I will start writing--on occasion--for The Politics Blog at Esquire.com

The first post arrived at the new blog on 1 April 1993 (talk about timing!):

About The Politics Blog
April 1, 1993 at 3:02PM By Unknown

At last, some sanity, authority, and fairly balanced opinion arrive in the blogosphere. Check back for more news analysis throughout the day, every day.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/#ixzz0lvLPxbxb

The regular staff writers will do most of the writing. They include: long-time online columnist John Richardson, exec editor of Esquire Mark Warren (my longtime collaborator), Tim Heffernan (Mark's longtime right hand and Assistant Editor at Esquire), and Matt Sullivan (who runs all of Esquire.com).

Pitching in will be the inestimable writer Tom Junod (whom I always read in the mag), journalist Charles Pierce and myself.

Blog seriously kicked off on the 19th of this April.

Whenever I'm asked to post over there (by whomever, but primarily Matt, for whom I wrote my online column last year), I'll make the point of linking from here, so you won't miss anything.

Happy to help out with Esquire.com, because, as all of you know, the mag has been very good to me and mine.

Feudalism replaced by "Democratic centralism" replaced by feudalism replaced by ...?

A Peasant Leaving His Landlord on Yuriev Day, painting by Sergei V. Ivanov (my favorite Russian painter)

SPECIAL REPORT | RUSSIA: "Caught between modernity and chaos: The latest terrorist attack on the capital is a reminder of the forces that threaten the country's ambition," by Charles Clover, Financial Times, 14 April 2010.

Another piece from Clover suggesting the necessary rule-set reset for Russia after the worst terrorist strike in six years--namely, the move away from the sort of revived feudalism of the late Putin age:

In some sense, the bombings are a verdict on the Kremlin's model of rule n this southern, mountainous, and mainly Muslim rim. By supporting strong warlords, who pay loyalty to the Kremlin in exchange for a free hand to rule as they see fit, the local population has been alienated by corruption and brutalized with impunity. Fighting, some say, is the last resort of the desperate.

Something to consider as we try to cut our deals with the Taliban in Afghanistan. I mean, is the Russian model here all that different from Pakistan's WRT the federally-administered tribal areas?

But this is part of the larger, late-Putin trend of mandating selection of local rulers by Moscow but then granting them a feudalistic free-range ruling style:

This semi-feudal model of rule is not unique to the troubled southern republics, but is applied with variations across Russia's 83 provinces and autonomous regions. Governors are appointed, and few questions are asked, so long as they deliver stability and loyalty. Largesse from an oil-fuelled state budget that is 40 per cent of the country's GDP has bought both.

Naturally, the lowering of global oil prices has cut into this social contract, such as it is, thus the rise of recent local protests against Moscow's distant rule--a very old theme in Russian political history.

The big trigger is the usual one: the middle class feels threatened"

"A year ago the middle class had savings," says Gleb Pavelovsky, a political consultant to the Kremlin, "but today the savings are practically exhausted. This is a situation we have not been in for 10 years."

Russia still has plenty of intellectual assets beyond the energy: "It is a world leader in many high-tech sectors, such as aerospace and armaments." But suffering from "legal nihilism," as Medvedev puts it, the government is awash in corruption and so FDI is weakened and "this exacerbates a pattern of chronic underinvestment that has plagued Russia since before the end of the Soviet Union."

In short, the economy is geared toward consumption, whether you're talking private consumption over savings or government exploitation of known energy resources over further development of the same.

Medvedev talks of needed modernization, but it is a still-born notion so long as Putin remains co-ruler. Thus the muddle-through option that defines much of Russian history remains operative until word comes definitively from Putin as to his plans in 2012.

Putin prefers a non-competitive environment in which his state-run companies and those piloted in the private sector by his cronies can dominate. So long as that remains the case, Russia's economy will remain more cannibalistic than innovative.

Iraq: safe enough for oil-field companies to get back in big-time?

Found here

MARKETPLACE: "Schlumberger Gambles on Iraq Work," by Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2010.

Schlumberger is the world's largest oilfield service company, meaning they provide the labor to run oilfields but don't own them.

It just announced that it's staffing up an Iraqi biz operation, "one of the first such moves by a western energy company in decades."

The oilfield biz sector expects a $3-4B market in Iraq by mid-decade. The south is now described as suffering the "more traditional risk of tribal disturbance and banditry rather than any politically motivated security incident."

Baker Hughes and Halliburton are moving in as well.

A good sign and something to monitor regarding the security situation.

Kyrgyzstan: Changing deckhands, but the deck chairs remain the same

OP-ED: "Running in Circles in Kyrgyzstan," by Eric McGlinchey, New York Times, 10 April 2010.

Sharp piece that underlines the prevalent agreement on events in Kyrgyzstan's recent government toppling:

The press would do well to drop these terms and begin to analyze the political dynamic for what it actually is -- a handful of political elites going in circles -- rather than in terms suggestive of what we hope Kyrgyzstan can become, a competitive democracy.
Let me be clear: What happened on Wednesday was not a revolution -- it was a hijacking.

Many experts are hot to explain this as Moscow's doing and victory. I won't seek to defuse such arguments. I simply consider them irrelevant.

As I've stated previously, any perceived "great game" pales in comparison to China's pervasive economic penetration.

Globalization spreads rapidly, and maternal deaths decline sharply

ARTICLE: "Maternal Deaths Decline Sharply Across the Globe," by Denise Grady, New York Times, 14 April 2010.

Gist:

The study cited a number of reasons for the improvement: lower pregnancy rates in some countries; higher income, which improves nutrition and access to health care; more education for women; and the increasing availability of "skilled attendants" -- people with some medical training -- to help women give birth. Improvements in large countries like India and China helped to drive down the overall death rates.

Tell me this happens without globalization, which I will tell you is God's gift to women worldwide.

August 2009 Afghanistan: Thinking back to what should have been

Found here

OPINION: "The Man Who Might Have Been 'King,'" by Ann Marlowe, Wall Street Journal, 10-11 April 2010.

You have to wonder how much regret exists inside the Obama administration over their Aug '09 decision to effectively side with Karzai on the vote-fraud issue.

Whatever Abdullah's faults, we would have ended up with a more trusted partner and somebody who actually knows how to govern.

It was Team Obama's big chance to swap out the leadership, and you have to wonder why Mr. Real-Politik, Richard Holbrooke, didn't pull that trigger--so to speak.

In the interview, Abdullah keeps circling back to two themes:

1) There is no way forward under the Karzai government: "Living with the status quo will lead to strategic failure"; and

2) Any change must come within Afghanistan's laws--meaning Abdullah does not support a coup against Karzai, even as the man eats away at the country's still meager democratic institutions.

Meanwhile, thinking grows that Karzai is mentally ill--he's that erratic in behavior in most people's minds. And I'm talking the locals here, not the foreigners.

The SysAdmin navy is a money-ball team

ARTICLE: "More Henderson, Less Bonds: Not only do Influence Squadrons save money by deploying lower-priced ships, their sheer numbers also allow for more presence, a U.S. Navy version of the on-base percentage in Major League Baseball," By Commander Henry J. Hendrix, U.S. Navy, Proceedings of the Naval Institute, April 2010.

Mother ships, influence squadrons and a money-ball navy?

This is the article I would try to write if I were still at the Naval War College.

Cool start:

Our Navy, larger than the next 13 international navies combined, can be compared to the highest-paid team in baseball. With its Barry Bonds super carriers, Mark McGwire cruisers, and Sammy Sosa destroyers, today's Navy consists of all power hitters, with huge slugging percentages and salaries to match. But what if there were another way to build the team?

The big finish:

What is the base nature of naval power? What is the critical component of national power that the Navy brings to the day-to-day friction that is the geo-strategic reality? Since World War II, the Navy's force structure has been aligned to its power-projection mission, the ability to take the hurt to the nation's enemies over the horizon, to go deep downtown to the enemy's capital and critical infrastructure.

For good or ill, the United States has largely defined the global political-economic system that exists today. Global trade through the free, unencumbered use of the international commons is a major component of this system, and the U.S. Navy has been its guarantor for more than 60 years. However, the declining number of surface combatants has compromised the Navy's ability to administer the system. Regions to which we no longer have enough ships to deploy, or for that matter no longer visit, find themselves adrift and either sink into instability or seek another power to maintain order.

In our absence, we may find that someone else has taken it upon themselves to redefine the rules of the neighborhood, stating, for instance, that an exclusive economic zone has more sovereign characteristics than the United States is prepared to acknowledge. The U.S. Navy could respond by conducting a freedom-of-navigation exercise, but soon we will go away for a prolonged time, and the new rules will begin to reassert themselves again. But this time they have a bit more legitimacy, because the U.S. Navy is, once again, not there. To define your environment, you have to be present.

In Moneyball, a baseball general manager advanced the theory that what really mattered was getting on base to create the opportunity to score. The discussion here suggests that naval presence is a strategic end in itself; as long as you are present, you establish and maintain the rules in the area where you operate. In ten years, through an alternative shipbuilding scheme that converts one high-end platform's worth of investment per year into ten less complex ships, the U.S. Navy would gain 100 ships' worth of war-preventive naval presence.

Remember, the high-end portion of the Navy does not just go away. Ninety percent of the shipbuilding budget would still go toward these platforms. And, as stated in 2009's "Buy Ford, Not Ferrari" article, they would still be sailing to hotspots or being held in high readiness in home waters in case someone attempts to intimidate an Influence Squadron. It is a truism that only a fool plays with a grizzly bear cub in the woods, because the mother bear may be just over the hill. Our high-end force will remain over the hill, ready to respond. The Navy can finally do what A Cooperative Strategy for 21st-Century Seapower calls for: preventing wars by increasing its presence through investing in cheaper and more numerous Influence Squadrons.

Very cool piece. I covet its authorship.

Author is with Net Assessment in the Pentagon--where such thinking belongs.

This is a vision of a US Navy that truly connects itself to the environment. Honestly, this is what most of us were dreaming about when we came up with "... From the Sea."

Railroads: What goes around, comes around

BUSINESS DAY: "China Offers High-Speed Rail to California," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 7 April 2010.

A previous post noted how most of the RR tech that Chinese companies bring to bear in their overseas contracts originated in the West. Well, that circle is getting awfully round:

Nearly 150 years after American railroads brought in thousands of Chinese laborers to build rail lines across the West, China is poised once again to play a role in American rail construction. But this time, it would be an entirely different role: supplying the technology, equipment and engineers to build high-speed rail lines.

The Chinese government has signed cooperation agreements with the State of California and General Electric to help build such lines. The agreements, both of which are preliminary, show China's desire to become a big exporter and licensor of bullet trains traveling 215 miles an hour, an environmentally friendly technology in which China has raced past the United States in the last few years.

Some nifty historical payback, one must note.

Africa: ground zero for globalization's advance--as well as religion's

ARTICLE: "Survey: Sub-Saharan Africa one of the world's most religious places," by Julia Duin, Washington Times, 15 April 2010.

New Pew Forum poll out.

The gist:

A new massive survey, "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa," released Thursday, charts how a region that gave birth to the term "global South" is now in the driver's seat in terms of world religious practice.

Twenty percent of the world's Christians now live south of the Sahara Desert and 15 percent of the world's Muslims live there. It's one of the world's most religious places, with at least 85 percent of the population in most countries saying religion is very important to them.

The picture was quite different in 1900, when animist religions comprised the bulk of the population while Muslims and Christians combined made up less than one-quarter.

Animists and traditional African religions have plummeted since then to about 13 percent of the population while conversion rates of Muslims and Christians have soared. Muslim adherents have gone from 11 million in 1900 to 234 million in 2010; Christians have gone from 7 million to 470 million.

Northern Africa is heavily Muslim and southern Africa is mostly Christian but where the two religions meet in a 4,000-mile belt from Somalia to Senegal has often turned violent, especially in Nigeria and Rwanda.

Found here, with data from 1990

Two wonderful coping religions expanding in a part of the world that's being integrated into globalization at a stunning pace right now--no coincidence, that. One knows how to handle abundance, the other does not.

[thanks to WPR's Media Roundup]

My essential issue with Obama

OPINION: "He's a Dreamer, He's a Realist: In matters of national security, confusion is always dangerous," by Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, 15 April 2010.

While I admire the reach for balance, and judging everything in and of itself, I do worry about the lack of coherence.

Good example: Good to be tough on Israel, but then idealistic to think you're going to stop Iran's nukes, and the combo of those two things is a bit spooky in its potential to explode.

I mean, the guy's working his Inbox with plenty speed and thought, but I worry about his let-me-fix-this-problem ambition getting out of control.

But you have to wish Obama well while he's trying. Guy said he can live with one term and he's already working foreign policy like it's his second.

[thanks to WPR's Media Roundup]

The real-estate bugaboo knows no borders

AT THE TABLE: "Short-Seller Jim Chanos: Red Flag Over China," by Charlie Rose, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 19 April 2010.

The eye-popping quote:

They're [i.e., the Chinese] are really hooked on this sort of heroin of real estate development.

Now, in the past, we've heard why the real-estate market in China isn't as bubblicious as assumed--namely, those buying are upper middle class and thus the debt burderns are low, plus there's the sustained demand created by widespread urbanization of historic proportions (i.e., the biggest human migration from rural to urban in human history).

Chanos also repeats the notion that having super-high currency reserves, like the U.S. in the late 1920s and Japan in the late 1980s, typically doesn't work out so well.

Chanos see the real-estate bubble bursting in late 2010 or early 2011.

Iran pursuing its own "rebalancing" strategy

Found here

FRONT PAGE: "Syria Roils Mideast By Arming Hezbollah," by Charles Levinson and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, 14 April 2010.

As multiple news reports have now indicated, Syria has sent long-range Scuds to Hezbollah, says Israel, which is usually correct on such things.

This is presented as a setback to Obama's outreach efforts to Syria, but it strikes me more as Iran simply prepping the battlefield in anticipation of Israeli strikes--just more of that this-is-what-I-can-do-in-retaliation signaling.

Wal-Mart moves into the Indian ag industry

BUSINESS DAY: "In India, Wal-Mart Goes to the Farm," by Vikas Bajaj, New York Times, 12 April 2010.

Previous post about how McDonald's has altered the ag scene in India.

Now comes Wal-Mart:

Two years after Wal-Mart came to India, it is trying to do to agriculture here what it has done to industries around the world: change business models by using its hyper-efficient practices to improve productivity and speed the flow of goods.

Not everyone is happy about the company's presence here. Many Indian activists and policy makers abhor big-box retailing, fearing that it will drive India's millions of shopkeepers out of business. Some legislators are suspicious of the company's motives. The government still does not allow Wal-Mart Stores and other foreign companies to sell directly to consumers.

But Wal-Mart is persisting because its effort in India is critical to its global growth strategy. Confronted with saturated markets in the United States and other developed countries, the company needs to establish a bigger presence in emerging markets, like India, where modern stores make up just 5 percent of the country's retail industry.

Establishing good relations with farmers is a centerpiece of the company's plans.

Socio-economic revolution, no matter how you slice it, and Wal-Mart is quite expert at making it happen.

Ah, but we must decry this economic "imperialism"! Better to have all those middlemen and the bulk of the harvest rot between farm and fork.

Sniff! Somebody cue up Willie Nelson and Fingerless Child Farm Labor Choir.

Shaming and taming al Qaeda

COMMENT: "Ridicule can be our weapon against terrorism," by Jamie Bartlett and Richard Reeves, Financial Times, 16 April 2010.

A long-standing argument: purposely do not take terrorists seriously publicly even as you fight them vigorously with law enforcement and military efforts. The goal is delegitimization, or refusing to symmetricize the conflict--at least publicly.

The argument here is more specific: for young Muslims, the whole terror thing has taken on a level of chic, so it must be embarrassed publicly (as "the equivalent of a middle-aged dad at a school disco").

Tactic: publicly demystify the life of an average terrorist, who lives more like a petty criminal than some ascetic James Bond; and expose al Qaeda's ideology for the truly bizarre nonsense it represents.

Bottom line: make the whole thing seem cringe-worthy or the goal of complete fools.

The target audience is mostly middle-class and higher males.

In my opinion, definitely part of the toolkit.

Russian history--rewound yet again

Found here

OPINION: "Putinism May Be Fading," by Andrei Piontkovsky, The Moscow Times, 7 April 2010.

Fascinating piece, especially this section that argues Putinism has run the usual up-and-down course of Russian history:

In just 10 years, Putinism, which was consciously designed by its image-makers as a representation of a great ideological style, has run through all of the classical stages of Soviet history. Indeed, Putinism now seems like a trite parody of all of them.

First comes the creation of a myth for the new system, one that generates a national hero, the nation's father. Where the Bolsheviks had the October Revolution and the subsequent civil war to deify Lenin, Putinists used the second Chechen war, triggered by the blowing up of Moscow apartment buildings, to raise up Putin as national savior.

The second stage is the time of the tempest, the period in which the country is stoically remade through the leader's iron will. Where Josef Stalin had his barbarous yet monumental drive toward industrialization, Putin boasted of making Russia a great energy power.

Next comes heroic triumph. The Soviets had the great victory over Adolf Hitler in World War II, which left Russia one of the world's two superpowers. Putin's supposedly heroic victory came in the war with Georgia in 2008, followed by the subsequent de facto annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

At the onset of the financial crisis, Putin tried to bestride the world, portraying Russia as an island of stability and demanding the creation of a new global financial order, with the ruble to become one of the world's reserve currencies. But that megalomaniac position was quickly reversed. Putinomics, however, proved to be even more vulnerable to the financial crisis than the economies of the West.

At such moments of decline in Russia, clans always come to the fore in a mad scramble for self-preservation and self-enrichment. Even Putin's truest followers are now beginning to speak of their leader and the results of his governance in disrespectful ways . . .

So now we hear pathetic echoes of all the reform Communist efforts of the long years of Soviet decline. There is much talk of great leaps forward, of modernization, innovations and nanotechnologies -- the sort of myths with which fading rulers console themselves as they look for magical solutions to cure the dysfunctions of their regimes.

And on the street, other echoes are heard. Our "father" did not turn out to be a father at all. Even among Putin's kleptocracy of former KGB men, there is a growing realization that the jig is nearly up, and that it is time to look after oneself -- not unlike the Communist apparatchiks in the dying days of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

So as Putinism atrophies, the great hope among his immediate circle is that they will be able to do what the Communist elite did in the early 1990s -- hijack whatever new system emerges and put it to work in the service of their own interests.

Brilliant rundown, from the best sort of Russia experts out there--the Russians themselves.

[thanks to WPR's Media Roundup]

Globalization creates new countries

INTERNATIONAL: "Defining what makes a country: In quite a state; How many countries in the world? The answer to that question is surprisingly difficult," The Economist, 10 April 2010.

Fascinating to see how, as America pushes its model of economic connectivity around the planet since WWII, simultaneously encouraging and freaking out over the decolonialization process it triggered, we watch the number of recognized states in the world roughly quadruple in number.

Found here

While economic integration and networking have proceeded apace, political splittism has as well, as it seems everyone want to break down the old political orders to the point of realized, localized identity, and yet, at the same time, embrace the larger logic of multinational economic integration-leading-to-union. This is a quintessential American dynamic: the desire to fragment politically while integrating economically. We wish to be fiercely independent politically while embracing unprecedented levels of economic interdependency.

Thus, the more our world-system called globalization expands, expect the number of nation-states to rise, along with regional schemes at economic integration. Our Department of Homeland Security forms now offer 252 choices for "country where you live" (although a bunch are outdated), while Hotmail presents 242 territories or countries within which registry is possible.

Nice move by Obama on medical rights

POLITICS: "Obama Widens Medical Rights for Gay Partners," by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times, 16 April 2010.

Being nice to people when they're under the stress of medical problems is about as basic as it gets. Very Golden Rule.

The Naxalites bring out their heavy guns in India

WORLD NEWS: "Security forces face uphill battle: A string of deadly attacks highlights how the rebels command the initiative," by Amy Kazmin, Financial Times, 7 April 2010.

Seventy-four Indian troops killed in a single ambush inside Chhattisgarh.

Recently ridiculed by India's interior minister for being afraid to compete in election and instead going after soft targets like schools, the Maoist insurgency decided to make a statement--albeit in the remote jungle.

But coming on the heels of a recently successful attack on a police camp, the insurgency seems to be commanding the initiative right now, with ambushes their primary tactic. As one observer put it, "This is classic Maoist protracted war."

Why is this happening now?

For years and years, the so-called Red Corridor was largely ignored. But now, much like our Lakota came under fierce onslaught once gold was discovered in the Black Hills, India is asserting pol-mil control of this disconnected pockets so as to attract necessary foreign direct investment into these regions' extractive industries--long moribund.

So consider this ambush India's "Little Big Horn," and await the massed, government response, which is likely to be plenty bloody.

The Naxalites are estimated to be about 20k in number, with 6-8k hardcore fighters. India has a million-man army, but a strategic obsession with Kashmir that absorbs much of its national security attention.

That would seem to be changing.

Will this be the route of legal marijuana?

Found here

IN DEPTH: "The Sheriffs of Marlboro Country: Altria's private cops are going to new lengths to stop contraband cigarettes," by Nanette Byrnes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 19 April 2010.

A recent comment on the prospects of decriminalized pot suggested that contraband dope would continue to exist just like contraband cigs do.

This article, by extension, explores that path a bit by showing how private security firms are engaged by cigarette companies to track down the fake stuff.

Just a data point to consider, especially the angle of Native Americans competing against regular sellers, exploiting the advantage of not having to charge taxes on smokes. Makes you wonder if a similar dynamic couldn't arise with pot.

Already we have the example of druggies using reservation lands for illegal grows.

The divorce may be "amicable," but expect custody battles ahead

LEADERS: "Sudan's election: Let those people go; A flawed election would be better than none, for it would mean progress towards a peaceful north-south split," The Economist, 10 April 2010.

Sudan's semi-poorly-contested (bad in north, okay in south) national election proceeded with minimal trouble, with many political players basically opting out and ceding the field to that ICC-indicted president (and his cronies) to the north.

After four decades of conflict, in which roughly 2m have died, the Muslim Arab north appears to have virtually no common political agenda with the largely Christian, black-African south.

Still, even as Mr. Bashir seeks to keep as much of the south's best oil sites in what can still be described as an "amicable divorce," he is sticking--for now--to the 2005 deal he signed that mandates next-year's secessionist plebiscite.

Found here

As The Economist argues here, it's one thing to get both sides to agree on the right division line, but "policing it after independence will be a huge task."

And when the divorce does happen, remember that Darfur will remain stuck in the north, and that the south has virtually no infrastructure (it has, for example, 30 miles of paved roads in a country twice the size of Italy).

The outsiders in charge of this divorce are the usual pairing: China and the United States, with each side emphasizing its usual stuff (the Americans, democracy and security; the Chinese, infrastructure and resources).

It would be nice to see this process go well, and serve as a distinct learning point in the Sino-American cooperative relationship inside the Gap.