Esquire has landed . . . in the Wall Street Journal!

THE INFORMED READER: INSIGHTS AND ITEMS OF INTEREST FROM OTHER SOURCES: "U.S. Diplomacy and Defense at Odds in Africa," Esquire, July.

Nice summary. Because the WSJ poaches at will, I return the favor by posting their entire summary:

The U.S. is building a new Africa strategy around both fighting and diplomacy, but Esquire's Thomas P.M. Barnett reports that the military has struggled to unify those elements on the ground.

The aims of the special operations forces that have long been the main U.S. military presence in Africa sometimes clash with civil-affairs-oriented units charged with building long-term local alliances. In 2003, the U.S. military set up a base in Djibouti that has become an experiment in combining what are known as the three Ds: defense, diplomacy and development. Next summer, the Pentagon plans to launch an Africa Command that will probably model its strategy in the continent along the lines laid down in Djibouti.

The difficulty in synchronizing the two components became apparent when U.S. forces aided the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia earlier this year. Capt. Bob Wright, who heads strategic communications for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa in Djibouti, complains to Mr. Barnett that the U.S. soldiers' involvement in the Somali mission undermined the military's diplomatic and development efforts in the region. It "makes everyone think that what we're trying to do here [in the Horn of Africa] really doesn't count, but it does. You can't make the Horn a better place simply by killing bad guys," said Capt. Wright.

Capt. Wright says he has hardly any contact with the special-ops soldiers housed separately at the Djibouti base. When Mr. Barnett sees men in black scrambling down a building in the north side of the base he asks the public-affairs officer what's happening. "Over where?" comes the reply. "I don't see anything."

In a separate base in Kenya, however, Mr. Barnett praises the sort of work the civil-affairs unit is doing in the Muslim community. The troops recently learned that girls were being pulled from a village school because of a prohibition against girls and boys sharing a bathroom. The army built a new school. "Girls stayed in school, parents were happy, mullahs were satisfied, local leaders immensely gratified," writes Mr. Barnett.

My only complaint? On that last bit, the Army built a separate head, not an entirely new school.

Actually, I complain that they used one of their own, old pictures (recently used in story on the Philippines) instead of reprinting one of mine! Foiled again in my quest to be recognized as a photojournalist (although the web show Esquire set up is very nice).

Still, very cool to make the "Informed Reader." I was just catching up on my mound of papers tonight and saw the headline, wondering who else had written on the subject this month. Then I saw "Esquire" and got excited!

Nice timing with the story making the Early Bird today.