(This week's) Tom around the web

+ EagleSpeak linked Tom's Esquire piece on sea-traffic control.
+ Information Dissemination picked it up (and didn't like it). [Tom's note: Galrahn simply went on a side rant regarding a particular Ulrich statement that reflects Harry's current position. It was ill-advised and unfortunately distracting to an otherwise great and informative post. I comment further below.]
+ Dans Blog also linked Sea-Traffic Control.

+ TigerHawk linked The Next Five States (and elicited 27 comments).
+ John Robb linked it and, not surprisingly, disagreed with the premise.
+ Yet another weird SF fan linked it.

+ John Robb linked The coming strike on Iran.
+ So did Hootsbuddy's Place.
+ Relatedly, Auspundits, linked Signalling Iran with our proxy and The case for signaling Iran as compromise.
+ Left Flank missed the point and called Bush has done moved on--quite deftly a 'war dance'.

+ Silflay Hraka quoted some Michael Totten that they said Tom would like.
+ Scitalks embedded the TED video.
+ LibraryThing has PNM and BFA.
+ Wormtown Taxi linked The balanced world economy is more easily achieved than imagined.
+ Outside the Beltway linked Giuliani reaching to the wrong audiences.
+ Outside the Beltway also linked Intell: slowest and dumbest of all.
+ ThreatsWatch linked Vietnam backwards, a Balkans in reverse.
+ WakeUpandShutUp posted his/her 'Favorite Thomas P.M. Barnett Story.

+ Dans Blog reprinted last week's column.
+ And ZenPundit linked it (along with his own take on Barnett-as-William Wallace ;-)
+ The Conservative Voice mentioned PNM.
+ Midwest Commando linked the Time interviews.
+ Just one more note that Curtis' 5GW Theory Timeline, including many of Tom's posts, is truly impressive.
+ Layer 8 says reading Tom is 'like, 20,000th grade'.

Comments

[Galrahn]

Actually I enjoyed the article, I just didn't like what Adm Ulrich said about himself near the end. It struck me as one of the most rediculous things I can remember hearing a USN 4 star admiral say in some time.

The article itself was top stuff. nice work.

[Anonymous]

thanks for the clarification, Galrahn. i wasn't sure. edited above.

[Tom Barnett]

Galrahn went off orthogonally, in my opinion, regarding Ulrich's statement that he "doesn't do defense, he does security."

That statement was made in the context of his current command, meaning the Caspian, Black, Med and West/South Africa littoral.

Galrahn then ran with that statement to issue a reprimand regarding potential hostilities with Iran, inflating Ulrich's statement to somehow reflect a Navy unprepared. Knowing MARCENT (Maritime, Central Command) preparations in this regard, that is a misguided leap of logic on Galrahn's part.

If Ulrich is MARCENTCOM, then he'd be presenting a different job description. I've known Harry since he was a commander. He has been then and done that on combat, and needs no reminders from the blogosphere, however well intentioned.