The end is just waiting to happen in North Korea

ìTaste of Change in North Korea: Pyongyangís Experiment With Consumerism Bears Some Success,î by Bertil Lintner, Wall Street Journal, 11 May, p. A16.

Interesting story about tiny breaths of reform from deep within the unbelievably cruel Kim Jong Il regime in North Korea. Yes, the same place that denies foreign medical disaster aid to victims of the train explosion because letting in aid workers might let the world understand what a desperately sad place this incredibly disconnected country has truly become under Kimís bizarre rule.

The story describes very limited examples of consumerism being allowed in favored Pyongyangósuch a great place to live that Kim has never appeared before a crowd there. So the capital city gets to taste Singaporean beer and sees its first billboard, while the countryside suffers ìfood shortages, chronic malnutrition and decaying infrastructure.î

Three schools of thought exist on these limited reforms: they are nothing (Bush Administration), they are real but reversible (old Korea hands), or they are real and will be hard to reverse (many foreign residents living there). Being the optimist, I go with the third scenario, but believe it will take too long to wait out all the North Koreans who will die in the meantime, all the mischief Kim will seek to inflict outside his borders in the meantime (smuggling drugs, counterfeit money, etc.), and the continuing danger of WMD there.

I remember this sort of very limited reforms under Brezhnev in the USSR in the late 1960s. It was neat, and eventually it helped pave the wave for connectivity with West that came with dÈtente. But Soviet system muddled along for two more decades this way, and two more decades of Kim and his criminal negligence of his own peopleís continued suffering seems simply wrong.

I say take him down ASAP and build an East Asia NATO over his graveóone that sends China and the U.S. down the pathway toward strategic partnership.

Bush Admin. shows it is serious about deep Gap security efforts

ìU.S. Training North Africans to Uproot Terrorists: Military See Vast Region as Possible Magnet for Al Qaeda Recruits,î by Craig S. Smith, New York Times, 11 May, p. A1.

European Command under former USMC commandant James Jones is more than serious about preventively working sub-Saharan Africa in the Global War on Terrorism, and this is a very good thing. By building stronger military-to-military ties and training up African militaries to deal with local terrorist networks better on their own, we are preemptively shaping the future battlespace in Africa.

Why is this important? After we drive the violent fundamentalists out of a Middle East that eventually joins globalizationís Functioning Core, we will end up facing the sameójust migratedóthreat in sub-Saharan Africa. The forces of disconnectedness will simply retreat to areas of greater remoteness over time, as globalization wins out. Their last stands will occur in the deepest reaches of Africa.

The CIA now recognizes the Gap

ìAn Abundance of Caution And Years of Budget Cuts Are Seen to Limit C.I.A.,î by Douglas Jehl, New York Times, 11 May, p. A18.

The Clinton Administration did this to us! You can almost hear the CIA whining.

Yes, the intell community suffered budget cuts just like the defense community when the Soviets went away. But just like the Pentagon, the CIA chose poorly when it refocused on a rising near-peer competitor China as opposed to the rising violence and instability inside the Gap regionsóthose very same places we now work in this Global War on Terrorism.

So we are told it will take years to restaff the agent pool needed for the CIA to become effective again.

In my opinion, the bulk of the blame resides with the Agency itself (the ìcautionî portion of the blame equation in the title). Like the Pentagon it was very slow to change after the Cold Warís end. For the CIA to not have anyone inside Iraq a dozen years after we initially went to war with the country is simply astounding.

World voting on U.S. markets: they donít like what they see

ìWorld Markets Fall; Lows for Year in U.S.,î by Jonathan Fuerbringer, New York Times, 11 May, p. C1.

Three reasons cited for recent stock downturns: prospective of higher interest rates in U.S., higher oil prices expected and the war in Iraq. See any connectivity here?

Budget deficits bring about higher interest rates, because the U.S. Government must work harder to attract buyers of its sovereign debt. Massive defense outlays contribute to such deficits. We need to spend more on defense because we took down Saddam and now occupy Iraq. All that tumult our Big Bang triggers in the Middle East sends oil futures rising.

Yes, I know. The U.S. wages war ìunilaterally,î as though it was some sort of experiment conducted within a vacuum.

But you know, the everything else is looming pretty large right now.

Newsflash! Security firms sees danger ìeverywhereî!

ìMaking the World Safer, One Client at a Time: Terrorism Aside, Danger is Everywhere,î by Harry Hurt III, New York Times, 11 May, p. C12.

Nice map printed in NYT showing most dangerous places in world to film movies, according to security firms that advise movie companies. Dangers listed according to disease, medical care, crime, mafia and corruption, and kidnapping/ransom. Five Core states are listed as high risk: Mexico (kidnapping), Brazil (crime), Russia (mafia), South Africa and India (presumably medical/disease). Otherwise the map is just another presentation of Gap theory in action, as basically the entire Gap is listed as high risk.

Filming movies is a high-risk venture, so naturally they crave low-risk environments. Of course, most of the biggest films are made in California, which is part of the ìmedium-riskî environment known as the United States. Good thing they have the Terminator as governor.

Franceóhypocrites on farms subsidies to the bitter end

ìFrance Splits With Europe Over Farm Subsidy Plan,î by Paul Meller, New York Times, 11 May, p. W1.

EU finally seems on verge of breaking internal deadlock on lowering farms subsidies as demanded by such New Core powers as India and Brazil, who formed the core of the Group of 20-plus that brought the Cancun WTO summit to a standstill last September by staging a walkout protest over the Old Coreís intransigence on this bitterly contested subject. Guess who just canít seem to go along? France, of course. France is the biggest farming nation in the EU.

This is protectionism pure and simple, so hold your nose the next time Paris lectures the U.S. about doing better by the Gap.

Iraqi Boy Scouts come in from the cold and reconnect to the world outside

ìIraqi Scouts Thrive Despite Tyranny, War,î by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, FOXNews.com, 11 May,

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119658,00.html.

Brother Andy (Eagle Scout himself) sends me this story, which is just too good to believe: Iraqi Boy Scout troops went underground to stay alive during Saddamís long rule, somehow managing to keep their network coherent all those dark years. Now they reemerge and link up with other Boy Scout networks in the Arab world.

Hereís the best excerpt:

Former Navy commander Chip Beck said contacts he made in the city informed him that local Iraqi scouting councils in the 18 provinces had survived attempts by Saddam to cut off sources of funding, meeting places and communication between brother and sister organizations. The scouts were alive and waiting for a chance to resurrect themselves, he said.

ìYou still have some older scout leaders in their 40s who had been trained by the world scouting organization and knew the ethics and training and maintained it. They kept it up,î Beck told Foxnews.com. ìTheyíre emerging battered and tattered, but in relatively good shape.î

"The Arab region wants to welcome them with open arms and [is] looking for ways to help them," said Gabr, who spoke to Foxnews.com from the Arab Region Council in Cairo, Egypt, which is part of the world organization.

Yet another good example of how this occupation can lead to an Iraqi society reconnected with the world-at-large, so long as we donít let the violent forces of disconnectedness drive this nation out of the world community again.

Back on national TV over the WSJ article

Dateline: over the lunch hour from my office at the War College, 11 May 2004

Heads up: looks like I will be on Fox News this afternoon between 4pm and 4:30 with Neil Cavuto, talking about the issues highlighted in the Wall Street Journal story today.

This was set up by the Public Affairs Office of the Naval War College, which are stepping up now to augment the PR efforts of Putnam.

Making Page One of the Wall Street Journal

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 11 May

Any press is good press, some will say, but this is pretty good press. I canóand always doóquibble about this or that characterization of the material, but Greg Jaffe's profile of my work/brief/collaboration with Art Cebrowski is about as fair as it gets.

I must say, though, the line drawing makes me look a bit other-worldly, whereas Art's looks quite natural. Guess I'm just a square head trying to fit in round holes . . .

Here's the article in full, as obtained through the Pentagon's Early Bird service:

Wall Street Journal

May 11, 2004

Pg. 1

At The Pentagon, Quirky PowerPoint Carries Big Punch:

In a World of 'Gap' States, Mr. Barnett Urges Generals To Split Forces in Two; Austin Powers on Soundtrack

By Greg Jaffe, Staff Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal

In 1998, Thomas Barnett, an obscure Defense Department analyst, teamed up with senior executives at the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald LP to study how globalization was changing national security.

One scenario they studied was a meltdown caused by the Y2K computer bug followed by terrorist attacks designed to exploit the chaos. Mr. Barnett posited that Wall Street would shut down for a week. Gun violence, racially motivated attacks and sales of antidepressants would surge. The U.S. military would find itself embroiled in brushfire conflicts across the developing world.

His theories were met with skepticism. "People began referring to me as the Nostradamus of Y2K," Mr. Barnett says.

Then came the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Suddenly Mr. Barnett didn't look so crazy.

At the urging of his Pentagon bosses, Mr. Barnett overhauled the concept to address more directly the post-9/11 world. The result is a three-hour PowerPoint presentation that more resembles performance art than a Pentagon briefing. It's making Mr. Barnett, 41 years old, a key figure in the debate currently raging about what the modern military should look like. Senior military officials say his decidedly controversial ideas are influencing the way the Pentagon views its enemies, vulnerabilities and future structure.

Mr. Barnett's military is a far cry from the shape of today's armed forces. Instead of a single force to wage wars and rebuild nations, Mr. Barnett envisions two. The first, which he dubs "Leviathan," would be hard-hitting, ready to take on conventional foes such as Saddam Hussein on a moment's notice. The second, more unconventional force of "System Administrators" would focus on bringing dysfunctional states into the mainstream through the type of nation-building operations seen in Iraq, the Balkans and Eastern Africa. It wouldn't only mop up after wars but would travel the world during peacetime building local security forces and infrastructure.

This blueprint for America's defense force comes wrapped in a presentation devised by Mr. Barnett that samples the "ching ching" sound effect from the television series "Law & Order," borrows lines from the Sopranos and features the voice of movie character Austin Powers calling out "Oh yeah, baby!" to punctuate a key idea. At one point, upsetting some, Mr. Barnett refers to 9/11 as the "first live-broadcast, mass snuff film in human history."

"Tom polarizes people with his brief. They either love it or they hate it," says retired Navy Capt. Bradd Hayes, a professor at the Naval War College, where Mr. Barnett also teaches.

With the military struggling in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's possible the American public could lose its appetite for anything that smacks of intervening in troubled states. But it's precisely these problems that are prompting senior officials to listen more closely to the pitch. A group of strategic planners from the Pentagon's Joint Staff invited him to kick off a two-day retreat in April for senior officers. Afterward they told Mr. Barnett they wanted him to brief a more senior group. The Navy's top admiral recently e-mailed an essay written by Mr. Barnett to the service's top brass.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Republican and a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, says Mr. Barnett has shaped his views on China, global trade, foreign aid and national defense. "Since the fall of the Soviet Union we haven't had a global strategy with bipartisan appeal that can survive changes in administration and in Congress," the lawmaker says. He thinks this could fit the bill.

Mr. Barnett conjured up his vision at the urging of Retired Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski. After 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tapped the admiral to run a new office in the Pentagon, dubbed the Office of Force Transformation, focusing on changing the military, one of Mr. Rumsfeld's pet projects. Adm. Cebrowski turned to Mr. Barnett because he first wanted a better idea of what a post-9/11 military was supposed to do. During the Cold War it was designed primarily to contain Communism. "The Soviet Union was the principal designer of our force," the admiral says.

Adm. Cebrowski, a 61-year-old former naval aviator, flew 158 combat missions in Vietnam and commanded an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf War. He's a devout Catholic who attends Mass every day and raves about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."

Mr. Barnett, by contrast, studied at Leningrad State University in the mid-1980s, taught Marxism among other subjects at Harvard, and voted for Al Gore for president. He maintains his own Web page (thomaspmbarnett.com) that features his wife's poetry, a eulogy he wrote on his father's death and a book-length chronicle of his eldest daughter's successful battle with cancer.

For much of the 1990s, Mr. Barnett worked for the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research center. He is currently a senior professor in the Warfare Analysis department of the Naval War College in Rhode Island, where Adm. Cebrowski served as president until 2001.

In Mr. Barnett's world, countries are divided into two categories. His "core" countries are part of a global community linked by trade, migration and capital flows. Europe, the U.S., India and China fall into this group. Then there are "gap" countries that either refuse to join the global mainstream (such as Saudi Arabia and Iran), or are unable to because they have no central government or are struggling with debilitating crises (such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and much of sub-Saharan Africa).

"The "gap" is a petri dish of grief, repression, terrorism and disease," says Adm. Cebrowski. "And 9/11 shows we can't wall ourselves off from it."

To join those worlds together, Mr. Barnett envisions two different military forces. The Leviathan force consists of stealthy submarines, long-range bombers and highly trained soldiers who are "young, unmarried and slightly p----- off," Mr. Barnett says.

The System Administrator force is named for the technology wonks who run corporate computer networks. This force is focused on training "gap state" security forces, stamping out insurgencies and rebuilding basic infrastructure such as legal systems and power grids.

That force would include lightly armored soldiers, the Marine Corps and officials from the State, Justice and Commerce departments along with the U.S. Agency for International Development. Its troops would be older and more specialized than the Leviathans. The purpose of the System Administrators would be to bring order to a country, but the force would also be strong enough to defend itself.

This concept relies on a key assumption: The power of the U.S.'s nuclear and conventional arms, plus increasing global economic interdependence, has made war between superpowers a thing of the past. It also assumes that wars with less-powerful states are less likely to occur.

Instead, the U.S. is more likely to find itself embroiled in dysfunctional parts of the world battling terrorists and rebuilding failed states, something it doesn't do very well. "You guys can do two or three Iraq wars a year, no problem," Mr. Barnett recently told a group of senior officers from the Joint Staff. "But you can't do one occupation."

It's not clear what Mr. Rumsfeld thinks of Mr. Barnett's vision. Adm. Cebrowski has briefed the Pentagon chief on key aspects as recently as last month and says he got a warm reception. A Pentagon spokesman says the press office wasn't able to determine Mr. Rumsfeld's reaction to the briefing.

Many worry Mr. Barnett's concept leaves the U.S. unprepared to fight a big war with countries such as China and North Korea. "What if we are misreading China's intentions the way we misread radical Islam?" asks Michael Vickers, a national-security analyst and former CIA officer who does consulting work for the Pentagon.

Mr. Barnett bets that advanced technologies will allow the U.S. to fight wars with smaller, high-tech formations. Some military analysts, such as retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, think that's naive. Gen. Van Riper, who plays the enemy in Pentagon war games, says enemies could too easily hide from the Leviathan force's sophisticated surveillance. He also thinks the System Administrator force wouldn't be strong enough to defend itself in places such as Fallujah.

"I admire Adm. Cebrowski," he says. "But this is absolute nonsense from folks who are thinking about war as they want it to be, not as it actually is. War is a terribly nasty, brutish business."

The Pentagon has a history of taking intellectual cues from unexpected sources. In the 1970s and 1980s Andrew Marshall, a low-profile Pentagon analyst who runs an office similar to that of Adm. Cebrowski, argued that wars could be revolutionized by precision bombs, unmanned planes and wireless communications that would allow the U.S. to destroy enemies from a distance.

Mr. Marshall, who cultivated a network of prominent military officers and civilians, rarely spoke in public and almost all his papers are classified. But his ideas have informed the way the U.S. military fought high-intensity wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Andy Marshall's kind of like a rabbi," says Mr. Barnett.

Mr. Barnett has delivered his brief some 150 times since 9/11. Pearson PLC's Penguin Group published it earlier this year as a book, "The Pentagon's New Map," and Mr. Barnett penned a shortened version for Esquire magazine.

On a spring day in Washington, Mr. Barnett stepped into a room full of generals, admirals and colonels from the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff. His job was to kick off a two-day retreat where the military would debate his ideas.

In the room was the deputy director of operations for the U.S. Central Command. A few seats away sat the Army colonel whose battalion led the famous "Thunder Run" into Baghdad that toppled Saddam Hussein. Seated across the room was an Air Force brigadier general -- one of only a handful of U.S. fighter pilots to have shot down an enemy plane in combat over the past two decades. Mr. Barnett recognized none of them.

The lights dimmed and Mr. Barnett, clad in a dark turtleneck and khakis, launched into his brief. He soon flashed up on a screen a picture of a mock personal ad that he found taped to a Pentagon wall in the late 1990s.

"ENEMY WANTED: Mature North American Superpower seeks hostile partner for arms racing, Third World conflicts and general antagonism. Must be sufficiently menacing to convince Congress of military financial requirements. . .Send note with pictures of fleet and air squadrons to CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF/PENTAGON."

In the early days of the current Bush administration, senior Pentagon officials thought China, with its growing arsenal of ballistic missiles and increasingly sophisticated submarine fleet, might fill this role.

Mr. Barnett's work with Cantor Fitzgerald, which stemmed from a long-standing relationship between the firm and the Naval War College, convinced him otherwise. China was buying U.S. debt, angling to join the World Trade Organization and growing increasingly dependent on foreign direct investment. "China isn't the problem, it's the prize," he told the officers.

He displayed a map of the sprawling "gap," which includes most of Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East and a big chunk of Central and South America. "This is globalization's ozone hole," he said.

In the past, Mr. Barnett's pitch for a System Administrator, or nation-building force, was often greeted with howls of disapproval from military crowds. A year of faltering progress in Iraq has made his ideas more palatable. One Army colonel in the audience compared the Iraq nation-building mission to a screw that needs to be driven into a wall. "Right now all we've got is a hammer and we are driving that screw into the wall with our hammer as best we can. But it won't set right. What we really need is a screwdriver," he said.

An Air Force general suggested the bifurcation of the force recommended by Mr. Barnett was already quietly happening. The Army National Guard, a force comprising part-time soldiers, used to be indistinguishable from the regular Army. Today, it's trading weaponry used in high-intensity conflicts for military-police units to restore law and order.

One Army colonel balked at the presentation, suggesting it might not be possible to save some societies, such as Saudi Arabia, or even Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Aren't you assuming the people in the 'gap' think like you and want the same things as you?" he asked.

"Everyone wants a better future for their kids," said Mr. Barnett.

"I've been around a lot of people who don't think like us," the officer replied.

After the meeting, the groupóled by a team of one- and two-star admirals and generalsódecided to recommend that Mr. Barnett brief the military's most senior four-star generals at a retreat later this year.

It's not likely that the Pentagon will officially split the military into a Leviathan force and a System Administrator force. But acceptance for the general concept is growing. "I used to be afraid to pitch the Sys Admin force," Mr. Barnett said after his speech to the Joint Staff officers. "I literally would worry that I'd get laughed off the stage."

Making the best-seller list at Foreign Affairs

Dateline: Above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 11 May 2004

Every month the Council on Foreign Relations website (www.cfr.org) lists a best-seller list for "top-selling hardcover books on American foreign policy and international affairs," based on data gathered from Barnes and Noble stores and online sales.

This list was posted on 6 May:

1) Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward [new]

2) Against All Enemies, by Richard Clarke [#1 last month]

3) House of Bush, House of Saud, by Craig Unger [#3]

4) Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll [#2]

5) Endgame, by Thomas McInerney & Paul Vallely [new]

6) Rise of the Vulcans, by James Mann [#4]

7) The Sorrows of Empire, by Chalmers Johnson [#6]

8) The Choice, by Zbigniew Brzezinski [#7]

9) Disarming Iraq, by Hans Blix [#5]

10) From Babel to Dragomans, by Bernard Lewis [new]

11) The Pentagon's New Map, by Thomas Barnett [new]

12) Hegemony or Survival, by Noam Chomsky [#8]

13) Colossus, by Niall Ferguson [new]

14) Occidentalism, by Ian Buruma [new]

15) Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, by Mahmood Mamdani [new]

I feel like I have to be pretty happy with that since my book didn't hit the stores until the last week in April. Actually, I'm sort of stunned to have made this list at all on that basis, but it feels very good.

My hat off to Mark Warren and his National Magazine Award

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 10 May 2004

Esquire cleaned up big-time at this yearís National Magazine Awards, winning more than any other magazine (design, review and criticism, fiction and profile writing). As executive editor, Mark Warren was cited along with editor-in-chief David Granger for Bill Zehmeís profile entitled, ìThe Confessions of Bob Greene.î

Mark is easily the most talented editor I have ever worked with. It pleases me to no end to see his work recognized in this prominent way.

I have said it many times and Iíll write it here: the best decision I made in writing this book was in hiring Mark to be my personal editor in the process. His influence over the Pentagonís New Map was both profound and pervasive. I still feel myself incredibly lucky that he said yes.

And yes, Mark takes home this award in the same year he edited my article in Esquire and managed to edit my entire book on the side.

That, my friends, is one spectacular year for one spectacular fellow.

Meanwhile, let me note that today I got a FEDEX from Esquire containing numerous copies of the June issue (Carmen Electra on the cover) containing my latest article entitled, ìMr. President, Hereís How to Make Sense of Our Iraq Strategyî (pp. 148-54), likewise edited by my good friend and now-frequent collaborator Mark Warren.

And the beat goes on . . .

Back in the saddleóOne hour with NPR's Glenn Mitchell in Dallas

Back in the saddleóOne hour with NPR's Glenn Mitchell in Dallas

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 10 May 2004

Glenn Mitchell's show was my first-ever big radio appearance back in the spring of 2003 following Esquire's publishing of "The Pentagon's New Map." By "big" I mean a full hour where I am the only guest, because it's when you have that sort of time that you can really spell things out somewhat adequately, which clearly I needed to do with the cryptically-tight Esquire piece.

Today I reappeared on the show to hawk PNM the book, and Mitchell (sick last Monday, which was why my appearance was delayed a week) was in fine form. No one works off the text better than he does, which can be a little annoying in the sense that he sounds like he knows almost as much about the subject as you do. Then again, you appreciate the effort such familiarity demands, as this guy really does read the book.

As I learned with Brian Lamb on CSPAN (not yet shown), you're really only as good as the interviewer, so the most intimidating ones (in terms of content, not bluster) are the best ones. Mitchell's also nice in that he really lets you finish an answer before jumping back in, so you have that sense of confidence that you don't need to rush your reply. That's important for a speed talker like myself who's trying to slow it down a whole lot more on radioóas compared to super-fast TV.

So I made a real effort to go a bit slower today, and I think it paid off. Also made a much better effort at listening carefully to the questions and responding directly to them, rightfully praising the callers for good points. Sometimes I get so caught up in giving the answer (or really, formulating it in my head as I hear the question) that I neglect this basic courtesy. My brother Jerry pushed this notion with me after seeing me in NYC at the CUNY author series event with Leonard Lopate, where I was too dismissive in the opening question from an audience member. You don't see any books coming off as arrogant, plus it's basically rude and I don't like to leave people with that impression because I know it's a real privilege to get to go on the radio and TV to express your ideas.

Fortunately both questions were good (Which military services highlighted for bigger roles in future? What about great powers having individual spheres-of-influence inside the Gap?), and the hour breezed by quickly.

It is amazing how three minutes on TV can seem like an eternity while 60 minutes on the radio goes by in a flash.

Me, I was just happy to get through it without falling asleep. With the trees aflame here in R.I., my allergies are so heavy right now that if I stop moving for a second, it's lights out. Since I'm trying to work off the weight gained on Putnam's expense account throughout the media tour, I don't have the luxury of eating to stay awake and you can only drink so much coffee without dehydrating significantly, which also makes you tired and sleepy.

So before I submit to the inevitably early bed call, let me cite five stories from recent papers:

REFERENCES:

"In Abuse, a Portrayal of Ill-Prepared, Overwhelmed G.I.'s," by Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 9 May, p. A1.

"War and Abuse Do Little Harm To U.S. Brands: Most Products Escape Rising Anger Abroad," by Simon Romero, NYT, 9 May, p. A1.

"As Jobs Move Overseas, So Does Privacy," by Bob Davis, Wall Street Journal, 10 May, p. A2.

"Bush Executive Powers in the Balance: Supreme Court Opinions Expected to Define Authority to Combat Terrorism," by Charles Lane, Washington Post, 2 May, p. A13.

"Moral Accounting: An Activist Draws Interest at the Bank," by Philip Kennicott, WP, 4 May, p. C1.

ìChechnya Bomb Kills President In Blow To Putin: Top Officer is Wounded,î by Steven Lee Myers, NYT, 10 May, p. A1.

[Please note I get my Post about a week late at the college via snail mail.]

Preparation for the Everything Else is everything

"In Abuse, a Portrayal of Ill-Prepared, Overwhelmed G.I.'s," by Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 9 May, p. A1.

"War and Abuse Do Little Harm To U.S. Brands: Most Products Escape Rising Anger Abroad," by Simon Romero, NYT, 9 May, p. A1.

The Pentagon's tendency across the 1990s to under-fund, under-staff, and under-prioritize Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) has come home to roost in the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal. Hereís the opening sequence in a telling NYT article:

ìThe orders that send most of the 320th Military Police Battalion to Iraq came on Feb. 5, 2003, as part of the tide of two-week-a-year soldiers being called up from the National Guard and the Army Reserve in preparation for war.

In theory, the battalionís specialty was guarding enemy prisoners of war, a task that was expected to be a major logistical problem. In fact, an Army report said few of the 1,000 reservists of the 320th had been trained to do that, and fewer still knew how to run a prison. They were deployed so quickly from the mid-Atlantic region that there was no time to get new lessons.

ëYouíre a person who works at McDonaldís one day; the next day youíre standing in front of hundreds of prisoners, and half are saying theyíre sick and half are saying theyíre hungry,í remembered Sgt. First Class Paul Shaffer, 35, a metalworker from Pennsylvania. ëWe were hit with so much so fast, I donít think we were prepared.î

This is what happens when a team built for the first half is forced to play until the end of the game.

The upside to all this is that the Pentagon will be hard pressed to ignore or shortchange this sort of MOOTW-stuff in the future. The war won in Iraq may have proven the utility of the transformed warfighting force, but the peace bungled will end up transforming transformationóshifting its future focus from the warfighting first-half force to the peacewaging second-half force.

No military in the world learns better from failure than the U.S. military. Much good can come from this debacle, which I believe will ultimately speed the emergence of the System Administration force within the Department of Defense. It is within this force that the true victories of the Global War on Terrorism will be found.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to note how one key aspect of the ìeverything elseî of globalizationónamely the high attractiveness of U.S. products and servicesóremains unaffected for now from the rising anger against America around the world. Globalizationís bodyguard may be stumbling in Iraq right now, but globalization the historical process marches on unabated.

The "legal deconstruction" begins

"Bush Executive Powers in the Balance: Supreme Court Opinions Expected to Define Authority to Combat Terrorism," by Charles Lane, Washington Post, 2 May, p. A13.

We are reaching the end of the System Perturbation scenario known as 9/11, which is marked in the political realm by the legal deconstruction of both the event itself (the 9/11 Commission hearings) and the rules generated in its tumultuous aftermath (the Supreme Court begins rulings on post-9/11 legal changes).

In any System Perturbation, the society recovers quickly (the media was back to fluff within weeks), the economy recovers next most quickly (our leading indicators were up to snuff within 6 months), but the politics takes far longerómore than two years to settle into this deconstruction pattern. In general, the security realm recovers most slowly, but that process is being sped up thanks to Iraq, the war and peace that will eventually transform transformation beyond its progenitorsí wildest dreams.

Not homeland security, but Core-wide security

"As Jobs Move Overseas, So Does Privacy," by Bob Davis, Wall Street Journal, 10 May, p. A2.

Interesting article about how all this outsourcing of service jobs (like medical transcription) means that not only has individual privacy gone out the door, itís done left the country!

To me, this is yet another example of why drawing the line on Americaís ìhomeland securityî at our borders is a mistakeósomething I recently stated in a New Orleans military conference on the issue. Americaís security is part and parcel of globalizationís Functioning Core, not something we can partition off for our own. When we create a Department of Homeland Security, we send out a signal to the rest of the Core: Weíre getting ours, you get yours.

What this country needs is a new definition of national security that equates to Core-wide security. Too much, you say? We did the very same thing for the West in our Cold War nuclear standoff with the Soviets for decades. We just need to move beyond our definition of the West (Old Core) to include the New Core pillars such as Russia, India, China, Brazil, and so on.

Don't give the Big Man an overdraft account

"Moral Accounting: An Activist Draws Interest at the Bank," by Philip Kennicott, WP, 4 May, p. C1.

Great article on how the human rights activist Shirin Ebadi (Nobel Peace Prize winner 2004) visited the World Bank and lectured them mightily on ìmoral bookkeeping.î

What was the basic message from a Muslim woman whoís waged a long and hard effort to open up her own nation from the repressive grip of its authoritarian leadership?

ìDo not lend to corrupt or tyrannical regimes and then expect the people to pay the bill. Lend only for projects that benefit people, not governments. Make a human rights checklist, rate countries on their progress, check up on that progress every three to five years, and reward only those countries that are moving toward greater human rights. If you support dictatorial regimes with economic assistance, when they fallóand they will always fallóthe people will hate you. Itís really quite simple.î [note: the articleís author is paraphrasing Ebadi here.]

Sounds good to me. Sounds also like the World Bank shouldnít be giving a dime to the corrupt, repressive, terrorism-supporting mullah-dominated regime in Teheran.

Of course, Ebadi does her best to describe Iranís political situation and evolution in glass-half-full terms. She needs to, given the many death threats sheís received from elements within her own country since winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

You have to wish a woman that courageous good fortune in the days aheadóas well as an infallible sense of balance.

Chechnya: pathway of deepening disconnectedness

No rest for the weary as Chechnya heats back up for Moscow

ìChechnya Bomb Kills President In Blow To Putin: Top Officer is Wounded,î by Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, 10 May, p. A1.

It is hard to have much sympathy for either side in this one. The Chechens waged a bloody war for separation from Russia in the mid-1990s (1994-1996), winning autonomy from Moscow but not a separate state. The new leader hand-picked by Moscow to head the region was the target of the assassinsí bomb. He had led a Chechen rebel force in that first war, but decided to cast his lot with the Russians when the second Chechen war began in 1999, after Russia invaded the breakaway republic to remove its openly defiant but freely elected president. Simply put, this one isnít going to die out any time soon.

Russia gave up its empire at the end of the Cold War, but drew a firm line around the Russian Republic itself, trapping any would-be breakaway republics within that border. You might wonder why Russia just doesnít give in and let this tiny population go its own way, but I do believe it is simply too much to ask. Russia gave away an empire that it had spent tens of millions of lives acquiring and subjugating (through bloody conquest and ruthless, murdering ruleóno doubt), and gave it all away without firing a single shot in anger. Imagine the United States deciding to wage a Civil War to recapture all the Confederate states and then being faced with the prospect of letting the republic of Greater Mobile go its own way.

I know, I know. Itís not fair to compare, and as a former Soviet expert on the former Soviet Union, I must bow to all the arguments about the racial distinctiveness of Chechens. But to me, this is strictly an ìolive treeî war that speaks to the past, not the future. Russia therefore should have a free hand to do what it must as far as America is concerned, for in Chechnyaís continued struggle I see nothing but a pathway of deepening disconnectedness.

"I've seen this map before!"óthe Gap and agriculture

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 10 May

Whenever I give the brief and show the Gap on the map, I get this response from someone in the crowd, meaning they have seen the shape displayed before but with regard to something else.

When I was on Diane Rehm recently, I discussed the causality of the Gap with Steve Roberts. That discussion got me this letter from Walter Parham, Ph.D. from Virginia.

Dear Dr. Barnett,

I heard your interesting radio interview on NPR today. Your discussion of various maps that parallel yours caught my attention. It reminded me of something I wrote a long time ago and, so, I decided to send you a copy for your collection. It is a geological/mineralogical view of the world but it may be of some interest to you anyway. Congratulations on your new book.

As someone very interested in geology who's done a lot of work on the oil industry and agriculture in developing economies, I was very interested. Parham didn't send a map, but did send the following abstract from the World Population Society, dated 1975:

GEOLOGICAL CONTROLS ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES OF THE HUMID TROPICS

Walter E. Parham, Department of Geology & Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Developing nations are not scattered haphazardly across the earth's surface but are concentrated mostly in the hot, humid tropics where the land is covered with heavily leached soils. The region's climate and the mineralogic composition of the near-surface rock materials are key elements of the environmental framework of developing nations. A host of problems related to soil fertility, food production, agricultural practices, man and animal nutrition, deforestation, water quality, public health, and erosion are directly related to this region's geologic weathering environment. The common clay minerals of soils of the humid tropics are rich in aluminum, silica and iron and thus are poor for producing high-protein food. Slash-and-burn agriculture relies on ashes of the burned forest for soil nutrients. The soil's low ion exchange capacity results in the loss of most nutrients to runoff during heavy rains, accelerating eutrophication of surrounding waters. Lack of forest cover promotes erosion and siltation. Food needs for rapidly growing populations has resulted in shorter periods for forest regrowth between burnings. Consequently, soil deterioration increases rapidly while food production decreases. The common assumption that most of these nations can "Pull themselves up by their bootstraps" seems unlikely in light of the mineralogical and geological controls of their environment.

This is why I argue that the Core should encourage the use of bioengineered crops optimized to grow in poor soil conditions inside the Gap.

Good input that I thank Dr. Parham for.

The review of the PNM that I would have written

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 9 May 2004

This one comes from Dallas/Fort Worth-based Star-Telegram. Here it is in full and then follows my commentary:

Posted on Sun, May. 09, 2004



The Pentagon's New Map

Closing the Gap

World peace is seen as a matter of the haves helping the have-nots

By Heather Landy

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

As the United States began identifying the suicide pilots who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, many of my colleagues in the Manhattan office where I was working at the time shared a theory: Maybe if these terrorists had more to live for, maybe if their corner of the world had political freedom, economic opportunities and a sense of social progress, then they would not have been so quick to participate in suicide missions plotted by Osama bin Laden.

This is the same premise offered by U.S. Naval War College Professor Thomas P.M. Barnett in The Pentagon's New Map. The book takes the theory several steps further, providing statistical evidence and the kind of long-term vision and military credentials that come in handy when one is trying to influence policy on an international issue.

In an updated version of "the haves" and "the have-nots," Barnett splits the world into "the Core" and "the Gap." The map he draws shows North America, Europe, Australia, India, East Asia and select parts of South America comfortably chugging along in the Core, while most of Africa, Central America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia struggle to subsist in the Gap.

America has the military strength and the moral obligation to shrink the Gap economically and to export security as needed to help Gap countries integrate into the Core, Barnett argues. Ultimately, this is our best defense against terror and the anti-American hatred that breeds in the Gap.

Barnett also suggests that our war on terrorism will work only if it is waged as part of a larger campaign, with the goal of making the global economy truly global, and helping Gap nations move toward more open societies with enough political and economic stability to attract foreign investment and reconnect to the Core.

Trained as an expert on the Soviet Union, Barnett in recent years has briefed officials from the Defense Department, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security, sharing his Core-Gap theory and pressing for changes that would help the military become as adept at fostering peace as it is at waging war. His book uses an easy, conversational language that instructs rather than condescends.

Ideological hawks may not take kindly to parts of The Pentagon's New Map. Barnett exposes petty insecurities and political maneuvers that have hampered the Defense Department's view of the world, and he pulls no punches when it comes to analyzing President Bush's post-war strategies in Iraq.

But those who believe we never should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place won't find a sympathetic viewpoint here, either. To Barnett, the bombs that began raining down on Baghdad a year ago were not dropped in vain.

"The reason I so easily fit an argument for the war within my 'shrink the Gap' strategy wasn't that I thought Saddam had to go right then, but that I knew he had to go sometime, and the spring of 2003 was as good a time as any," he writes.

In one of the strongest passages of the book, Barnett describes life in the Gap. Among the statistics he cites: Of the 50 countries with the lowest life expectancy rates, all but South Africa lie within the Gap; the Gap accounts for 96 percent of the people who are forced to leave their home countries to escape warfare or similar deprivations; and it hosts 31 of the 36 groups that the State Department officially considers to be terrorist organizations.

It may be difficult to have sympathy for Gap societies when we see photographs of Iraqis dancing on a bridge, with the burned bodies of American civilians hanging above them. These images make us want to bomb these people, not help them. But they also show how desperate and disconnected these societies have become.

Barnett's call for action rises above partisan politics because it tugs at us as humans, not as liberals or conservatives, or as free-traders or isolationists. He criticizes and praises Republican and Democratic administrations alike. In an era of political firestorms set off by one-sided tell-all books from government insiders, this is particularly welcome.

The Pentagon's New Map is not without its shortcomings. Barnett gives little advice on how to deal with allies who might not be supportive of certain U.S. policies. The book also suffers from a lack of organization, making Barnett's arguments sometimes seem repetitive. Perhaps both flaws are the result of trying to explain a 30-year vision almost too concisely. The Pentagon's New Map is based on an article of the same name that Barnett published in the March 2003 issue of Esquire magazine.

One of the book's biggest strengths is its positive viewpoint. Barnett is the first to admit that the Core-Gap structure will persist for some time and that the changes he prescribes for our military structure will take decades to implement. But throughout, Barnett maintains an infectious optimism that should cause most readers to hope that his ideas are acted upon.

"America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire," he writes. "It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap. This is a boundable problem with a foreseeable finish line." For although it may loom large on a military agenda not yet equipped to handle the peace after war, the Gap is not infinite.

The Pentagon's New Map

by Thomas P.M. Barnett

Nonfiction

Putnam, $24.95

Grade: A-

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heather Landy is a Star-Telegram business writer.

COMMENTARY: I know Mark Warren would quibble over the organization complaint, and would indeed cite the great compression required to make the material fit this book. Frankly, we both thought the book could have easily been expanded into 5 or 6 books. So point well taken there.

As for the repetition, there we erred on the side of caution, not expecting the reader to read through it too quickly given the density of ideas. In retrospect, weóand especially Iówas probably wrong on this. Most people seem to read the book very quickly.

In general though, I like this review a lot, in the sense that it was a review for average readers that stressed the utility of the book for average readers. More than anything, this is the review Mark and I wanted: this is not just a book for experts or partisans, but for average people hoping to find some middle ground.

Making Waves in New Orleans

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 8 May

The speech I gave in New Orleans at the Gulf Coast Expo got me mentioned in two local stories.

The first one appeared in The Advocate, and was titled, ìBlanco: State vital to defense,î by Joe Gyan, Jr. Blanco refers to the governor of Louisiana who gave the kick-off speech.

Hereís the excerpt about my panel (with no extra quotations added):

The expo featured a panel of military experts Thursday discussing "How do we protect our borders -- and not choke trade?"

Rear Adm. Robert Duncan, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard's New Orleans-based Eighth District, which oversees 26 states, said the key to providing maritime security without "shutting down" maritime commerce is checking cargo at various points before it reaches U.S. shores.

"We need to have a layered approach," he said.

In the Gulf of Mexico, Duncan said, one of the keys to protecting the 4,000 oil and gas platforms is the eyes and ears of the rig workers.

"We're developing a 'neighborhood watch' among those people," he said.

Brig. Gen. John Yingling, commander of the counterdrug Joint Task Force Six based at Fort Bliss, Texas, said 906,000 people were caught last year trying to enter this country illegally. Three times that many people probably were successful in illegally crossing U.S. borders, he said.

The reasons for illegal border crossings could vary from seeking economic improvement to carrying illegal drugs or perhaps even weapons of mass destruction, Yingling said.

"I am not advocating the militarization of our borders," he said. "But there are assets that the military can bring. There is a roll for DOD (Department of Defense) assets."

Military personnel, for instance, could help train this country's 11,000 border patrol agents how to detect weapons of mass destruction, he said.

Thomas Barnett, a senior strategic researcher and professor at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies' Warfare Analysis and Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College, shook up the discussion by charging that the post-Sept. 11, 2001, creation of the Department of Homeland Security was merely a "feel good measure."

As for the terrorists in the Middle East, he said, "We can't kill them fast enough. They grow them quicker than we can kill them."

Barnett said the United States is in a "race to connect the Middle East to the rest of the world" while the terrorists try to disconnect it.

As for the ongoing war in Iraq, Barnett said he prefers "dealing with the threat at the source" and added that having the fight in Baghdad is "better than having it in Boston."

Another story highlighted the speech by a senior official of the Department of Homeland Security. It was an AP story. When the reporter ran up to me after the panel asking if he could have a copy of my statement, I gave him my website URL and said it was already posted there!

That story was titled, ìOfficial defends Homeland Security agency's anti-terror efforts.î I found the speech by Broderick to be a little bit disturbing, actually. It was full of ìif you only knewísî where he was constantly assuring us of bad things stopped dead in their tracks, itís just that he couldnít describe any of them. I hate that sort of sly fear mongering, as I describe it in my book (see Chapter 7).

Hereís the whole story, because I donít have any links to it online:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Criticism of the federal Department of Homeland Security has come partly because critics don't understand the struggle of creating the government's third-largest department "from scratch, while fighting terrorism simultaneously," the head of the agency's intelligence sharing group said Thursday.

Matthew E. Broderick, chief of the agency's Operations Center, acknowledged struggles inside the agency, saying "I don't think I've seen a place where burnout hits people so fast."

"Everything's hard, everything's difficult, but I think we're just starting to come out of that," Broderick, a retired Marine brigadier general, said at a security conference in New Orleans.

Critics, some of them in Congress, have blamed the agency run by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge for a number of possible security lapses. Some have criticized the agency's color-coded alerts of terrorism threats, others have said the agency has overlooked rail and port security while focusing on airline security. Congressional auditors last year said Ridge's department failed to resolve bureaucratic conflicts over oversight of transportation security as a whole.

Broderick spoke at the Gulf Coast Military Expo, a gathering of military and civilian security and business officials organized by the Marine Corps Association and the U.S. Naval Institute and sponsored by military contractors.

His comments came in response to remarks made by Thomas P.M. Barnett, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, who said in a panel discussion earlier Thursday that creating the agency months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was a mistake.

One benefit of having the new agency, Broderick said, is that, for the first time, federal law-enforcement agencies are sharing information on illegal immigration, possible terrorists and other suspects. To apprehend possible terrorists, Broderick's Operations Center collects and shares information from more than 21 government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, immigrations, customs and the state department.

The Operations Center receives information on any known terrorist suspect from agencies around the country, as well as from cooperating foreign governments such as the United Kingdom, Canada and others. Each suspect is tracked and their backgrounds checked, Broderick said.

"Is he really just a visiting professor who's going to do a speech at Johns Hopkins tomorrow? Or is he really a threat to the United States?" Broderick said.

Broderick said his office has daily meetings with the White House, the Department of Defense and other agencies with updates on potential threats.

"Unfortunately for us, business is good. You have no idea of the number of people that are trying to do this country harm," he said.

Broderick said he believed anti-terror efforts have disrupted efforts by al-Qaida and other groups, but added that their members are "smart people, and they're really here to do us harm."

Broderick expressed one concern: That, in apprehending the older, more patient and farsighted terrorists around the world, his agency and others are inadvertently promoting younger, rasher terrorists within those organizations.

"That could be good, because they might get clumsy, but it may be bad because they might get successful," he said.

Other speakers at Thursday's meeting included Joseph L. Galloway, author of "We Were Soldiers Once and Young," and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

What I said about DHSís creation being a mistake was that I donít think the bifurcation of U.S. national security should have been made on a geographical basis (Defense Department for ìover thereî and DHS for ìover here,î with the border as the key defense line) because I think, strategically speaking, the only way to defeat global terrorism is to deny them the outcome they seek, which is strictly an ìover thereî (i.e., Middle Eastern) thing. By emphasizing homeland security, I believe we actually play into al Qaedaís hands.

I prefer bifurcating national security into a Department of War (my Leviathan force) and a Department of Peace (my Sys Admin force). In short, I wouldnít have created DHS, even as I would have forced all those players involved in border control, etc., to cooperate far more fully with one another. In the end, the integration I seek is better security between U.S. and the rest of an expanding Core, not integration overwhelmingly focused within these United States. America is not the problem, but the solution, remembering that we are the worldís first and most successful economic and political unionó50 members strong and someday again to be growing. We are globalizationís source code, so when we go down the pathway of creating DHS, I see backward motion.

I know the temptation with a 9/11 is to pull back, but what we really need to do is reach out.