Shrinking the Gap one child at a time

Dateline: United flights from New Orleans to Providence, 7 May

Really tired of the traveling of past two weeks, and ready to stay at home for a while. Spring is in the air, which is my house means my two oldest start asking about when weíll take our first trip to Six Flags New England.

Whenever I describe to people that my wife and I are in the process of adopting a baby girl from China, I say weíre shrinking the Gap one child at a time. What I mean by that is this girl will be coming to us from one of Chinaís poorer, interior regions, and those interior regions are more Gap-like than Core-like, representing the great challenge for Chinaís economic development in coming decades.

Vonne and I are part of the December 2003 dossier-to-China group, and referrals just came out for the September and October (through the 20th), so we expect news about our baby girl sometime within the next 60 days. A referral means weíll know the identity of our child and have a travel date set (usually six weeks in advance) for going to China and picking her up.

The referrals typically arrive near the end of the month, and can encompass as few as two weeks worth of dossier-to-China dates (our actual one is 10 Dec 2003) or as much as two months. Conceivably, then, the next referral could scoop up the dates between 20 October and 20 December 2003, meaning we could learn in late May that we were traveling to China in July.

But more likely is that the next referral will scoop the remainder from October and all of November, meaning weíd get our referral in late June (the referral following) and then travel in late August or early September. Late August would be best, because then our kids wouldnít miss school, as they will be staying with relatives in the Midwest during our two-week sojourn.

With the initial aspects of the book launching behind me and my effort there switching from sprint to marathon (gotta sell all those 100k books!), the focus of our family now gets overwhelmingly directed at getting ready for the baby and this massive trip. Traveling to China is something Iíve always wanted to do, and I know the journey will be amazing in more ways than one, since weíll come back with a new member of our family.

So China is clearly on my mind, but it would be anyway given my career focus on globalization in general. China looms large nowadays, no matter who you are or where you live.

Who knows? Maybe they're buying my book. After dropping progressively from 42 to somewhere around 2,000 over the past several days, my Amazon ranking somehow jumped back up to 288 today (B&N=466).

Now if only I could see one copy to each person on the mainland . . .

Here are the articles picked up today:

ìChina Anxiously Seeks a Soft Economic Landing,î by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 7 May, p. C1.

ìEmerging Markets Lose Their Darling Status: Global Investors Are Reassessing As China Tries to Slow Its Growth And U.S. Looks to Raise Rates,î by Craig Karmin, Wall Street Journal.

ìSixteen Nations to Get Initial Millenium Aid,î by Michael Schroeder, WSJ, 7 May, p. A14.

ìAbu Ghraib as Symbol,î by Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 7 May, p. A33.

ChinaóThe Global Economyís ìOther Engineî

ìChina Anxiously Seeks a Soft Economic Landing,î by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 7 May, p. C1.

ìEmerging Markets Lose Their Darling Status: Global Investors Are Reassessing As China Tries to Slow Its Growth And U.S. Looks to Raise Rates,î by Craig Karmin, Wall Street Journal.

Chinese leaders are promising to do whatever must be done to slow down the countryís red-hot growth of recent months, but admit that getting their currency off its peg to the dollar canít happen until banking reforms proceed.

As the NYT article says, ìMuch is riding on Beijingís efforts. The global recovery now depends on China as one of its twin engines, along with the United States.î Thatís not just some temporary assessment of Chinaís importance, but a reality that weíll be facing from here on out. Chinaís economy wonít be overtaking that of the U.S. in sheer size any time soon, and yet, it is already logically considered the second-most influential force on the global economyís health.

Yes, the EU is hugely important, but so much of what the EU does in the global economy involves itself. For example, the World Bankís figures for the EUís inflow and outflow of foreign direct investment makes it look like the worldís biggest source of FDI, when in reality it isnít, because roughly half of that flow ìinî and ìoutî of EU member states goes merely to other EU member states. If the U.S. counted ìFDIî from Florida to Michigan and vice versa, our numbers would be astronomical, thus reminding us that these United States are the oldest and most successful multinational economic and political union in world history.

When you discount those intra-EU flows, itís actually the U.S. that is the biggest source of inter-regional FDI flows, as well as the biggest target. Why China is so important is because of its tremendous growth, its rising status as manufacturing and export superpower, its rising draw on the worldís raw materials, itís status as one of the worldís great targets of FDI, its ability to set the worldís prices on low-price manufactured goods, and its huge trade surplus with the outside world that generates massive cash supplies (estimated at $400b) which the Chineseóin turnóplow back into U.S. Treasury bills. Put that package all together, especially those crucial linkages to the world economyís number 1 engine, and you begin to understand why our economic fate is becoming increasingly intertwined with that of Chinaís.

Thus my problem with the Pentagonís enduring penchant to cast China as the rising near-peer competitor, something I saw on full display from several speakers at the Gulf Coast Military Expo I just attended (although this nonsense comes mostly from those elements most desperately in need of such a force-sizing measureómeaning the Navy in general and the submarine community in particular).

If China slows down its economic engine, itís still likely to grow in the 7% range, according to experts. But the fact that its currency is pegged to the dollar is not something to simply brush aside. As the WSJ article points out, one reason why a possible slowdown in emerging markets doesnít frighten global investors in the way it did with the Asian Flu back in 1997 is that few emerging markets today peg their currencies, preferring to let them float. The currency crises that triggered the flu were started by yawning gaps opening up between those countriesí currencies and the dollar, and the perception on the part of investors that a correction (devaluing) was in the works, thus they started betting against the local currency, expecting to clean up once the devaluation occurred (buying the currency back later at a cheaper price).

Well, if your currency floats, that sort of build-up of speculative pressure is managed on a day-to-day basis, instead of released in fell swoop one morning. What does China have in its tool-kit to avoid such an outcome? First off, its currency is basically unconvertible, meaning only the government there can buy and sell the yuan. Thatís a lot of power in their hands, but it also forces Beijing to use other methods to slow down the economy, and hereís where it gets tricky.

China wonít let the yuan float until banking reforms are much further along, but until they are pushed, China remains fundamentally without any bankruptcy laws and foreclosure proceedings. So how to weed out the bad investments? The only route available for now are corruption investigations and criminal fraud investigations, which can be rather blunt in effect and quite frightening to foreign investors.

Why are foreign investors so important? China eschews short-term loans (another big cause of the Asian Flu) or ìhot moneyî flowing into stock markets (which remain fairly controlled in China), so FDI is the main conduit of foreign investment flowing into China.

Where is a lot of that FDI going right now in China? Energy infrastructural development. Why? Generating electricity is the key bottleneck on development right now.

I know you know where Iím going with all this: Chinaís status as a potential source of stability or instability in the world right now is very much captured by my Decalogue on the military-market nexus, which is why itís so crucial that the U.S. and China not facetiously treat one another as long-term military threats simply to justify long-term military R&D and acquisition plans.

In reality, our fates are highly intertwined in the Middle East, which is the region from which China will inevitably be drawing the vast bulk of its energy in coming years and decades. But instead of seeing Chinese peacekeepers side-by-side with Americans in Iraq (imagine what a different ìoccupationî that is), what we see instead are Pentagon plans for a missile shield in East Asia with North Korea and China on one side, and Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan on the other.

So as I keep pushing my book and its larger ideas, one of the key ones being the need to get off the near-peer competitor focus and start thinking more about war within the context of everything else, I honestly believe Iím working to secure that increasingly intertwined fate that links China and the United Statesónot to mention our new Chinese baby girl and this American family.

Gap countries moving in the right direction

ìSixteen Nations to Get Initial Millenium Aid,î by Michael Schroeder, Wall Street Journal, 7 May, p. A14.

Short article in WSJ about start-up of first Millennium Challenge Corp.ís funds flowing from the U.S. to 16 Gap states. This fund is the newest version of U.S. foreign aid, and represents a boosting of our overall aid by 50% over the next three years.

To attract aid from the MCC, your country needs to demonstrate youíre on the right path in terms of political and economic reforms that show youíre synchronizing your internal rule sets with the Coreís emerging collective rule set of free markets, free trade, transparency, democracy, and collective security.

The winners of the first $1b in aid distributed by the MCC are: Armenia, Benin, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Senegal, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu. While Georgia and Madagascar have had recent bouts on instability, itís interesting to note that the U.S. military really hasnít been to any of these states since the end of the Cold War, save for one small intervention in Georgia.

My point is this: using aid to reward progress in Gap states only makes sense, and those states receiving such aid are likely to be the states in the Gap least likely to see a U.S. military intervention. In other words, shrinking the Gap is a multifaceted affair that does not always involve the U.S. military. This is not about burdening ourselves with empire, but about making good investment choices with both our pubic-sector and private-sector funds, with U.S. military interventions playing only an enabling role in those instances where bad actors preclude the possibility of such flows.

The real clash of civilizations is over sexuality

ìAbu Ghraib as Symbol,î by Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 7 May, p. A33.

One issue I raise in the book [pp. 135-36] is that what traditional societiesóespecially Muslim-dominated onesófear most about globalization penetrating their insular worlds is not the notion of democracy that accompanies it, but the very American images of sexual liberation and gender equality. In short, itís a clash of gendersóstupid!

That is what makes the pictures coming out of the Iraqi prisoner-abuse scandal so damaging, although I for one feel most politicians and media people are hyping the event unnecessarily by describing it as setting back U.S.-Islamic relations ìseveral decades.î Frankly, it takes something like genocide to set relations back ìseveral decades.î This scandal is bad, alright, confirming the worst fears of those in the Islamic world who believe that letting globalization in will mean the rapid Americanization of their culture.

Hereís what Charles Krauthammer has to say on the issue, which echoes my analysis in the book on how womenóon averageófair very badly inside the Gap:

ìFor the jihadists, at stake in the war against the infidels is the control of women. Western freedom means the end of womenís mastery by men, and the end of dictatorial clerical control over all aspects of sexualityóin dress, behavior, education, the arts.

Taliban rule in Afghanistan was the model of what the jihadists want to impose upon the world. The case the jihadists make against freedom is that wherever it goes, especially the United States and Europe, it brings sexual license and corruption, decadence and depravity.

The appeal of this fear can be seen in the Arab worldís closest encounter with modernity: Israel. Israeli women are by far the most liberated of any in that part of the world. For decades, the Arab press has responded with lurid stories of Israeli sexual corruption.î

That underlying reality marks the essential asymmetry in this global war on terrorism: for us itís all about security leading to economic integration and freedom, but to them it is all about connectivity leading to chaos and sexual depravity. This clash of genders will define much of the grand historical process of the Coreís integration of Gap societies, not all of whom will be Muslim-dominated, but all of whom will be male-dominated.

Thatís why I distinguish the Leviathan military as your fatherís military and the Sys Admin force as your motherís military: one to kill the males standing in the way and the other to welcome the women longing to escape.

Missions accomplished in New Orleans

Dateline: Hyatt Regency New Orleans, 6 May

Gave my little speech this morning as the first panelist in the first panel. Apparently, in his expo-opening speech last night, Joe Galloway, author of ìWe Were Soldiers Once and Youngî (Mel Gibson movie), admonished panelists not simply to engage in a love-in on the topic of Homeland Security but really to debate the big questions. Well, after my ten-minutes of speaking, the moderator declared that there certainly wasnít going to be any love-in following my ìcontroversial remarks.î

My remarks were meant to provoke discussion, but they were not out of context from my book. I simply donít believe in the Defense Department playing the ìhome game,î because I see it as a strategic loser.

Anyway, Proceedings editor Fred Rainbow was very happy with my talk, because he always wants these panels to have a little controversy, as the ìhappy consensusî is the bane of conference organizers who are always desperate to have their get-togethers remember for something more than everyone agreeing with everyone else. Here I thought that maybe my comments were a bit too over the line, but soon after the panel Fred came up and asked if he might publish the text in Proceedings. So I gave him an electronic copy and theyíll be sending me their edit with all deliberate speed.

I had asked Fred if he minded if I posted my speech already on my site and he said no. So the speech/blog is slated for publication as an article, and no matter how you trace that lineage, itís a first for me.

Signed about 25 books here at the expo, which was rather small by Naval Institute standards (the January one in San Diego is huge in comparison), but selling books is selling books.

So I cause some controversy, get a new article out of it, sign some books, and snatch six of those retractable security badge holder thingamabobsómissions accomplished all around.

Oh yeah I almost forgot. I got a call today from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and a unit there which is putting on a big defense industry conference down in Orlando later in May, concerning defense acquisition reform. They want me for the keynote evening dinner address and want to make my book available to the 600 or so senior business executives slated to be in attendance. Hmmmmm. That was a tough call, especially after they offered to pay my travel.

You gotta like it when the Pentagon itself starts helping you sell the Pentagonís New Map.

I donít think Iíll be turning down any conferences that say they want to arrange with Putnam to sell books on site. Sell 500 at a conference 200 times and thatís the first printing right there!

Now if I can just find 199 more conferences.

Actually, already have two others already lined up, so make it a mere 197.

This is really my last night away from home for a while and I canít wait for all this travel to end. I look forward to having my life be about something else again, like sleeping regularly with a beautiful woman.

Yes Vonne, that would be you.

Before anything else inappropriate bursts out, hereís the dayís catch from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal:

REFERENCES:

ìAs China Goes, So Goes Taiwan: Islandís Stock Decline Underscores Link to Mainlandís Economy,î by Dan Nystedt and Sabrina Kuo, Wall Street Journal, 6 May, p. C14.

ìBattle Shaping Up for Chinese Brewery: SABMiller counters a stake purchase by Anheuser in a huge market for beer,î by Chris Buckley, New York Times, 6 May, p. W1.

ìLow-Tech or High, Jobs Are Scarce in Indiaís Boom,î by Amy Waldman, NYT, 6 May, p. A3.

ìRestoring Our Honor: Itís time for Rumsfeld to go,î by Thomas L. Friedman, NYT, 6 May, p. A31.

The near-beer competitor raises its foamy head

ìAs China Goes, So Goes Taiwan: Islandís Stock Decline Underscores Link to Mainlandís Economy,î by Dan Nystedt and Sabrina Kuo, Wall Street Journal, 6 May, p. C14.

ìBattle Shaping Up for Chinese Brewery: SABMiller counters a stake purchase by Anheuser in a huge market for beer,î by Chris Buckley, New York Times, 6 May, p. W1.

This conference today is full of the usual nonsense from old-timey admirals about China clearly being the rising threat in the east. One guy went so far as to declare the ìnear-peer competitorî already here.

Yeah buddy, and when they invade Taiwan itíll be called the ìmillion man swim.î

Hereís the far more complex underlying reality: Taiwan is so in bed in China economically that the biggest threat China poses to the island state would be a decision to slow down its red-hot economy. China surpassed Japan and the U.S. this year to become Taiwanís biggest trade partner, so guess whoíll suffer most in a Chinese slow down? The export-dependent small island nation off its coast.

Thereís a dangerous scenario for 2005, not some high-tech fantasy for war in 2025. Another good example of ìeverything elseî trumping war in the era of globalization.

As for the beer reference: I just couldnít resist the pun. My old mentor at CNA Hank Gaffney always loved to ridicule the near-peer competitor concept as the ìnear-beer competitorîóyou know, it tastes great, but itís less filling than the old Soviet threat.

Well, if Anheuser or Miller get their way, the near-beer competitor will be rising far faster than its military counterpart.

Drinkers of China, I salute you!

India: ìHey! Iím insourcing here! Iím insourcing here!

ìLow-Tech or High, Jobs Are Scarce in Indiaís Boom,î by Amy Waldman, New York Times, 6 May, p. A3.

Article is big misleading: itís not that Indiaís boom isnít creating jobs, itís just that the number of young people entering the work force every year is just so darn huge that itís never enoughóthat with an economy growing at 10 percent.

Whatís the big culprit if the software and service-call industries are booming? Simply put, the government isnít employing people like they used to. That push to privatize is what attracts the foreign direct investment, but once you go down that road, you just canít stop, you have to keep attracting more and more in order to create jobs for all those people the government is no longer willing toóin effectóunderemploy, meaning they hire them but hardly have them do any work.

That was one thing I noticed a lot of in India. It reminded me of growing up in my small hometown in Boscobel: obvious situations where companies hired more people than they needed, paid them all below standard wages, and then never seemed to have enough work for them, so a lot of standing around resulted. Still, to have a job was to have a job.

My point in citing this article is this: donít expect India to get any less aggressive about working to insource more jobs from the Old Core economies anytime soonóChina either. The numbers of new jobs each needs to create is stunning. So American workers better plan on ìmoving on upî the production ladder, because there are plenty of Indians and Chinese scrambling up the ladder behind us.

The sacrificial hawkóbut what about the Secretary of Everything Else?

ìRestoring Our Honor: Itís time for Rumsfeld to go,î by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 6 May, p. A31.

When Tom Friedman starts talking about Secretary Rumsfeld needing to resign, you know the matter is getting awfully serious. Friedman is just about alone among major columnists in his support of the Big Bang theory behind the Bush Administrationís decision to topple Saddam Hussein.

The prisoner-abuse scandal is big enough to demand some heads and not just a mea culpa from the President on Arab TV, which was unprecedented enough in its own right to leave my mouth open in stunned amazement.

All I would say on this subject is this: fine to can somebody really big to clear the air on this issue and show Americaís commitment to do the right thing, and SECDEF is probably the right guyóin that Japanese sort of top-guy-takes-the-fall show of good faith and serious remorse.

But removing Rumsfeld from power is only going to help things if the White House is prepared to cut some major deals with major allies in getting the occupation of Iraq dramatically internationalized beyond its current limited base. So if canning Rumsfeld means a month from now there are tens of thousands of peacekeepers from new statesóand Iím talking big boys like an India, China or Russiaóthen thatís one thing. But if the White House simply offers him up as a sacrificial hawk and doesnít engineer something big in terms of subsequent deals with allies, then I do think it will be a pointless gesture that robs the Pentagon of a good leader.

Still, it would be fitting for the Secretary of War (one of the most able weíve ever had) to be felled by the Pentagonís continuing inability to think through the Everything Else that follows war. In reality, its that missing Secretary of Everything Else who should have prevented this fiasco. But since that job is non-existent, and my Sys Admin force still embryonic, our Secretary of War may end up paying the price for this institutional gap in our national security establishment.

Talking Homeland Security in the Big Easy

Dateline: Hyatt Regency New Orleans, Gulf Coast Military Expo 2004, 6 May

I delivered the following opening statement as a member of a panel discussion entitled, ìHow Do We Protect Our BordersóAnd Not Choke Trade?î Other panelists were Rear Admiral Robert Duncan, Commander, 8th Coast Guard District and Brigadier General John A. Yingling (US Army), Commander, Joint Task Force Six. The moderator was Dr. Scott Truver, Group Vice President, National Security Studies, Anteon Corporation.

Other than participating in this panel, I was at the expo to sign books and collect as many of those cool, retractable, security badge clip-on devices because my last one just broke and itís been a long time since Iíve been to a military expo where all the vendors give them away as souvenirs.

Oh, and it was cool to be in New Orleans, site of the last Green Bay Packer Super Bowl victory (January 1997), for the first time in my life. Too bad it came after virtually ten straight days of travel . . ..

[begin text]

Since Iím fundamentally a grand strategist, Iím going to stick with what I know on this subject. So Iím going to keep my talk big picture and seemingly wildly off-topic for the vast majority of my allotted time.

Let me start off first by saying that Iím not a great believer that significant efforts should be made to secure our borders, certainly not to the extent that the U.S. Navy would divert any resources to the issue. I think the creation of the Department of Homeland Security was a mistakeóand by that I mean a strategic mistake. While I favor, like anybody else with half a brain, the notion that all the agencies involved in border control and similar efforts and infrastructure protection and nation-wide first responses should cooperate more extensively in the aftermath of 9/11, I think that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security was strictly a feel-good measure that really attacked the true problem set from the wrong angleómeaning geographically instead of functionally. I do believe our national security establishment is poorly arranged for the security tasks of the 21st century, a subject I explore at great length in my book, but I think cleaving the notion of security at our borders is pathetically old-fashionedóa perfect answer for the 19th century but just plain wrong for today. Instead, the bifurcation of security that we need to pursue is not one that partitions our concept of national security at our borders, but one that addresses the compellingly different tasks associated with waging wars and waging peace across the 21st century.

Let me tell you why I say that.

I see three fundamental responses to the threat of global terrorism, which I view as fundamentally linked to the expansion of the global economy over time, or what we call the historical processóas well as the historical conditionóof globalization. These three fundamental responses correspond to my favorite way of viewing any security issueóthat of breaking the problem set down to three different perspectives derived from Kenneth Waltzís masterpiece of international relations theory, Man, the State and War:

You look at the issue in terms of the role of individuals

You look at the issue in terms of state-based responses, or

You look at the issue in terms of the global community.

Three perspectives from bottom to top: individual, state, system.

On the level of individuals, you can seek to defeat terrorism by simply tracking these people down and killing them as quickly as possible, disrupting their networks wherever possible. This approach has limited utility, but obviously must be pursued with some vigor, for these constitute the individual skirmishes in a global war on terror, and warfare today is largely waged against individuals. We canít find traditionally-defined armies that will fight us anymore, and global war among great powers died with nukes, so today we fundamentally wage war against individualsóto wit, we went into Iraq looking for a deck of cards. Weíre still looking for a series of individuals in northwest Pakistan.

Tracking these guys down and killing them as fast as possible will only achieve so much and no more in the global war on terrorism. Simply put, we canít kill them fast enough. They can grow them faster than we can kill them. In fact, killing them helps them to regenerate their numbers more rapidly.

On the level of state-based responses, which is where the subject of this panel is logically located, the question is one of how far are we willing to go in firewalling America off from the outside world. I have grave doubts that this can be achieved to any degree of success pertinent to a global war on terrorism, with the costs suffered in terms of Americaís economic connectivity with the outside world far outweighing any appreciable gain in overall national security.

The discussions we have about making Americaís bordersóquote unquoteótruly secure strike me as being as fantastic as the discussions we have about a secure missile defense shield protecting the nation. In the end, I see lots of money wasted and little in the way of guarantees.

Moreover, I see unintended consequences that are far more enormous. For example, as this country ages demographically over the coming decades, we need to let in at least 500,000 immigrants each year, according to UN projections, simply to keep our peak labor pool size in tact (a number weíll hit around 2015). Just maintaining that standard will not stop the continuing slide of our Potential Support Ratio, or PSR, referring to the ratio of working-age people to those over the age of 65, but it will mitigate the consequences of that slide, and, with predicted productivity gains and retirements progressively delayed until around 70, will give us enough of a demographic cushion over the next 50 or so years.

The good news is we let in roughly 750,000 to 1 million legal immigrants each year, which is why the U.S. Census Bureau predicts that two-thirds of Americaís population growth between now and 2050 will be accounted for by Latinos immigrating into this country from Central and South America. Now, understanding that that image is mighty scary to old WASPS like my old professor Sam Huntington, we all need to understand that that inflow of humanity is crucial to this countryís long-term economic health, whether you like them or not.

But whatís the story since 9/11? We have good indications, reported recently in a page one Wall Street Journal story, that a significant diversion of immigrants coming up from Latin America is already occurring as a result of our tighter security. Where are they being diverted to? Europe, landing first in the Iberian peninsula for obvious reasons.

So, to stem the threat of transnational terrorism which is overwhelmingly Middle Eastern in origin and motivations, we have chosen as a nationóunintentionallyóto reduce our ability to attract Latino labor into our economy, possibly over the long term. Tell me this is an intelligent strategic transaction that weíre conducting with the outside world. Tell me this leaves a better America to my children.

In short, I donít see this pursuit of significantly more secure borders constituting a strategic victory in any sense of the word. Yes, we should pursue logical steps. Sure, the Coast Guard should be deeply involved, as should any other assets of the Department of Homeland Security, but I donít see any usefully increased role for the U.S. military, because I believe the diversion of such resources would draw the Pentagonís efforts from where they should logically be centered.

Which brings me to what I believe is the system-level or truly strategic response. What Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda represent at this point in history is very similar to what a Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks represented at another turning point in history, roughly a century ago. Ours is not the first truly globalized economy in history. Globalization has ebbed and waned as a worldwide process going all the way back to the years immediately following the U.S. Civil War. In the first great expansive period of globalization surrounding the beginning of the 19th Century, Lenin and the Bolsheviks sought to hijack a major portion of humanity from the grasp of what they saw was a fundamentally corrupt capitalist world system. In their success, they eventually isolated roughly one-third of humanity, generating tens of millions of deaths, and defining the great security challenge to the West over the 20th Century, known best by the phrase, the Cold War.

What Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda seek to do todayóin a strategic senseóis to drive the West out of the Middle East so that the Middle East can be driven out of the world, thus escaping all the pollutive cultural influences they believe accompany globalizationís inevitable and continuing penetration of the Islamic world. Like a Lenin who targeting pre-capitalist states for immediate capture, bin Laden has sought his initial wins in such pre-globalized states as Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. His dream is an Islamic world deeply disconnected from the global economy. His dream is basically one of civilizational apartheid. Like all would-be dictators, he promises to stop killing our people if only weíll give him those people he considers to be his own, to do with as he sees fit.

When the United States decides to topple Saddam Husseinís regime in Iraq and generate a big bang of political change throughout the Middle East, weóin effectóseek to deny Osama bin Laden his strategic goal. In short, we are in a race to connect the Middle East to the world at large faster than the al Qaeda can disconnect that region from the world outside. It is in this effort that we locate the truly strategic tasks and goals of this global war on terrorism. This is where the overwhelming majority of the Defense Departmentís assets should be directed over the next several decades, for this task of connecting the Middle East to the worldófirst in terms of security, then in terms of broadband economic connectivity, and finally in terms of political communityóshould constitute the primary goal of U.S. national security strategy in the first half of the 21st century.

As such, I see little utility in discussing an ìemergingî or ìgrowingî of even ìusefulî role for the Defense Department in either homeland security or homeland defense. I believe the can of worms we have opened in finally recognizing that we are at war with transnational actors hell-bent on stemming globalizationís progressive advance into the Islamic world is logically located exactly where the center of gravity of that conflict is foundóin the Middle East.

Therefore, any diversion of Defense Department assets in the direction of significantly securing Americaís borders is fundamentally a bad strategic decision. Iíve got to admit, I have heard some seriously brain-dead ideas coming out of some offices within the Office of the Secretary of Defense regarding this allegedly strategic goal, and most of them should be squashed before they go anywhere.

Hereís why: I see the U.S. military establishment reverting to the bifurcated structure it had prior to World War II, a subject I first proposed in a May 2000 article in the U.S. Naval Instituteís Proceedings, and have resurrected both in my book, The Pentagonís New Map, and in the just-appearing June issue of Esquire in my latest article entitled, ìMr. President, Hereís How to Make Sense of Our Iraq Strategy.î

My vision of the future of U.S. national security predicts that the Defense Department will split into a Leviathan-like force focused on warfighting, or basically a resurrection of the Department of War, and what I call a System Administration force focused on the everything else, or basically a resurrection of the Department of Navy.

A point I make in my book is that the difficulties we face today in Iraq are, in many ways, the result of poor investment choices we made in the Pentagon over the past decade and a half. In effect, the Pentagon spent the 1990s buying one military while operating another. We invested heavily in warfighting capabilities designed to defeat a major military opponent, like a Chinaósay 20 years down the roadóand yet the 1990s featured a huge rise in what are derisively known through the Pentagon as Military Operations Other than War, meaning all the peacekeeping, nationbuilding, crisis response and disaster relief. That workload jumped dramatically over the past 15 years, but the Pentagon refused to rebalance the force. Those investment choices, made year after year, has yielded the force we have today: one that could perform 3 to 4 Iraq-style takedowns a year but cannot manage even one Iraq occupation. In effect, we field a first half team in a league that keeps score until the end of the game.

That deficiency has got to be eliminated if we are going to achieve truly strategic victories in this global war on terrorism.

To that end, my definition of the emerging Sys Admin force is that it will absorb the majority of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corpsí current asset poolóin effect returning the navy to its historical role as day-to-day manager of global security and out of its Cold War-era fixation on great power war with a peer competitor. Sea Basing, not Sea Strike nor Sea Shield will define this Navy in the decades ahead. In short, the Navy is going to get back in the business of being the worldís Coast Guard, meaning the U.S. Coast Guard is going to get back in the business of largely staying at home, watching our borders.

So as I look ahead, I do not see a growing role for the Defense Department in either homeland security or homeland defense. I believe any such movement would constitute a serious strategic error in our long-range planning for a global war on terrorism, generating unnecessary costs to this countryís long-term economic growth and sapping our ability to lead the world toward the only global future worth creatingóthat of making globalization truly global and eliminating the disconnectedness that defines danger in this age.

[end text]

The Big Bang as strategyómisunderestimated

Dateline: US Airways Express commuter plane heading from NYC to Providence, 5 May

REFERENCE: ìIraq, Terrorism Strain Brittle Mideast Status Quo,î by Hugh Pope, Wall Street Journal, 5 May, p. A12.

This is the best story to date on the real purpose of taking down Saddam andóby doing soólaying a System Perturbation on the Middle East.

This is what I say in the section of Chapter 5 called, ìThe Big Bang as Strategyî (I adapt this for the Esquire article just coming out now):

ìThe only way America can truly achieve strategic security in the age of globalization is to destroy disconnectedness. We fight fire with fire. Al Qaeda, whose true grievances lie wholly within the Persian Gulf, tries to destroy the Coreís connectedness on 9/11 by triggering a System Perturbation that throws our rule sets into flux. Their hope is to shock America and the West into abandoning their region first militarily, then politically, and finally economically. They hope to detoxify through disconnectedness. America decides correctly to fight back by trying to destroy disconnectedness in the Gulf region. We seek to do unto al Qaeda what hey did unto us: trigger a System Perturbation that will send all the regionís rule sets into flux.

What that Big Bang strategy really means is that we are trying to start a profound, region-wide tumult that will reorder the Middle East for the better. Guess what? That means more terrorism, instability, and mass violence in the short-run, not less. This reality gets lost in all the nonsensical talk about ìbringing democracy to Iraq.î The Big Bang may eventually trigger such long-term developments, but in the short and medium run, itís all about triggering change by destabilizing the brittle, authoritarian status quo that generates so much insecurity within the region and terrorism directed abroad. In short, the Big Bang purposefully seeks to redirect that terrorism back to the source.

Hereís the key opening sequence of the Wall Street Journal article:

ìTerrorist plots and attacks gaining traction across the Mideast since the U.S. invasion of Iraq are undermining a status quo in force since colonial powers left the region in the 1950s.

ëWhat weíve seen so far is like the first stirrings of a volcano. I believe it is the prelude to a big explosion,í says Abd al-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi. The war in Iraq, he argues, has served as a catalyst for popular hatred of the West and also of brittle and oppressive local regimes. While the different attacks donít appear to have been centrally organized, he says the attackers have been ëlinked ideologically. . . Itís the result of decades of frustration.í

In the past year, plots, attacks and occasional civil unrest have hit Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Morocco, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, including five major incidents in the past month alone. Just as worrisome, similar phenomena have occurred in Muslim communities in Spain, France and Britain, as well as Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The current framework of the Middle East has survived wars and coups before, and no government seems in any immediate danger of falling. But stress is beginning to show.

ëThe war in Iraq has exposed the vulnerabilities of governments and emboldened people to challenge the status quo. Some are doing it peacefully, some violently,í says Kevin Rosser, a terrorism expert at London security company Control Risks. ëIraq has focused anger from a variety of sources: political rigidity, the Arab-Israeli situation and Iraq.í

The upsurge of terrorism in oil-producing states like Iraq and Saudi Arabia is having an impact on the world economy. Worries about the stability of oil supplies caused prices of U.S. benchmark crude for June delivery to rise $1.60 over the past two days to close yesterday at $38.98 a barrel, a 13-year-high, partly in reaction to a shootout in the Saudi port of Yanbu on Saturday in which five Western oil workers and a Saudi were killed. Economistsómost recently the International Energy Agency on Mondayóare warning that high oil prices are denting global economic growth.

The attacks are also putting pressure on the way the Middle East has been divided up since the 1920s. Instability in Iraq is raising questions about its survival in the multiethnic form set up by the British Empire after World War I, says Rosemary Hollis, a Middle East expert at Londonís Royal Institute of International Affairs. That is in turn raising questions about many Middle Eastern borders set up by Britain and France at that time, propped up by them until the 1950s and carried on until today by authoritarian regimes.

ëThere is a sense that the old order could be up for grabs,í Ms. Hollis says, pointing out how disadvantaged Islamists, Shiite Muslims and Kurds are bidding for power at the expense of the previously dominant Sunni Arab nationalist establishments throughout the region.î

You want the great plot decoded for you? This article comes as close to capturing what Iíve been talking about in my brief for months and in my book just out: the Saddam takedown was just the beginning of the System Perturbationónothing more than the vertical scenario to trigger a host of horizontal ones.

This Big Bang is just beginning to get underway, so buckle up, because itís going to be a bumpy decade.

Everything you need to know by how they treat their women

ìThe Payoff From Womenís Rights,î by Isobel Coleman, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004, pp. 80-94.

ìSaudis Uneasily Balance Desires for Change and Stability: Seeking Liberties, But Fearing Chaos,î by Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, 4 May, p. A3.

They say you can learn everything you need to know about a man by how he treats women. The same is true for countriesóeven for how they promote womenís rights through foreign aid.

In the concluding chapter to my book, I say you have to delay the first pregnancy of girls in developing countries and the best way to do this is keep them in school and give them birth control. After that itís microfinancing and quick as you can say, Bobís your uncle, weíre talking economic development.

The Coleman article is nothing less than a brilliant overview of all those points. I certainly would have footnoted it given the opportunity. If you are interested in this subject, check it out.

Hereís the opening pitch:

ìOver the past decade, significant research has demonstrated what many have known for a long time: women are critical to economic development, active civil society, and good governance, especially in developing countries. Focusing on women is often the best way to reduce birth rates and child mortality; improve health, nutrition, and education; stem the spread of HIV/AIDS; build robust and self-sustaining community organizations; and encourage grassroots democracy.

Much like human rights a generation ago, womenís rights were long considered too controversial for mainstream foreign policy. For decades, international development agencies skirted gender issues in highly patriarchal societies. Now, however, they increasingly see womenís empowerment as critical to their mandate.î

Where it this problem worst: southern Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, or basically the three pillars of the Gap. Worst offenders all lie inside the Gap: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Great quote almost from my book too: ìEducating girls in the single most effective way to boost economic progress.î In my book, I write, ìOur goal should be very simple here: keep young girls in school at all costs, delaying sex and pregnancies.î [p. 375]

Another great line: ìRobust democracy is exceedingly rare in societies that marginalize women.î

Another great quote:

ìGiven the importance of women to economic and political development, it is no surprise that they are on the front line of modernization efforts around the world. But empowering women is rarely easy: it produces tensions everywhere, because it often collides with the twin powers of culture and religion.

Today, much scrutiny is given to the impact of Islam on women, often as evidence of a deep cultural rift between the West and conservative Muslim societies. But the real cultural rift may be within the Muslim world: between highly traditional rural populations and their more modernized urban compatriots or between religious fundamentalists and more moderate interpreters of Islam. Such tensions can be felt in countries ranging from Nigeria to Indonesia, but nowhere are they starker than in the Middle East.î

ìIn conservative societies,î she writes, ìdebate over gender equality is often a proxy for more difficult debagtes about religious liberties and human rights.î

Thatís because the disconnectedness of women in such conservative societies comes off to the West as something akin to racial segregation.

ìSaudi society is nearly completely segregated: in health care, education, and the work force. Women are treated as minors: they must have a male chaperon in public, they are not allowed to drive, and they need permission from their closest male relative to travel.î

Thatís basically Jim Crow for women, is it notóall cultural niceties aside?

The answers at the end of the article mirror my own: microfinancing, educating girls, womenís health and family planning. No great mystery here: when you liberate your women, you liberate your society and economy, and good things followóincluding democracy.

The article on Saudi Arabia speaks to the space between the rock and the hard place: reformers there want to push new ideas and institutions and policies, but fear that if things unravel just a bit too fast, down comes the House of Saud to be replaced by Osama-style theocracy oróworseócomplete chaos and civil war. The fact that America is seen as the harbinger of reform and democracy is an oft-cited excuse for inaction: the masses hate America over the takedown of Saddam (good guy he was to the Saudis) and our support to Israel. So better to stick with the ineffectual, uncaring, let-them-eat-cake royal Saudi mafia that does almost nothing to account for the 100,000 young males entering the workforce each year. Donít worry, theyíll export all the sour apples abroad for jihad, asking the Core to finance their exporting of terror through our purchasing of their oil. Now thereís a transaction worth preservingÖ

China is a big part of the future worth creating

ìDonít Break the Engagement,î by Elizabeth Economy, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004, pp. 96-109.

ìAs Japan Recovers, An Unlikely Source Gets Credit: China (After Long Seeing Jobs Flee, Tokyo Now Finds Benefits Of Its Neighborís Boom,î by Sebastian Moffett and Phred Dvorak, Wall Street Journal, 4 May, p. A1.

Elizabeth Economy is a keen eye on China and she worries that weíre heading for another period of China-bashing and get-tough talk over human rights, trade, security, etc. She thinks this would be bad, because China is moving along nicely in terms of development, if only we can show some patience.

The economic development does build a middle class, and that middle class increasingly agitates for more protection under the law, which ultimately undermines the rule of the Party. This is an arc of rising expectations that the Party can ride for many more years, but never quite get on top of. We see this in what Economy calls the third great wave of legal reform. The first involved Chinaís opening up to the outside world for trade (regulatory reform) and the second has involved attacking corruption as China joins the WTO and assumes new rule sets. The third will involve subordinating the Party itself to the rule of law, in effect elevating the constitution to the supreme law of the land. This will happen over time, as local direct elections elevate a new class of politicians looking to institute what they call in Russia a ìdictatorship of the lawî to which even the Party must submit.

So Economy advises patience and laying off the China bashing. What may help cool that political tendency in the U.S. is Japanís growing closeness with China, detailed yet again in the WSJ story. China has been the great outsourcing target of Japanese manufacturing firms for years now, but as 40% of that in-China production sells within China, Japanís recovery is not highly tied to Chinaís economic growth. As the article notes, the ìmain worry for Japanese economists these days is that a slowdown in Chinaówhich accounted for 79% of Japanese export growth last yearówill threaten Japanís recovery.î

So as China becomes Japanís friend, the friend of our friend must become our friend too. Thatís security in the context of everything else.

Getting the rules straight in this global war on terrorism

Naming and Framing: Hello? Hello? Anybody listening?

ìTerror Inquiries Are Clouded by Global Discord: Breakdown in Cooperation Threatens Years of Work; Case of Courts vs. Military,î by Keith Johnson and David Crawford, Wall Street Journal, 4 May, p. A18.

ìIraq Contractors Pose Problem: In Prisoner-Abuse Case, Jurisdiction Over Civilian Workers Unclear,î by Greg Jaffe, David S. Cloud, and Gary Fields, WSJ, 4 May, p. A4.

The truest indicators that 9/11 signaled the need for a rule-set reset is thatóthree years lateróweíre still arguing first and foremost over definitions and terms in this global war on terrorism. These two articles demonstrate that continuing rule-set clash.

The first describes the rule-set clash between us and Europe: they still see terrorism as the purview of the courts and cops, we see it increasingly in terms of the military and intelligence. Weíre talking two different games, in the end. In the Core (beyond which Europe, in its strategic near-sightedness, cannot peer) fighting terrorists is all about cops and courts, but inside the Hobbesian Gap, it will be more about the military and intelligence. The Super Bowl for terrorists may well lie within Iraq right now, but they will continue to seek to divide and conquer us through attacks into the Core, focusing on elections held inside our most wobbly allies in Europe and the Greek Olympics in coming months. Two worlds, two wars, two rule sets, and a need for language and terms that distinguish each from the other.

The second article speaks to the hazy ground between the military and paid contractors. When these guys are involved in bad stuff, do we call it ìcrimesî in the legal sense or ìdereliction of dutyî in the military sense? Tough calls, but ones that indicate the need for what I describe as the Sys Admin force that encompasses all aspects of the peacekeeping mission in ways that our Leviathan-heavy U.S. military is clearly uncomfortable oróin certain key instancesósimply far too under-staffed and under-equipped to handle on their own.

A New Core pillar stands up for the little guys in the Gap

ìBrazilís Road to Victory Over U.S. Cotton,î by Elizabeth Becker and Todd Benson, New York Times, 4 May, p. W1.

I love this story.

Government bureaucrat in Brazil sues the U.S. over cotton subsidies in the WTO. Ruling finally comes down: U.S. is guilty of unfair trade practices that keep Brazilian cotton out of U.S. markets. This guy is also suing the EU in the WTO over sugar.

Hereís the best part: Brazil foots the $1m legal bill, but allows Gap states Benin and Chad, also badly hurt by such protectionism in the past, to join the suit for free. This suit therefore constituted the first time any state in Africa has been involved in any WTO litigation.

Thatís the New Core doing what it should do: act as goad to the Old Core to do what is necessary to shrink the Gap economically through lower trade barriers.

I take my hat off to Brazil.

Disconnecting Saudi Arabia

"U.S. workers in Saudi Arabia advised to leave,î staff, USA Today, 4 May, p. 7A.

ìAfter Attack, Companyís Staff Plans to Leave Saudi Arabia,î by Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, 3 May, p. A9.

This is basically the pattern I cite as the modus operandi of the bin Ladens and al Qaedas of the region: drive out the West so the Middle East can be hijacked from history and returned to some 7th century definition of the good life. The temptation to give in to this offer of civilizational apartheid is great, if not for Asiaís energy requirements. To say youíre interested in making sure a billion Muslims arenít left behind by history . . . that just gets you charges of being ìdisingenuousî from radio call-ins (ìYou know itís all about the oil.î).

On bad days, you wish there wasnít any oil in the Gulf, cause then we could let these people kill and suppress each other like crazy, blathering on about how their ìhonorî was being upheld throughout. But not giving up on the Middle East means not giving up on a future worth creatingómaking globalization truly global. It drives me nuts whenever I hear that itís all about the oil for us and all about the honor for them. Why is it that America is the only country in the world that regularly sends its sons and daughters to hell-holes on the other side of the planet to bring peace?

Get used to the dark days, because we canít leave the Middle East until the Middle East joins the world, otherwise weíll give into the nonsense that describes a new Cold War between the West and Islam (like in the Baltimore Sun review of my book).

More evidence that the Sys Admin force is lacking what it needs

ìCommand Errors Aided Iraq Abuse, Army Has Found: Broader Pattern Is Cited: Military Intelligence Staff and Civilian Employees Faulted in a Report,î by James Risen, New York Times, 3 May, p. A1.

This is what happens when you force personnel into roles for which they have not received enough training. The ìbroader patternî that needs to be described here is not the abuse (symptom), but the cause (we didnít go into Iraq with enough sense of the challenges of waging the peace that followed the war). That prison was filled with personnel working above their training level. Why? Weíre a first-half team and these are the second-half subsónot trained up and not ready to hold the lead. You canít put young people in that position and expect the best. This is the Pentagonís downgrading of Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) coming home to roost.

A good reminder for the darkest days

ìExpert, too, become lost in fog of war,î David D. Perlmutter, USA Today, 4 May, p. 13A.

Brilliant op-ed in todayís USA Today by military historian. Itís just a reminder that virtually every war weíve ever waged pretty much sucked all the way through until in ended and we realized it was a win (or didnít realize the loss in Vietnam). Thatís why the definition of success here is what is crucial. Not an instant democracy, nor the end of all terror there, but an Iraq government that can police its own population and doesnít stand in the way of growing broadband economic, social, and technological connectivity between that population and the outside world.

Everybody thinks weíre ending something in Iraq (Saddam). Itís the other way around. Weíre starting something. Weíre accelerating the great rule-set clash that history demands will play itself out within Islam as globalization advances. Weíre just globalizationís bodyguardóletting the connectivity flow in and making sure the wannabe dictators canít shut down the flow.

Is this the best negative review I can get?

(see my commentary below)

'The Pentagon's New Map' - unrealistic world order

By Tom Bowman

Sun Staff

May 2, 2004

The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas P.M. Barnett. G.P. Putnam's Sons. 448 pages. $26.95.

This book left me deeply conflicted.

Much of the argument by Thomas P.M. Barnett, a Harvard-trained Ph.D. who teaches at the Naval War College, makes sense: The new global war on terrorism must be subordinated to spreading economic globalization to what Barnett calls "The Gap." This is a band of backward states stretching from Central America and parts of South America to Africa and the Middle East, and extending through the old Soviet Asian lands and into Indonesia.

America and other supremely developed "Core" countries, such as Japan and England, must devote their troops and treasure to helping Gap nations become connected to the Internet and trade, sometime overthrowing the "bad actors that account for the bulk of the insecurity in any country or region." By achieving that, "The end of war is within our historical grasp."

But as I read the book, I couldn't help recalling the words of Graham Greene in The Quiet American: "God save us always from the innocent and the good."

Barnett suggests creating two distinct military forces to push through this plan - a "Leviathan" force to perform the heavy combat role and a "System Administrator" force to carry out peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and reconstruction efforts that would pave the way for private investors. And we should expect other countries to pitch in.

He ticks off a list of "bad actors" in The Gap who "should all go" - Castro in Cuba, Chavez in Venezuela and, most importantly, North Korea's Kim Jong Il.

Barnett, who worked for the Navy's think tank, the Center for Naval Analyses, and was labeled by Esquire magazine as "The Strategist," is alternately chatty and self-important, with glowing reviews about his own Power Point briefs to top Pentagon officials. He needs to get out of academia and get some fresh air.

Never in the book do I see the elements that would be needed to kick-start his plan: military draft and tax increases.

The wars and occupations of the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq have over-stretched the military. And the Core allies - with their troops and treasure - are still largely on the sidelines. How can the Core embark on any new adventures?

Being Navy-centric, he entirely misstates the role of the National Guard troops, who, he says, are now "diminished as a war fighting asset" and mostly provide security at American facilities and military bases around the world. Really? Guard troops are key to keeping peace in the Balkans, which Barnett wrongly assumes are now on a "completely" different track. The ethnic groups there are still not working together. And the Guard now makes up about 40 percent of the troops - including two combat brigades - struggling with a stubborn insurgency in Iraq.

Barnett's argument that the present military is not organized or equipped to rebuild nations is also off mark. But as Iraq has shown, the military must be taught to fight and build, often at the same time. Some of the best rebuilding work was done by the 101st Airborne and its commander, Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, in northern Iraq, while it continued to take casualties that exceeded those suffered in major combat.

The 101st built schools and clinics and doled out money like city bosses while the Coalition Provisional Authority dithered. There is a push now to give the division commanders more funds to rebuild Iraq, since they are the closest to the average Iraqi. The soldiers are not cloistered in the CPA's Green Zone, described by one wag as "Alcatraz without the view," and populated largely by young Republicans eager to stamp their resumes and move on.

And how does Barnett suggest removal of the man he calls a "nutcase," Kim Jong Il? A single bullet? Tactical nukes, professor? Besides, as we can see in Iraq, sometimes a few "bad actors" bring along thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of understudies. Another Ivy League Ph.D., Paul Wolfowitz, told us how easy it would be to overthrow Saddam Hussein and bring democracy to Iraq.

While much of the work of the professor is ill-informed or painfully naive, he is correct that the developed world must focus more on The Gap, helping them through trade negotiations and new international reconstruction institutions.

He is also right to say that Africa should figure last "because Africa offers the least." The Middle East, with its rising population of aimless youth and Muslim fundamentalists sitting atop the world's largest energy reserves, leaves the Core with enough work for at least a generation. It is here that the Core's new Cold War will be waged, with the necessary Trumanesque wave of aid. The book should be entitled: "The Comfortable World's New Map: Spreading Largesse and Technology in the Twenty-First Century."

It would benefit Barnett to leave the grand stone buildings of Newport and sit down with those who are grounded by experience and sobered by reality. Start with General Petraeus, a Princeton Ph.D. in international relations. You'll find him in Baghdad, getting his hands dirty and drawing his own map.

Tom Bowman, The Sun's military affairs correspondent, has a master's degree in American studies from Boston College. He has covered the U.S. Naval Academy and the National Security Agency. He has traveled to Army bases and training facilities around the world and deployed to Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne in 2002.

Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun

Commentary: One of those amazing reviews where the guy agrees with the diagnosis almost completely (save for the bit about a Cold War between us and Islam), but then argues about the solution (he wants a draft and tax increases, and hates the idea of bifurcating the military so some of the force specializes in waging the peace). Putting aside the tax issue (I believe the cuts of this White House were a huge mistake), the draft concept is stupid beyond belief. Ask anyone in the military if they want to return to the days of the draftees. Anyone. The reason why we have the finest military in the world is because we went to an All-Volunteer Force, meaning we ìprofessionalizedî our military.

As for the bit about Petraeus: no argument that heís awfully good. Whether he moves up in rank will say a lot about how MOOTW is upgraded within the Pentagon as a worthy demonstration of leadership. But remember heís in the north, not in the south, and thereís a huge difference in that. Doesnít mean heís not good, it means he was good enough. Good enough isnít cutting it in the south. To say that means we need to do better in how we field a force to wage peace is not to denigrate the current effort, but simply to admit we are not winning the back half.

Embedded reporters sometimes go awfully native, and BC grads definitely have a thing about Harvard ones, but the personal jibes aside, itís clear we need to do better in waging the peace. To do anything less is to denigrate the lives lost since 1 May 2003. My new friend the reporter should go to Leavenworth and check out how the Army is conducting its lessons learned on Iraq. What theyíre talking about lacking in Iraq looks an awful lot like my Sys Admin force. I too visit military facilities all over the world, and I too spend a lot of time working with and talking to personnel whoíve seen action. Maybe the difference between Bowman and me is that I still retain a critical perspective.

A GWOT waged within the context of everything else

REFERENCE: ìWhy a Village Well Is a Weapon in the War on Terror,î by Marc Lacey, New York Times, 30 April, p. A4.

Fascinating story on how Central Command uses small units of specially trained personnel to seed relationships with locals at key monitoring points along the eastern coast of Africa. I tell a story in my book about a ìCaptain Philî who had to engage in some unorthodox tactics to figure out the good guys from the bad guys in the maritime traffic he was monitoring in the region. This story is about how CENTCOM is trying to establish better relationships with locals along the coastline in order to improve our eyes and ears in the area, as we keep a look out for terrorists on the move or in the groove.

A lot of this is the hearts-and-minds stuff, where you sink a well here or repair a school there. Itís far closer to community policing that the SWAT-like special ops guys, but if you want to really export security, itís all the little things that count. Suspicions abound and old hatreds must be overcome: you go into a village to offer inoculations and the rumor may well end up being that youíre infecting kids with some new spectacular biological weapon.

But in the end, this is what youíre shooting (excuse that pun) for: ìPeople here have become used to the sight of soldiers in their midst. Most welcome the American help with open arms, putting their political and religious beliefs to the side.î Why? ìThe people are poor and ideology takes a distant second to making ends meet.î

Who do we send on these jobs? Just anybody? No.

ìThe soldiers in Major Finneyís unit, reservists all, are older than most and specially schooled in community outreach. They include several police detectives, a casino pit boss, a nurse and a former state representative who ran unsuccessfully for a Michigan senate seat. Major Finney is a veterinarian. They do not wear uniforms or display weapons, but their short haircuts, white skin and bulky builds give them away.î

This is embryonic Sys Admin force in action, in some remote coastal village in Kenya, Americans all, your neighbors and mine, trying their best to build a future worth creating.

Taking the fight to terrorists means terrorism will increase

REFERENCE: ìAs Terrorists Strike Arab Targets, Escalation Fears Arise,î by Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, 30 April, p. A13.

Can you imagine it? We take down Saddam and try to make Iraq a model of something other than itís been for the past three decades (a complete failure for its people and a never ending source of mass violence and threat in the region) and terrorists actually show up to stop us! More than that, our attempted rehab of Iraq seems to excite terrorists across the region, so Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria all suffer strikes recently.

The charge is, America is actually destabilizing the Middle East.

Ah yes, the good old days where authoritarian Arab regimes kept a lid on thing and exported the terrorists elsewhereólike New York and Washington DC on 11 September 2001. Unwilling to suffer that sort of attack in our neck of the woods, we take the fight to terrorists over there, and now itís the Arab regimes suffering terrorism.

Tell me exactly how this is worse for Americaís homeland defense?

Yes, US troops are being put at real risk, in their desperate effort to connect Iraq to a more stable future and to a world outside as terrorists and insurgents do their best to disconnect Iraqi society from both such outcomes. But at least this way, the professionals are waging this war, and as someone in this business, I prefer to see the professionals involved, not American citizens running through the streets of Manhattan dodging the debris from falling buildings.

If anyone thought bringing down Saddam Huessein would have a calming effect on the region, they didnít understand what the Bush Administration was selling them in terms of a ìbig bang.î Taking down Saddam was all about shaking up the security rule sets, political rule sets, economic rule sets, and even social rule sets in the region. There is no surprise to be found in the escalation of terror across the region as a result.

Just ask yourself if you want to fight this global war on terrorism in Baghdad or Boston, putting our soldiers on the front line or average citizens.

Frankly, this is what George Bush meant when he put it so crudely, ìBring it on.î