■"Iraqis Get Lesson in Bureaucracy: Senior Executives Share Knowledge," by Christopher Lee, Washington Post, 23 November 2004, p. A21.

Yesterday I read Francis Fukuyama's excellent essay on State-Building. I say "essay" even though it's a book stretching a whopping 131 pages. Sometimes I get the review that says PNM should have remained a magazine article instead of a book, but frankly, compared to Fukuyama's "slim volume," PNM is crammed full of ideas.

Nonetheless, Fukuyama's book puts his usual brilliance on display, as he skillfully disaggregates both the concept of "stateness" and the phases of state-building. One thing you immediately take away from the book is that the most easily transferable skill-set is that of public administration, or setting up the basic rule sets for making the government function in terms of processing the typical demands from a populace for things like driver's licenses, business permits, etc.

Yes, it's boring stuff, but it's that sort of boring rule set that makes the world go round, so teaching it to former failed/authoritarian states is crucial to helping them leave their Gapdom and join the Core:

Abdul Hadi K. Abid, the head of private-sector development for the trade ministry, said a big challenge is changing the mind-set of ordinary citizens who grew accustomed to life under a command economy in which the changing whims of the rule had the force of law.

"For example, dealing in foreign currency: One day it's a crime where they cut your hand or your ear for it, and the next day it was perfectly legal," Abid said.

By publishing a monthly magazine called Iraqi Trade and through other efforts, Abid said he is trying to promote public debate on market economics and raise issues such as transparency in government policy-making.

Boring yes, but a fundamentally crucial task if you're going to win a Global War on Terrorism. Weak or bad governments must be replaced by good one. Bad rule sets must be replaced by efficient ones. Disconnectedness must be replaced by connectivity.