Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Posted by at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SPECIAL REPORT: "Rethinking Iraq: The Way Forward," by Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, 6 November 2006, p. 26.

Sad to say, but we were always slated--by temperament and by tradition--to suffer some sub-optimal outcome in Iraq. Our first time out of any new box seems predetermined in that way.

The system just wasn't ready for it and didn't want to be ready for it, nor was the public. Bush & Co. compounded all those errors of bias by being consistently incompetent in operational execution, even as the military has adapted itself reasonably well and still suffers from fighting under the worst strategic circumstances.

Fareed's option is well presented here: reduce and redeploy our troops and force the Iraqis toward some deal.

What is missing most here is more discussion on Iran. Fareed says, talk to them but nothing more. He wants Kurdistan secured but mentions nothing in the way of deals with Iran on that or to gain its useful role in mentoring the Shiia population in Iraq. He also makes no argument on Iran's WMD pursuit.

So the argument is Iraq-centric to a fault, in my mind. Still, accepting that bias, which BTW kills virtually every peace plan we ever dream up for the region, Fareed's overall presentation here is more solid than most, so worth a good read.

Still, I long for the great article on making some effort toward a regional security agenda and accompanying forum that brings together all the region's players and concerned outside great powers. I honestly believe that's the cover we need to forge an acceptable outcome in Iraq.

But absent a stinging Democrat win next week, I feel such an overarching approach is highly unlikely from this administration. It won't really talk and it won't really deal. So we won't really succeed.

Wrote my column for the weekend today. It's titled, "United we stood, but divided we'll stand taller."

Posted by at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

DATELINE: on the kitchen island in Indy, 30 Oct 2006

When I had to drive home from Oak Ridge last Thursday in a one-way rental (flights canceled, so that's how my big China trip wound down), my night-time fatigue double vision (why I wear prisms on my glasses) got so bad I had to drive with one eye shut the whole way from Louisville.

That's about as scary as I care to drive.

So the next day I went to the eye doc's to pick up my glasses and the distance ones felt okay, but they struck me as being as weak as my current distance glasses (I actually still see close to 20/20, it's the misalignment of my eyes that haunts me as I get older, as my left eye is substantially higher, thus my distinctive head tilt). Meanwhile, the reading glasses totally freaked me out, because when I put them on, everything went super double vision. I simply couldn't believe the prescription was right, but it was the heavy prism correction I was promised, so I was confused.

Right on the spot I get a follow-on second appointment with the shop's owner (I had seen the other eye doc the previous time) to check me out a second time.

So today I went and had the prism confirmed on the reading glasses, to my amazement. The problem with the distance ones was that I needed the same strong prism correction there but didn't get them (how they got that confused, I don't know, because it makes sense you need the same alignment correction whether you're talking up close or distant).

Still, I was a bit taken aback, as that meant I somehow had to get used to these glasses that seemed to make my world go crazy visually.

Well, first thing we corrected the panoramic position of the lens so I looked through the middle of the lens (the usual correction for head shape), and then I wore the glasses for about 5 minutes. I was told this correction would take time to get used to at first, because I'd been self-correcting through eye strain for so long that I'd naturally fight having that done by the glasses themselves.

So I waited the five minutes, and amazingly, my close-up vision became incredibly clearer than it's ever been--stunning really.

The problem then becomes, what happens when I take my reading glasses off? Well, I'll need to put my distance glasses on, or relearn to squeeze my head like crazy to do the re-alignment physically myself.

In other words, the more I wear the stronger prisms for both distance and close, the more dependent on them I'll be, meaning the more I'll need to wear my glasses period, which, quite frankly, I don't do that much now (just for movies, driving, intense bouts of reading).

A sign of aging, for sure, but a bit intimidating to feel the dependency grow.

Still, wearing my reading glasses now is really quite stunning in terms of how different my head feels. I no longer have to squeeze it so to make everything focus. I can relax my skull all I want, including my usually aching right eye (I suspect much of my perceived sinus pain of the past decade or so was really eye strain). It's quite liberating really, but it also means I'll inevitably end up briefing and appearing places with glasses on, which will be weird, because most people don't know I wear glasses.

But the trade-off is just too good to turn down. I'll simply get addicted to the lack of strain and pain, plus I have new super-light distance glasses which don't even feel like you're wearing anything, so that will help with my usual disdain for them.

Still, humbling to join the ranks of those who basically see a very fuzzy world without glasses.

Then again, better to have lived long enough to suffer this problem.

Posted by at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

+ The Devil Wears Polo linked You can't access the intra-mural politics in Iran until you start the conversation and linked Epidemiology meets Dr. No.

+ ZenPundit linked My own personal 5GW dream and uses Tom's definition of system perturbations in today's exploration of super empowered individuals.

+ Dreaming 5GW used Tom's concept as a key idea in Sysadmin U.

+ 2006 Middle East Deployment linked Iraqi parliament votes to stop pretending it's going to be a unitary state.

+ Cal Poly MBA Trip links The normalization of China proceeds apace and A “responsible” China is a self-interested China.

Posted by at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Now on to the Halloween decorations...

And the Pack is cruising toward 3-4! Checking the sked, I believe 8-8 is a real possibility.

Posted by at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

TECHNOLOGY: "Military Repair Work Booms: 'Reset' Contractors Reap a Bonanza Amid Effect of Iraqi Conflict," by Jonathan Karp, Wall Street Journal, 23 October 2006, p. B8.

NATION & WORLD: "The Third Battlefront: Money; Wars and modernization force a stressed Army to fight for $25 billion more (The question now becomes how much money the Army will get--and who pays)," by Anna Mulrine, U.S. News & World Report, 30 October 2006, p. 42.

More than three years of operations in Iraq have strained budgets and resources, leaving the Army scrounging for money to develop a new generation of high-tech weapons. But for now it is flush with funds to patch up existing equipment...

Rumsfeld looks very bad letting Schoomaker go to Congress to ask for the $25 billion he hasn't been able to free up because he refuses to stop overfeeding the Leviathan while starving the SysAdmin.

I mean, this is exactly what his job is all about. By sending Schoomaker to plead, Rummy's basically saying, "I'm not up to this task. I don't know what to do. You guys free me from the burden of matching strategy to tactics budgetarily. Help me. I've fallen down conceptually in this Long War and I can't get up!"

Schoomaker wants 50k new soldiers, but they cost $100k to find, train and equip. And that just gets them in the game.

Meanwhile, we're begging the same Chinese this administration still holds out as the near-peer competitor excuse for continued high spending on the Leviathan to help us out on North Korea, Iran, Sudan, and wherever else we can't go because of the Iraq tie-down.

Strategic bankruptcy meets budgetary bankruptcy. Is this not clear evidence that the Bush post-presidency has long been in full swing? When a SECDEF basically abdicates his job?

Frankly, no matter how bad the Dems will be back in power on the Hill, it would be better for the troops, the country, the GOP and the world if Bush's administration was thoroughly repudiated in this election. Two more years of this stuff will simply cost way too much--in blood, in treasure, but most of all in strategic opportunity.

Posted by at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

ARTICLE: "Bill Ford Jr.: For Auto Makers, China is the New Frontier," by Gordon Fairclough, Wall Street Journal, 27 October 2006, p. B1.

ARTICLE: "Airbus Move to Build in China May Pose a Longer-Term Risk," by Daniel Michaels and Bruce Stanley, Wall Street Journal, 27 October 2006, p. A6.

EDITORIAL: "America drops, Asia shops: Thanks to the vigour of Asia's consumers, it is a good time for the American economy to slow," The Economist, 21 October 2006, p. 11.

And yet, it is likely to be the only sustainable victory there. A total capture couldn't work, because the CCP would simply lash back eventually, so better to capture some of a huge market than none.

Plus, as Ford points out here, getting in bed with the Chinese will put American firms more in tune with the tastes of Asia and--by extension--Europe. In cars, that means smaller and more fuel efficient.

So accessing China isn't just accessing labor or market, it's accessing the emerging dominant global design mindset. Get left behind and watch the world get very small for you.

Risky? You bet. But either you tolerate the risk or you guarantee yourself failure. Those 3 billion new capitalists will not be denied.

And thank God for them. Now we finally have a decent counterweight to the American consumer. Just in time given all the debt our "fiscal conservatives" have--yet again--built up a huge national deficit.

Posted by at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: "Sanctions Don't Dent North Korea-China Trade," by Jim Yardley, New York Times, 27 October 2006, p. A1.

THE WORLD: "Tension, Desperation: The China-North Korean Border," by Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, 22 October 2006, p. WK14.

LINK BY LINK: "The Internet Black Hole That Is North Korea," by Tom Zeller, Jr., New York Times, 23 October 2006, p. C3.

ARTICLE: "In '97, U.S. Panel Predicted a North Korea Collapse in 5 Years: Difficulties in gleaning intelligence from a closed society," by Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, 27 October 2006, p. A6.

There is a clear desire for this whole mess to go away, but in both capitals there is the dominant belief that it's more the other guy's duty than their own. China feels not yet up to it, whereas even the Cheney-Bush White House recognizes the need--ahem!--for "diplomacy."

This symmetrical perception of asymmetry is so commonplace throughout the Sino-American relationship right now, but officially, up on top, my sense is that the dialogue remains horribly laden with officialeze. Official positions abound, but little shared truth is discovered, and that's too bad, because all these circumstances (North Korea, Iran, Africa) should be the basis for building this strategic relationship up right now.

But perhaps just as well. Stuck with Hu and Wen on their side and Cheney and Bush on ours, we simply lack the talent to make this happen right now. But the questions remains, How bad can this opportunity cost grow over the next two years?

Meanwhile, China will fortify its border and prepare for the worst, which I told them is the best they can hope for given our approach and their inability to pick up the job for themselves (Kim's disposal at their hands seems beyond their imagination at this point, though no one shies from the discussion, which is telling in that we seem firmly in reel #1 of this film noir, where Barbara Stanwyck is just beginning to rope in Fred MacMurray for the nasty task ahead [or think "Body Heat" if that reference is too far back]).

If we do the slow squeeze, which I think we will and should do in the meantime, then Kim will suffer and survive, and that estimated 300k of refugees already in China will only continue to grow at a faster rate.

The more we squeeze, the more likely Kim will do something the Chinese simply can't stomach. At that point, either the Chinese and ROK invade, along with our stationed troops, and China has the refugee problem big time, or the Chinese wait for the U.S. to strike and if that happens, it will be a barrage (Cheney can't abide any comparison to weak-kneed Clinton and cruise missile strikes) that likewise sets off the big flow.

Either way, China gets it big flow, on top of whatever flow occurred slo-mo across the sanctions.

We've predicted the DPRK's collapse for a long time, but our intell community doesn't have a clue. We're the drunk who looks for his car keys under the street lamp instead of over near his car "because the light's better over here." North Korea is a real black hole. Either it will be filled by a reluctant ROK and a slightly less unrealistic PRC, or it will draw their forces in at the time of its choosing.

But one thing is for sure: so long as China refuses to take control and America simply can't, control of this situation has been handed over to Kim.

Posted by at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: "Retail's One-China Problem: Immense, Fragmented Market Poses Problems for Wal-Mart, Other Chains Seeking to Expand," by Mei Fong, Kate Linebaught and Gordon Fairclough, Wall Street Journal, 28 October 2006, p. B1.

OP-ED: "Chinese checks: A protectionist backlash in Beijing," by Harry Harding, Wall Street Journal, 24 October 2006, p. A18.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: "EU to Get Tougher on China Trade: Strategy Shift Aims to Quell Protectionist Sentiment, Strengthen Hand at Table," by John W. Miller, Wall Street Journal, 24 October 2006, p. A8.

WEEK IN REVIEW: "The Chinese Go After Corruption, Corruptly," by Jim Yardley, New York Times, 22 October 2006, p. WK3.

No wonder you need to bribe everybody and their brother to get anything done in China.

Also, no surprise that as China opens up to globalization, the protectionist backlash there will be both local and national, with Beijing incredibly desirous of making sure it's Chinese companies that ultimately unify the nation economically the way the party unified it politically.

But smart Harry Hardin puts it right: "China's economic nationalism is a marginal adjustment to, rather than a fundamental repudiation of, Beijing's broader embrace of globalization."

Simply put, the force overcomes the friction here. Rarely pretty, but good enough to deepen its status in the Core.

Naturally, the Old Core will constantly push China on this point, and the EU's role here is indicative of the sort of "regulatory superpower" role I see Europe assuming in coming years.

Internally, we can expect the CCP to continue to treat anti-corruption campaigns as more political sport than serious economic reform. The phrase, "some accounts [of corruption] seem out of Dickens" is very telling. That's exactly where China's political system stands in relation to its economic development, which is why "Deadwood" is the best American media presentation of capitalism in China today.

What will drive serious Chinese government reform will be a serious economic shock. When that shock inevitably comes, the question will be, Does the CCP strike outward politically in order to deflect its own guilt or does it move the pile forward internally?

For us, the question will already be decided by then--as in, Did we do enough to deny China that enemy image that we forced that fear inward toward productive change?

Either way, the tipping point is coming. China's slide on corruption cannot continue indefinitely. Eventually, the cost will simply outweigh the pain.

Posted by at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: "America's Next Top Pundit," by Jeffrey Zaslow, Wall Street Journal, 20 October 2006, p. W1.

The basic logic of the B-listers who are constantly pushing themselves on TV shows, the vast majority of which are likewise crap, is that the harsher the opinion, and the more pithily put forward, the better the chance for reappearances.

All circus and no bread.

Here's a great bit that sums up the piece completely:

Last year, Jason Alexander was on Howard Stern's show pitching a children's book he'd written. Ms. [Debbie and Ann Coulter-wannabe] Shlussel called in and berated the "Seinfeld" actor for supporting OneVoice, a group that advocates nonviolent conflict resolution in the Middle East. Ms. Shlussel charged that the organization has ties to Hamas. Mr. Stern got laughs saying he'd like to create a "Six Degrees of Separation" game based on her ability to connect any person to terrorists in six links or less.

After much arguing, and repeated impersonations of a raving Ms. Shlussel by Mr. Stern's sidekicks, Mr. Alexander lamented on air that he "came in to talk about a children's book and ended up being branded a terrorist."

Ms. Shlussel thought the segment made great theater. And she's thrilled that, even as a B-lister, she has the power to reach millions of people with information they're not hearing elsewhere.

One academic observer put it well. Wannabes feel the only way to succeed is to be an ideologue with no sense of self-doubt and "that there are only two positions in the world, yours and wrong."

Then there's the requisite quote from the CNN producer saying he's constantly searching the web for the "great American 'centrist pundit.'" Yes, I can see that one coming. That's why Glenn Beck has his own hour every night on Headline News.

After a recent talk someone in the audience told me how great it would be for me to go on Beck's show, and that it would make great theater to see the two of us together. A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the show asking me to go on the night before Pop!Tech, to talk about the Egypt piece I wrote in Esquire. I passed. I really don't want to have my vision reduced to "good theater."

That's not me being snobby. I am good theater. That's why I do so much public speaking. But you're just fodder on the vast majority of these shows, which are mostly just about making the host look good. Most of the time when I've had intermediaries arrange an appearance, the host knows nothing of your work and wants you to perform like some circus freak. Chris Matthews was my worst experience in this regard. I found his style so patently self-aggrandizing that I simply checked out of the segment. I just couldn't bring myself down to his level and it showed. The segment never ran, and I was supremely relieved. The experience just snapped something inside me, making me realize that this was not the way to go.

And that from a person who thinks as he speaks! Meaning, I normally always welcome a chance to talk, because that's how I develop my material first and foremost. But I simply walk away from most shows feeling dumber than before, and to someone who thinks like I do, that's a horrible sign that it's not for you.

That's why I limit myself now, turning down a lot more than I accept. I have to be asked on for something I've already argued, meaning its the argument and not just the "street meat" that they want. The host has to know who the hell I am and has to want me specifically for what I represent in terms of vision. Otherwise it's a waste of time.

My wife summed it well the last time I went on Larry Kudlow's show. She said, "You can really tell he likes having you on."

Does that mean I only go on shows where I'm liked? Yeah, for the most part. It's the same reason why I never ask to brief anyone, only going where they ask me. Life is too short to bang your skull against walls, and relishing that "fight" simply for fame... well, I just don't dislike myself that much that I need to pretend that fame will somehow fill the gap.

What I've learned with minor celebrity is that it's pretty much meaningless outside your immediate circle. And if its cost includes damaging your standing in that immediate circle, then it's completely worthless. And if your immediate circle lives off that crap, then you're completely screwed as a person to begin with, so I guess you might as well run with it to occupy your time before obscurity overtakes your sense of self-worth.

Truth be told, I watch almost no network news or news channel shows. I can just feel my IQ dropping, as I wrote in PNM, with each passing minute.

I rarely feel better after a TV appearance, but almost always feel smarter after being on the radio (for example, even with Larry, I like being on his radio show a lot more). It's got to move the pile for you, because if it isn't, you're not passing along material that people need anyway, so why bother?

In the end, I find that I rarely win any converts on TV, often on radio, and that I rarely miss when I get them live, in a theater or conference room. Since I get paid a lot for the latter and none for the former, it's a pretty easy choice. One pays the bills, makes me smarter, and wins converts. The other does none of the above--on average.

Scarcity still sells.

Posted by at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ARTICLE: "War in Sudan? Not Where the Oil Wealth Flows: Just 600 Miles From Darfur, BMWs, Flat TV's and Cafe Life," by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 24 October 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "China Hosts Africa Summit as West Watches Warily," by Shai Oster, Wall Street Journal, 24 October 2006, p. A8.

Please, save me from the insensitivity argument. I spent a month in Austria at the height of the genocide in Bosnia, and all the cafes were full there too. No one seemed too anguished about that incongruity either.

Absent the oil and real estate booms (related, of course), where is Sudan?

Remember, Sudan was Osama's hideout for a chunk of the 1990s. Before that, it was a wannabe client state for revolutionary Iran.

So now it's got the best of both worlds: genocide and FDI. And everyone wants to get down on the Chinese for the latter "facilitating" the former--which, of course, it does. But it also dampens the conflict, containing it from those who: 1) don't give a damn and 2) have no desire to intervene.

Ah, that would the West and the U.S. in particular.

Offends you, this argument? Please, take out an ad in the newspaper and call it a day. Better yet, push American corporations to boycott.

People don't want to hear this, but China's investment presence inside the Gap limits our liability there. The Chinese "unilaterally" engage in SysAdmin just like we unilaterally engage in Leviathan work. Each side limits the other's liability. We just don't recognize yet the symbiotic nature of this relationship.

China brags that it doesn't "foist" its models on anyone, but of course it does. By taking such a mercantilist approach to the Gap, it fosters pale versions of itself--bread before circuses, or economics before politics. But it does this so narrowly that the legacy of Chinese trade is wealth, but not development. Notice the two booms at work in Sudan: oil and real estate. Which of those two lasts? Which empowers Sudanese to any appreciable degree?

This is old-style dependencia, much like the security dependencies that the U.S. generates in places like Iraq, Israel and Egypt.

Our chocolate, China's peanut butter. We give each other some morals on things where they're missing: security for us, and economics for them.

Last week I told the Chinese in Beijing: soon they will come looking to kill and torture and drive off the Chinese in order to drive off globalization. The backlash is just beginning. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

And once we get past Cheney, we might yet again have an administration that realizes that on our side too.

Two pipers, neither gets paid. Neither finds true success either.

Posted by at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: "Egypt, Under Stress, Sees U.S. as Pain and Remedy: A plea to promote Palestinian statehood," by Michael Slackman, New York Times, 22 October 2006, p. A3.

And we're told that experts on Egypt see no serious future risk of regime collapse?

Sounds pretty pathetic and illusory to me. Meanwhile the vast majority of the 70 million population live in "deep poverty" and a local poli sci prof says "there is a feeling the ruling team does not have a good vision for dealing with the problems of the country." And we're told the military may or may not go along with Gamal as Hosni's genetic replacement, and that the government is upping its domestic repression as a means to "blunt the rising popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood."

Gamal's big vision breakthroughs? He wants nukes. He wants to be like the Chinese. Oh, and he may change the constitution so that it's okay for only one candidate to appear on the presidential banner, lest some MB candidate emerge.

And somehow a better Palestinian state would fix all this?

This is why planners in the Pentagon worry about Egypt, and that's why I wrote the "Country to Watch" piece in Esquire a bit back.

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

ARTICLE: "To Stop Dust Bowl, Mongolia Builds 'Great Wall' of Trees: Planting Project Aims to Quell Gobi Sandstorms; Critics Cite Threat From Salt," by Patrick Barta, Wall Street Journal, 24 October 2006, p. A1.

So now we're watching a network of funding sources come together to help Mongolia build a "great wall"of trees to stem the dust bowl effect, much like FDR's CCC did here in the States (you see those lines of pines all over the Midwest still). The UN and some other major donors have declined to participate, but Rotary Club chapters in Mongolia and South Korea are leading the charge.

For now, the effort seems puny and pathetic, underfunded and unlikely to succeed. Yet it's a sign of the sort of efforts we'll see time and time again in environmentally stressed Asia, which will become a center of gravity in global environmentalism--out of necessity.

Posted by at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: "We're Google. So Sue Us. For a Company on the Cutting Edge, It's Part of Doing Business," by Katie Hafner, New York Times, 23 October 2006, p. C1.

The real content worth stockpiling is intelligent content--something that does something, reports something, senses something, organizes something, determines something. In a super-connected world, it's the rules that are the most most important--and thus the most intelligent--content.

Google should be about creating real value and serious connectivity--in short, empowering people. Simply trolling the web for everything they think they can snatch and get away with ("We rely on the same safe harbor that YouTube relies on, so we're fairly familiar with the issues.") is not the strategic leadership they imagine it to be. Google should simply aim higher than YouTube. This is bottom feeding. It has too much money and too much talent to be defined by this effort.

Key words I get, but simply appropriating every book in history I don't get.

"Just do it" can't become "just steal it."

Posted by at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OP-ED: "Iranian Moolah," by Farouz Farzami, Wall Street Journal, 26 October 2006, p. A18.

This description reminds me so much of the summer I lived in Leningrad in 1985 (the summer of the great crackdown on vodka, which never bugged me, because I liked chatting up Russians while standing in line) and spent every night I could with the blackmarketer "Big Al" and his constant stream of customers. My big impression from all those nights: the populace had so effectively opted out of political life and simply made their own "house-arrest" style economic life na levo ("on the side," or literally, "on the left" in Russian) that it was like they lived in their own little universe of close friends, treasured objects, and media content from the West (everyone in Leningrad seemed to live on American VHS tapes dubbed by a screaming Finnish guy who did every voice the same--it was mesmerizingly bad!). Of course, the most treasured objects were forbidden books, which I brought in numbers with fake dust jackets.

The author of this piece is--natch!--a journalist who is "forbidden to publish in Iran" (Sound familiar? Everyone I knew in the Russian ex-pat community in the 1980s was a forbidden author. It was a modest accomplishment, which is what made it so sad.).

Great story. He talks of coming upon a special stand of imported American books (authorized by the mullahs, no doubt) in Tehran and notices one about cocktails. Then he launches in:

I live in a country where alcohol is officially banned, but where the art of home-made spirits has reached new heights. Sharing my astonishment about the cocktail book with some friends with better connections to the Islamist regime, they explained the government had a silent pact with the educated and affluent in Iran's big cities, who render politics unto Caesar, provided that Caesar keeps his nose out of their liquor cabinets.

In other words, the well-to-do Iranian drinks and reads and watches what he wishes. He does as he pleases behind the walls of his private mansions and villas. In return for his private comforts, the affluent Iranian is happy to sacrifice freedom of speech, most of his civil rights, and his freedom of association. The upper-middle class has been bought off by this pact, which makes a virtue of hypocrisy.

The accommodation runs both ways. A friend who had made a small fortune in the pharmaceutical business told me that recently the enforcers of Islamist law appeared on the roof of his condominium in the northwest Tehran suburb of Sharak-e-Qarb to seize all the satellite dishes. Every household received an order to attend a hearing of the revolutionary court, where the magistrate--typically a mullah--will levy fines. The fines help feed the friends of the courts, while for my wealthy pharmacist friend, erecting another satellite dish is as easy as refueling his car--and even the inconvenience of replacing the dish will not be necessary for long. Technology is more than up to the challenge posed by the morals police. "I have heard there is a state-of-the-art dish made of invisible fiberglass that I can install on the window pane of my apartment," my friend told me. "I'm going for it."

Many Iranians believe the occasional crackdowns are being organized by corrupt officials who secretly own interests in the new generation of satellite dishes. The confiscations just create markets for new products.

This guy describes the workarounds, but that's not a life, and no one trapped in that existence pretends it is.

But, of course, this rich guy is trapped by nothing. It's only the lower classes who really are disconnected from their desires. This rich pharmacist vacations 2-3 months abroad each year, putting him more in the category of the KGB general (who, frankly, never had it THAT good).

The saddest part here is that the rich guy expects the revolution will come only when the masses are disillusioned enough to take matters into their own hands.

Sounds to me like Iran's rich are about as cynical as the mullahs.

Still, the larger point is this: this is not robust authoritarianism. It's weak. It's flabby. It hypocritical to a fault. It's not going anywhere. It's not accomplishing anything.

In short, it's ripe.

Posted by at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A bigger definition of 'us,' a better nation at heart

Three years ago this week, my adopted daughter Vonne Mei was born deep in the interior of China. The very next morning she was left in a basket outside the gates of a provincial government building. Nine months following that fateful choice by her birth parents, Vonne Mei landed in Minnesota, my wife and I at her side, and immediately joined our United States.

As America celebrates its 300 millionth citizen - quite possibly an immigrant - let me tell you how we came to this life-changing decision. [read on]

Posted by at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

jrdano4 wrote in to say:

I was reading a college textbook: "Diversity Amid Globalization". I found your "Gap" map on p.111 of the text and there was no reference to you, only "military strategists." I don't know if it means anything, did you create the map with others?

Posted by at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Working with Knoxville News Sentinel, I've gotten an agreement set with Scripps Howard to distribute my KNS weekly column. That agreement was to be in place starting in early October, and as such, I had great hopes that either my "Dr. No" column of two weeks ago or last week's "China/North Korea" column would start appearing in Scripps network of 400 or so news outlets, but I've yet to find any examples of this happening, which depressed me some over the past two weeks.

Even so, my gut instinct was that something bureaucratic was holding things up.

So I ego surf today (getting the Steyn hit, for example) and come across the column "A journey worth taking" on the Scripps website under the commentary file. My submitted title was "A bigger definition of 'us,' a better nation at heart," which--quite frankly, wasn't so hot, so I like Scripps' title better (or maybe it was KNS'). The direct page link is http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/15166.

Google's hit dates it as 23 Oct, which is weird, because I didn't turn the piece in to KNS til the 24th. At Scripps, the date is 25 October, or yesterday.

Now, I'm hoping this appearance doesn't suggest that I can only crack Scripps when I do an Erma Bombeck/sensitive Tom column. If so, then expect me to note that the crab grass is always greener in the other yard.

But seriously, I expect to find out that this one was the first to appear because it just took this long to get all the ducks lined up with Scripps.

Now, here's what I don't know:

First, is this all there is in terms of Scripps distribution? Being posted on their web site? I know that's not the usual case, as the whole point is to fill newspaper pages. So I'm guessing that anytime Scripps distributes a column that it also posts them on its website. Maybe this will be the usual drill: my "weekend" column goes on Scripps and on this basis is made available to papers for printing at that point. At least that's my hope here.

Second, if Scripps is going to post like this, does that dilute the utility of KNS's printing its hard-copy version in the Saturday or Sunday edition? Or will we have to control the timing of our sharing of columns with Scripps to avoid premature publication in the future?

Either way, I see this as a neat step forward that I'll do my best to exploit on behalf of Oak Ridge and Enterra and my general role as thought leader.

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

Mark Steyn's book is excerpted by MacLeans under the title (The future belongs to Islam). It is worth reading because I think it gives you a very accurate sense of what Steyn's book is all about (America Alone: the end of the world as we know it).

I bump into the online article because in this excerpt he obliquely cites BFA, noting that I read Robert Kaplan--unlike he, apparently, because otherwise I assume he'd cite Kaplan directly. The cite on Kaplan is just the reference to the phrase "Injun country," which he dissects very narrowly in its historical context, noting that the Sioux never ravaged New York City (although, I might add, the Irish did when sufficiently provoked, a la "Gangs of New York"--but again, Steyn likes to use his imagery very narrowly, so pointing out stuff that like is meaningless here).

Since Steyn focuses on "them" coming here (actually, arguing only Europe instead of the West at large) instead of noting the far more profound global flow of "us" going there--in the form of globalization--he only describes Islam's potential for cultural invasion here while ignoring the powerful effect of the West's cultural penetration of the Middle East (where does he think all this nationalism/Islamism is coming from?).

So, Steyn's basic technique is much like a Lou Dobbs or a Pat Buchanon: anecdotes that scare, compounded with some today data extrapolated to tomorrow's frightening inevitabilities. This is a technique often used by fear-meisters, especially in the realm of the environment, and it betrays an "all things being equal" assumption that just never holds true in the real world. A good example of this was all the "population bomb" logic from my youth, which has simply fallen apart on a global level. Now we're getting a "clash of civilizations" version of that from Steyn with reference to Europe, which is apparently the center of his universe.

But here's some limits to this logic:

1) The simple extrapolation approach on population in Europe is unlikely to unfold, as time and time again we find that those baby-crazy immigrants simply don't maintain that fertility rate the longer they live in an advanced economy. Strangely enough, they become subject to all the same pressures on family that everybody else does. We hear this argument on Hispanics here in the States, except we already find that birth rates are dropping as Hispanics get more wealth and opportunity--go figure! Just like everybody else who's come to America in the past.

2) If the amazing did come true in Europe, making it unique in human history, then what would be the difference to global history? Answer is, not much. Either Europe gins up its demographic vitality through the effective integration of Muslims or "Eurabia" simply becomes an extension of the loser Middle East. Meanwhile, the rest of the world simply wouldn't hang around. It would move on. To some, the "end of the world," but to others who "know" more of the world than just Europe, no big deal. Not big for America, whose allies will lie in the East and South, not in Europe. Not big for the East or the South either.

3) But if it did come true in Europe, it would constitute no more than a strange migration of the problem set from the Middle East to Europe, because the Middle East isn't slated for rapid expansion as a population indefinitely. Indeed, the baby boom of the 1970s, associated with oil wealth in many instances, has ended already throughout the region. Weirdly enough, as globalization increasingly penetrates the region, fertility rates have dropped throughout the region, as Olivier Roy noted in Globalised Islam, a book I used plenty in BFA. If Steyn worries so much about aging Europe, I am plenty optimistic about a middle-aging Middle East, where today's youth bulge becomes tomorrow's middle age spread. So if Steyn expects a neverending flow of population from the Islamic Middle East and North Africa to fuel his invasive species fears in Europe, that's simply not in the cards. As for the processing of that youth bulge in the Middle East, two outcomes are possible: 1) lotsa violence as politics and economics remain unchanged and 2) politics and economics in the region change a lot. If the former occurs, the Middle East will be as disconnected from globalization's Core as central Africa is today. With some pain, the world will simply learn to get along without Middle Eastern oil, as the tumult there will push the Core down the hydrocarbon chain even faster than it will proceed on its own natural course, which has been quite steady throughout human history. If the latter occurs, then just watch the flow of humanity from the Middle East to Europe dry up. Impossible? We've seen that occur on a state-by-state basis plenty with Latinos here in the States over the past 40 years. If it hadn't, then America would have been overrun by Puerto Ricans a long time ago, based on logical extrapolations you could have made in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. But no matter.

4) Steyn assumes that the invasive Muslims will simply pervert democracy in Europe, rather than avail themselves of democracy's avenues to press their economic and political demands. In effect, Steyn's making the same glum assumptions about market-democracies that Karl Marx once did about a different proletariat, yielding the same sort of decisive assumptions that will be just as powerfully disproven as his ultimately were.

5) Of course, Steyn's (and others') counters to that last argument is to say that the intense religious-cultural coherence of Islam will transcend all those changes that tamed such past threats--like say, the immigrant Irish in America who were described in all the same ways then (in the mid-1800s) as Muslims are described by Steyn today in Europe. But do we see that coherence throughout the Middle East? Hardly. When given the chance, Muslims throughout the region seem to move into an acceptance of modernity that looks suspiciously like that of every other culture on the planet. Can it be done en masse? Check out East Asian Muslims. Can it be done in Western democracies? Check out America. But these are unfair arguments to someone as fixated on Europe as Steyn, as he displays the same fatalism on culture and civilization as Osama and others do regarding the Middle East. Neither's gloom is justified. Globalization won't warp the Middle East beyond all recognition, although it will kill Osama's nostalgic dream of turning back the clock there to a time he finds more comforting. And the Islamization of Europe won't warp Europe beyond all recognition, although it will kill Steyn's nostaglic dreams for turning back the clock there to a time he finds more comforting.

There is much intellectual danger in Steyn's form of reasoning, which I believe betrays the course of his life education and experiences. Coming from the rather narrow and self-absorbed world of theater, he really doesn't have the chops to do good horizontal linkaging of trends and driving forces associated with globalization, and that's too bad, because if he understood his biases better, his arguments could be a lot more powerful, although they'd also be far less frightening, and since he works his gallows humor in this vein, I guess that's just a choice he prefers making. But this is not seriously systematic thinking about the future. Steyn's futurism betrays the usual myopic problem of the pessimists going all the way back to Malthus and Marx: they simply refuse to acknowledge the enduring ingenuity of mankind to change and adapt, plus they ignore the obvious power of markets to take advantage of both good and bad, treating all churn as simply an opportunity for new sales of new goods and services to new customers. In short, the "bad" that Steyn describes for Europe will not occur in some vacuum. Wherever Europe fails in this respect, others will exploit, and I'm not just talking about his invasive Muslims. I'm talking about the rest of this flat world.

Posted by at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Pop!Tech brief will be available online within a few weeks, according to Andrew Zolli

Andrew sent me an email thanking me for speaking this year, and promised the talk would be posted online as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, here's a nice shot from the cheap seats posted by Bruce Sterling on his Wired blog. Thanks to reader Larry Y for making us aware of Bruce's nice photo.

Posted by at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You know all those emails you get from real people where it's obvious some spammer has hijacked the email address of the person and has sent you some crap and the subject line has some two-word phrase (typically a modifier-adjective combo)?

Well, those things drive me nuts.

Why?

I actually get a lot of legit emails from people with subject lines like "disturbing flippant," "outrageously self-absorbed," and "brilliantly insightful." So I have to check through all this stuff, always looking for the "Tom/Dr. Barnett" at the top of the email that says it's a real email (whether I care for the message is--of course--a different thing!).

I dunno, maybe this approach drives other people nuts too, or maybe I just get a lot of over-the-top email so I'm particularly vulnerable to this latest trend.

Posted by at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My hope with Steve DeAngelis's blog is coming true: he and editor Bradd Hayes naturally blog a certain section of articles that I would otherwise feel a certain need to cover. In many instances, like Americans discover the global commute, it's a subject I've covered in the past and don't really have anything new to say about, but Steve does, extending the argument further in new and neat ways.

So, much like Steve and I when we're together and tend to exhibit a lot of overlapping dialogue (we'd be naturals in a Robert Altman film), the same's happening with our blogs. I'd been carrying this article (cited in Steve's blog) around in my briefcase for days, trying to get to it, but Steve does a better job than I would have, thus freeing me of the effort.

Of course, if I consider the blogosphere as a whole (in terms of "freeing me of the effort"), then I'd never write anything! But obviously, my connection with Steve is very unique, yielding some great opportunities for both of us in our collaboration within Enterra.

Posted by at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: "Bush Focuses on Iraq as G.O.P. Tries to Change Subject," by John M. Broder, New York Times, 26 October 2006.

EDITORIAL: "Money Down the Drain in Iraq," by New York Times, 26 October 2006.

ARTICLE: "Warfare skills eroding as Army fights insurgents," by David Wood, , 24 October 2006, sent in by Chris Isgrig.

What's going on in Iraq now is better captured by terms like counterinsurgency and postwar reconstruction and stability operations. In those paradigms, there is no easily defined ending, and victories tend to come in the 50-60% range--as in, you reach the critical mass. But it's never an obvious or abrupt conclusion, and it takes years--as in, upwards of a decade or more.

When Bush says, "trust me on this war," he's using the wrong word, but he's the one who made that choice, because it gave him the freedom to blow off potential allies (America really doesn't need allies for wars, but it does for postwars) and to get just enough of a mandate from the American people to conduct a war.

But Bush has never really sought any mandate from anybody on the postwar--not from the public nor from our allies. Thus, he basically plays into his critics's hands when he persists in calling Iraq a war: those who opposed the war (which was brilliantly waged by our armed forces) can now tar Bush with his mishandling of the postwar (and deservedly so). But the sad thing is, the well-run war and those who should feel proud of that effort now are no longer able, because it's been so badly squandered.

And that squandering, while it had much to do with the Pentagon, also had far more to do with the great failures across the rest of the USG--to wit, the non-existent interagency process. That failure will allow historians to paint a very critical portrait of Condi Rice's time in power (first in National Security Council, where, as Advisor, that was her essential job--a complete failure never well discussed; second as SECSTATE, where the rerun on WMD with Iran occurred on her watch, making our military's fight in Iraq continue to unfold under the worst possible circumstances--also toss in our non-engagement with Syria regarding its border).

Many people recognize these failures and are working hard to make appropriate changes for this Long War (a term that is as much a cry for help by the Army and Marines as a declaration of national determination), but because the interagency belongs to everyone, it is the responsibility of no one, so there isn't great hope that the next postwar will be that much better than the last one. And there is the realization that--as I have long argued--more failure will be required to pile up for change to occur.

The resistance to make any serious changes is already mounting and will continue to grow. As always, the Army will argue that its readiness for Big War will decline if it's forced to focus on postwar and counter-insurgency. This is true, and it's also irrelevant, because Big War simply isn't in the making. The best remaining big scenario (Korea) will not be a U.S.-ground-led affair, but this myth will be pushed by many inside the Army to prevent any further evolution in the direction of optimizing for COIN, which is why I see the elimination of this scenario in the near term as a very good development for the Army's future, for once we remove the last remaining scenarios for the fantastic premises surrounding land wars in Asia involving great powers, then the Army, as well as the Navy, can finally start adjusting to the Long War's real strategic environment more comprehensively.

That was one of the messages I delivered in Beijing: if you want the U.S. off the China/Big War model, then get rid of Kim and use that experience to build trust with the U.S. Do the same dastardly trick that Arbatov talked about regarding the Sovs/Russians--in effect, "we will do the worst possible thing to you: we will deny you an enemy."

None of this resistance should be surprising. Our national security establishment is still dominated on top by Cold War-bred thinkers (and will be through for another decade or so). Plus, the U.S. military's ethos, as Nagl points out so well in his book, has always been annihilation-oriented in definitions of victory in war. It simply believes that limited wars are wrong.

So don't expect the war-within-the-context-of-war mindset to disappear any time soon. A new generation of thinking exists and is rising, but the overthrow of the old order will take more than 9/11 and more than the failure in Iraq, especially since so much of academia is likewise tainted with this old mindset and does no better at teaching horizontal thinking than the military or U.S. government does within its own ranks.

What needs to drive our efforts at change is clear: our knowledge that our troops (specifically the Army and Marines) will--without this change--continue to fight under the worst conditions and suffer unnecessarily high casualties, constantly confronted with the claim that America cannot waste its time and treasure on such "lesser includeds" and instead focus on preventing and winning Big Wars against big opponents.

Yes, a certain amount of our strategy for change is simply waiting this crowd out--meaning until they retire and/or die. But that is not enough. If we do not raise the next generation of thinkers and do-ers capable of making all the horizontal connections, we'll simply be generating more square pegs for increasingly round holes, and that will only lead to more unnecessary deaths on our side and less relevancy for our forces in international security.

And that's just unacceptable.

Posted by at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

"Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam."

It is brilliant and written to be read by anyone. I really recommend it. First three chapters on mil reform, Brit mil culture/history and same for U.S. are worth price of book alone.

But rest is even more amazing: everything we've relearned or got smart on in Iraq was previewed by the Brits in Malaya--right down to "ink spots." And every mistake and bad instance of non-learning was previewed in Vietnam.

Going into the book, I feared it would be too dry and academic, but it really is an exciting read for someone trying to think his or her way through this stuff.

Posted by at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: Command's experiment bringing focus to urban challenges, By Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service, Oct. 19, 2006

Serious point of pride for me, as Shane was my recruit.

Thanks to Brad Lena for sending this in.

Posted by at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: A Strategic Lunch with Mr. Rumsfeld, by Austin Bay, October 25, 2006

Thanks to Lexington Green for sending this in.

Posted by at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: Rice proposes Asia form security alliance, By Nicholas Kralev, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, October 25, 2006

Thanks to John Mooney for sending this in.

Posted by at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got up this am and spent morning with seniors at China Foundation for International & Strategic Studies. Great give and take. Nice lunch. I've found they read the blog rather carefully, so let's let it go at that.

Felt like I wrote a chunk of Vol. III as I spoke though, which was cool.

Then the long flight back. Read Nagl's book and watched a ton of Ric Burns' "The Way West."

Lucked out on duty tax, because my overage (above 800$) was all in unframed art, which is exempt!

Then signed two hard BFAs in a Hudson at Terminal 3 at O'Hare.

Waiting on yet another flight.

Hope to get to my hotel before midnight.

Posted by at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ray Kimball has a post up at Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America entitled Birthing Pains of the SysAdmin. Here's a sample:

I certainly agree that our soldiers are focusing on different skill sets than they would in conventional warfare. Thomas Barnett has some of the best explanations on why this is inevitable, and how if we really want to fight this Long War correctly, a division of forces into Leviathan and SysAdmin is not only warranted but inevitable. And yes, that seems like a huge, unmanageable burden. I remember the first time I read his work, my main comment was "Great idea, but the American taxpayer will never pay for it." $300 billion and counting later, it's safe to say I'm a believer now.

Posted by at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: Austin Police, Fire officials help Iraqis aim for better public services, by Spc. Jason Dangel, 24 October 2006

Thanks to Keith Mitchell for sending this in.

Posted by at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

DATELINE: China World Hotel, Beijing, 25 October 2006

Spent six hours leading 30 RDS senior execs through an extended version of the brief, complete with discussion sections and instant feedback votes. Half were from outside China and half were local Chinese. Very invigorating discussion and interaction that left the RDS training execs very happy along with Duke Educational Corp people (my direct clients).

Today's performance guarantees my participation in next event, which isn't until next summer and probably will be in either Dubai or Moscow. I have not briefed up roughly half of all of Royal Dutch/Shell's senior execs, so it'll be interesting to see what that critical mass yields.

After that long effort, went shopping with local friends, buying art and a few pearls from the famous RuPeiPei, who recently received some business (actually, RuPeiPei had to go to her) from Condi Rice during her recent trip. RuPeiPei is where all the foreign dignitaries go for pearls, as all the celebrity photos on the wall of her shop attest.

Then a late dinner with local friends and a connected senior who's going to help me get BFA published in Chinese.

Tomorrow is a roundtable with a bunch of senior military officers. I am told to expect most of the discussion will be about North Korea. No presentation by me, since I briefed a large number of officers at this think tank last June, so this time is all conversation for about three hours. Should be more than interesting.

Posted by at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

ARTICLE: "War in Sudan? Not Where the Oil Wealth Flows," by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 24 October 2006

This is the true system balancing response to America's perceived misguided use of its Leviathan.

And yeah, it's pretty effective.

Posted by at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been fooling around with custom search at Rollyo and Windows Live. But my preferred platform is Google. And they have some new Custom Search tools that I thought it would be fun to try out with Tom's network.

So, we've got a new homepage for the Tom and friends search.

Or, we can just throw a search box up right here:

Posted by at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DATELINE: China World Hotel at China World Trade Center, Beijing, China, 24 October 2006

Long productive flight over. Wrote my Sunday column (on adopting Vonne Mei, born three years ago this week), then worked the brief for the 5 hours I'll be spending with senior Royal Dutch/Shell officials and a second group of young Chinese execs. Then listened to Ric Burns' docu "Way into the West," taking notes. Then almost finished Friedman's "Moral Consequences of Economic Growth." Also watched "Devil Wears Prada" three times, "Cars" once and "Click" (right up there with "Ground Hog Day") twice. Funny what you can get done when stuck in a plane 14 hours.

What I didn't do is sleep.

Got here and had a brief meeting with a friend who's setting up some shopping later today and a F2F with a China Reform Forum senior who's helping me get BFA sold for Chinese rights (PNM in the process of coming out).

Then had meeting and dinner with Shell and Duke Educational Corp. officials about today's events, before my brain gave out at 9am Monday morning (back home time, equating to 9pm Monday night here) just after I found out the Pack won in Miami.

Up today with solid 8 hours (thanks to Ambien keeping me down) and gearing up for the day.

Interesting piece in NYT ("To Stand or Fall in Baghdad: Capital Is Key to Mission" by Michael Gordon, 23 Oct) makes me think the two breakthroughs that Bush might accept from Baker would be direct talks with both Syria and Iran to clamp down on the borders (huge problem of picking a fight with the entire bar at once instead of just concentrating on the badass you started up with) and some acceptance of an international state/force package for Baghdad (a more modest admitting of failure and a mea culpa that allows us to socialize our problem a bit with the right allies). I think that combo would do a lot. Sad to say, I don't see the Bush administration being willing to change. It's like that quote in the NYT on Friday: something to the effect that the problem with the neocons isn't that they're not often right, it's that they never admit that they're ever wrong.

Posted by at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Yorker in DC writes in to point me to the best summary/review of Tom's Pop!Tech talk that I have seen. Thanks, nykr!

It's by blogroll denizen Ethan Zuckerman: Two hours of Tom Barnett in twenty - thirty? - minutes. For those of you who have heard Tom speak, you know that sounds about right.

This post reads like Ethan has basically written up his notes from Tom's talk. Check it out!

Posted by at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

+ Let's start with Pop!Tech. Community Mobilization covered Tom's appearance Friday and linked his own review of Tom's appearance two years ago.

+ Let's pick up the North Korea situation next. ZenPundit linked China just not ready to go all the way on North Korea.

+ The most-linked topic again this week is 5GW. Let's round it up:

• ZenPundit linked My own personal 5GW dream
• So did Christian Soldiers (2x).
• tdaxp linked A thousand flowers will bloom on 5GW, and countless more weeds
• So did Zenpundit.
• So did Mistakes by TJM.
• So did Dreaming 5GW.

+ China Law Blog linked China's middle class looking less inscrutable.

+ Here's a new one on me: The Double-Tongued Dictionary has linked Tom twice: for 3-D job and giving someone the wire brush.

Posted by at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

PAPER: THE LEGACY OF MAHAN FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, BY Commander Bruce Black

Thanks to brother Andy for sending this in.

Posted by at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

DATELINE: United flights from Indy to Beijing, 22 October 2006

I wrote the original piece based on an impromptu response to a question from an Air Force general at Air War College the morning after the 04 election. He basically said, "Well, what would you advise the President on his second term?"

I gave him three points: 1) co-opt Iran to help you fix Iraq and keep the hope of the Big Bang alive and begin the construction of a regional security forum, 2) Get China locked in by toning down the whole Taiwan issue and thus demoting it within DOD planning circles (to aid the Marines and Army in budget battles), and 3) go after Kim instead of Iran, getting yourself an East Asian NATO in the bargain that allows further shifting of resources from Asia to the Mideast and Africa and begins to tap China's serious help in what we now call the Long War.

When I told Mark Warren about the conversation later in Princeton (where I spoke at Woodrow Wilson), he told me I had to write it up for Esquire. I did, it became the "Mr. President" piece, and it was selected for the "Best American Political Writing 2005" volume and the issue was one of three Esquire issues submitted for consideration by the National Magazine awards for 2005. Another was November issue in which my "The Chinese Are Our Friends" pushed the arguments even farther (that one was selected for the 2006 compendium of "Best American Political Writing"). Esquire ended up winning the "general excellence" award for its subscription range of 2-5 million based on those entries.

When the "Mr. President" article came out, many lambasted it as fantasy, with the summary blogosphere judgment being, "logical, but it'll never happen."

Undeterred, I made these arguments the foreign policy centerpieces of "Blueprint for Action," where most critics again blasted them as fantasy.

Well, those arguments are looking better and better by the day.

Iraq continues to be a mess, and Iran continues to be the local player most able to help us on that issue. Back then, I made that argument for such dialogue, now James Baker and his bipartisan commission are making very similar noises.

Back then, everyone said we could never live with a nuclear Iran. Now, even the Israelis openly debate this eventuality, as it's clear that China and Russia and India--not to mention Europe and Japan--have no desire to see this administration re-run the Iraq storyline.

Back then, North Korea was viewed as a backburner issue. Now Kim gets it back out front, and Rice and her diplomats visit Beijing weekly pushing for strategic cooperation on North Korea, while Chinese leaders secretly debate the logic of Kim's inevitable demise. Japan moves to repair relations with China, and Taiwan, much touted in the fall of 2004 as a near-term flashpoint (story in Atlantic, for example, fueled by speculation from Naval War College professors) is more quiet than ever, as the threat of the pro-independence president has largely passed, with no small effort by this administration to quiet all such talk (plus China's many clever diplomatic sleights of hand). Meanwhile, our diplomats visiting Beijing speak openly of the need for an East Asian NATO, always tying those words with a call for China's help on North Korea. Also meanwhile, China's top energy planner calls openly for strategic partnership with the U.S. on exploring, developing and protecting energy sources inside the Gap.

All in all, the "Mr. President" piece is standing up quite well as this second Bush term hits mid-term. Expect the course correction on Iraq to coincide with a reach out to Iran. Also expect Kim to be the main regime-change focus of the last two years of Bush's administration, with our strategic relationship with China developing greatly as a result.

Once NK and Taiwan are off the DOD planning table, look for the Army and Marines to finally start receiving the resources they need for this Long War.

All these changes and moves make the goal of shrinking the Gap far more feasible for succeeding administrations. Bush I jump-started this process, but because of all those mistakes in Iraq and subsequently with Iran, Bush II becomes mostly an effort at strategic triage, and that's what the original article and the subsequent BFA were all about: getting the conditions right for this blueprint to become realizable.

My vision, as I have consistently noted, isn't about "winning" this month, this year, this election, or this administration--any more than containment could be reduced to just one Cold War presidency. Like containment, shrink-the-Gap will be judged by most as failing throughout its implementation, but ultimately it is done and recognized as successful because there is no other, more reasonable and morally defensible pathway worth choosing.

But yeah, it does feel good to have gotten it all down in print.

Posted by at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tom got this email:

Tom,

Caught your talk at Pop!Tech and am still here. Bob Metcalfe, in summing up, said yours was the best talk this year.

Tim Beidel

Nice to hear. Bob hosted my session last time, so perhaps he's a bit biased.

Actually, the guy who blew both me and Eno away was the comedian just before lunch on Thursday. The guy with the instant dubbing machine. Funny as hell, but the music was really quite beautiful in its own right, and it was all real-time sampling of just his voice--McFerrin-like.

I met the guy in the green room afterwards. He told me I really opened his eyes, and I just kept saying how wonderful his music was. Seriously, I'd buy it as straight music--no laughs requires.

Posted by at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pre-emptive regime change: China's turn

North Korea's Kim Jong Il rattled his nuclear saber one time too many with his recent underground testing of a crude device. Now he's really got a superpower mad, one that can seriously do something about it.

No, I'm not talking about the United States. America's continuing military tie-down in Iraq rules out any substantial military action on our part. Given our performance post-Saddam, this news is clearly welcomed in both Pyongyang and Seoul, with the latter being scared witless at the prospect of paying any post-Kim reconstruction bill. [read more]

Posted by at 8:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Got the following comment from TheJew in the Can the Army escape the fate over their overweight Hummers? thread:

I'd really like to hear what [Tom] thinks about Daron Acemoglu's new book Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy available here. A positive review which contains a summary was posted by Brad Delong a couple days ago.

And if the reader will indulge my self linking, I have written something about it as well.

Acemoglu's book strikes me as reasonable. Some countries are able to open up domestically (democracy) before externally (globalization). I think islands pull this off better, and remote colonies with big inlands to integrate (Canada, US, Australia, NZ, and India).

Most countries, though, will open up externally first (China model) and stay authoritarian until the dynamics he cites work their way through the system.

Posted by at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I saw Jason Kottke was blogging Pop!Tech, I wondered if he would mention Tom again. It first heard of Tom two years ago when Kottke posted about him at Pop!Tech the last time. Here's Kottke's take this time:

The upshot of Thomas Barnett's entertaining and provacative talk (or one of the the upshots, anyway): China is the new world power and needs a sidekick to help globalize the world. And like when the US was the rising power in the world and took the outgoing power, England, along for the ride so that, as Barnett put it, "England could fight above its weight", China could take the outgoing power (the US) along for the globalization ride. The US would provide the military force to strike initial blows and the Chinese would provide peacekeeping; Barnett argued that both capabilities are essential in a post-Cold War world.

Posted by at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Was way cool.

On the way to the restaurant, I get to meet Kevin Kelly too, whose book "New Rules for the New Economy" was a top-tenner for me in the 1990s, so that was very nice. He and Eno were both very complimentary about my (and slidebuilder Bradd Hayes') use of PPT, commenting that the blend of sound and motion and content and delivery and humor was really unique (Eno especially liked the humor), so that was like my ego stroke for all of 2006 (and if you that's cool, wait and see the one Steve DeAngelis gets in about 20 days). Now to discuss PPT with late-in-life convert David Byrne...

Actually, Brian and I discussed the Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Little Richard, the Beatles, Roxy Music (whom he produced), David Bowie (ditto), the Heads (also), U2 (also also), Franz Ferdinand, Artic Monkeys, and the Tom Tom Club (natch).

Of course, Brian could say things like "one time Paul (Simon) told me ..." whereas I had no specific gems like that, but we also talked the Middle East, the Long War, al Qaeda and U.S. Military change, so I got to drop some very cool lines too.

All in all, a very pleasant and charming guy. Very unaffected or vain. I could have spent the whole day conversing. He was my Pop!Tech dream date. His toss-off storied were like golden nuggets, given my fascination with the Heads (my big band from my college years).

So, when I said goodbye and jumped in the waiting hybrid Lexus for the drive to Portland (a Pop!Tech perq), I did something I have never done--not even with Jerry Kramer--I asked him to autograph my badge, claiming it was for my wife.

But really, I will frame it for myself.

And yes, I will tease my little brother over it someday.

Ted, my brother, had his famous confab with Laurie Anderson at a Madison radio station in the 1980s, which beat my physically bumping into Joe Strummer in a Chicago bar just before The Clash's "Combat Rock" show a few years earlier. and that one really hurt, because, truth be told, Anderson is a seminal influence on my stage style.

But lunch with Eno, I believe, finally vaunts me back into the lead.

In car to airport, I did 20 mins on a radio show out of Pittsburgh and a quick interview with a Harper's journalist working a story on climate change.

Then I got to Portland and began the long horrible odyssey that is my trip home.

Heads up to Mass. readers: I will be speaking at the Kennedy School at Harvard on the morning of 9 Nov. Not sure how open it is, but it will be a big show (2 hours). Got talked into it by the military fellows class, but it's getting bigger by the day as the buzz builds, or so Jenn Posda has been told. Now students and faculty want a breakfast and lunch too.

I'm looking forward to that plenty. Save one career-advice stint I did in the late 90s, I haven't really ever spoken at Harvard since I left (although the Harvard mil fellows did come to Newport to hear me there, I believe, more than once). So this will be a nice stroke to finally make this happen.

Now if Wisconsin would ever invite me...

Posted by at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Financial connectivity is what tames China as a threat and moves it toward alliance

Two stories in today's NYT (rescued from airport garbage) present a couple of bookends to the many chapters of change that is China today.

In the first, "