential, but a crucial occupational hazard, as is its yang, the huge ego. Being more child-like, you trust people too much, especially opportunists who come at you constantly. But that helps you find mentors, and submit to their advice. The showmanship makes you superficial, but that makes you accessible.

In general, the weaknesses are easily balanced by the strengths, if you’re self-aware enough to see the yin-yang relationships, so I guess self-awareness is the key, and there faith counts a lot (again, another yin-yang, because doesn’t religion prevent that?). So I guess being Catholic is a big deal to me, and the similarities to Judaism in terms of thinking patterns and habits promoted probably explains why all my mentors have been either Catholic or Jewish. Then again, propinquity determines a lot, and the more I get around, the wider array of faiths influence me (mentors who are Mormon, evangelical, Muslim), so I guess I retreat to horizontal thinking as the most important way of coping with your weaknesses, and I honestly think horizontal thinking is both a nurture issue (early childhood) and how your brain is wired. Running a wonderful experiment right now with adopted daughter in this regard. Very curious to find out, except those damn Chinese went to great efforts to match personalities, so they may have ruined my sample already!

13. What barriers do you face in trying to master your domain? How do you hurdle these barriers?
Key barrier is the constant pressure to choose Dem or GOP as answer to everything.

Then there is the America-versus-Rest of World thing you always have to work: world wants American leadership but can’t stand it from Americans much of the time.

Key line to dance around is being mil thinker with no mil time in uniform, but I think not having that has been far more important for me than getting some, because the time in service would have killed most of my horizontal thinking.

Tough barrier is notion that you must be careerist in pursuit of jobs and titles, when in reality, the visionary should avoid them by and large (why should I run anything with my native skills?).

Hardest barrier is that being married and having kids is crucial to my thinking skills, but those responsibilities make pursuit of visionary career awfully hard (the balance question). Big break for me is my ability to work just about anywhere, my serious stamina, and my love of travel. Also crucial is early adopting of tech capabilities as they come online (PPT, internet, web sites, cells, email, blogs, and so on).

Key attribute in this regard: a love of scheming and getting away with work-arounds. Oddly enough, that is very Catholic.

Another big thing for me: I married an amazingly unconventional person. If I hadn’t, I am pretty sure I never would have surmounted so many of these usual barriers

14. Describe your life beyond your talent area. What other activities do you do? Describe your social life?
Was a big jock in HS, which has left residual of being able to stay reasonably fit through workouts, which helps a lot on stamina.

No real friendships outside of work and family. Work is fairly encompassing, so I must find friendships there early in career. Now, I only work with friends.

Commitment to family means my life outside of work is whatever wife and kids desire to pursue. It will be interesting to see how much harder it is to “stay young” in thinking if I’m no longer surrounded by kids.

15. What have been the advantages of pursuing your talent?
I make a lot of money by focusing on what I do best and hiring out everything else—very Druckerish (and that’s where I got it).

Lots of personal freedom to pursue what I want.

Ability for constant self-discovery through writing.

Ability to pursue that acting career via stagemanship of public speaking.

Flexibility with family that I truly love.

16. Describe an average day. How much time do you commit to your talent area each week? How is that time spent?
All depends on whether I’m traveling or not. If traveling, then it’s nonstop meetings and speeches, and the downtime is really on planes, where I read and blog and work the brief, which is under constant revision. If I’m home, then it’s a tight mix of interacting with family and working either early in the morning or late at night.

For me, there is writing every day for the blog, which is where I work out my daily thinking, trying stuff out and simply experimenting. Second for me is the biweekly column, where I package up ideas that’s I’m fairly comfortable with and want to get into print more formally. The Esquire stuff is less regular, but more encompassing, because it’s typically a month’s worth of reporting, writing and editing. When that’s going on, other things take a back seat. The books are my home runs, or the bundling up of my thinking in a maximalist sort of package. When I write a book, that’s typically three months when the rest of the world must wait, and I go into a deep creative fever where I produce stuff that amazes me later. I get the same phenomenon with the articles, columns and blogs, but all in lesser degrees.

What that tells me is that there is a creative brain space that’s my number one resource. I try to manage that creative time with great care. When I’m not trying to create, I’m as dumb as the next person, and, according to my wife and kids, I actually surpass most humans in stupidity with ease. But when I get myself ready for “big think,” I’m about as smart as they come and in certain ways, truly world class. But I don’t pretend that’s a daily thing for me, anymore than an athlete can perform at his or her peak.

So, in sum, a lot of my daily life gets wrapped up in managing the mountains and valleys of my creative output. When I’m down, I don’t pretend to be anything but your average guy. When I’m gearing up, I work my influences, inputs, experiences very carefully to put me in the right space. When I’m in that space, I’m quite the asshole interpersonally, and my family understands and accommodates that. I run with that creative space for as long as is necessary to finish whatever I’m doing (my legendary stamina), but then I will typically go into a long recovery and a bit of a personality funk where there’s a lot of self-doubt and a sense of exhaustion.

What modulates all that effectively for me are my relationships with wife and kids, my fairly steady speaking schedule (being on stage is always a charge), and the blog and the interactivity it creates. But there are clear peaks and valleys to the process, and if you’re self-aware enough, you recognize them, manage them as you can (I do actually say, “Today I’m scheduled to be brilliant!” just as I often say, “Today, I have much doofus time on my schedule.”), and try hard not to fight where I am (when I’m scheduled “down,” I have very little pretense about being smarter than the average bear, even as that can depress me emotionally).

This is the great advance for me, career-wise, as I’ve headed into my forties: a strong awareness of this creative process and getting smart on how to manage and manipulate it. Once you’ve cracked that code, you’re effectively working your most precious asset: brain time.

17. How much time do you spend thinking about or reflecting on your talent? What are your thoughts?
Very little, actually, other than simply managing my schedule effectively (avoiding overload or overlapping commitments) and doing that daily sort of maintenance (e.g., realizing I need to push hard or back off on my thinking time in any day, as in, “should I just chill today, drink some beers, and watch some “Family Guy”?). The joy for me right now is that I control my entire schedule fairly well, something I couldn’t do when I worked for companies/government that required I be in their office 8 hours a day, whether or not that corresponded to where my “head time” was on any particular day.

I’ve actually done more thinking on this in the last year than probably the previous 42 years combined. This is because I’ve had a huge number of transitions in the last three to four years (starting with 9/11), and the blog has allowed me a lot of explanation space for readers regarding my way of thinking. All of this introspection was pushed by my Dad’s death in the spring of 2004 as well, along with the adoption of our fourth child, and my wife and I heading into (and finally recognizing that status) middle age.

All this recent thinking also dovetails with the evolution of what I hope will be the trilogy of my “Pentagon” books, with PNM being the system-level diagnosis, BFA being the nation-state-level prescriptives, and vol. III being the individual-level self-help guide where I hope to teach readers how to replicate my thinking in their daily and professional lives. So I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year compiling my own sense of how I accomplish this level and sort of thinking and speaking and writing.

Upshot? You’ve caught me at a great time for this interview.

18. How often do you “fail”? What do you do when you fail?
To me, failure is just realizing the distance from where I am currently on some issue to where I ultimately want to go. Those realizations are often driven by critical feedback on the brief. That feedback then--when appropriate--results in better or newer or more expanded slides. When I’ve explained that new thing many times, it usually finds its way into the blog/column/article/book in a progressive fashion.

That’s the ideal version of failure for me.

The career version of failure is me simply recognizing I’ve grown beyond whatever bounds I currently face and need to recast myself in another venue. The trigger is typically financial: I feel scared about my ability to earn money in the current configuration of jobs/relationships/alliances and so I reinvent myself to recast those as effectively as possible. Those moments are typically scary, but invigorating in a good way. Having gone through them now a number of times, I’m fairly open to welcoming them (the instinct is to avoid at all costs), so I’m learning to enjoy them.

Performance failure happens here and there (the bad TV remote appearance, the stupid blog post, and the perceived bad briefing), but outright failure is rare (I recently had a very bad brief which stunned me, but it was mostly the result of how the event was set up rather than my performance, but it re-taught me the importance of managing the venue as much as possible—i.e., being demanding with my hosts to ensure the best performance). The bad interview is frustrating, but I’ve learned that’s overwhelmingly the function of the interviewer, something that’s almost impossible to surmount. So I guess a lot of dealing with failure is understanding what you can’t control and accepting that (you know, that old chestnut).

Dealing with failure effectively is mostly about diagnosing it quickly, accepting your portion of the blame, and then chilling on it and putting it behind you quickly. So you seek “getting back up on the horse” moments ASAP.

19. Why do you work in this talent area? Where will you ultimately go within your talent area?
I work national security because it’s that rare industry that will reward you nicely for long-range systematic thinking about the future.

I do not anticipate becoming someone who holds big jobs, because I do not seek out management opportunities, believing it’s the death of “big think.” However, there may come a time in future years where I’ve mastered the big think enough to be able to pursue it in an atmosphere where I’m more limited in my creative time, so I don’t rule out such conventional accomplishments. Ideally, though, I remain the big concept guy who advises others, and uses that career freedom to have the sort of marriage and home-life that I think is essential for personal happiness and my continued creative growth.

20. Other comments?
This has been a very nice exercise for me: perfect practice for writing Vol. III. And that’s actually a great demonstration of my success: everything I do is ultimately first and foremost about making me smarter, whether it does anything for you or not. As it stands, I have a great track record for making “clients” as happy as I make myself. But I think that’s truly the artistic expression of what I do in the writing and speaking: I do it strictly for myself and deep down, I’m amazed that it provides value to others because I assume it’s so amazingly idiosyncratic to me. If you listen to a lot of director’s commentaries on movies (on DVDs), as I do, this is a common theme to a lot of directors and writers and especially comedians (I think of Mike Myers in particular): they go through life amazed that what they long assumed was interesting/funny/cool to just them actually has very broad appeal.

I’ve gotten this compliment my entire creative life and it’s taken me many years to actually understand it: people will say that whatever I’ve written/described/presented is actually about something so much larger than the subject at hand, that it’s a particular description of a particular phenomenon that’s actually applicable to a much wider array of circumstances. For a long time, I took it almost as a criticism, meaning that people were saying my analysis lacked focus or practicality. Over time, I came to realize that statement was a compliment: a description of my skill in horizontal thinking.

I had a friend once say that “Tom acts like everything in his life is so much more exciting than it really is,” and the statement was absolutely correct: I do act that way. Not because it’s fake, but because—for me—it’s actually true in comparison to other people. Some people walk out of movies wondering about what it would be like to have lives like those depicted in films, whereas others walk out wondering about what a movie would be like if it actually came close to depicting the excitement that is their own life. I fall into the latter category, and I love it. I don’t think there’s an objective answer to that question (Is your life like a movie or are movies like your life?). I honestly think it’s a choice we all make, much like happiness. My life has all the same bad stuff as everyone else’s: I just choose not to make those bad things the definers of my existence. I aspire to be the Joel Osteen of grand strategists (I love watching him for speaking tips, BTW).

That’s real growth, in my mind: recognizing your freak skills as sellable.

I will post this interview on my blog. Someone might assume I’m giving away an early version of material that will ultimately end up in Vol. III (and they’d be right). But this is part and parcel of my approach to the blog: a test bed that allows effective feedback from a large readership. Some readers will naturally be put off by the introspection here, not to mention the self-congratulatory nature of exploring one’s talents, but again, self-awareness is everything to managing the talents I have (and, I suspect, to personal happiness for anyone), so arguing this stuff out in the open is very healthy, I think. Plus, I will get huge amounts of good feedback on this from readers via emails (especially in terms of source material I should read on this subject, and you know what? It’s cool to have several hundred research assistants always working non-stop on your behalf for free, which is the joy of the blog and internet!), making the final product that much better.

So in the end, let me express my gratitude for your pushing me on this subject. Your own blog material on my thinking has been very helpful, in part because it’s so annoying (annoying is good, because it suggests “failures” yet to be discovered and exploited for positive change), so elevating our interaction to this new level has been fun—as all self-exploration is.

Post-script: It’s instructive to me as a thinker and interviewer to note how much I warmed up over the course of this written interview: stiff and short at first, then more loquacious and ranging with each question. A good interview does that naturally, so I guess one can assume the questions were built with that goal in mind.

Posted by at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Tried to make the site easier to navigate and read by simplifying a few things and adding some basic lines to differentiate between post and comments. Also doubled the 'previous | main | next' navigation from the top of individual pages to the bottom as well. Now, if you're reading the comments and scroll to the bottom of the page (and don't have anything pertinent to add in the comments ;-) you can navigate back, forward or up (to the main index page) easily.

Bonus hint: Another handy way I sometimes read the comments is to scroll down the page and 'ctrl-click' on all of the posts that have comments that I'm interested in reading to load them in the background in a tab (you are using Firefox or an analog, right ;-).

Thank you to those of you who have written in to suggest these or other improvements to the website design. I'm about done with tweaking and ready to move on to a redesign which may or may not change the way the weblog looks, but will certainly give me a better understanding of the code behind it and how to change it properly.

Posted by at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: "In the Mideast, the Third Way Is a Myth," by Shibley Telhami, Friday, February 17, 2006; Page A19

Driving with family up north and got this article sent from a reader.

Great article. Gets at something I've always felt insinctively about the region and which drives my co-optation strategy with Iran. This realization is what needs to happen among U.S. decisionmakers if we're going to keep the Big Bang rolling (hmmmm, feel like I have my next column).

Here is the key point in the text:

This leaves U.S. foreign policy with limited choices. Full electoral democracy in the Middle East will inevitably lead to domination by Islamist groups, leaving the United States to either continue a confrontational approach, with high and dangerous costs for both sides, or to find a way to engage them -- something that has yet to be fully considered. Given this, skepticism about the real aims of these groups should be balanced by openness to the possibility that their aims once they are in power could differ from their aims as opposition groups. This requires partial engagement, patience, and a willingness to allow such new governments space and time to put their goals to the test of reality. Hamas, in fact, could provide a place for testing whether careful engagement leads to moderation.

[posted for Tom by Sean]

Posted by at 5:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

On long weekend with family.

Will be trying to work a couple of lengthy written interviews when I have moments, so blog will come a distant third.

Should be back up and running late Monday or Tuesday.

Enjoy the holiday!

Posted by at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sebastian Heinzel's interview with Tom: "Mussen raffinierter vorgehen", Profil, February 6, 2006

A kind Austrian gentleman wrote Tom and mentioned he'd read about him in Profil. I tried to find the interview online, but couldn't. So I wrote him back and asked for help (as I only know a few words in German). He was kind enough to scan the article, which is not available online, and now I present it to you.

Page 1 Page 2

Any of you Germanaphones want to comment?

Posted by at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

ARTICLE: "Rice Asks for $75 Million to Increase Pressure on Iran," by Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, 16 February 2006, p. A1

ARTICLE: "The Lessons of Counterinsurgency: U.S. Unit Praised for Tactics Against Iraqi Fighters, Treatment of Detainees," by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 16 February 2006, p. A14

OP-ED: "For Pakistan, American Aid Is All Guns, No Butter," by Helene Cooper, New York Times, 16 February 2006

Rice asks Congress for $75 mil to work the soft kill on Iran's hardliners (media stuff, aid to local opposition, etc.). We spent $10 mil last year, so a significant plus-up, but not one suggesting that the Bush Administration is willing to go beyond such soft kill strategies.

"The United States will actively confront the policies of this Iranian regime, and at the same time we are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country," Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on the administration's foreign affairs budget.

Meanwhile, our units rotating back to Iraq for the second go-around show more and more intelligence in working the counter-insurgency. The second article is about the Third Armored Cav in its second go-around in Iraq. First time around was pretty rough, but a lot of learning occurred among officers, so this time around you have Col. H.R. McMaster, who was Abizaid's chief brain-trust guy (head of his Commander's Action Group cell) working the scene in a manner befitting his PhD in history.

The last time the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment served in Iraq, in 2003-04, its performance was judged mediocre, with a series of abuse cases growing out of its tour of duty in Anbar province.

But its second tour in Iraq has been very different, according to specialists in the difficult art of conducting a counterinsurgency campaign -- fighting a guerrilla war but also trying to win over the population and elements of the enemy. Such campaigns are distinct from the kind of war most U.S. commanders have spent decades preparing to fight.

In the last nine months, the regiment has focused on breaking the insurgents' hold on Tall Afar, a town of 290,000. Their operations here "will serve as a case study in classic counterinsurgency, the way it is supposed to be done," said Terry Daly, a retired intelligence officer specializing in the subject.

U.S. military experts conducting an internal review of the three dozen major U.S. brigades, battalions and similar units operating in Iraq in 2005 privately concluded that of all those units, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment performed the best at counterinsurgency, according to a source familiar with the review's findings.

The regiment's campaign began in Colorado in June 2004, when Col. H. R. McMaster took command and began to train the unit to return to Iraq. As he described it, his approach was like that of a football coach who knows he has a group of able and dedicated athletes, but needs to retrain them to play soccer.

This is the sort of iterative learning process that I sought to capture in "The Monks of War" article: we get smarter over time, they get more desperate. Toppling Saddam was a real System Perturbation, but working the insurgency is a serious, long-term horizontal scenario, requiring people who can see across time. A PhD in history has to help on that score. Doesn't mean you're not still killing bad guys, it just means you do it with more care and discretion, making sure you don't simply create more enemies in the process.

In the end, you get to leave when their economy is working. Jobs kill insurgencies, not soldiers.

The last piece, an op-ed, is a pretty sad statement on how we've waged such Long War stuff in the past. It's mostly told from the perspective of a long-time businessman in Pakistan, who speaks of the good times before all this warring began, remembering a Pakistan that was effectively modernizing and growing ever more economic connectivity with the outside world.

Then the Americans came with their particular wars, not in 2001, mind you, but back in 1979. And ever since we started using Pakistan as a staging area for warfare in Afganistan (back then, against the Sovs), we managed only to do one thing effectively over the years: slowly but surely disconnect Pakistan from the larger world by increasing the amount of hardliner violence that both occurs within its borders and emanates from the country.

As this guy, Syed Jawad Ahsan, puts it:

"Pakistan didn't used to be like this," he said. "All this extremism that you see here now is because of Afghanistan."

He meant the Afghanistan war that started in 1979, not the one that came after Sept. 11. The way Mr. Ahsan sees it, Pakistan before 1979 was a much more open society, with wine bars in the cities and a small measure of freedom. But when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, America responded by arming, and largely creating, the Islamist fighters who drummed up religious fire in their war to drive out the Russians. Next door, Pakistan became a front-line state, and American money flooded to the mujahedeen. Ever since, Pakistan has been home to a growing cadre of fundamentalist Islamists, many of them bent on jihad.

With the huge gap here between rich and poor, militants find young boys with nothing to do easy prey. Mr. Ahsan can't fathom why Americans aren't working on the economic conditions that breed discontent.

"We don't need more of your F-16's," he said. "What we need is trade in textiles. We need a free trade agreement, like the one you're going to give Egypt, like the one you gave Jordan, like the one you gave Morocco."

The United States agreed in 2005 to resume sales of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. The sales had been suspended for more than a decade because Pakistan began developing nuclear weapons. But Washington has refused to grant a bigger and far more important concession: duty-free access for Pakistani imports.

F-16s don't connect your economy up with globalization, do they? The Long War needs to generate a Long Peace, or it never ends. Peace comes with connectivity: people making stuff and not just craving retribution and jihads that create nothing but dead bodies.

You have to ask yourself if we're using Pakistan today any less cynically than we have in the past. If we're not doing better by now, then the moderates and businessmen in both Iraq and Iran have little to look forward to.

Posted by at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Got this from Rob Quayle today in an email:

Violent piracy hits new waters.

This might be a common enemy that could get the US Navy & the Chinese Navy together. In 1825, just 12 years after the War if 1812, the US and the Brits were cooperating extremely well against Cuban pirates (See The Pirate Wars, Peter Earle (a Brit), 2003).

Interesting observation.

Just penned my second Sunday column for the Knoxville News Sentinel today. Decided to go with a China overview similar to my November piece in Esquire, just one that makes different arguments.

I have to admit: I really like penning these little 720-word vignettes. When you're not forced to do one on contract, which is how I've done most op-eds (the editors tell you what they'd like you to write about, so you're always working their angle instead), and can just dream up what you'd like to talk about, it's really pretty fun. I can tell already I'd have no problem going at a much higher frequency. Globalization alone gives you tons of topics.

Posted by at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 15 February 2006

Good to be home with no biz travel for a bit.

Yesterday I gave a good show at the SID conference. Big room, very packed. Projector pretty old and it clipped the left side of my screen pretty badly. But I went a solid 45 and did about 20 of Q&A. My host Asif Shaikh, president of International Resources Group, was very happy afterwards. Just provocative enough to piss off plenty of old-timers and just daring enough to thrill a lot of young people. I signed books for about 45 minutes afterwards--all PNM, which was kind of nostalgic. Oh, and one BFA for a young man who ran downstairs to the book store and picked it up.

Nice talk with old USAID bud Tony Pryor, who is now a big player at IRG.

Then off to Reagan via the subway to catch my plane home, buying some roses at GW University on my way into the Metro. Pretty open flight back on USAIR.

Last night focused on the Missus, and then the baby teething and maybe with an ear infection coming on.

Today was an interview with some Austrian equivalent of Der Spiegel. I would look up the name but I tend to forget these things and then the piece comes out and I get some emails from the country and I'm like, "Huh?"

Then a bunch of crappy paperwork of the type you face when you travel so much. Actually, most of the day lost to the maddening slow-down of our PC, crippled as it is by XP and five people who use it.

Afternoon saw spouse and I tour the new house. Wood flooring going in very fast now upstairs (no carpeting whatsoever), and the rest of the house should be done by middle of next week, leaving only some ceramic work in the basement and the coating of the garage floor. Trim, including all the built-ins done next week too. Sinks and final plumbing going in now. Home theater room looking sweet, awaiting the gear. We're talking deck and patio and sidewalks and playsets more and more, as the construction will move outside next month to start on all that stuff. Getting pretty thrilling to walk the place, and I feel the need to stop by almost every day now, just to escape this f--king apartment (frankly, all six of us want to divorce all of the other five about now--we even sent kitty away to Nona's for a while to preserve her feline sanity).

Tonight was helping son #1 on science project. Got the good news on him today regarding some medical stuff coming up: all covered by insurance. So I take my hat off to Steve DeAngelis again for getting us the top-line nationwide BC/BS, something you get when you work remotely like I do. Makes a big difference, cause we were looking at a pretty big price tag if the insurance said no.

Tonight was sadly taken up by witnessing the death of our four-year-old HP all-in-one. Grindy noises as of late predicted its demise. Bit much to watch, but the old beast put in a lot of effort for us over the years, and its demise pushed me over the edge on our aging Gateway as well, so unhappy have I become with PCs and Microsoft on PCs in general. Time to go all Mac.

Buoyed by a couple of new talks lined up today by my speaking agent Jenn (Special Ops Command--Pacific and the Joint IED group now headed up by the famous Monty Meigs), I bravely pulled out my Visa and ordered one of the new Intel-chip IMacs (the 17"). I added some RAM, made the mouse and keyboard wireless, and was rewarded by my former Marine salesperson with an academic discount (I revealed my new affiliation with the Howard Baker Center at U Tennessee), which basically killed the tax. Oh, and I got a free HP all-in-one for my trouble as part of the deal, which was nice.

Only bitch? Good week until it arrives. So we go sans printer for a while, and endure the horrifically slow pace of our XP-infected Gateway. Boy, I won't miss it whatsoever: all the extra crap you had to do to keep that thing running, free of disease, etc. It just got to be a part-time job to the point where I never used the damn thing except for Quicken, and my new laptop carries that, so ...

Plus, this way, the iTunes kids can work it all out within the Mac universe, which will save me some effort. All in all, a brave new world I can't wait to enter--cootie free.

Posted by at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

ARTICLE: “Egypt’s Leader Moves to Delay Local Elections,” by Michael Slackman, New York Times, 14 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “U.S. And Israelis Are Said To Talk Of Hamas Ouster: Cutoff of Aid and Taxes; Effort to Force New Vote if Group Refuses to Alter Its Current Stances,” by Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 14 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “U.S. and Israel Deny Plans to Drive Hamas From Power,” by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 15 February 2006, pulled from web.

NEWS ANALYSIS: “Beneath The Rage In The Mideast: In an Egyptian calamity, one clue to the intensity of Arab reaction to European cartoons,” by Michael Slackman, New York Times, 12 February 2006, p. WK1.

ARTICLE: “Israel’s Next Struggle May Be Internal: Rising Support for Pullback From West Bank Presages Power Shift, Societal Strife,” by Karby Leggett, Wall Street Journal, 13 January 2006, p. A6.

ARTICLE: “Iran Plays Growing Role in Iraq, Complicating Bush’s Strategy: Tehran’s Influence on Politics, Daily Life Could Give It Leverage in Nuclear Debate; Help for Shiite TV Stations,” by Jay Solomon, Farnaz Fassihi and Philip Shishkin, Wall Street Journal, 14 February 2006, p. A1.

The Big Bang keeps on rumbling.

Taking his cue from Hamas’ victory in Palestine, Mubarek is scared enough of the prospect of the Muslim Brotherhood doing well in local elections this April that he postpones them for two years. The rationale from supporters? Mubarek wants to strengthen the role of local political governance, which currently has none to speak of, so he will take this time to bolster local government.

Hmmm. How convenient …

Clearly, Mubarek feels the need to do something, but he wants whatever reform unfolds to be disadvantageous to the MB’s growing local clout.

Meanwhile, Israel and the U.S. continue to send strong signals to Hamas: adjust the platform or lose the bucks and . . . try governing without the bucks to fund your social welfare programs. Both Tel Aviv and Washington make the point that this is not a soft kill attempt, just a strong stance: we’ll continue the funding, but don’t expect us to bankroll any government that wants to backtrack on the Arab world’s growing acceptance of the right of Israel to exist as a state.

Hamas is the most successful form of PRT out there, referring to the Provincial Reconstruction Team approach that the U.S. pioneered with NATO countries in Afghanistan and is currently trying to replicate in Iraq. This is bottom-up empowerment and economic development at its most grass roots, and it’s what won Hamas the election. And that would be a cheap deal if Hamas’ elevation to power forced them to change their stance vis-à-vis Israel, which meanwhile continues to show all signs of moving toward the two-state solution no matter what anyone thinks of that wall.

Israel is smart to sit out the Big Bang. The popular rage against incompetent governments across the region is reaching a boiling point: the average Arab is mad as hell--at his or her own government--and they’re not going to take it anymore, at least not quietly.

So the Big Bang continues to roll: we topple the biggest baddest hombre in the region and look what unfolds next. Would it have happened anyway? The youth bulge working its way through the region made much of this rage inevitable, but there is no question that our setting the Iraq takedown in motion sped up this process considerably. Why? Because it said anything was possible in a region where nothing’s been plausible for so long. Not peace. Not stability. Not development. Nothing.

The biggest nut to crack in the region, though, is the one we hardened most profoundly with our dual takedowns of the Taliban and Saddam. Iran is surrounded by U.S. forces, no doubt, but it also occupies the driver’s seat on regional stability right now. While we spoil for a fight, Iran just plain spoils.

For now the Big Bang merely washes up on Iran’s borders. Since we can’t effectively bomb our way in, the question becomes how to lower those firewalls so that Iraq’s Shiites do the real, long-term influencing.

Posted by at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EDITORIAL: “Fission worries: At cross-purposes in the six-party talks,” The Economist, 11 February 2006, p. 14.

ARTICLE: “A frustrating game of carrots and sticks: Tensions persist over how to tackle the North Korean nuclear problem,” The Economist, 11 February 2006, p. 39.

North Korea’s latest excuse, we are told, for boycotting further talks among the Party of Six, is that America has too viciously cracked down on its myriad criminal networks: narcotics, counterfeiting, bogus drugs, bootleg cigarettes, peddling endangered species, money laundering, and the sale of any military technology that Pyongyang gets its hands on. As The Economist says, “North Korea is not a failed state taken over by criminals, it is a regime organized to maximize profits from its illicit activities,” which, thanks to extensive linkage to Chinese “triad” gangs, is amazingly profitable.

North Korea’s “supernotes,” or near-perfect counterfeit hundred-dollar U.S. bills, are legendary in their global reach, so America cracks down. But when are we to convince Beijing that North Korea’s manipulation of its own criminal networks is costing the regime too much?

According to one American expert, as much as 40% of North Korea’s exports are criminal in nature, so if that sort of rule breaking doesn’t get you a warrant for your regime’s arrest, what will? The two million dead from the preventable famine in the mid-1990s? The malnutrition and shrinky-dink nature of childhood in rural North Korea today?

The worse it gets in North Korea, the more Kim squeezes his criminal nets for profit, meanwhile kicking out most of the remaining international relief groups, something he can do only because South Korea and China prop him up with food supplies.

At some point, all this complicity in criminal activity must stop, and the ghetto crackhouse that is the DPRK must go.

Instead of fixating on Iran’s slow-motion pursuit of the Bomb, this is where we should be focusing our attention right now. By ending Kim’s regime, we bring China more into the fold as a rule-abiding member of the Core.

The worst crime comes in dragging this debacle out for years to come, knowing as we do the suffering that continues there.

Posted by at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

ARTICLE: “Launch of a strategic nuclear move: Japanese group’s $5.4b acquisition of Westinghouse has future demand in mind,” by Michiyo Nakamoto, Financial Times, 14 February 2006, p. 19.

The Japanese aren’t stupid. They already rely heavily on nuclear energy, despite their rather bad safety record on the subject, and they know that the role of nukes will only grow in a world where New Core powers like India and China are already stressing global conventional energy markets.

But where is the uproar? Twenty years ago Japan makes such a bid and political leaders would be all upset. Give Japan control of such an American energy icon? OMYGOD! Certainly as frightening a prospect as China gobbling up UNOCAL!

But frankly, this is nothing new. The British company National Grid basically owns most of America’s eastern seaboard electrical grid. Feeling any fear on that basis? Of course not.

Then look at China opening up ownership of its power sector to foreign entities. Why? That’s how you get access to money.

We tend to be rather hypocritical on this subject: always demanding others open up to our money while remaining fancifully suspicious when similar things come our way. But this is the best sort of connectivity. It’s basically cross-marriages between corporate giants and great powers, and yes, the resulting stability enhancement can be profound, so long as political and security connectivity keep pace.

And that’s where we’re faltering with the New Core, especially with Russia and China.

Posted by at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

OP-ED: “Putin’s KGB Instincts Serve Russia Badly,” by George Melloan, Wall Street Journal, 14 February 2006, p. A23.

OP-ED: “Don’t Blame Russia: Moscow moves to market principles. Why cry foul?” by Yuri V. Ushakov (Russian ambassador to U.S.), Wall Street Journal, 13 February 2006, p. A17.

ARTICLE: “Russia Says It Plans to Loosen State Monopoly on Gas Exports: Government allowing private companies to export could spur new capital projects,” by Buy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, 13 February 2006, p. A4.

ARTICLE: “Russia's New Foreign Policy: Moscow's Mideast Challenge to America: Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia seemed to cede much of its influence in the Middle East to the United States. No longer. Now, Moscow appears eager to present itself as a counterbalance to Washington in the region -- with major geopolitical consequences,” by Charles Hawley, SPIEGEL ONLINE, http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,401078,00.html

Melloan’s analysis, as usual, is pretty good, and it basically tracks with my point that Putin and the “power guys” know how to acquire power, but not what to do with it. But there shouldn’t be any surprise about Moscow playing the diplomatic card in the Mideast. Russia, former military superpower, now has zero military power projection capability. Remember back when a Soviet ship could actually show up somewhere and create a bit of drama, almost a standoff? Well, no more.

I wrote a future projection piece on Russia for my old company CAN back in the early 1990s, and in it I basically said the Russians would, in the absence of military power, essentially seek to leverage old ideological relationships wherever possible. No surprise and no great leap of analysis there: you simply go with what you’ve got left at end of the day.

But clearly Putin is at the limit of his imagination, and here Melloan and I are in perfect agreement:

Empires endure when they reward people with trade and commerce and a degree of freedom. Russia has just passed a law curtailing the activities of NGOs and further suppressing development of a genuine civil society. Its empire has little attraction except to dictators in Belarus and Uzbekistan trying to ward off democratic forces. Russia’s president came up through a cruel system and it may be that nothing he learned as a secret policeman taught him how to shape a modern state, let alone restore the Russian empire.

Putin definitely thinks he’s being clever on connectivity: allowing plenty of social and economic stuff but trying to deny the political. As for the military connectivity, that’s as much our fault as his: we’re plenty comfortable breaking heads all over Southwest Asia, but whenever Putin and company do in Chechnya (and no, it’s not that much uglier than our version, as uncomfortable as they may sound to some), we get all squeamish diplomatically.

I mean, you think about how much Russia lost in the last 20 years (a massive retreat from sub-Saharan Africa, through the Middle East, out of Eastern Europe and even out of much of what used to be the Soviet Union) and then you wonder why they might felt paranoid about their grip on “national power,” and the reach for energy resources becomes a whole lot more explainable. Crude, yes, and a step backwards, yes, but hardly unexplainable.

Moscow will say their recent behavior on pricing energy exports is just normal “market principles,” and there’s some truth to that, but there’s also plenty of truth to the charge that Putin seems to think that selling energy equates to pol-mil power, when it doesn’t.

There is a natural limit to this, and that limit is Russia’s continuing and large need for outside capital to upgrade its infrastructure throughout the economy--not just in the energy sphere. Right now, Gazprom’s death grip on the gas market is restricting the ability of independent Russian producers to attract foreign money for this most capital-intensive industry. It’s an old issue: control the pie too much and it won’t grow.

So do I expect Putin or his successors to give up control over the energy sector out of their love for democracy? No. I expect them to loosen their grip out of greed.

I recently had a book sent to me by someone who saw my CSIS talk, and came away with the impression that I favor dictatorships over democracy because I note how often states, especially in Asia, have developed their economies fastest with essentially long-running single-party state systems (Japan did it, so did South Korea and Taiwan, Singapore and China still). The book, The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace, by Morton Halperin et. al., is a great exposition of the reality that, all things being equal, democracies outperform autocracies in development and economic performance. No argument there, just a more realistic sense on my part about the sequencing of development under certain culture conditions. Societies that place heavy emphasis on consensus tend to favor single party systems for the tumultuous period of rapid economic development because it’s their hedge on controlling destabilizing cultural change.

Obviously, a full dictatorship hurts development across the board, because it tries to control politics, society, and economics and growing connectivity with the outside world (usually, restricting that connectivity quite heavily through sheer restrictions or the imposition of heavy taxation, aka corruption). But single-party rule that encourages and directs export-led developmental growth (and yeah, I’m still talking about South Korea and Japan until quite recently, in a historical sense) is a very different bird from you full-service, full-sector dictatorship. Yes, seeing that single-party approach morph into true multiparty democracy is certainly a step forward, but expecting that to come before its time is counterproductive, because democracies with low levels of GDP per capita are inherently unstable.

So while the Halperin et. al book is good, it “destroys” only the strawman myth that dictatorships outperform democracies in economic growth, when all things are equal, but again, thing are rarely equal. China, for example, has centuries of history that have featured disintegrating peace and integrating war. Expecting China to embrace full-bore democracy with everything else going on there is not just unrealistic, its very naïve. Yes, we push them in this direction, but so long as the direction is there, we must remain patient on the degree. Rome wasn’t built in a day and it wasn’t built as a democracy, and, quite frankly, neither was the United States. Check out who actually had the vote when our country began, and then be more cognizant of the fact that our growing markets drove our democratic development more than our democratic institutions drove our markets.

We see this time and time again in America: until your minority gets money and can use it for political clout, it tends to be treated badly. But achieve enough economic success, and pretty soon you’re not just gays or Indians or whomever that can be ignored. No, all of a sudden you’ve got friends in DC that promote your interests and raise your profile politically.

So yes, always nice to push democracy. Just keep it real about how much change we can expect a society and political system to make while it is simultaneously opening itself up to the powerfully reformatting process that is modern globalization. There is a Goldilocks speed here, and the train’s engine can’t travel any faster than the caboose.

Posted by at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: “It’s open season on Dick Cheney,” by Ann Oldenburg, USA Today, 14 February 2006, p. 10B.

ARTICLE: “Cheney cleared in hunting accident: Sheriff says there was ‘no alcohol or misconduct,” but vice president did lack a $7 stamp on his permit,” by David Jackson, USA Today, 14 February 2006, p. 4A.

ARTICLE: “No End to Questions on Cheney Hunting Incident: White House Seeks to Explain Delay Over Report,” by Anne E. Kornblut and Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times, 14 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Fellow Hunter Shot by Cheney Suffers Setback,” by Elisabeth Bumiller and Anne E. Kornblut, New York Times, 15 February 2006, pulled from web.

I was always disgusted with Republican friends who, during the Clinton years, would take such lurid, joking delight in the “mystery” of Vince Foster’s suicide. I thought it was sick, as was most of these same individuals’ rather irrational hatred of all things Clinton.

With the Cheney accidental shooting, I’m finally convinced that we’ve come full round on this grotesque tendency of partisan assholes on both sides.

There is no great scandal here. A sad accident, and the usual reticence to reveal, something we almost always see with politicians, but nowhere near anything criminal, much less any great “unanswered questions.”

If it was your dad or husband who suffered the shot, how would you like this horrible situation turned into a joke, right down to the Washington Post printing pretend buckshot holes in its Style section’s coverage, which was just too crass for words.

But worse was the grotesque crowing and jokes from representatives of the Dem Party--again, a level of crudity and insensitivity I haven’t seen since the same was witnessed with GOP operatives over Vince Foster.

Maybe this poor guy’s heart attack will remove some of the glee, but I doubt it.

And please, spare me the righteous emails that agree with this post but then pathetically try to argue that all those GOP jibes on Foster were “really quite legitimate.” I can dish out the BS when required, but I don’t swallow.

Posted by at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

OP-ED: “Old Remedies for New Evils: The Quadrennial Defense Review is a big let-down,” by Andrew F. Krepinevich, Wall Street Journal, 14 February 2006, p. A22.

ARTICLE: “U.S. role in Iraq security shifting: Handoff of combat duties picks up,” by Rick Jervis, USA Today, 14 February 2006, p. 1A.

ARTICLE: “Virtual Reality Prepares Soldiers for Real War: Young Warriors Say Video Shooter Games Helped Hone Their Skills,” by Jose Antonio Vargas, Washington Post, 14 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Iraq-Bound Marine Leaders Cram on Civics and Economics,” by Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 13 February 2006, p. A8.

Andrew Krepinevich is an awfully respected thinker in my field. Bit myopically hawkish on China (his analysis of our relationship with them is centered on the Taiwan scenario and nothing else) and a bit too gung-ho on transformation at various points in the past, but hard to find a more consistently sensible analyst. He is to the Pentagon what Tony Cordesman is to CENTCOM: a serious go-to “100 pound brain,” as they like to say in the military.

This op-ed of his on the QDR is just devastatingly good. He goes program to program within a larger, Socratic Q&A framework that’s quite accessible.

His grades: good for defining the new GWOT-drive threats, bad for resourcing them and the accompanying SysAdmin function, and bad for overfunding the Leviathan when such spending does not correlate well with emerging long-term threats.

Overall, a great piece, suggesting that the U.S. military is still buying one force, while operating another. And frankly, you just know that logic gap is what’s driving much of the Pentagon’s desire to get out of Iraq ASAP. Among the Big War/Leviathan crowd, there is palpable desire to put Iraq behind us and go back to planning for conflict with China.

Yes, it makes perfect sense to hand off more and more of the counter-insurgency combat duties in Iraq to Iraqis, but we should never delude ourselves into thinking that once behind us, Iraq and all that SysAdmin “crap” will recede into lesser-included status. We need to clear the decks in Iraq so we’re ready for Syria, or the West Bank/Gaza, or Egypt, or Sudan, or Nigeria, or Zimbabwe, or …

Yes, we’ll have plenty of kinetics in all those situations, and we’re raising a Nintendo-fed generation of first-person shooters more than up to the task, but the really important training goes on, as Gen. Jim Mattis likes to say, “between the ears.”

Shoot first and don’t bother with any questions? Hardly. The COIN of the realm (Counter-Insurgency doctrine) is 80% nonkinetic and only 20% kinetic.

So yeah, do the first-person shooter stuff to keep your skills up, but Sim SysAdmin better be included in your game play if you want to win lasting victories in this Global War on Terrorism.

Posted by at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: “G-8 Nations Shape Plan to Fight Diseases: Goal Is Getting Drug Makers to Generate Vaccines Against Illnesses in Developing World,” by Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal 13 February 2006, p. A68.

Just another interesting example of how the G-8 is naturally becoming the Functioning Executive of the Core. It’s where all the key decisions are being made--not the archaic UN Security Council, which is banging-your-shoe-on-the-conference-table antique in comparison.

Why the hell would anyone expect the G-8 to be promoting a Core-wide response to infectious diseases. The G-8 is the “everything else” forum that’s already vastly overshadowed the allegedly central “security” forum of the UNSC. That’s the nature of global stability today: probably 80% everything else, and only about 20% kinetic.

Posted by at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ARTICLE: “Steep Increase in Chinese Exports May Add to Trade-Policy Tensions,” by Murray Hiebert, Wall Street Journal, 14 February 2006, p. A4.

ARTICLE: “U.S. to Press China on Trade Laws,” by Greg Hitt, Wall Street Journal, 14 February 2006, p. A4.

NEWS ANALYSIS: “As Congress Blusters About Trade With China, U.S. Companies Play Coy Over Profits,” by Andrew Browne, Wall Street Journal, 13 February 2006, p. A2.

ARTICLE: “Companies in Emerging Markets Spark Deal Wave: Flood of Cash, Loans Power Purchases in Europe, U.S.; ‘The Mindset Has Changed,’” by Jason Singer and Dennis K. Berman, Wall Street Journal, 13 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Bill would keep servers out of China: Move comes after Google agrees to search limits,” by Jim Hopkins, USA Today, 13 February 2006, p. 3B.

ARTICLE: “Chinese Censors Of Internet Face ‘Hacktivists’ Abroad: Programs Like Freegate, Built By an Expatriate in U.S., Keep the Web World-Wide; Teenager Gets His Wikipedia,” by Geoffrey A. Fowler, Wall Street Journal, 13 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Beijing Censors Taken to Task in Party Circles,” by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 15 February 2006, pulled from web.

There is no question that China is a handful for the U.S., and as I’ve said many times, the biggest danger right now is how few American leaders realize just how intensely intertwined our two countries’ economic fates are already. In short, the political and military connectivity has not kept pace with the economic and network connectivity, and to me, that’s the definition of system instability and a potential downstream crisis.

As readers of PNM know, that was my basic diagnosis of the 1990s: economic rule sets racing ahead of political ones, and technological rule sets racing ahead of security ones.

The recent David Barboza piece in the NYT proved the lie about our “massive” trade deficit with China (i.e., we’re just renting their labor for end-of-global-supply-chain assembly), and yet we’ll see Congress get jacked up enough about such misleading stats to engage in all sorts of restrictions on trade.

Meanwhile, watch so many American companies (e.g., GE, Motorola, Nike, Wal-mart, GM) do their best to hide just how dependent they’ve become on Asia and China in particular for their global profits.

China’s rise in global manufacturing/assembly hasn’t produced global brands as Japan’s did a couple decades earlier, but so flush are some Chinese and Indian and Russian companies that they’ve started hunting for acquisitions in the West.

Lions, tigers and bears, oh my!

Especially in the case of Russian and Chinese companies, is this unfair if government backing is part of the mix? All things being equal, it’s better for such acquiring companies to steer clear of such government ties, because unless they do, the West is right to complain about unfair advantages. Understandable for New Core powers to engage in enough protectionism to let those firms flourish and establish themselves for such overseas projections of power, but once those firms reach that point, it’s either choose the pathway of privatization or face similar protectionism from other states.

Clearly, we want New Core companies to buy Old Core companies. It keeps us healthy to have our deadwood cleared, plus encouraging cross-ownership just jacks up the mutually-assured dependency between Old and New Core economies. But the process can’t proceed without further reform on the part of New Core governments, meaning more privatization, so it’s a delicate balance.

Less delicate, in my mind, is when Congress steps in on things like information technology, which they inevitably screw up with their meddling. Trying to restrict the IT companies from selling to China unless China opens up more democratically on free speech is a heavy-handed approach. In the long-running war between censors and hacktivists, my money’s on the latter. The more the connectivity, the exponentially more the possible workarounds. The soft kill is the best kill and the IT soft kill is the best of all.

Bet on connectivity, I say.

And yet, you have to wonder: a few threats from Congress and a growing sense of moral unrest in the West about Google and MSN and their “collaboration” with Chinese censors, does this push Beijing to rein in the censors? Reading the fine print on the last story, you note that the censors censured were those involved with print media, and that the damning Party “letter did not address Beijing’s pressure on Web portals and search engines.

Still, if we speak softly and only threaten our stick every so often, there may be good things that result on China’s side. My only fear is that those who tend to wield the sticks in Congress also speak the loudest, and most crudely about China.

Posted by at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I noticed that, in Tom's interview with Bloggasm, he recommended two weblogs that were not in the sidebar. That has now been remedied. Please welcome Coming Anarchy (gorgeous design!) and Global Guerillas to the blogroll.

In other brief news, Tom's Leviathan and SysAdmin concepts are referenced in the new article Next Steps in Iraq on TomPaine.com.

Posted by at 6:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Walked into the George Washington U. conference center just now, expecting to see some camers being set up, but alas, there were none.

The conference organizers got a call late last night saying too many cabinet officials in town and too much Hill stuff going on to spare the film crew.

Disappointing, but I am getting used to it by now.

Still, apparently my webmaster Sean got the link working to the Sandia Lab online video, so that will have to do for now.

Posted by at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Pedro Cardoso of GEOPOL sends in this video montage of Tom's visit. Some nice style here. I especially like the CNN-esque 'GEOPOL Analyst' caption. Makes you wish you lived in Indy(anapolis) and could attend regularly... Thanks, Pedro!

[Reference: Tom wrote about attending. Pedro sent in the link to their presentation.]

Posted by at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Information becomes a weapon: Network-centric warfare lets warfighters win major operations, but its role in fighting insurgencies remains vague, by Frank Tiboni

Who knew there was a Federal Computer Week!?! Here's the part in the middle that quotes Tom:

“Network-centric warfare is here. It’s no longer a banner worth carrying,” said Thomas P.M. Barnett, a former researcher and professor at the Naval War College who worked for Cebrowski. Barnett is author of the books “The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century” and “Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating.”

Information proved to be a valuable weapon during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the military is still battling Taliban, Sunni and al Qaeda fighters. “Network-centric warfare has a half-life that really dissipates after major combat operations,” he said.

The next challenge is determining how information can become a powerful weapon in stability and support operations, the current phase of action in Afghanistan and Iraq. DOD officials must find ways to better use information for collaboration among warfighters, community leaders and citizens to fight insurgencies and promote economic development, Barnett said.

Creating jobs and rebuilding infrastructure in those countries is equally or more important to military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, Barnett said. By doing so, military efforts could lead to improved Afghani and Iraqi lives, which might help win their hearts — and win the war, he added. “This means building the network that is not yet built.”

Tom writes of this article:

Two great quotes, a great paraphrase, and he mentions both books. Plus, my angle pivots the pieces and gives it the second half of the title.

You read an article like that, and you're happy you said yes to Tiboni and put in the half-hour on the phone.

I gotta get Enterra to trumpet stuff like this.

Posted by at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The optimistic warrior by Steven Martinovich

This is both the best review I've yet read on BFA but also the most thrilling for me personally. Let me tell you why.

First, writing something like this review--so sweeping and yet so descriptive--is incredibly hard with a volume of BFA's scope and ambition, and Martinovich is a beautifully talented writer in that regard. Seriously, I know how hard that is. I can't imagine improving the text (except for one preposition and his slight misrepresentation of the Core as just the 'First World' (when it's more correct to say that the 1st equals Old Core and the 2nd equals New Core)). I mean, it's enjoyable just to read anything that well written.

Second, it's very fair. Guy isn't shy about both strengths and weakness and where to place BFA in relation to other works.

Third, the review comes amazingly close to capturing the scope of BFA, something I gave up hoping to ever see in your average article-length review (the brevity makes Martinovich's feat all the more impressive to me).

Fourth, it's just plain thrilling to feel so understood by a reviewer, especially in terms of my intentions, which he captures exactly. I could write a lot of "better" and more fear-filled stuff, but why crowd that already stuffed field?

Fifth, the prospective reader doesn't get short-changed whatsoever by this review, which is a rare feat. They really are given everything they need to decide if BFA is for them.

Again, really gratifying to read. My hat's off to Martinovich on the effort. Few people ever do it that well.

[posted by Sean, for Tom]

Posted by at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tom will speak at the Society for International Development's conference Pulling Together to End Poverty in the DC area tomorrow. Tom's connection to this group is Asif Shaikh, President and CEO of International Resources Group and current President of the Board of Directors for SID-Washington DC.

Sorry, but the conference is full and no longer accepting registrations. But rumor has it that CSPAN will be there, so let's cross our fingers...

Posted by at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Video online for Tom's appearance at Sandia. From an email:

Thomas Barnett's Sandia lecture Thomas Barnett, author of The Pentagon's New Map: A Future Worth Creating , (see "Strategist's views for Pentagon" in National & International News Briefs, Wednesday SDN) has spoken about his views at Sandia. In a talk titled "Shrinking the Gap — Globalization and US National Security,". He says that since the end of the Cold War, the biggest threats to America and its allies come from underdeveloped, chaotic regions of the Third World. He calls these regions the "Gap," a zone disconnected from the economic and technological advances of globalization.

A video of the presentation is available.

[Editor's technical note: This is a Windows Media Player file. You neep WMP to watch it, or QuickTime with the new Windows Media plugin, or VLC, or... You get the idea.]

[Editor's technical note: UPDATE: This file streams veeerrrrry sloooooowly over DSL Lite. You may get better results by downloading it first (right click, then 'Download as...' in Windows or use your favorite utility. Mine is Free Download Manager).]

Posted by at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Here is the column from editor Jack McElroy introducing me:

McElroy: Take a look at new column, new features

By JACK MCELROY, editor@knews.com

February 12, 2006

Thomas P.M. Barnett is a man with a vision.

In his worldview, the global economy has made the possibility of war between great powers obsolete. Nations that are part of the functioning core of international commerce no longer can afford to fight each other.

They are, after all, business partners.

So the United States shouldn't be preparing for a showdown with China. Indeed, China, he believes, is destined to be America's great strategic ally of the 21st century ...

See his entire column here (and yes, you'll need to run through some registering): http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_4454774,00.html

Here's my column:

Wanted: A department for all else

By THOMAS P. M. BARNETTtom@thomaspmbarnett.com

February 12, 2006

America has spent the post-Cold War era buying one military while operating another. We continue to buy a Big War force that's optimized to defeat other traditional militaries, and yet more and more we find ourselves waging lengthy postwar operations. So when are we going to start buying the Big Peace force?

Let me offer a challenging proposition: America won't adequately fund that manpower-intensive peace-waging force until we build it a bureaucratic home, functionally located between the current departments of war (Defense) and peace (State). I'll call it the Department of Everything Else because I'm not sure about everything it will entail (e.g., nation-building, disaster relief, counter-insurgency). I just know it'll fill the same basic space that our old, pre-World War II Department of Everything Else (Department of Navy) once did and that it'll definitely include the Marines ...

Find the full column here: http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/perspectives/article/0,1406,KNS_2797_4454809,00.html.

Very exciting stuff for me. I chose something pretty basic from my extensive list of concepts for this intro column and McElroy carried a lot of water with his introduction, so that's a good debut all around.

I will think hard about what I want to pen next, and write it later this week. This was 720 words, which means you have to keep it to a single idea and you can't spend a lot of time on any one bit (thus, for example, using USAID as a placeholder for a lot of other stuff I might have written in as the capacity-building assets of the U.S.). Plus, because you're writing for a general newspaper audience, you have to keep it at a level that's very accessible, burying your tendency for caveats galore. Keeping it very direct like that is a challenge, but a good one.

Suggestions are welcome for the next bit I should introduce, hopefully one that I can tie to something current, like I did with the QDR here. That's the basic goal for most of these columns at first: introduce some tenet from my vision and use a current events example to explore it.

Posted by at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

A lot of readers seem disappointed I don't claim more "victory" in the QDR, noting all the movement in the SysAdmin direction, instead of harping on the lack of change in the acquisition and platform force structure.

First, I believe the visionary never claims victory. He or she just moves on to the next subject/degree/step to push.

Second, my rule is on these things: when speaking of people (like "The Monks of War" piece in the current Esquire), see "half full." But when speaking of bureaucracies, see "half empty."

The rhetorical/operational/doctrinal/training/organization movement toward the SysAdmin's emergence has been stunning in its scope and speed, but unless that change migrates significantly into force structure over time (meaning, the budget), slippage is inevitable and five to ten years from now we're not better off than we were going into Iraq.

Posted by at 1:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 11 February 2006

I've done the Air Force new one-star class course for three years now, and the Navy-Marine new flags training series for two years now. The missing link was the Army version. Got that one done last night, at the personal invite of General Peter Schoomaker, Army Chief of Staff.

A great interaction, but a price to be played in sleep.

Hellish pair of flights down to Austin, getting there just before a cold snap kicked in. I arrived at The Mansion on Judges Hill about 6pm. I had an hour to get my stuff together before cocktails began with the new one-star generals at 7pm. Schoomaker entered about 1930. He flew in from DC just like I did.

The generals had an audience with Michael Dell earlier in the day, which they were still buzzing about. After our drinks (I did a pair of Shiner Bocks, local TX beer), we had a very nice dinner. I got a seat next to Schoomaker, which was cool. This was our third interaction. I briefed him on Y2K when he was boss of Special Ops Command back in 1999. I also interviewed him in the spring of 2005 for the Rumsfeld piece in Esquire. So Tampa, the Pentagon, and now Austin.

Long dinner of about an hour of conversation, and then I go on about 2030, talking til almost 10pm. I take 30 minutes of Q&A, and then it's back to a cocktail scene until well past midnight.

All very interesting, since most of these new flags were there for the first few months of Iraq, so nothing like hearing it from the horse's mouth. Also cool to describe the revolution going on inside the Army and be able to point directly at the guy most responsible for it while you're describing it (Schoomaker). All in all, a very cool evening.

But a bit long. Asleep by 1am but up at 4am to catch my 0600 flight. Back to Indy just to catch my eldest daughter post-vocal competition. Back home, I nap a bunch, then catch "Munich" tonight with one of my kids. Really good, I thought. Guess I don't see the rewriting of history or slanting in Spielberg's work that others did. To me, it was right on, but it likewise had no impact on me regarding the utility of killing bad guys.

Nice long talk on the phone late tonight with Steve DeAngelis. Big names joining the firm as we gear up for all the work we're winning and all the talks we're having with an ever expanding mix of companies and gov agencies. Scaling the company upwards is all we talk about now (when we're not in some meeting with some company wanting to establish a relationship), and it's a fascinating process. It's really so cool to be doing this post the dot.com craze, because everything is held to a much higher standard now. It's deliver, deliver, deliver, proving yourself at every step. And Steve's frugality in running the company matches my own upbringing. It just feels so right to be doing something like this now than I'm sure it must have felt during those hazy-crazy days of the beforetime. I mean, no point in doing this unless it's going to be real from top to bottom.

I am beat. Three trips in less than 10 days. And not here for that long this time. But Steve warned me repeatedly that this was going to be a blistering year, and right now we are making hay like the sun will never go down.

Posted by at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: “For Americans, It Can Pay to Play in Iran’s Court: Imports Pump Up Basketball’s Popularity,” by Karl Vick, Washington Post, 10 February 2006, p. A1.

OP-ED: “Driving Toward Middle East Nukes in Our S.U.V.’s: From the gas pump to Iran’s pockets,” by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 10 February 2006, p. A27.

Friedman's gotta get on this whole basketball thing. I think he's missing something big here.

Seriously, I think he's finally beginning to connect the dots in a cool, Michael Moorish sort of way.

Posted by at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: “EU’s New Tack on Immigration: Leaders Talk Up ‘Brain Circulation’ to Cure Shrinking Work Force,” by John W. Miller, Wall Street Journal, 10 February 2006, p. A8.

Europe has always attracted Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa primarily in the same way we attract the bulk of Hispanics from down south: give us your poor and ambitious and largely undereducated and we’ll have them do the 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) jobs that we can’t find workers for.

That collection of low-end workers, when combined with the high-end ones that America so naturally attracts (our Muslims are better than your Muslims!), sends back to home countries over $100 billion in remittances each year (just $72B in 2001 and now $126B according to IMF). The entire OECD development aid package (meaning all the foreign aid the Core sends to the Gap) each year is just around $60B, so this flow is hugely important to shrinking the Gap (or keeping the worst parts afloat in the meantime).

What this article says is that Europe is beginning to realize it not only needs the 3D Muslims, but the more educated ones that we naturally attract. Why? The demographic aging of Europe proceeds with so much more speed than our version here, so they think the EU will be tens of millions short on skilled workers in coming decades (20m by 2030).

Think Europe is the “great alternative” and the rising superpower that will lead the world in the future? Or do you still see it aping America as it tries to catch up, ad infinitum?

Posted by at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

EDITORIAL: “Still Shortchanging the Troops,” New York Times, 10 February 2006, p. A26.

One of the best editorials the NYT has ever produced, in my opinion. A killer from start to finish.

I will exerpt most and let it speak for itself. It mirrors a lot of my arguments from last Nov in Esquire and ever since in this blog:

It’s amazing how Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department can produce a $439 billion spending plan and still skimp on the one thing the American military desperately needs: expanded ground forces so the weakened and cannibalized Army can meet the requirements of Iraq without hurting its ability to respond to other threats.

While the Pentagon intends to increase pay and recruitment bonuses, no part of its nearly 7 percent budget increase is aimed at raising overall troop strength. Instead, a large chunk of this nearly $30 billion bonanza goes to buying more new weapons and postponing overdue cuts in wasteful Air Force and Navy projects unrelated to fighting terrorism …

The budget and the four-year plan released with it read almost as if the current conflict had never happened and could never happen again. [BINGO!]

Instead of reallocating resources toward the real threats America faces, the military services continue to pour their money into fighting fictive suerpowers in the wild blue yonder and on and below the seven seas. Pentagon budgeters showed themselves so pathetically unable to restrain spending on expensive ships and planes that they actually cut back, rather than increased, the overall size of the Army over the next few years to pay for it.

It would cost about $4 billion to $5 billion a year to give the Army 30,000 more troops, the minimum it needs to check its alarming slide. Instead the Pentagon chose to begin the construction of two unneeded new stealth destroyers, which will end up costing $2 billion to $3 billion each.

It also decided to splurge on a new nuclear attack submarine for $2.6 billion and to shell out $5.5 billion for separate Navy and Air Force versions of new stealth fighter jets, plus another $5.5 billion for yet a third version that either can use …

Doesn’t get any more direct than that. Extremely well done.

Posted by at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

ARTICLE: “Some Assembly Needed: China as Asia Factory,” by David Barboza, New York Times, 9 February 2006, pulled from web.

Fabulous take on a subject we should all know about by now and yet we constantly get fooled into thinking otherwise by statistics touted so regularly by the media and politicians.

China’s “huge” trade surplus with the U.S. has always been a myth. It’s a relic of old accounting standards that don’t take into account a global production chain that has emerged.

Our imports from Asia actually decrease in recent years, with China simply stealing a bigger share from countries like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore and others.

The joke is, we only assign trade value at the point of final assembly. So when everyone makes parts that go into an electronic device and then all those parts are shipped to China for final assembly, does this mean China “manufactured” the device and therefore has “stolen” all that manufacturing from the rest of the world? Hardly. All this shows is that it should be labeled, “assembled in China,” not “made in China.” China may have a $200 billion trade surplus with the U.S. in this chain, but it has a corresponding deficit in the range of $140 billion with the rest of Asia, who are simply running a lot of their manufactures through China for final assembly.

Our multinationals are simply renting Chinese labor, which draws wages but never sees the profit. Foreign firms control almost two-thirds of China’s exports. If you count all that stuff as intra-multinational trade, there goes the vast bulk of our alleged trade deficit with China. As one UBS economist puts it: “In a globalized world, bilateral trade figures are irrelevant. The trade balance between the U.S. and China is as irrelevant as the trade balance between New York and Minnesota.”

It’s a great point, one I’ve long made about FDI figures. We are told that much of China’s FDI is actually Chinese money sent abroad and recirculated into China through trusted conduits like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, so we’re actually seeing a lot of greater China investing in China. Same thing is true for Europe’s huge FDI cumulative numbers: they count Austria investing in Italy. I have long contended in my talks that if you counted Michigan investing in Florida and vice versa throughout our 50 state system, our numbers would be astronomical.

In short, it all depends on how you want to count.

In the end, the U.S. benefits hugely by tapping China’s labor. Those who suffer on our end are the same who suffer all over Asia: low-end labor. What should be our response? Walls and protectionism? Or a lifelong learning system that continues to upgrade our talent?

Which path seems to point to a future worth creating?

Posted by at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: “A charter in London, troops for the badlands: After painful prevarication, NATO gets serious about peacekeeping in Afghanistan,” The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 37.

ARTICLE: “Heading south: Despite much recent progress, Afghanistan is intolerably insecure,” The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 12.

Big London donor conference on Afghanistan still ends up being more about security than development, so we certainly haven’t come close to finishing the job in Afghanistan, although, much like in Iraq, we seem to have a tripartite outcome.

Northern Afghanistan is like Kurdistan: pretty lawful and open for trade. The central region is more like Shiite Iraq: government formed and reasonably stable. Southern Afghanistan remains like the Sunni Triangle: lawless and without any appreciable economic development, other than the resurgence of poppies.

Up to now, the NATO contingent in Afghanistan has stayed to the north, keeping the peace in the areas with no Taliban, so nice work if you can get it. In the south, the U.S. keeps killing significant numbers of Taliban each year, seeming to win the battle by winter, only to have more appear in the spring, or the basic cycle the Sovs went through for so long.

Now we see NATO committed to sending down several thousand troops into the south, meaning there will be fighting ahead, especially once they go after the poppy trade.

Still, this is historic stuff: NATO deciding to go into combat outside of Europe--a serious first. This is a big milestone in the formation of the Core’s SysAdmin function and force.

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

ARTICLE: “U.S. firms becoming tongue-tied: Global trade requires foreign language skills,” by David J. Lynch, USA Today, 9 February 2006, p. 6B.

Weird, but neither side seems to pick Spanish. Instead we’re told by both to focus on Chinese, Arabic, Farsi (Persian or Iranian), Korean, Japanese, Russian and Urdu (getting into Central Asia).

Interesting that both the security and the business communities seem interested in the same New Core and Gap situations, apparently believing that these places are where security issues will be most fluid and profit potential most elevated, or a nice definition of what I call the military-market nexus.

Also interesting how the rest of the Western Hemisphere seems an afterthought in both camps.

Posted by at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

EDITORIAL: The one thing Bush got right: For all his other foreign-policy mistakes, George Bush is right about democracy,” The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 9.

SPECIAL REPORT (POLITICAL ISLAM): “Forty shades of green: Islam’s main political arms differ greatly in both tactics and aims. But that should not reassure America, The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 22.

Great editorial and piece on the “dangers of democracy” that we hear so much about today from both right and left in the U.S.

So much experience and yet so little faith.

Democracy’s defining feature--the freedom to hire and fire your government--does not guarantee that countries will make wise choices, or that democracies will be good neighbors. The lesson of the 20th century is that no people is immune from falling under the spell of some hypnotic voice or pernicious doctrine. In 1933 Germans freely elected the Nazi Party, which went on to reduce Europe to rubble. But only the most twisted history could blame democracy rather than dictatorship for the depredations of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. The merits of democracy are obvious and the appeal of it seems universal. So why do the familiar arguments have to be rehased all over again in the case of the Middle East?

Hardcore left and right in the U.S. seem desperate to believe in the "Bush-as-global-conquerer” fantasy, as if Afghanistan and Iraq constitute the world as we know it. Then there are the so-called realists who like democracy in the abstract, but consider its promotion naïve.

So do we give it a go in the Middle East, or do we stick with the dictators, knowing so well what they’ve given us for the last half century?

And if the Islamists don’t wise up in power, then we cajole and punish accordingly, as this piece argues. Just because you’re democratically elected doesn’t mean you get to wage war on neighbors you hate.

Meanwhile, we show some patience. We get--dare I say it?--more realistic.

Holding elections is not a panacea. Democracy cannot at a stroke heal national conflicts, create civic institutions or modernize traditional societies. But whatever else people think of Mr. Bush, on this one thing--the universal potential and appeal of the democratic idea--he is on the side of history.

The second article is a great one that presents a lot of good historical compare-and-contrasts on Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Big point: the more the MB and wings Hamas and Hezbollah cooperate in the political process, the wider the gap between those groups and Al Qaeda, which brooks no such cooperation. No easy dreams of divide and conquer, please, but also please ditch any nonsense about these guys all being on the same side in terms of agenda. One sees a world a states, the other does not.

And please don’t confuse either with Shiites.

And for those who fear the MB and others are pursuing the classic “entryist” strategy that uses elections as the front door to dictatorship, I say we’re better off getting through that process, if it’s in the cards, faster as opposed to slower. Can’t be any worse than the dictators we have now, who export their terrorists to the West more and more. And the sooner the masses see the falsity of this strategy, the better.

Again, the Big Bang was never about obviating any of this (dealing with Islamists, terrorism, old tribal hatreds), but merely about speeding it all up (the learning curve, the killing, the burning out). Plenty of ground to cover. Only question is how long you want to drag it out.

Posted by at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: “The land of leisure: Why Americans have plenty of time to read this,” The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 28.

Interesting research on leisure time in the U.S. says we’ve actually picked up more non-work time in recent decades (almost a full day per week), but that so much of it is swallowed in activities and errands that we continue to see ourselves as more and more harried. Plus all the networking toys means we’re answering emails on the 9th hole, which we interpret as “neverending work” but really strikes the researchers as “nice work if you can get it.”

This research, done at U. Chicago’s Biz School, didn’t include anyone over 65, so the article’s author argues that the findings probably underestimate the overall rise in leisure time, unless you count answering emails from grandkids as work.

Posted by at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “Disney and the Great Wall: Hong Kong’s Magic Kingdom Struggles to Attract Chinese Who ‘Don’t Understand’ Park,” by Geoffrey A. Fowler and Merissa Marr, Wall Street Journal, 9 February 2006, p. B1.

It is fascinating to watch Disney’s adjustment process in Hong Kong. Like any corporation, it tries as much as possible to impose its rule set on the customer, while having to adjust to the local dominant rule sets in order to attract the highest possible frequency and revenue stream.

First big lessons?

Chinese like to travel on tour packages, where everything, right down to the menu of the group meals, is determined beforehand. We saw this in spades traveling around China on our adoption trip. Choice is rather frontloaded in China, as in, choose to go or stay home!

Another big lesson: respect the local holidays. The New Year is huge. Disney HK was overwhelmed. “Park capacity” is not a concept they get yet.

But for sure, Disney will learn. It learned Japanese and did quite well in mastering French, although visitors there still are rather stingy on a per head basis. Disney will master Hong Kong because it has its eyes on Shanghai.

My favorite bit in this story: Marie the Cat is the biggest star at Disney HK. Don’t remember her? She’s the female lead in “The Aristocats.” Why so popular in China? That movie apparently became a cult classic in southern China due to repeat showings on networks over the years. Plus Marie looks an awful lot like Hello Kitty.

[Minor editorial comment: Marie is the daughter of the female lead in 'The Aristocats', Duchess. And, this is even more quibbling, technically she is a kitten. *wink* Got some big Disney fans in my house. Sean]

Posted by at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “As Bird Flu Spreads to Africa, Health-System Gaps Raise Risks,” by Nicholas Zamiska, Wall Street Journal, 9 February 2006, p. A4.

Forty thousands birds dead in Nigeria from avian flu. It wasn’t recognized at first, and frankly, even if it had been, don’t expect AIDS-ravaged Africa to view it in the same light as the Core.

The World Health Organization has long held its breath on this subject, hoping against hope that avian flu wouldn’t make it to Africa, because of the rickety and easily overwhelmed medical nets. Fighting avian flu in the Core is one thing--an entirely other one in the Gap.

More than anything else, avian flu will push Core countries to explore more and more the sort of sensor networks designed to detect bad stuff. Security experts want to sell all this on the terror threat, but the reality is that in a globalized world, the usual threats suffice to justify such R&D.

Posted by at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “Putin is pressed to liberalise energy: Head of electricity monopoly seeks more reform,” by Arkady Ostrovsky, Neil Buckley and Christina Freeland, Financial Times, 10 February 2006, p. 1.

Anatoly Chubais, who runs Russia’s electricity monopoly, publicly demands that Putin support the break-up of that network so that it can be privatized and reshaped by the resulting flow of private capital. Rising demand and years of underinvestment hit a wall this very cold Russian winter (the coldest in 30 years). Putin may want to retain the commanding heights, but it’s going to get a helluva lot chillier up there unless he gets access to more foreign investment, and people don’t invest in what they can’t own.

Yegor Gaidar, the architect of such liberalization strategies in the 1990s, says the gas industry is moving down a similarly dysfunctional path: “The gas sector reminds me of the oil sector in the early 1980s and I know what follows: a very serious crisis. The absence of competition, the under-investment, all of this creates risk . . . I do not like the way Gazprom is run in Russia.”

And neither do a lot of European leaders, who speak more and more openly of collective energy strategies to reduce dependence on the unreliable Russians.

This is the lesson that Putin will learn, just like OPEC did a generation ago: If you have customers, then your natural resources are indeed valuable. If you scare them away with high prices or unreliable service, then all you have is a lot of worthless stuff underground.

Posted by at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Additions to the not-too-formal comment policy:

In general everyone has been doing very well with comments. We are up to 265+ comments. Thank you for your contributions.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged 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.

Furthermore, comments should be reasonably brief. There are many fine, free weblog services where your long writings can be posted.

UPDATE: Until I get Trackbacks up and running, anyone who posts at greater-than-comment length about one of Tom's posts should feel free to self-link in the comments.

Posted by at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

DATELINE: some mansion, near Austin TX, 10 February 2006

Been a whirl.

First, got funny email from Gen. Jim Mattis asking "where in the hell do you get off calling me 'casually profane'?" Apparently our mutual admiration survived the piece.

Thursday was drop off #2 to school (#1 sick), trip to new house, eye doc appointment with #3 child, playground with same, then drop off, then clean wife's car, then visit Catholic school near new house that we consider for next year (smaller), then pick up #2 & 3, then another trip to house (this time with spouse), then race to airport for plane to DC, then cab to hotel, then work brief on Middle East for 3 hours, then collapse.

Then up this morn for breakfast with old mentor Hank Gaffney.

Then I open conference of Arab jounalists talking Middle East in wired world at old company, The CNA Corp.

I go 45 and then 25 Q and A. Seemed to piss off some of the American experts, but plenty of the Arab journalists came up afterwards to say how much they liked my talk--especially on Iran.

Then cab to Reagan. Buy Valentine Day gifts, forgetting them in store. Sign books in Borders and Olssons in airport. Buy gear bag for my travel electronic gear and world's coolest clear rubber glove for my Treo. Then got to gate, and just as boarding begins, I realize mistake, race back to store, go through security again, and just catch totally full (middle seat) 3.5 hr flight to rainy Houston (lotsa turbulence on way). Then just make connection to Austin.

Speaking to select audience tonight. Security tight, so will tell you tomorrow.

[Posted for Tom]

Posted by at 9:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

DATELINE: in the Shire, Indy, 8 February 2006

So happy to be back home.

My swim and workout were great. So amazingly relaxing in late morning.

Then out of hotel and off to Chinatown for lunch with my old friend from my WTC workshop days. Great discussion. I always knew China would loom very large in my personal future, so the question was never “if?” but merely who and when. All good to work the biz and the security, but at the end of the day I want to leave the scene accomplishing the goals that first attracted me to the field, and global peace begins with a strong U.S.-Chinese strategic alliance in this era of globalization. No alliance, no shrinking the Gap. So I welcome the personal connectivity renewed, because these relationships matter very much to me.

On that score, my friend agreed with my theory that we’re only 5-7 years from facing the reality of the Fifth Generation of Chinese leaders being so much more sophisticated about the world, economies, and the U.S. because so many of them were educated here. His only caveat? It really comes at us much faster, like 3-4 years. The debate on who comes next is going on right now. Once Wen and Hu start their second five-year terms in a couple of years, that question gets settled relatively fast and the emergence of the new progressively lame-ducks the old—just like here.

Then the SWA flight outta BWI back to Indy. Quick stop by house on way to pick up son at Sylvan tutoring.

As much as I hate this apartment and dream almost nightly of living in the new house, it’s very good to be home. I simply miss the physical contact: all that hugging and kissing and touching. It’s a cold world out there, no matter how exciting it may seem. Time to regenerate while I can.

Posted by at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: “Colorblind: A new generation doesn’t blink an eye at interracial relationships,” by Sharon Jayson, USA Today, 8 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “West Coming to Grasp Wide Islamic Protests As Sign of Deep Gulf,” by Alan Cowell, New York Times, 8 February 2006, p. A9.

ARTICLE: “Contest for Cartoons Mocking the Holocaust Announced in Tehran,” by Nazila Fathi, New York Times, 8 February 2006, p. A9.

ARTICLE: Chechnya Expels Danish Aid Agency,” by staff, New York Times, 8 February 2006, p. A9.

I know a lot of people around the world and here as well like to view America as a country with very troubling racism, but in reality things are much cooler here than in the vast majority of the world. Our racial tensions don’t really hide much under the surface anymore, compared to when I was a kid growing up in the 1960s. Instead, they’re out and about and argued and debated so regularly here now, that we confuse that vigorous exchange with racism’s alleged persistence in our society.

The amazing and encouraging truth is that you can grow your way out of racism by simply raising a different sort of generation. Within about 15 to 20 years of effort, your forever-young society will strongly reflect that new outlook. We’ve done this sort of transformation on a number of fronts socially, such as drinking and driving, smoking, environmentalism, etc. It doesn’t take “generations” but just one well-raised generation to send a values shock wave through a society, especially one whose consumerism is so tied to youth trends as ours is.

I remain so optimistic about shrinking the Gap primarily because of that fundamental realization of how quickly a society can change, for good or ill (look at young kids the world over involved in violent conflicts, for example), that I first learned by watching Russian and East European societies change so rapidly once the Wall came down, and now watch even more rapidly unfold in China and India.

As for Europe and the cartoon wars, I think we need to be clear that this is not a “Western” problem per se, but a European one that is tied up primarily in the issues of immigration, demographics and the rapid aging going on there. Europe’s getting more and more caught up in the Big Bang we laid on the Muslim Middle East by toppling the Taliban and Saddam primarily because the tensions generated reveal some serious sociological, economic and political fault lines there.

Did the Big Bang create tensions that weren’t there? Absolutely not. Did it speed the killing/violence/crises? Absolutely yes. Is this bad or good for Europe? Just like for the Middle East, it’s a good thing. Holding on to the bad past is what gets you civil wars and race riots, two lessons we ourselves took a long time (roughly one century for each) to learn. America would have been so much better off so much earlier if some exogenous event or power had forced those issues.

So I guess all this really means is that America continues in its historic role as global meddler and revolutionary without peer. In contrast, our alleged near-peer competitor China hasn’t done diddly beyond its borders in decades, preferring a sort of commercial-only relationship with the outside world that our George Washington would have envied (truly, no “entangling alliances” to speak of, just crass commercialism).

Truly sad right now to watch the opportunists jump into the fray, like the Iranian hardliners or Putin’s puppet in Chechnya (oh yeah, we’re kicking out NGOs over cartoons all right!). Calls for cartoons to mock the Holocaust will only prove the point further: what can the Iranians do on this subject that Mel Brooks hasn’t already explored?

It’s the old joke about the American who says to the Soviet during the Cold War: “I can criticize my government openly on the Mall in Washington.” The Soviet answers, “Big deal, I can also criticize your government openly in Red Square in Moscow!”

The continuing and increasingly idiotic tit-for-tat here just makes Islam look more stupid by the minute. In the free world, you can mock any religion, but in the Islamic world, you can really only demonize non-Islamic faiths.

Feedback, as I always say, tells one more about the sender than the target. Islam increasingly feels victimized by history. Got it. Stipulate it. But so do the Europeans on this subject, because they built a free world of their own and they don’t plan on surrendering those freedoms to the stultifying sort of taboo-based culture that keeps so much of the Middle East disconnected from the larger world and the amazing economic growth it’s enjoyed in the last several decades. I don’t blame the Europeans for feeling scared on that score. If I lived there, I’d feel scared too.

Instead I live in America, with its warts and all, but likewise with racial tensions that cannot long remain suppressed among generations that increasingly grow beyond such self-imposed limitations.

Posted by at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ARTICLE: “White House hopefuls, activists are stirring: Political teams assemble in key states,” by Susan Page and Jill Lawrence, USA Today, 8 February 2006, p. 5A.

Yikes! A sad list of candidates on both sides. Frankly, only Hillary, McCain and Kerry seem heavyweights.

Kerry is one simply because he returns. Clinton is clearly one. McCain is the only celebrity the GOP has.

But all come with such baggage. Meanwhile, the lightweights are truly lite!

My name-association responses (GOP):

George Allen: Puh-leaze!

Sam Brownback: Impressive guy and amazingly practical given his intense faith, but I doubt an avowed evangelical can win even a nomination right now, despite the fact that Brownback would certainly rise above the designation.

Bill Frist: Zero excitement factor. As a Democrat, hard not to cheer him on.

Newt Gingrich: Smart as all get-out, but way too many enemies. I would expect to see him in a cabinet, though. Seriously.

Rudy Guliani: Possibly quite strong—as a Democrat. He’d lose the GOP base.

Chuck Hagel: You have to wonder here. Bit of a bridge-burner in his party. I find him off-putting and sort of arrogant, and yet I think he’s talented enough to overcome perceptions. Hard to dismiss, I guess, which is a strong sign this early.

Mike Huckabee: I have no idea how someone this unknown pulls it off. Running for something other than president, in my mind.

John McCain: The anger thing will be his downfall. Just a time bomb waiting to go off. Napoleonic complex since birth, so yeah, I’m saying he’s too short to be president.

George Pataki: Competent but too NY-ish. Just don’t see it. Tall, though.

Mitt Romney: Possibly quite strong. Big question on the Mormon thing. Hard to say, thus.

Now the Dems:

Evan Bayh: Needs to grow up quickly. First impressions do not impress me. Comes off as lightweight trying too hard to seem tough and commanding. If he’s so smart, he better start showing it more, and stop reading so obviously from scripts.

Joseph Biden: So amazingly off-putting. Totally a vanity ride. Very depressing to consider him as SECSTATE.

Wes Clark: Zero excitement. Doesn’t have a political bone in his body. Confuses mastering the art of political general with that of general politics. Too smart in intellect, and he knows it. Being president is a people skill he does not have.

Hillary Clinton: I just wish Emma Thompson could play her in the presidency. That would seal the deal for me. Tough enough and smart enough to pull it off. Just such a weird story, and that alone makes it so American. She is the first candidate I have ever considered giving money to—seriously. I’m just excited to watch the ride, no matter how it works out.

John Edwards: I really think he won’t wear well, and the natural confusion between him and Bayh will cancel each other out. I don’t know why I have no sympathy for him. He’s really pretty good and a great campaigner, but I have low expectations. Just don’t see him as presidential enough for now and can’t imagine what changes that perception.

Russ Feingold: Just too off-putting. You’d think I’d cheer the Wisconsin guy, but for now, I find him very hard to warm up to. He may surprise in debates and other public performances, but I think he’s just too left to win the general election.

John Kerry: I continue to think he’s smart as hell. Will be very interesting to see Hillary and he go at it. Good for the party to have a tough regular season, I think. Just not sure what will light the fire under his ass this time that didn’t last time. Then again, the regret factor on Bush may do that for him in the eyes of enough voters.

Bill Richardson: Don’t see it happening, despite his obvious charisma. Think he is first Hispanic (okay, “half-Hispanic”) national candidate though—for VP.

Tom Vilsack: It would have to be a war of attrition and self-destruction among the Dems for this guy to emerge. Not impossible, but not likely.

Mark Warner: Intrigues many. May quickly surpass Bayh as “thinking man’s” favorite dark horse. He’s such a break from the fear and loathing atmosphere of current admin, with his Clinton-like focus on bright futures, that he may quickly emerge as alternative to whoever survives the Kerry-Clinton wars.

Whew! Fun and completely impressionistic. Like picking Oscar winners in August.

Gotta tell you, though. Feel better for Dems than GOP on basis of talent. Might actually balance the GOP’s usual edge in organization, although hard to get much closer than last two elections, yes? So the talent factor may be big.

Posted by at 7:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

10 am and already I've put in enough of a day to justify my title of Senior Managing Director of Enterra Solutions.

And I will admit that the title was more aspirational than operational until things started kicking into high gear over the last month. Steve DeAngelis was very nice and respectful of my obligations surrounding BFA's publication in October, allowing me to ramp up my participation at a pace that made sense for my other endeavors and my family.

In the last four weeks, however, the SMD title has come to define my identity more and more, to the point where I consider myself that more than anything else right now.

And even in my work at Enterra, the blog remains my silent partner. It connects me to so many great people who remain invisible to me until such time as they decide it makes sense to surface.

Late last week the CTO of Accenture surfaces, taking some righteous umbrage at my tendency to crack nasty on the Redskins, a franchise that--quite frankly--I despise first and foremost for that image of Lombardi post-Green Bay (and yet, Lombardi Cancer Clinic is where Emily, my daughter, was treated in the mid-1990s, and that experience softens my dislike somewhat... toward DC while not impacting my dislike for the Skins whatsoever!).

Anyway...

This guy takes me to task a bit. We trade some emails. He's been checking out Enterra. So we set up a breakfast this am with Steve.

Great conversation ensues, in which this guy validates a lot of our approach and market definition, even our handling of various suitors (and there are several). I mean, it was very solid to walk away from a meeting like that--very validating.

And then there's the very tangible prospects of work together...

Listening to Steve and this guy talk was pretty amazing--like two flags talking concepts of operations. There was a sequence of about five minutes there when neither said a single word of English that most humans would recognize, just acronyms masquerading as words. I know just enough to follow and pipe in now and then, but I'm not arrogant enough to butt in when I'm not needed.

What's so cool about what Steve DeAngelis is doing with Enterra is that he's amassing serious A-Team talent. In most situations, you see this sort of talent step aboard and it makes you nervous in a zero-sum way (is my influence or stardom diminished by this addition?). But with Enterra, given the scaling challenges we face with all this interest and dealmaking opportunties, I'm happier than hell every time he hires somebody--the more world-class the better.

It's the oldest strategic planning story: planning for failure is easy, but planning for success--especially runaway success--is amazingly hard.

Being Senior Managing Director for Enterra is both hard (dealing with that scalability issue) and easy (blog it and they will come). My confidence comes primarily in the partnership with Steve: I do my part and he does his and ever the opportnities will meet.

And now back in the hotel, I sneak off for a swim and gym workout. Got a VC type flying down from NYC to have lunch with me. This guy goes all the way back for me--to the World Trade Center. Strong China connectivity. More amazing opportunities to consider--by lunchtime.

I feel like I'm at the end of one of those choke-me-up commercials: "I am Thomas P.M. Barnett, and I'm Senior Managing Director of Enterra Solutions!"

[Flash logo]

[Fade to black as James Earl Jones intones solemnly, "BE RESILIENT!"]

[splashing sound...]

Posted by at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sun is not up, and yet it is not a time to sleep.

Now is the time to get up. Now is the time to work. Go Guys! Go!

Two guys, in a car, in a District and two states, without overcoats, in February.

The light is red. Stop Steve stop!

The light is green. Go Steve go!

Two tall guys walking into a big office building.

Two white guys going up in an elevator.

One guy in front of the screen. One guy at the laptop.

Two white guys going down in an elevator.

Two tall guys going out of a big office building.

Corporations. Big corporations, little corporations, black corporations and white corporations. Green corporations and blue corporations and yellow corporations and brown corporations--all at a big corporate office building.

Do you like my Development-in-a-Box?

I do! I like that Development-in-a-Box!

Good bye!

Good bye!

Posted by at 6:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

All day in meetings today with Steve.

Never boring. Anything but, given the huge possibilities that seem to come Enterra's collective way.

But definitely tiring.

Still, nice to feel to belong to something this cool. Cool to have Steve as partner. Cool to be doing and not just talking about it.

Posted by at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “As ‘Neocons’ Leave, Bush Foreign Policy Takes Softer Line: Ms. Rice Changes Approach To Iran and North Korea; Democracy Still Key Goal; Cheney’s Waning Influence?” by Jay Solomon and Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 6 February 2006, p. A1.

All this article really says is that we ended up with the Kerry foreign policy without Kerry and the Democrats. The neocons created an overhang of serious length by invading Iraq with little-to-no desire or interest in executing the second-half effort with the vigor necessary to win the peace.

The great “shift” is nothing more than the operational/rotational tie-down created by Iraq. This denies the second Bush administration of many of the options favored by the neocons, who saw the writing on the wall and left the scene.

And thus the “neo-realists” led by Rice “rise” to the top by default. True, Rice is a better bureaucratic fighter than Powell was, but his standard was so low that anybody in that job would have scored higher simply by engaging in something other than full-time ass covering.

If a truly new foreign policy mindset was at work in the Bush administration, the neocon view of the world wouldn’t still be driving the budget/QDR process in the Pentagon, and we’d see that Pentagon back in the business of supporting diplomacy rather than diplomacy simply hiding our current military inadequacies.

Posted by at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

ARTICLE: “Military Budget Spares Weapons From Cutbacks,” by Jonathan Karp and Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 6 February 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Pentagon Adds Initiatives, Retains Old Ones,” by Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, 7 February 2006, p. A11.

ARTICLE: “Defense Plan Puts Off Cuts for Weapon Systems: Proposal Lifts Funding 4.8% To $439.3 Billion for 2007; But Doesn’t Fix ‘Mismatch,’” by Greg Jaffe and Jonathan Karp, Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. A17.

ARTICLE: “Bush Would Boost Defense, Security In Budget Plan: Social Programs Face Cuts In Proposal for Fiscal 2007; Worries Over Heating Bills,” by Deborah Solomon and John D. McKinnon, Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Broad Ripples Of Iraq War In Budgets Of 2 Agencies,” by David S. Cloud and Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 7 February 2006, p. A14.

ARTICLE: “One Small Step for Drones: Legendary ‘Skunk Works’ Helps Lockheed Martin Jump Into Unmanned-Plane Market,” by Jonathan Karp, Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. B1.

First, let me say that I do welcome all the many moves in the QDR toward the SysAdmin force, although I note, as many do, that the vast majority of these changes are operational and organizational, without touching force structure.

The QDR vision, then, is to have it all: to hold onto the past while trying to deal with the future.

And to me, that is unsustainable. So I argue as much in the blog.

I get an email today from a GS-15 from Joint Force Command who says either I make specific recommendations for how the Air Force and Navy can better support the ground forces in the Global War on Terrorism or my arguments against the strategic vision of the QDR are “amateurish.”

Fair enough, say I. I thought I was being clear enough, but let me be as explicit as possible here now.

I think the Navy and Air Force should reduce their force structure ambitions for the long term and accept the notion that funding should be shifted from their services to the Army and Marines to accommodate their rising manpower and current equipment costs. I think you can take basically every new platform requirement enunciated by both services and cut them in half, filling in by continuing to buy current technologies rather than upgrading them in these new platforms. I would then shift those acquisition savings to the Marines and the Army to allow them to plus-up their end strength and treat them better by shortening their overseas deployments (historically, the Navy has preferred to send out its ships for 6-month deployments, so why not the same for soldiers and Marines, instead of year-long affairs?).

In doing this, I would be accepting greater future risk from a “rising China” threat in order to maintain my country’s ability to manage the world in the near and mid-term, believing, as I do, that I am far more likely to obviate any Chinese threat in this manner rather than sub-optimizing my GWOT effort and keeping my powder dry for a China that I outspend, when supplements are included, roughly 10 to 1.

When I make a better world, I give China a better chance to develop peacefully, and I’m more likely to get China to help me in this effort with its own manpower. That is a win-win-win.

When I suboptimize my ground forces’ effort in the GWOT and keeps those much needed resources fenced off for the Big War crowd’s preferred enemy image of China, then I run my Marines and Army ragged (needlessly sacrificing far too many in the meantime), I get a worse world that’s far more likely to push the Chinese toward aggressive acts out of fear, and I deny myself China’s resources. To me, that is lose-lose-lose.

What my JFCOM critic wanted to hear was how I’d rearrange the Air Force and Navy budgets to give each a force structure better suited to supporting the GWOT effort. But again, what I want to do is stop pretending that each service deserves its sacred share no matter what. To me, that’s not strategic thinking, but simply pork-barrel politics and inter-service rivalries at their worst. Navy and Air Force officers and civilians are wrong to persist in this stagnant, unchanging assumption that equal shares somehow answer the strategic mail. Rumsfeld and company let them get away with it, because Cheney and Bush let the Pentagon get away with such overspending.

Worst of all, plenty of Pentagon officials, both civilian and military, know that this have-it-both-ways budget strategy is completely unsustainable—ESPECIALLY IN A LONG WAR.

We can sustain our effort in the GWOT, but we require some services to sacrifice so that others can get the job done.

If stating that simple truth makes me “amateurish,” I accept the charge with gratitude. But sometimes, simple problems meet simple solutions.

Posted by at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

ARTICLE: “Pentagon Widens Program To Foil Bombings In Iraq: Spending Will Be Tripled; C.I.A. and F.B.I. Aid Push to Stem Rising Toll—Technology Hurried,” by Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 6 February 2006, p. A1.

OP-CHART: “31 Days in Iraq,” by Adriana Lins De Albuquerque and Alicia Cheng, New York Times, 6 February 2006, p. A27.

It is heartening to see the Pentagon move harder on IEDs. If we had lost a bunch of aircraft or any ships, frankly, the resulting sound and fury out of the building, not to mention Congress, would have been totally out of proportion. But lose a Marine or soldier day after day after day for months on end? That gets up the “tripled” effort three years into the occupation.

I am less impressed by the NYT’s constant efforts to chart the Iraq insurgency’s impact in Iraq. We are told that over 800 people died in Iraq in that time period. All the icons on this huge chart are displayed for emotional effect, because graphically speaking, it’s almost impossible to get any other impression than that there’s simply a lot of them and they come from all over Iraq (not true, but the icons are artfully arranged to fill the space all around the map, when in reality they come overwhelmingly from the Sunni triangle).

Here’s my preferred chart: a bar chart that shows 4k dead each month in Iraq for years on end across the 1990s as our collective sanctions killed, on average according to the UN, 50k kids and elderly each year; then the totals dropping to below 1k per month since we toppled Saddam, giving, on average, more than 3k Iraqis a chance for a better life each month.

But that would be an unfair chart, focusing as it would on the long term. We don’t want to think long term in this Long War, now do we?

Posted by at 9:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: “Behind the Urgent Nuclear Diplomacy: A Sense That Iranians Will Get the Bomb; ‘Sooner or later, it’s going to happen,’ says one senior American official,” by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 6 February 2006, p. A10.

ARTICLE: “Invoking Islam’s Heritage, Iranians Chafe at ‘Oppression’ by the West: From cartoons to the nuclear impasse, a sense of victimization,” by Michael Slackman, New York Times, 6 February 2006, p. A10.

ARTICLE: “Iran Keeps Door Open to Talks, Oversight of Its Nuclear Program,” by David Crawford, Wall Street Journal, 6 February 2006, p. A4.

OP-ED: “3 Myths About the Iran Conflict,” by Mel Levine, Alex Turkeltaub and Alex Gorbansky, Washington Post, 7 February 2006, p. A21.

OP-ED: “The Promise of Liberty: The ballot is not infallible, but it has broken the Arab pact with tyranny,” by Fouad Ajami, Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. A26.

ARTICLE: “U.S. Firms See Nuclear Pact as Door to India: Critics Fear Easing Rules Would Weaken Nonproliferation Agreement,” by Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. A4.

In my Feb 2005 Esquire piece, I basically said that Iran was getting the bomb no matter what, so the real question was, What are we going to get in return?

To many, that came off as “giving Iran the bomb!” Yes, as if we can decide such things at will. Did we “give” Pakistan, or India, or Israel, or North Korea the bomb? Or did they all just make the decision and we had to live with the consequences because we weren’t willing or able to stop that movement?

Same thing is happening with Iran, and the Bush Administration is coming to that realization. As one official put it, “Look, the Pakistanis and the North Koreans got there, and they didn’t have Iran’s money or the engineering expertise. Sooner or later, it’s going to happen. Our job is to make sure it’s later.”

That’s it? That’s our job? That’s our strategy? Our vision?

Here’s the key point: “Iran’s leaders have already noted that four other countries that the United States said should never become nuclear powers—Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea—have all made the leap and are now, with the exception of North Korea, largely accepted as members of the nuclear club.”

So the real issue remains: How to make Iran an acceptable member of the club?

Of course, not everyone sees it that way. John McCain seems ready to bomb today, which pretty much cancels him out in my mind as the next president of the United States because it reminds me, yet again, that his specialty is letting his anger rule his judgment, a skill set he puts on display with dubious regularity.

Meanwhile, Iran keeps almost shutting the door but then always leaving just open enough to signal that it’s looking not so much for a way out, but a way in. Iran wants its security guaranteed, in much the same way Pakistan’s is guaranteed, despite being the home for Osama bin Laden. Unbelievable? Letting some government that obviously allows terrorism and terrorists to flourish within its borders have nukes? Even after it’s sold them recklessly? How can America abide by this? Where are John McCain’s bombs for Pakistan?

Hmm. Probably shouldn’t get him started.

Nixon will go to Tehran, because when he does, we’ll get what we want.

Sanctions are not the answer and never will be. All they do is deprive the weak and marginal in the targeted society while further empowering the entrenched elite and often enriching them beyond all reason. Think of all the success we had with sanctions in Iraq, and then wonder why we’d ever go down that pathway again.

Ah, but what mess do we get ourselves into when we encourage democracy in the region?

Here I turn to the always intelligent Ajami:

It was not historical naivete that had given birth to the Bush administration’s campaign for democracy in Arab lands. In truth, it was cruel necessity, for the campaign was born of the terrors of 9/11. America had made a bargain with Arab autocracies, and the bargain had failed. It was young men reared in schools and prisons in the very shadow of these Arab autocracies who came America’s way on 9/11. We had been told that it was either the autocracies or the furies of terror. We were awakened to the terrible recognition that the autocracies and the terror were twins, that the rulers in Arab lands were sly men who disguised the furies of their people onto foreign lands and peoples.

This had been the truth that President Bush underscored in his landmark speech to the National Endowment for Democracy on Nov. 6, 2003, proclaiming this prudent Wilsonianism in Arab lands: “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place for stagnation, resentment and violence for export.” Nothing in Palestine, nothing that has thus far played out in Iraq, and scant little of what happened in other Arab lands, negates the truth at the heart of this push for democratic reform. The “realists” tell us that this is all doomed, that the laws of gravity in the region will prevail, that autocracy, deeply ingrained in the Arab-Muslim lands, is sure to carry the day. Modern liberalism has joined this smug realism, and driven by an animus toward the American leader waging this campaign for liberty, now assert the built-in authoritarianism of Arab society.

My only addition to this brilliant analysis is to say that Bush’s definitions of freedom and liberty need to be based first and foremost in economics. Yes to all progress in politics, but democracy without development is a recipe for long-term failure.

But points taken: this Big Banger’s faith is somewhat restored by the growing realization within the Bush administration that the military option is simply not there on Iran.

Posted by at 9:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

ARTICLE: “Middle Class Drives India: Local-Level Bureaucrats Help Steer Country’s Economic Growth,” by John Larkin, Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. A6.

The rise of middle classes in both India and China is changing world history, by creating fewer babies, by the accompanying urbanization, by the demands created for domestic service and consumer economies-within-economies, and most of all by the general sense of social entitlements that comes with earning a good living, paying taxes, and expecting something in return. This sense of entitlement is suitably selfish. It gets expressed in the following way: “I work hard. I produce value and wealth. I pay my way. And I expect certain problems to simply be taken care of.”

These demanding middle class types want governments, and by that I mean local governments, to provide certain things, like infrastructure, transportation, networks, public safety, etc. They have stuff to protect and they want it protected. They work hard and they want that effort, and the time it represents, respected. They have created efficiency and order and they expect nothing less from their local governments.

Middle class types are unreasonable compared to the poor, because they expect so much , and because they can’t buy their way out of collective problems on an individual basis—like the rich. They need decent and honest local governments, and they’re willing to not just pay for them, but agitate for them, not in the streets but in meeting rooms and conference rooms and hearing rooms.

This story is a simple one, but a profound one: about local Indian bureaucrats who dramatically upgraded local bus networks because the growing middle class simply demanded such improvements. This is serious “freedom from …” kind of stuff, and the same thing is happening in China.

And it’s changing world history.

Posted by at 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OP-ED: “Prophetic Provocation,” by Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 7 February 2006, p. A21.

OP-ED: “Tolerance Toward Intolerance,” by Thomas Kleine-Brockoff, Washington Post, 7 February 2006, p. A21.

Got several emails pointing out how Christianity is regularly abused in the media and protests remain peaceful. Got several emails pointing out many Muslims the world over routinely sit on their hands when their own co-religionists commit some of the most heinous acts of terrorism, only to go postal (oops, another population slandered!) over a few cartoons in the Jylands Posten (same paper that profiled my talk in Copenhagen last year).

And these are all good arguments, as are the ones offered in these two op-eds, both of which are very intelligently written.

Robinson’s main point: the cartoons were purposefully inflammatory, but the response was purposefully over-the-top, and both actions indicate populations that feel quite pissed off and provoked beyond reason. And frankly, both sides are valid in feeling that, so fine, let’s talk it out.

And that’s Kleine-Brockoff’s point, he an employee of Die Zeit (where the original PNM article was reprinted): no sense in hiding the image that’s become an excuse for violence. Better to get it out in the open. I mean, it was gross and sick to see pictures of all those bodies and jumpers on 9/11, but what is the choice? To hide this reality so as to avoid talking about it? After all, if it’s okay and good to publish the Abu Ghraib pictures ad nauseum then it must be good to re-publish the cartoons, right?

Yes, by publishing such cartoons, European newspapers offended Muslims who’ve chosen to live in their lands. But when you choose to live in a secular democracy, do you not choose to abide by its dominant rule set? Should the goal of Europeans be to carve out a space for Muslims to be Muslims living as though they had never left the Middle East?

Upshot for me? I guess I care less about the provocation of the act than I do what comes next. Forcing debate, to me, is always good. Getting it out in the open, to me, is always good. But the key here is, what comes next?

There’s no question that Europeans need to find a social, economic and political space for Muslims in their societies. They either do this or decline mightily in coming decades. This is the kind of problem that you either rush toward its solution or scarier scenarios tend to rush toward you.

In the end, the cartoons end up being a very good thing, depending on what comes next.

Posted by at 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

TABLE: “Composite Super Bowl Records,” USA Today, 6 February 2006, p. 5C.

The Steelers get their long-awaited “one for the thumb,” and when Paul Tagliabue, commissioner of the NFL, gives the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the owner Dan Rooney, he congratulates the franchise on joining the Cowboys and 49ers as being the only NFL teams to win five Super Bowls.

Yes, yes, NFL history begins in January 1967, and nothing before that matters in terms of NFL championships.

Green Bay is 12-2 in NFL championships, and that’s all the Super Bowl is, despite all the hype. In the end, it’s just the NFL championship.

The Chicago Bears have 10 NFL championships, but are just 1-0 in Super Bowls. San Francisco never appeared in an NFL championship game prior to its Super Bowl appearances. Pittsburgh and Dallas never won any NFL championships prior to the Super Bowls. Green Bay won nine of them BEFORE the Super Bowls, and three Super Bowls since they began. Hell, Green Bay won six in the 1960s alone and six before Lombardi even showed up.

This is all NFL history, which began in 1920, with two teams surviving continuously since then: the Bears and the Giants. The Packers are the only team that has continuously survived since 1921. The Steelers, the 49ers, and the Cowboys all showed up several decades later, and they’ve all done well in recent decades, but they do not collectively define the NFL’s history.

Here endeth the lesson.

Posted by at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The latest issue of Esquire features Tom's newest article, 'The Monks of War'. It will be available on the newsstand or you can access it on the net if you subscribe to KeepMedia. See the reference there at top left? 'Iraq, Three Years Later: What We've Done, What We've Learned'. The excerpt/teaser from KeepMedia:

The Monks of War

If official Washington has trouble learning from its mistakes, the generals fighting the war in Iraq have no such luxury. And there are many lessons to learn.

By Thomas P. M. Barnett | Mar 1, 2006

Of all the lessons he's learned in this war, the most important one to marine lieutenant general James Mattis is this: winning this war is mostly about not losing friends along the way.

In the run-up to the invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, General Mattis was charged with setting up an air base in Pakistan to make the movement of marines into the theater possible. To clear the way for the airstrip, he flew to Islamabad and sat down with the Pakistani joint headquarters staff, a meeting that was mostly taken up with a litany of offenses the Americans had committed against the Pakistanis. "It started with the shoot-down of Francis Gary Powers, who flew out of Peshawar, and goes on about how many times our country has screwed theirs," says Mattis.

"Finally, after three hours, I said, 'I surrender. I am going to Afghanistan. Now, are you going to help me or not?'

"I said, 'I want to bring the ships in next to the beach. I want to land stuff across the beach. I have an airstrip nearby where I can fly stuff in and out. I want an intermediate ...

Posted by at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

There have been 23 months of "Foreign Affairs" bestseller lists, and my two books have appeared on 15 of them (11 for PNM and now 4 for BFA). No single author (as opposed to the 9/11 Commission authors, who sit atop the list at 17 appearances when both editions are counted) has appeared more than I have over that almost two-year time period. The only double-digit authors are Diamond (13), Fishman (12) and Friedman (10). Clearly, any of those books can easily catch me when BFA fades, and clearly, it's a bit unfair to count my two books against their singles, but I guess I won't be too ashamed about being so prolific!

Of course, none of this success should indicate that "Foreign Affairs" should ever dare to review either book. The Establishment knows best, I am sure.

I drop two spots this month, from 8th to 10th, but with four big new books breaking in ahead of me, that still feels pretty good.

Here's the list for February 2006:

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 FEBRUARY 1, 2006

1) The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (1st last month, 10 months on list)

2) State of War by James Risen (new/1)

3) The Assassins' Gate by George Packer (3rd/4)

4) My Year in Iraq by L. Paul Bremer (new/1)

5) The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis (new/1)

6) The Osama Bin Laden I Know by Peter L. Bergen (new/1)

7) Postwar by Tony Judt (4th/4)

8) Imperial Grunts by Robert D. Kaplan (6th/5)

9) China, Inc. by Ted C. Fishman (7th/12)

10) Blueprint for Action by Thomas P. M. Barnett (8th/4)

11) Collapse by Jared Diamond (2nd/13)

12) The Great War for Civilisation by Robert Fisk (5th/3)

13) 9/11 Commission Report by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (9th/17)

14) The Case for Goliath by Michael Mandelbaum (new/1)

15) Future Jihad by Walid Phares (12th/3).

The bestseller list is published monthly by Foreign Affairs magazine. Rankings are based on national sales at Barnes & Noble stores and Barnes & Noble.com in January 2006.

Posted by at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: “Rumsfeld Offers Strategies for Current War: Pentagon to Release 20-Year Plan Today,” by Josh White and Scott Tyson, Washington Post, 3 February 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “$120 Billion More Is Sought For Military in War Zones,” by David S. Cloud, New York Times, 3 February 2006, p. A12.

ARTICLE: “Another $120B sought for wars: Rebuilding is extra; more requests likely,” by Richard Wolf, USA Today, 3 February 2006, p. 1A.

ARTICLE: “Army Pledges No Cutbacks in National Guard: Recruiting Shortfalls Led To Proposed Reductions,” Washington Post, 3 February 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Abizaid Credited With Popularizing the Term ‘Long War,’” by Bradley Graham and Josh White, Washington Post, 3 February 2006, p. A8.

My opinion of the QDR is that, like all before it, it’s a snapshot in time of the correlation of forces within the Defense Department. I see a Big Peace force on the rise in the Army and Marines, who seem themselves in a Long War where they’ll be forced to win most of the time “non-kinetically.” I see a Big War force that’s holding on in the Navy and Air Force solely because, unless forced to, Cold Warrior Don Rumsfeld will both “transform” in the right direction but still try to love all his children equally.

Rumsfeld’s strategy works only in a world where the White House says anything goes budget-wise because we’re “in a war.” But that won’t last, so the Big War force will lose ground to the Ground Pounders come the next administration, no matter who wins. You can’t blow off such massive debt for the long haul, because the rest of the world (especially the Chinese) won’t pay for it forever.

The rest of the world wants a Long Peace and wants that Big Peace force funded.

So, for now, “A’s” all around with a huge “F” for sustainability. It is unsustainable to buy a Big War force in a Small War world. It is unsustainable to expect the Chinese to pay for a Big War force directed primarily against them. It is unsustainable to deny ourselves the aid of major allies, to include China most of all (that body shop of a military). It is unsustainable not to do a better job gaining acceptance of our new security rule sets in this Long War because we’re so highhanded and arrogant in our application.

Bush sets the right course. He just does it a way that’s completely unsustainable, and to me, in the end, that’s bad grand strategy. Bush begins the Long War but he and his crew need to exit stage right before we can get seriously prepared to win it.

The Army is serious about moving in this direction, as is Special Operations Command and the Marines. For now, because the White House indulges them, neither the Air Force or the Navy has gotten with the program. When the Navy brags how its huge destroyers are justified because they can also insert SEALs, you know strategic logic has left the building.

So while Rumsfeld may choose to love all his children (i.e., the services) equally, given the complete lack of fiscal responsibility from above (still want to have a “CEO government”?), the having-it-all approach of this QDR is exactly NOT what the strategic doctor ordered, because it is so incredibly unsustainable. Amazingly, the QDR fails most profoundly in that which it was exactly designed to achieve: the art of the long view.

My prediction?

Army and Marines will continue to lead, providing the best generals, the best strategists, the best trainers and doctrinal entrepreneurs. These two services, along with SOCOM, will produce the bulk of the best and brightest in coming years. These generals will become the great movers and shakers.

Much of this moving and shaking will center first and foremost on training and doctrine, and over time this operational accumulation of reality will overshadow the dreams of the Air Force and Navy for a future force that’s only useful in futures worth avoiding. Acquisition will change most slowly, but over time those expensive and poorly justified programs of record will have fewer and fewer operational experiences, field manuals, scenarios, etc. to point at, connect with, or generally engage.

So celebrate while you can, Big War crowd, because this was your last great gasp. Too many Marines and soldiers will die in the meantime, but that’s what happens when you choose machines over men, Big War over the Big Peace, Leviathan over SysAdmin, and “communist” China over China our inevitable strategic partner.

You can’t deal with the future unless you let go of the past. We have three more years of this mindset, but then it’s gone.

Posted by at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

OP-ED: “Muslim Radicals In Power,” by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 3 February 2006, p. A18.

ARTICLE: “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood May Be Model for Islam’s Political Adaptation,” by Daniel Williams, Washington Post, 3 February 2006, p. A14.

Very interesting piece by the routinely impressive Ignatius, who has mastered that careful style of floating the provocative without seeming preachy. Here he challenges us to consider exactly what it means to see radical Muslims reach power by citing the adaptations of Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon. Not pretty, and sure as hell not always to our liking, but clearly an adaptation. As one Lebanese Shiite leader of Hezbollah points out, the great reason why so many radical Muslims have hated America over the years has been our support for dictatorships in the region, so Bush’s push for democratization can bring about serious change in that situation, but only if we’re willing to accept what that democratization yields, which will be Islamist states.

As I wrote in BFA, expecting anything other than Islamists states in the region is simply silly, so if Bush’s push for democratization softens Muslim anger and gets rids of dictators over time, that’s a doubleplusgood worth fighting and dying for.

Remember: a lot of people fighting for their rights are “terrorists” right up until they assume power. Is the key for us always saying no to SoAndSo? Or is it getting rid of transnational terrorism?

A lot of experts inside the Beltway expect Egypt to undergo significant unrest in coming years, with the Muslim Brotherhood as the rising democratic challenge to Mubarek’s long dictatorship. Amazing, but check out how the Brotherhood is winning hearts and minds, and ask yourself: Will their inevitable rise to power do more to connect average Egyptians to the world at large than has been achieved by decades of “emergency rule” by Mubarek?

I know “Bush lied, thousands died” is the current judgment of many Americans, but I really believe that history will look very kindly upon Bush for this bold stroke. A lot of presidents before him promised movement in the region and accomplished nothing, but Bush may well go down in history as the guy who changed it all.

Posted by at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OP-ED: “Old or New Mexico--Voters Will Choose in July,” by Mary Anastasia O’Grady, Wall Street Journal, 3 February 2006, p. A13.

Nothing to add on this one except that I found it an nifty piece of self-education. Mary Anastasia O’Grady can grate now and then, but she is consistently strong and provocative.

Posted by at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “Temperatures Rise Over Cartoons Mocking Muhammad: European publishers seem stuck in a valley of culture difference,” by Craig S. Smith and Ian Fisher, New York Times 3 February 2006, p. A3.

The Danes did something stupid when they published cartoons depicting Muhammad, because they knew full well that any such depictions are inherently offensive to Muslims. Claiming equal treatment with other religions is nonsense. It’s a different line in Islam than it is in Christianity. The line for Christians would be more like depicting Jesus Christ as Mary Magdalene’s lover (a favorite over the years): artistic freedom to some, but patently offensive to others.

Reprinting the cartoons as some sort of solidarity statement was equally goofy, because it just pours gasoline on a fire.

Coming after the French riots and the European governments’ growing awareness of the rising alienation among ghettoized Muslim populations across the continent, this is just rubbing salt in wounds. “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke” is an excellent bar room rejoinder, but it’s no way to encourage assimilation and the toleration of diversity in a civilization that’s frankly dying within because it does both so poorly.

I mean, you see the Europeans shooting themselves in the feet on this one and you just have to laugh out loud at this slew of books over the past year predicting how Europe is going to lead the world as the next great superpower. Good God! Could reality and rhetoric be more separated?

All the Europeans do by this sort of insensitivity is simply raise the price they will ultimately pay in making their countries open and welcoming to Muslims.

And if you’re going to tell me that Europe won’t need those Muslims, don’t bother. Europe either makes this happen or recedes into the backseat of history, where, quite frankly, that sort of boneheadedness belongs.

Posted by at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

ARTICLE: “Why U.S. Wages Diplomacy With Defiant Iran: Strike on Nuclear Sites Could Derail Reformers, Trigger Broad Retaliation,” by Carla Anne Robbins and Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 3 February 2006, p. A4.

ARTICLE: “Hurdles Await U.S. Bid for Sanctions Against Iran: Compromise, Interpretations Cloud Agreement for Reports On Tehran’s Nuclear Efforts,” by Marc Champion, Neil King Jr., and David Crawford, Wall Street Journal, 1 February 2006, p. A6.

EDITORIAL: “An ‘Intolerable’ Threat: What a world with an Iranian nuclear weapon would look like,” Wall Street Journal, 3 February 2006, p. A12.

ARTICLE: “Senators grill intelligence chief about surveillance: Negroponte says it’s ‘probably true’ that N. Korea has nukes,” by John Diamond, USA Today, 3 February 2006, p. 4A.

Greg Jaffe’s piece with Carla Robbins is a tremendous explanation of the reasons why the Bush Administration, while talking plenty tough, has actually taken a fairly reasoned and low-key approach to Iran.

They argue that it would be easy to lay facilities to rubble, but that Iran’s distribution strategy means that impact would be minimal in terms of actually setting back their efforts (hence the argument of some that the only quick successful strike would necessarily be a nuclear one).

But the main reason why the administration wisely lays off is the fear of blowback from a population (Shiite) that frankly hasn’t been the bulk of our problem yet in the region, so why add them to the battle against the exclusively Sunni-based Salafi jihadist movement?

That’s the fear, but the hope is not small either. State and the White House are smart enough to know that there are substantial reformist elements and a rather restive, largely pro-American population that’s not worth losing.

Clearly, our inability to master the second-halves in both Afghanistan (where we do better than people realize) and Iraq (pretty tough slog still) is the underlying cause of our inability to threaten Iran with much beyond the lightning strikes. So if we’re going to keep the Big Bang rolling in the time remaining in this administration, we’ll have to do it by coopting Iran, not invading it.

So radical when I wrote it a year ago, but looking more and more like the only logical play for us. It’s so logical, in fact, that Bush is willing to suffer the criticism from all sides that he’s not being “tough enough.”

Fortunately, or unfortunately, our sanctions, however arranged, won’t have much impact, so the long-term squeeze on Iran yields us only one significant positive: a longer conversation with Europe, Russia, China and (hopefully) India on what we collectively want the Middle East to look like in coming years and decades.

“Intolerable” to the WSJ, but the board is blowing smoke on this one, because they’re ignoring the sheer realities of how tied down our ground forces are right now.

Actually, the WSJ editorial shoots itself in the foot, by quoting Simon Jenkins, editor of the Times of London: “I would sleep happier if there were no Iranian bomb. But a swamp of hypocrisy separates me from overly protesting it. Iran is a proud country that sits between nuclear Pakistan and India to its east, a nuclear Russia to its north and a nuclear Israel to its West… How can we say such a country has ‘no right’ to nuclear defense?”

Ouch!

But clearly, a country that supports terrorism outside its borders can’t be trusted with the bomb?

Double ouch, as only India might be easily excluded from that list.

Meanwhile, new Director of National Intelligence says North Korea probably already has the nukes.

I mean, Iran will always dream of one thing first: Iran’s continued survival in a world where it has existed for thousands of years.

But North Korea? You know Kim fears the inevitable: his country will disappear. It will disappear like South Vietnam, the lesser Yemen (can’t remember), and East Germany. It will not survive because it is a relic that’s lived beyond its time.

That regime and that leader truly has nothing to lose by going out with a bang.

And that’s why Kim needs to go.

Posted by at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: "Bush's Latest Energy Solution, Like its Forebearers, Faces Hurdles," by John J. Fialka and Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, 2 February 2006, p. A1.

It's Tom Friedman's latest sound-bite ploy, and it's totally nonsense. But someone with his media power says it, it can have a lot of impact.

Friedman says that when Americans use oil, we really fund global terrorism, in addition to funding the war to stop it.

He's wrong on both counts.

The reality is, if America can't float it's sovereign debt, then we can't fund the Defense Department in this war at a level that keeps us active overseas. Who buys that debt? It gets bought by old security allies (like the Europeans) and heavy trade partners (like Japan and China, both of whom now hold close to $1 trillion in U.S. debt, making them the leaders by far). These countries fund our Global War on Terrorism because they have neither the will nor the wallet to make it happen on their own, so they outsource this essential global function to the Americans. This is why it's important that we make them happy with how we conduct it. No happy, no funding.

Americans also do not fund the terrorist side in this war by using oil. Let's remember some key facts here.

First, oil is about 40 percent of our energy consumption.

Of that 40%, we import about 60%, meaning imported oil accounts for about 25 percent of our total energy use.

How much of that imported oil supports terrorism?

The vast bulk of our imports come from the following countries: Canada (#1), UK (#10), Russia (9), Mexico (2), Venezuela (4), Nigeria (5), and Angola (8). These countries, none of which can be described as funders of radical Salafi jihadists, account for 37% of our oil consumption. Three Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Algeria) collectively now account for 12% of our oil consumption. That's a whopping 5% of our total energy consumption. Let's posit, just for the sake of argument, that 5% of that money is spent on promoting radical Islamic ideals harmful to global stability, and that 5% of that 5% might actually make it in the hands of terrorists who would use it to harm Americans and their interests in this world. Now we're down to 1/100th of one percent of U.S. energy spending somehow being used against us, and even that figure probably overstates reality several fold.

Then realize that energy spending is only a fraction of the U.S. economy.

Then compare that calculation to the amount of economic connectivity America had with other enemies in other wars throughout history and tell me that somehow this situation is profound or ironic or sad or hypocritical.

And then tell me that our only reasonable answer is to launch some "man to the moon" like effort to recast our energy profile.

Our economic and political-military interaction with the outside world is a profoundly complex thing, deserving of seriously ambitious attempts at explanation, visioneering, and grand strategizing.

And guess what? Journalists aren't the answer, though they provide a lot of good questions. Outsourcing strategy to people whose main skills come in describing current affairs and critiquing current responses is a mistake, because what you will get, time and time again, are simplistic answers like this.

Plenty of op-ed columnists do this well, taking their analysis right up to the point of advocacy but not pretending that they're offering comprehensive grand strategy upon which major policy turns should be based, much less major government interventions into the private sector (how come we so often advocate huge socialist answers to the problems we encounter because our form of capitalism is being so damn successfull in spreading itself around the planet?).

My advice: you want to be a strategic thinker, then lay off the junk food. Friedman's a brilliant describer of our complex world, and when he sticks to that amazing skill he's a huge help in promoting understanding, probably doing more to educate Americans about globalization than any other thinker in this age. But please, no swallowing this Kool-Aid.

Posted by at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

ARTICLE: “Goldman Sachs Rediscovers Russia: A Race for Underwriting Business,” by Heather Timmons, New York Times, 3 February 2006, p. C3.

Last Economist listed Russia as experiencing the greatest percentage uptick in foreign direct investment right now among top emerging markets.

And as this article points out, Russia is not only aggressively courting foreign investments, Russian companies, “buoyed by high oil and gas prices, are expected to engage in acquisitions this year and will be looking for help from big Western banks.”

I know, I know. The “loss” of a democracy that was never there, and some serious grabbing for power by the state in the natural resources sector, but so long as Russia remains open for money, connectivity with the outside world improves. That, coupled with a lot of social connectivity (Russians come and go as they please and they excel in many global sectors, especially sports), means Russia stays in the Core for now.

Ah, but they have seemingly so many conditions for their partnership on security issues. Yes they do, but the synching up of those requirements with those of the Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Europeans, Americans, Brazilians, etc. is the process of building the next generation of security regimes for the Core as a whole. It’s happening, slowly but surely, over Iran and North Korea. Won’t end up looking like our preferred vision across the dial, but if done well, the threat of major wars recedes into history—gone for good.

Remember that when you want to get all jacked up about this “increasingly dangerous world” that strikes so many as more dangerous than the Cold War. If you can’t get past that myth then you can’t see the world for what it is today, and what it will become tomorrow.

Posted by at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “Two Women’s Magazines Shift Focus to ‘Millennials’: The search is on for serious-minded female readers in their 20’s,” by Julie Bosman, New York Times, 3 February 2006, p. C3.

I just like to note signs that generational waves are breaking into new demographic territory, like spotting all the Spanish programming for the 0-5 age group. Here we’re talking about the Echo Boomers (my preferred phrase, since Millennials is a bit too Y2K/kookish for me) catching the attention of the women’s mags that target the twentysomethings.

As always, we are told that the Echo Boomers are dramatically different from the slackers of Gen X. Instead of not caring much, this generation is described as serious and caring a whole lot about the larger world outside the U.S. As the head of Marie Claire(!) put it: “I think what we strive to do every month editorially is address the needs of affluent urban women who do not want to live their lives with a blind eye to the world.”

Hmmm. Sounds good. Every little bit helps.

Posted by at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've been your webmaster for two weeks now and I thought I'd give y'all a little report from my standpoint.

Comments
Comments are going very well. We reached 150 (published) comments last night. The person with the most comments is... myself. But that doesn't really count since it's literally my job, so the honor should really go to TM Lutas. Thanks, TM for all of your thoughtful comments and content. (Not to mention the fact that his comments add much more to the conversation than my more 'social' comments.)

When I originally opened comments up, Bill L asked me to report in a couple of weeks on how many commenters I've had to ban. The answer is: no one who's not a spam-bot. So thanks, everyone for playing nice. We've had some disagreements, but that's obviously part of worthwhile dialogue. In fact, we could stand to have more civil disagreements.

Amazon Connect
Tom's Plog launched at Amazon Connect this week. The way I understand it, if you've purchased PNM or BFA from Amazon, you'll get Tom's Plog posts on your Amazon home page by default. Otherwise you have to change your settings to get them automatically. Beyond that, you have to view Tom's books or profile to find his Plog. I've been crossposting one post per day over there with links back here. 106 people have taken the trouble to vote on whether or not they like the post. That's more interaction with the material (albeit on a low level), than I figured we'd get.

Statistics
We average more than 6300 sessions per day with an average of over 9 minutes. That's pretty sticky, from what I've seen in the weblogging world.

Posted by at 1:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

DATELINE: In the Shire, Indy, 4 February 2004

This week went by in a blur. I mean it. I'm having trouble piecing together all the places Steve DeAngelis and I rushed to, all the people we met in those places, all the possibilities revealed and the opportunities posed. How Steve keeps it all straight in his head is simply amazing. I'm so here and now, but Steve's got like this unreal filing cabinet in his brain where he's always got reminders going off, saying we need to get back to this subject, this person, this company, this something. He is the perfect match for my career right now, because the parade is nonstop and I simply need somebody to see all the connections and business opportunities, which Steve manages on top of his own stunning agenda of non-stop activity.

I feel like I left on Tuesday. I had one night in Yardley, then a blur of a day in the office in Enterra. We do a stop on the ride down to DC, meeting with a manufacturing client in Delaware. Then a great after-dinner meeting with Frank Akers (another blur-meister, I don't think Frank sleeps in the same bed two nights in a row).

Thursday was a morning meeting in Maryland with a big corporation, and then lunch and another meeting with a key player in the intell community, then an intense meeting of the senior players Steve has put together for Enterra Solutions's Washington Operations Center (a frighteningly competent and focused group--excluding my vague, visionary self, of course). Then I bag it for some room service and blogging while Steve heads out for another brain-busting evening strategy meeting with yet another company that wants some relationship with Enterra in the best way. Steve and I got to talk over that latest opportunity during a midnight fire drill at our hotel, which was fun.

Friday we're up, strategizing over breakfast coffee, then I head over to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where I speak to a large audience in their lower-level conference room. It is one of the best briefs I've ever delivered, and probably one of the funniest. Hard to explain, but the audience just brought it out. Too bad C-SPAN passed, cause Evan Bayh's bit was a poor substitute (I caught him on the network that night, taped at CSIS apparently earlier in the day), staring at his text and pretending that calling everyone in sight our enemy/threat constitutes a "tough but smart" national security strategy. Smart, my man, is getting what you want, not simply labeling more countries deserving of our "tough stance." Seriously, I am getting more and more worried about the candidates for president in 2008, on both sides, because it's like some idiotic race--already!--to declare the world to be going to hell in a hand-basket and thereby deserving of all sorts of "tougher" U.S. foreign policy. Outdoing Bush is not improving Bush. Please, let's get that straight.

After the CSIS talk, I went out to lunch with the head of International Resources Group, a very connected, very experienced, and very wise man by the name of Asif Shaikh, who's been a friend and regular mentor for roughly a decade. Asif's a Pakistani by birth, a real citizen of the world, and probably one of the smartest American patriots I've ever known (he likes to remind me he's been an American longer than I have--ha!). He's a serious compass for me and it was great to see him. Asif's talked me into keynoting a foreign aid conference on Valentine's Day. Not just anyone can put me at that much risk with my spouse, but for Asif, I will do it.

Then I take the Metro out the orange line and catch a cab to the National Conference Center (the old Xerox training center). I am whisked into a big auditorium, hook up, and then, after a quick head call, I'm signing books non-stop for 20 minutes for a long line of naval medical officers before giving a 1:40 talk and doing 20 Q&A. Then back for another 20 minutes of rapid-fire signings where my hand gets kind of shaky near the end.

Then I'm in my dorm-like room at the conference center (I swear, they filmed "Andromeda Strain" here) by 2130, which was weird, because my travel nights almost never end with me in a room before 10pm. I'm blitzed, so I check email: a couple of interesting offers to speak in China and perhaps join some new think tank that will bring together Chinese and Western strategists. I speak to Steve about it on the phone before going to bed. We agree it's cool and intriguing, but where would I be going if I'm building those types of global bridges while advising people across the national security community? I mean, the paranoia on China right now is profound, so what are my logical choices?

Fly back today through Dulles, editing my first column for the Knoxville News Sentinel on the flight. Then drive straight to Terre Haute for some kidsitting to let my spouse and older kids see a movie. I end up napping with my two-year-old, which, quite frankly, was damn cool. I'm going to start considering this whole going comatose in the mid-afternoon thing more often, cause it's quite refreshing.

Then we caravan everybody back to Indy, where the Families with Children from China have a Chinese New Year's celebration in the famous Indy Children's Museum. The whole place is rented out for the night, so we have a blast. Still, a weird way to end a day that begins in VA. Felt like I was moving all day, save for the nap, and the all-day snow storm here added to my sense of discombobulation.

I fear this whole year is going to be like this week, but I am ready for it. This is going to be a year of making a lot of things happen--for real.

Posted by at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Because why should e-consumers have all the fun?

Tom's Favorite books (with links over there to the Amazon pages for these books, if you're interested in buying them)

• Best book on globalization: Martin Wolf, Why Globalization Works
• Best book on terror networks: Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks
• Best book on Fourth Generation Warfare: Thomas Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
• Best book on ideology: Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies
• Best book on economic development: Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
• Best book on the environment: Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
• Best book on the future: Bjorn Lomborg, editor, Global Crises, Global Solutions

Tom's interests (as posted over there):

Big reader of newspapers and magazines of all sorts, but favorites are New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Washington Post, The Economist and Variety.

Listening? Favorites from youth are Talking Heads, Psychedelic Furs, B-52s and Kraftwerk. Currents are Coldplay, Beck, Radiohead and U2 (actually, they hail from my youth too!).

"Watch" includes Family Guy, Simpsons, Sopranos and Sleeper Cell, plus I'm a big movie watcher, with favorite directors Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, Steven Soderberg, Hiyao Miyazaki, Quentin Tarantino and the guy who did "Love Actually."

Hobbies now are all defined by kids, so it's anime, comics, videogames, golf, running, and playgrounds in general. Oh, and anything having to do with Sponge Bob Square Pants (I'm a huge fan of Plankton and his plans to "rule the world").

Posted by at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Dateline: still in that nice hotel, Washington DC, 2 February 2006

Whirlwind days of meetings at Steve DeAngelis' side. If I can't rule the world through my vision, I'm making a decent run at conquering it at the big man's side. Enterra Solutions is so hot right now, our biggest problem is figuring out how to grow fast enough--whether it's in the commercial sector or the federal one. And the development-in-the-box concept is generating its own particular buzz with a network of thinkers and do-ers that I'm most excited to be associated with right now--to include Steve especially.

All this and word that Jack McElroy, editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel really liked my first column and will run it Sunday after next, softens the blow that comes with the news that my PR people yet again failed to get C-SPAN excited enough to cover a pair of DC briefs I'll be giving tomorrow (one for CSIS and one for the Navy). Just can't figure it out, but honestly, it was Brian Lamb who made it last time, and I think we just didn't make the connection to him this time, so no amount of jawboning with the C-SPAN execs is going to change that.

Eventually, I think I'll get another brief on TV, but frankly, the possibility of getting the column more widely read is far better. Nothing like building up the built-in audience, and a couple dozen columns each year, plus the usual 2-3 in Esquire and the continued high frequency with the Leigh Bureau's speaking gigs, and I should be in good shape for Vol. III with somebody.

That is, if Enterra doesn't capture all my attention this year with this rocket-ride of a trajectory.

I mean, it's all fun and games to write about globalization and technology, but even cooler to actually pull some of it off.

And if I haven't thanked all those readers enough who sent me all those emails when I was forced out by the Naval War College exactly a year ago this weekend, all those people who said I'd be so much better off and so much happier and more charged and challenged by all the opportunities that awaited me, then let me do so again tonight.

If I'm still at the college, then there's no BFA, no contributing editor at Esquire, no regular newspaper column, no Leigh Bureau, no Steve DeAngelis, no Enterra Solutions and whatever that monster eventually grows into, no Frank Akers and Oak Ridge National Lab gig, no gig at Howard Baker at U. Tenn (go Vols!), no move to Indy, no new house, no crappy apart--damn! Knew I was pushing my luck.

Posted by at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

ARTICLE: “Israeli troops, settlers battle as homes are torn down: Operation to demolish illegal dwellings is part of obligations under U.S.-backed peace plan,” by Matthew Gutman, USA Today, 2 February 2006, p. 6A.

OP-ED: “Squaring Islam With Democracy,” by Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, 2 February 2006, p. A21.

ARTICLE: “Arabs join in pressuring Hamas over Israel,” by Associated Press, International Herald Tribune, 1 February 2006, p. 4.

ARTICLE: “Both Fatah and Hamas Leaders Urge West to Continue Aid to Palestinians,” by Greg Myre, New York Times, 31 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Hamas Faces Crisis if Funding Dries Up,” by Karby Leggett, Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2006, p. A7.

OP-ED: “Declining option on Iran,” by H.D.S. Greenway, International Herald Tribune, 1 February 2006, p. 7.

ARTICLE: “Sanctions Threat Prompts Big Firms To Cut Iran Ties,” by Glenn R. Simpson and John R. Wilke, Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2006, p. A3.

ARTICLE: “A rainbow of revolutions: If outsiders make such a mess of getting rid of despots, why not encourage the locals to have a go? The Economist, 21 January 2006, p. 23.

This has been my complaint with the Bush administration since it toppled Saddam: their goal was to set things in motion in the Middle East, which they did. But then the White House basically has done nothing to keep things rolling or take advantage of new opportunities as they emerged.

Instead, it’s been a rather unimaginative affair after the bold step of toppling Saddam. Much of that was due to the bungling of the occupation period and then the long hard slog out of that valley since the spring of 2004.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the push for democracy, but absent a larger effort to push economic connectivity all you end up doing is providing more immediate venues for the anger of the disconnected masses to spring forth.

Is that so bad? Frankly, it beats the alternative of rigid ruling elites keeping a lid on all that so the only way it can escape is through terrorism directed abroad or against foreigners within the region. And letting them gain rule? Again, will Hamas be any more ineffective at leading than Fatah was, and if Hamas persists in its nonsense vis-à-vis Israel, all it will end up achieving is speeding up Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank and securing itself behind that Berlin Wall it’s building. In the end, all that really happens is that we break stalemates and get to the logical ending faster.

And guess what? That was the whole purpose of the Big Bang in the first place.

Hoagland has it right. Now is not the time for timidity. It’s the time to reach out and work the fluid political scenes we’re being confronted with:

Bush should not abandon his push for Middle Eastern democracy because radicals draw temporary advantage from it. But he needs to reexamine where that push is taking him. This means forging a new Western strategy to engage with and support moderate forms of political Islam, rather than assuming that democratic elections and other reforms will automatically separate religion and politics and devalue the former in favor of the latter.

Honestly, I don’t think that’s Bush’s assumption, nor Cheney’s. I think they’re more than comfortable watching the Big Bang continue to stir things up. I just think they need to get into the game, instead of just sitting on the sidelines or repeating the WMD dynamic with Iran like it’s the only pathway we know.

And frankly, dangling that reduction of the “oil addiction,” like the U.S. Government ‘s going to engineer that soon in one of those mythical “Manhattan Projects” that op-ed columnists are always calling for, is just plain pandering to the polls in the short term.

Hamas coming to power doesn’t reduce our options, it increases them. But only if we actually see the fluidity introduced to the strategic environment and don’t just recoil back in horror.

Hamas is being pressured by other Arab regimes over its intransigent stance with Israel. With Fatah in power, we’ve got those same regimes basically sitting on their hands. With Hamas, we’ve got them agitating in the right direction.

Hamas is not stupid. Without Western aid, their vaunted social welfare efforts with the masses evaporate. I mean, as long as that rat bastard thief Arafat was in power, we were simply putting money in his pocket. Now, we actually have some leverage. Question is, will Rice’s State do anything about that, or just stick with their admission that no one saw it coming?

Meanwhile, on Iran, we’ve played out our sanctions threat for the mean time, as we couldn’t get China and Russia to send the issue packing to the UN Security Council.

Rest assured, many pundits and experts will be undeterred, and make all sorts of loose talk about bombing away Iran’s nuclear effort, but the vast majority have no idea what they’re talking about.

Smart money says if we hope to really take out Iran’s capacity, we’ll have to go nuclear or simply satisfy ourselves with conventionals that do damage but don’t finish the job.

As for finishing the job a la Iraq, we simply don’t have the rotational capacity right now, and we won’t for the rest of the Bush administration. That die is cast.

So sure, we can scare off Western firms from any business with Iran, but don’t expect the Chinese and Russians and Indians to leave the scene. There’s simply too much at stake economically for all three.

Disconnecting Iran with this slow strangle might seem to reduce our options, but again, Hoagland’s point applies across the board. I mean, isn’t it amazing that when Iran has a reformist president, we know that’s complete BS because the Ayatollah really runs everything, and yet when the hardliner’s in the presidency, somehow all of a sudden he’s running everything?

If that were so, you’d have to explain why the Ayatollah selected Rafsanjani, the moderate loser in the presidential election, to head the Expediency Council that mediates disputes between the parliament, the mullahs and—now—the government too. You’d have to explain why Ahmadinejad’s first several picks for oil minister were rejected by the parliament. Yes, you’d have to explain away a lot of things like that.

Then again, you’d have to notice them first.

Peaceful revolutions from within are always going to be more frequent than America-led violent overthrows from outside. It’s been true for decades now, and it will be true for decades into the future.

But that only makes our choices for military interventions more important. Pick the right place for the Big Bang, and then follow-up aggressively on the aftermath.

Score one for Bush on Saddam, but score zero ever since.

And to me, that’s what makes the 2k+ dead since “mission accomplished” more than hard to take.

Gotta have those happy endings. Without them, no sacrifices make sense.

Posted by at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

ARTICLE: “Bush’s Latest Energy Solution, Like Its Forebears, Faces Hurdles: Fuel from ‘Cellulosic Ethanol’ Is Costly, Hard to Dispense; Broad Political Support; Enthusiasm from Detroit,” by John J. Fialka and Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, 2 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Making an Oil Pledge: Declaration of Undependence Rests on New Energy Sources,” by Justin Blum, Washington Post, 2 February 2006, p. D1.

ARTICLE: “Climbing back: The economies of what used to be called the ‘third world’ are regaining their ancient pre-eminence,” The Economist, 21 January 2006, p. 69.

OP-ED: “The Nation of the Future: Thriving in a more competitive world,” by David Brooks, New York Times, 2 February 2006, p. A25.

Pundits and politicians alike rush to support the nonsense goal of energy independence, because, in their ignorance and fear, they believe that if the slim economic connectivity that the Middle East currently has with the outside world is suddenly severed, then regimes in the region would be forced to—and could actually handle—the popular pain that would be unleashed then.

It is a nutty argument. Instead of speeding to the logical conclusion of regional change through efforts like Iraq, we’d simply be delaying that process for a while, and then largely transferring the pain over here though the flow of people escaping the region at far higher rates.

And if you don’t think that would be the case, then please make your case for how the region moves toward democracy more rapidly thanks to the collapse of their economies. And if you care to make that case, I’d like to introduce you to the continent of Africa.

The push for new transportation energies is coming—from the East. The rising oil demand there, coupled with the unsustainable rates of pollution, will be the driver.

Watch Chinese firms Geely, Cherry, Great Wall and others blow into the U.S. auto market in coming years. Their first invasion will be all about price. But the second wave, engineered through strategic alliances with Honda, Toyota, Ford and GM, will be all about technology. This is the conduit by which fuel cells will come to America—not through any fear-mongering calls for “Manhattan Projects.”

I’m with David Brooks, a consistent favorite of mine: we tend to underestimate our capacity for technological innovation. And no, that innovation won’t be about the manufacturing giants of the 20th century, but about the high-tech giants of the 21st. So yes to next generations of energy, materials, biogenetics, and so on, but please, let’s stop pretending that preserving yesterday’s manufacturing is somehow addressing our future.

Posted by at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OP-ED: “A genocide that America can help to stop: Bolton should schedule a meeting of the Security Council in Darfur,” by Kenneth H. Bacon, International Herald Tribune, 1 February 2006, p. 6.

OP-ED: “A no-flight zone is key,” by Kurt Bassuener, International Herald Tribune, 1 February 2006, p. 6.

Amazing how so many politicians, some with presidential ambitions, seem so bold about bombing Iran, but can we get a couple to talk about dropping a few on Sudan?

The idea of a no-fly-zone is not nutty whatsoever. That’s all we did for the Kurds for 12 years and it turned out to be the most successful U.S. nation-building story since WWII.

We’re sitting on top of the world, so to speak, holding the chair of the UN Security Council for a month. Since the Chinese and Russians won’t let us do anything with Iran in February, how about letting John Bolton, a man who hates tyranny, go all nutty on Khartoum’s war-criminal regime?

The no-fly-zone concept is a reasonable course, one we might actually talk the Chinese into accepting, since it doesn’t topple the regime they’re so cozy with and would actually increase the security of their oil interests there. Meanwhile, we make it that much harder for the janjaweed to do their thing. I mean, hey, it ain’t the Air Force that’s being run ragged in the southwest Asia. Done right, this is a low-to-no casualty affair (Remember how many U.S. servicemen and women died running the no-fly-zones over Iraq all those years? Of course you don’t. That wasn’t an operation where we lost people.).

The African Union has no tactical air power, and never will. The U.S. shows up as hub of that SysAdmin peacekeeping effort or it never happens--never. Want all that blood on your hands, or do we never count sins of omission?

Would you like to be unabashedly proud of American foreign policy again? The SysAdmin is your man.

Posted by at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

ARTICLE: “China cancels the release of ‘Geisha,’” by David Barboza, International Herald Tribune, 1 February 2006, p. 11.

You laugh, but Beijing is fearful of the passions unleashed among the young: “… Chinese officials had expressed concern that the public could react strongly to a movie featuring China’s best-known actresses as geishas, which many Chinese consider to be prostitutes.”

Of course, don’t expect the same officials to get off their asses and stop the street sales of bootleg DVD copies of the same movie. And if that doesn’t rock your boat, “many Chinese Web sites are now offering illegal free downloads of the movie with Chinese subtitles.”

Yes, yes, the Chinese Communist Party rules the web all right.

Rising connectivity, as it brings peoples together who haven't been so connected in the past, will always spike feelings of racism, nationalism, etc., especially among the young--something I cover in BFA.

But you know what? They grow up, and they get over it.

Posted by at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: “DNA rewrites history for African-Americans: Tests to determine lineage can reveal complex ancestries,” by Richard Willing, USA Today, 2 February 2006, p. 4A.

The widespread use of DNA testing to reveal lost genealogy among African-Americans is just the tip of the iceberg. This stuff will spread globally, and will be used all over the dial to solve all sorts of mysteries in coming years and decades.

And when it comes big time to China, my family may well find itself meeting long unknown members of our then-extended family.

Many girls given up for adoption in China are second daughters. The rule is: you have a female first child and you can try again for a son, at no penalty. What happens if you have a second daughter is, either choose to live with financial penalties, which are prohibitive for rural poor (if caught or prosecuted—and not all are), or give her up for adoption and keep trying for that son.

Do the math and it’s possible that someday I may not just meet my adopted daughter’s parents, but perhaps her sister and brother.

How would these people fit in our lives? Hard to say from today’s perspective, but I honestly believe it’s a conundrum that many parents of Chinese daughters will someday face—thanks to DNA testing.

Me? I will never bet against the human instinct for connectivity. I will expect to happen, and I will welcome its expression. Anything else is simply fighting the inevitable.

Posted by at 9:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting bit on the myths and failures and hubris of any attempt at grand strategy by Fabius Maximus (yes, I know it's hard to take people seriously when they insist on using pseudonyms and silly ones at that) at Defense and the National Interest.

Find it here: http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/fabius_myth_of_grand_strategy.htm.

It's serious writing whose only flaw is this assumption I run into time and time again: if it can't be done within a couple of years, then your grand strategy is obviously a failure. Notice his analysis of Iraq (the people essentially reject our system). I simply don't see that in Iraq. In fact, I think it's quite amazing how well they accept our system. The notion that accepting it will magically lead to no conflict is a bit naive. I wonder if Fabius remembers how nasty and unruly our system was for . . . oh . . . the first hundred years or so.

Grand strategy isn't about this fiscal quarter, or administration, or even this decade. It's about decades of pursuing the world you define as worth creating. It will not be linear, and every difficulty does not signal complete failure, just a tougher row to hoe.

And yeah, it does scare me that so many people you'd expect to think long term get so scared so quickly by the difficulty of actually doing what they preach--I.e., think grand strategic and then stick to your guns.

And then there is this weird assumption of the 4GWers at DNI in particular: if you name a nation as being in the Gap, then clearly you assume we must invade! Talk about your close reading. Yes, I do predict US invasions of Brazil and Argentina (Oops Fabius, I actually put those states in the Core! But no bother, we'll invade those too.).

There is something strangely literal about people at DNI. It's a bit like arguing with bible thumpers ("If it's in the book, then by God...).

How these criticisms kill the utility of grand strategy or mine in particular is beyond me. Do we agree that the states we worry about in this Global War on Terror are geographically concentrated in what I call the Gap? Do we want to shrink that Gap over time? Do we see a role in this for the military? Must we change the military to adapt itself better for this role? Will it be hard? But will we not also learn from mistakes over time and get better?

Do you have any alternative to this world view other than to say this is hard and our first effort was quite difficult?

The Fourth Generation Warfare types argue themselves out of the debate with this approach, and what they offer as long-term strategy would require an America that few Americans would care to live in, because it would look a bit too much like Israel. That's fine for the Martin van Creveld addicts, but for the rest of us, we'd like America to still look like America at the end of this process and yes! We actually do believe that America is a model for the world, one that will be filtered and reshaped the planet over just like Japan shaped it for Singapore shaped it for South Korea shaped it for China shaped it for Vietnam shaped it for ...

But you know what Fabius? It won't happen by Tuesday!

You know, it's not serious navigation aid to sit in the back seat whining, "Are we there yet?" all the time.

These guys need to look beyond their blood-and-guts view of history. They're missing all the good stuff.

Here's my "bold" prediction on Iraq: Every good 4GWer knows that the average insurgency takes a decent decade to kill. We went into Iraq, allowed one to flourish, dealt with it badly, and now we're getting a whole lot smarter (my upcoming article in March issue of Esquire. By 2010, Iraq won't have an insurgency worth mentioning. We'll clock in on this one at about 7 years, or three ahead of schedule.

But guess what? Many experts will call this an absolute failure, even many 4GWers, and they'll be completely wrongheaded to do so.

It's a sad thing when those who seem most open to long-term strategizing are the first to declare surrender every time the going gets tough.

Posted by at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Buddy Michale Lotus blogs this segment from Bush's State of the Union last night (seems I am always flying somewhere during these big speeches!):

"Democracies in the Middle East will not look like our own, because they will reflect the traditions of their own citizens. Yet liberty is the future of every nation in the Middle East, because liberty is the right and hope of all humanity. The same is true of Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people. The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon – and that must come to an end. The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions – and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons. America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats. And tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our Nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran."

This strikes me as a big signal in a big speech: We'll push your leadership on the nukes, and you Iranians do what you can on the inside. To me, that's taking regime change by force off the table for now, and I think that's Bush listening to his military and understanding that we don't have the ability, with the current tie-down of assets elsewhere, to make that a credible threat.

I am thinking more and more that Bush is done, major intervention-wise, for his presidency. Question now is whether Iran or North Korea dominate a 2008 election debate. The "winner" is probably teed-up next for some sort of big push leading toward military action. I would prefer that target to be North Korea, and not Iran, for a lot of reasons I've already stated in this blog.

If I were advising Democrats or Republicans, I would say: pick North Korea and kill two birds with one stone (bad Kim and win over China in strategic alliance in the process). On Iran, I think you risk creating two monsters (Iran you can't manage and China turned against you in the region). I would take the win-win over the lose-lose. And hopefully smart candidates, thinking about how they would actually rule and not just how they'd get elected, would see things similarly.

Read Lotus on this on Chicago Boyz: http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/003898.html. As always, he is smart as a whip. His version of Fourth-Generation War I would actually wage.

UPDATE: Lotus continues in this vein.

Posted by at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Dateline: Hotel, Yardley PA, 31 January 2006

Back on the road. Sad to say that I miss my family when I travel, but not the maddening confines of that apartment.

No escape to Nona Vonne's this weekend. I dream of her pool. I can't wait for spring.

Then again, we get into the new house in spring, so imagining spring is imaging life as we knew it--only bigger and better.

Today full of all sorts of chores one does when one leaves at night for the rest of the week.

Example: running over some examples of maps and their depictions of oceans to our faux painter. I'm having my office done up like how world maps diplays oceans. Should be cool.

Gave another interview today to a guy writing for Competitive Intelligence magazine. He wanted to talk solely about the parts in PNM that described my career trajectory. Interesting questions. I'll get the transcript from him because I think he forced me to articulate a lot of stuff I would seek to use in Vol. III, a book I think will be more fun to write than I or II--at least that's what Warren keeps telling me.

Then a long discussion with a fact checker from Popular Mechanics on that QDR piece, for which I gave a long interview to Noah Shachtman (not sure I remember how to spell his name). Looking forward to that one. Never expected to be quoted in that mag.

Rest of day spent ferrying kids to this or that appointment, lesson, playground, which reminds me to push my builder to order the delivery of the playset equipment for our yard. My dream is a simple one: never to have to visit a park playground ever again. That is what a big yard is for.

At end of day, break off from family and head to airport for commuter jet flight to Philly. On plane I finish up some work for Oak Ridge National Lab, completing my first full month of billing, which feels good for the Senior Managing Director. I always prided myself at the Naval War College for my ability to attract money for work and travel, so it feels good to be billing again. Carry your own weight and all that.

Looking forward to spending the day with Enterra tomorrow. Only time I was here before was when we sold the consulting LLC to Enterra. That time I came with two partners, now both gone. It almost feels like a job again, except for the other seven jobs I seem to have kept or picked up along the way (Baker Center at U Tenn, Oak Ridge gig, books, blog, trial columnist, Leigh Bureau speaking and Esquire). In many ways, it's amazing I don't travel more.

But Steve is the perfect boss for me right now: he knows when and how to use what I've created.

The rest, as they say, is synergy

Good boy tonight. Rode ex bike in hotel at 11pm. Planning on early morning repeat. No sense going through the road solitude if I'm not going to get the exercise.

Next hotel has fine pool, I am told. Can't wait.

Posted by at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)