Don't get exercised about Gulf currency

ARTICLE: By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph, 15 Dec 2009

Waah! Waah! The Arabs are going to engage in more economic integration! Threatening America's "hegemony," mais oui!

One, nothing happens fast in this regard, so don't change your underwear just yet.

Second, ultimately this is good and should be viewed as a positive ambition.. As I said in Blueprint, this is the sort of "caliphate" worth working towards.

And if it scratches some itch to be "independent" of the Americans, then fine.

(Thanks: VacationLaneGrp)

Gaidar deserved a lot of credit

EDITORIAL: Russia's Yegor Gaidar championed freedom, Washington Post, December 17, 2009

Couldn't agree more. Gaidar did the world a great favor in snipping all those vertical lines of control in the economy.

Did it result in pain? You bet, but every path was going to do that in Russia.

Has Putin backtracked plenty? Yes, but the core changes to personal economic liberty remain intact, and there remain huge.

Gaidar got a bad rap, when he should have gotten a lot of credit for helping move Russia--permanently--from the threat category to mere problem (with demographics doing the rest).

Vegas

Mirage from Strip

Hugh, already partying when we got there.

Hanging w George

Later, trying for par.

Did Caesar really stay here?

Looking for Danny O.

Tom around the web

+ Alexandria linked More good arguments against bombing Iran.
+ War News Updates linked Globalization's Next Wave of Integration.
+ William Hartman cites PNM and BFA in his paper 'Exploitation Tactics - A Doctrine for the 21st Century'.
+ Waleed Hazbun uses PNM as a foil in the abstract for his paper 'Beyond Enclave Orientalism? The Middle East and the Geopolitics of Globalization'.
+ Of Note on the Internets linked The Naughties Were Plenty Nice (but mischaracterizes Tom as a 'liberal imperialist').
+ Kishore Jayabalan linked Globalization's Next Wave of Integration.

No sense talking to lost souls

POST: Signaling Terrorists, by Steve Coll, Think Tank, January 4, 2010

Worth reading for the obscure book reference.

The statement that caught my eye:

Geltzer quotes Henry Kissinger's rationale for advising Bush to carry out the Iraq invasion: "We had to go in there ... to make clear that challenging the United States had disastrous consequences.... Afghanistan was not enough to make that point."

I agree with that judgment wholeheartedly and stated the same logic in both Blueprint (2005) and Great Powers (2009). But that's where I find the whole signaling directly to the terrorists too precious a concept. The signal we were sending was to the world WRT attacks on America of that nature, and to the entirety of radical Islam vice just al-Qaeda that we were serious about triggering the Arab world's integration versus continuing in stand-off mode and somehow hoping the process would eventually start on its own (after waiting out the slo-mo death match between autocrats and radicals that's produced nothing of value in decades now). That's the essential nature of the grand strategic race here: we connect the Middle East faster than AQ can hope to disconnect it, and in that seminal struggle, we reveal ourselves and force AQ to do the same.

And no surprise, over the long haul America comes out looking one helluva lot better than its enemies.

I agree with Coll that the author-in-question's logic is a bit too simplistic, and even to the extent it's true, what would anyone have us do? Create signals that DON'T make sense to the American people?

There is no requirement for perfect logic in America's perceived signaling. Go back and read your FDR histories. The man was a master at specific obfuscation while--in a more general sense--rallying masses (particularly American masses).

In the end, any signaling to terror groups, I would argue, is almost completely irrelevant. We're not calling off globalization, and anything less than giving in to demands of civilizational apartheid will disappoint our enemies in this struggle, so why bother talking to lost souls and instead why not do our best to deny them new recruits by encouraging globalization's advance to offer them better deals?

Drowning in data

ARTICLE: Military Is Awash in Data From Drones, By CHRISTOPHER DREW, New York Times, January 10, 2010

You just knew this was coming: so many drones, so much video, so few assets to review it all. Just more flood to add to the huge flood of data we collect but can barely analyze.

Everybody do the Putin!

ARTICLE: Making a Little Fun of Russia's Powerful, By ELLEN BARRY, New York Times, December 31, 2009

Russian humor is a glorious thing, and yes, this is a small but good sign.

Transcript from Tom's Hugh call last night

Thomas P.M. Barnett's long view of how to revitalize Haiti

Global warming didn't make Obama's list this year

OP-ED: Europe's Post-Copenhagen View of Obama, By STEVEN HILL, New York Times, January 13, 2010

Hill's piece on Copenhagen is very sensible and nuanced.

The gist:

Following Copenhagen, Germany's environment minister, Norbert Röttgen, had some stinging criticisms for President Obama, as well as for China's leadership. "We are experiencing a lack of results and an inability to act, triggered mainly by the United States which, in the case of climate protection, is no longer capable of leading," he said. "China doesn't want to lead, and the U.S. cannot lead."

In sum, Obama's making his choices, and global warming, given the political realities back home, simply did not rank in year 1. I don't think it'll rank over the entire first term, and if a second one isn't forthcoming, the lack of progress here won't be influential in the voters' choice.

Aid: the right kind of strings attached

WORLD NEWS: "Manila's aid to cut poverty has strings attached," by Roel Landingin and Katherine Demopoulous, Financial Times, 4 January 2010.

Government aid to poor people mandates parents send kids to schools and everybody avails themselves of medical programs. Don't do it? Don't get the money.

The best form of bribery: micro-loans, behaviorial-style.

A new normal in O&G?

YEAR-END REVIEW OF MARKETS & FINANCE: "Oil and Natural Gas Diverge on Fundamentals," by Liam Pleven, Wall Street Journal, 4 January 2010.

Oil prices rebounding and staying relatively high while gas descends.

An emerging reality as we continue to discover and exploit non-associated (with oil, that is) gas, to include unconventional sources like shale gas.

Don't fight fair

ARTICLE: What's Our Line?, By MICHAEL KINSLEY, New York Times, January 4, 2010

A nice bit of reasoning from Kinsley:

There's a gruesome anomaly here, to be sure: the United States government will blow you to smithereens and consider it a good day's work if you're a Qaeda member dreaming of jihadist glory while residing somewhere outside the United States, but will pay for your lawyer if you get caught in the act within our borders. But this anomaly didn't arise with the Obama administration. It is built into our dual role as a liberal democracy and as a legitimately aggrieved superpower.

The charms of liberal democracy sometimes need to be defended by war, and Mr. Obama's critics are right that war can't be conducted with a high level of concern for individual justice. A liberal democracy aspires to punish only the guilty. But war is inherently unfair -- it distributes suffering arbitrarily among enemy combatants, civilians and one's own soldiers. A line has to be drawn somewhere to determine which of these utterly different standards of government behavior is applied where -- and the nation's border is as good a line as any.

Under no conditions do I want to conduct warfare inside the United States in the same way we prosecute it abroad, so yeah, it matters plenty where you get caught and where the crime occurred. Symmetricizing the conflict only plays into the hands of our non-state enemies. I see no reason to elevate them so while lowering ourselves so precipitously.

Petrocracies forever!

ARTICLE: U.S. Dethroning Russia as Gas King, By Anatoly Medetsky, Moscow Times, 13 January 2010

Oh no! Russia is no longer gas king!

Another resource war averted!

Short bit re: Haiti on tonight's Hugh Hewitt

Hugh sent me an email mid-afternoon, while I was penning my WPR column (just got home today from Enterra trip that was supposed to be only a one-day jaunt and instead turned into five days: Monday NYC, Tuesday Philly, Wednesday NYC, Thursday DC and Friday DC to home). A bit blitzed from lack of sleep, so tried to talk Steve into doing it (he of the most on-the-spot experience), but he was even more blitzed and wrapping up another day of non-stop meets.

So I told Hugh I'd do it and then finished my column around 4:30, giving me a whopping 15 minutes to collect my thoughts before taping 10 minutes or so at 4:45.

Hugh said it would run in the 6pm EST hour, or in the next few minutes..

Quick heads-up, listen live or online afterwards.

I tried to make some quick basic points, worked Steve in and the Center for Excellence in Hawaii and Gen. (ret) Goodman out there. I may have babbled a bit due to fatigue (I am fading as I type this).

But I got my big tasks done today: get home and get the column written.

Tonight we start the first season of "Lost" in the home theater. Tomorrow I work the brief for Vegas and paint faces at the church fund-raiser. Sunday I fly to Vegas with two older kids (free fliers) and we all stay at the Mirage that night. Some sightseeing in the afternoon, then AV check, then dinner, then cocktails with hosts at 6pm and then I see the "Love" show again--this time with my kids (why I brought them).

Speak first thing Monday at Heavy Duty Equipment Manufacturers (return gig from 2007) convention. Then fly home with kids.

How will China handle the new milieu?

ARTICLE: In Rebuke of China, Focus Falls on Cybersecurity, By MIGUEL HELFT and JOHN MARKOFF, New York Times, January 13, 2010

Naturally, Google's stance triggers a bandwagoning effect, as now all manner of dirty laundry is aired/reaired.

This can quickly become a highly damaging dynamic for Beijing's bosses, because the smile diplomacy needs continued success in Washington to achieve full impact worldwide.

You just knew China's government would push every IT envelope it could, eventually creating enough backpressure for a media/political mania to unfold on our side--not unwarranted.

China is just now starting to learn what a burden it can be to be perceived by the world as a superpower, because everything you do takes on supreme meaning.

Anyway, they asked for the recognition and now they've got it.

How they handle it will be interesting, because the reflexive defensiveness now competes with the rising arrogance/hubris, meaning mistakes will be harder to avoid.

All good and necessary developments.

Most would obviously rather have unhinged hype

OPINION: Threats, by Steve Coll, The New Yorker, January 18, 2010

Very nice and sensible piece from Coll, which should be counterposed to the recent Hoffman op-ed.

Great opening bit:

Fortunately, there is abundant evidence that the United States is entering a new era in its struggle against terrorists, one in which government and society are proving to be self-correcting, while Al Qaeda, like Dick Cheney, is proving to be self-isolating.

I know, you miss the usual hysteric tone the minute you can't locate it in the text.

Then Coll begins to truly shine in terms of perspective-providing non-hype:

Osama bin Laden sought to lead the vanguard of a spreading revolution. Instead, he and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are hunkered down, presumably along the Afghan-Pakistani border, surrounded by only about two hundred hard-core followers. Their adherents in Yemen and Africa number no more than a few thousand. Al Qaeda in Iraq is a tiny fragment of its former self. Bin Laden's relations with the Taliban seem brittle. Unlike Hezbollah, Al Qaeda provides no social services and thus has built no political movement. Unlike Hamas, its bloody nihilism has attracted no states that are willing to defend its legitimacy. In a world of at least one and a half billion Muslims, this does not a revolution, or even a vanguard, make.

Many of bin Laden's declared goals, such as the removal of American soldiers from Muslim lands, still resonate in Islamic societies. Yet, in polls conducted across the Muslim world, large majorities repudiate Al Qaeda, and particularly its tactic of murdering civilians. It is common to observe that bin Laden's poll ratings have collapsed in recent years because his violence has taken the lives of Muslims as well as infidels. Actually, polling shows that citizens of Islamic countries, as elsewhere, overwhelmingly disapprove of any indiscriminate killing, whatever the victims' religious beliefs, and no matter the cause.

Since September 11th, American public opinion about how to respond to bin Laden's threats has also evolved. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, the electorate chose nominees in both major parties who opposed torture. Exit polls indicated that one of the reasons voters elected Barack Obama was to improve America's image abroad.

In office, Obama has begun to reframe counterterrorism strategy. He has crafted a posture of strategic patience, premised upon a forward defense and the durability of American constitutional values.

Then the annoying final bit of commonsense:

The United States is hardly the first democracy to have its nerves jangled and its values challenged by persistent terrorism. The lessons from Britain, India, Israel, Turkey, and elsewhere imply that democracies require time as well as trial and error to find a sustainable balance of politics and policy (as was true of the United States, with respect to Communism, during the Cold War).

It takes time for a democracy to find a balanced approach! Imagine that!

Again, the usual, very sensible stuff from Coll, who is like an island among terror experts in his complete inability to fear-monger.

Sean: add him to the blogroll. I have been quite remiss in not making this happen, given the guy's incredibly even output--a true rarity in the frightening uneven blogosphere.

Still, I read Coll and then I crave something bitter and unhinged! Just a habit, I guess.

(Thanks: NeoTrad Librarian)

We want more scans, but what about the rads?

ARTICLE: Cancer Risks Debated for Type of X-Ray Scan, By MATTHEW L. WALD, New York Times, January 8, 2010

This, to me, will eventually be the biggest factor connected to the desired increase use of scanners at airports.

Been waiting for this story since Xmas and the calls immediately began.

Eventually, somebody's going to have to invent a scanning technology that's clear and doesn't involve cumulative doses of radiation, no matter how small it is in any one instance.

Or am I being too demanding (and alarmist) here?

Nothing new in al-Qaeda's perceived strategy

OP-ED: Al-Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one, too., By Bruce Hoffman, Washington Post, January 10, 2010

With all due respect to Hoffman, I don't see anything particularly "new" in this description of al-Qaeda's perceived "strategy." Worse, I don't think he disproves the "AQ is losing coherence" proposition much at all and I guess I'm surprised that he thinks this laundry list gets it done.

As thousand-cuts-strategies go, this one frankly looks supremely underwhelming in a systemic sense. Yes, it will occasionally arise above globalization's normal noise, but that's more because things are so quiet right now.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)

Yawn. Another partisan griping op-ed

OP-ED: Taking the Measure of Obama's Foreign Policy, By ELIOT A. COHEN, Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2010

You have to like the whining in this one: "Look at all the bad style points I've awarded Obama! Lucky for him there have been no serious crises!"

Ooh! Devastating critique whose killer bash point is saying Obama's Nobel win made him look bad. Sarkozy's famous question is raised--also devastating since you know how America takes its strategic cues from the French.

You read the whole thing through, looking for something bad to truly grab onto, and there's nothing there. Just bitchy carping from a Bush loyalista who should put his decent talents to better use.

Obama is annoying when it comes to possible critiques: he doesn't really make mistakes, being so anally careful, and so far has suffered no serious defeats.

The Olympics? Puh-leaaze! Copenhagen? Oh yeah, I see America forcing a global consensus on that one. Name the huge screw-ups on either Iraq or Afghanistan? You can't. As for Iran, we luck out with the putsch triggering the Green Movement. So we're reduced to making Underwear Bomber the latest sign of the coming Apocalypse, which is just plain sad and pathetic, but Americans do love to complain.

The biggest legitimate gripe I can come up with on Obama (setting aside the nonsense about instituting "socialism")? He's caretaking internationally on security while trying to work the global economy and deal with what he considers to be the most substantial domestic issue--pretty much the early Clintonian mix. Deep down, frankly, it's what most Americans wanted after Bush-Cheney, but it ain't much when it comes to leadership.

What would the GOP do differently? Hard to say, because nobody on that side is speaking coherently right now--another sad advantage to Obama.

Perhaps Obama's biggest accomplishment after the big financial crisis of 2008-09 is that he's succeeded in making politics seem so irrelevant again--so quickly.

That's an incredibly unsettling thing for those who like to fantasize that politics rules everything and thus Washington is the center of everything. There were so many proclamations, as the crisis unfolded, that Washington suddenly outranked NYC and other financial centers to a fantastic degree, but like so many magazine cover proclamations, it all seems like a lot of BS in retrospect.

So we're left to this sad sort of partisan bitching, which is a good indicator of how boring most op-ed pages are right now.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)

Another encouraging sign from Iran

ARTICLE: Iran's opposition spreads to heartland, By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2010

An encouraging sign worth noting:

Defying the predictions of some who dismissed it as a phenomenon limited to big cities, the "green" opposition movement appears to have spread to the heartland, with video and credible reports emerging from towns in the provinces.

Also important, the ability of the external press to continue reporting like this and working outside Tehran.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)