Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 10:10PM OP-ED: China Sees Diminishing Returns With Russia (subscribers only), By Alexander Lukin, The Moscow Times, 15 October 2009
Interesting pair of dynamics with this allegedly post-American global economic crisis: China's economic bonds deepen with America and decline with Russia.
(Via WPR's Media Roundup)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 10:06PM ARTICLE: LNG and Russia's Shifting Gas Strategy (subscribers only), By Matt Stone, World Politics Review, 19 Oct 2009
Fascinating piece by Stone on the rise of the LNG market.
Worth reading.
(Via WPR's Media Roundup)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 10:04PM ARTICLE: Verizon Droid Is The Real Deal, By Michael Arrington, Washington Post, October 18, 2009
As a long-time Verizon subscribed, I will be sorely tempted to try the Droid, as I am not in love with the BB Storm, even as its navigation program is totally kick-ass.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 6:40AM From the World Politics Review front page:
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, WPR asked six prominent commentators what feature of today's geopolitical landscape might not be as durable as we imagine. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Ian Bremmer and Alexander Kliment, Nikolas Gvosdev, Walter Russell Mead, and Jacqueline Newmyer examine The Next "Berlin Wall Moment."
Tom's piece is entitled the The Austin Accords of March, 2031
Historic treaty ushers in long-anticipated era of U.S. southward expansion.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Meeting in the New Texas statehouse on the 195th anniversary of Texas' declaration of independence from Mexico, official representatives from the Tejas Confederation, the Northern Alliance of Mexican States, and the United States government signed a comprehensive treaty that will immediately "re-admit" the Tejas states of El Norte and Gulfland to the American union, and submit to Congress formal pleas for new statehood on behalf of all five Northern Alliance members -- Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon.
Continue reading today's special column at WPR.
Tom's comment about the piece:
Previous to being offered this job, I had run a bit of scenario work past Judah Grunstein at WPR, so when he asked me to pen something and told me what the others were already working on, my mind was already leaning toward just a straight-forward future-headline approach to the problem, vice a piece stuffed with conditional language and a list of causal factors that supported the hypothesis. So I ended up with a piece that is a total zebra among these well-built horses. Of the group, I find myself most easily attracted to the Bremmer/Kliment piece on state capitalism and the CCP-loses-legitimacy bit from Newmyer (especially the line: "As a primary matter, we should recall that China's Communist Party elites are the heirs of a dynastic system famously characterized by cycles, in which the legitimacy of a ruling house could vanish in the space of a generation.").
Again, I just felt it would be easier for the reader to grasp what we were fishing at by presenting him or her with a fait accompli, and since all the current talk about gangs, drug lords, Mexico-as-a-failed-state, etc., seemed to me to provide more than enough imaginative momentum to a downstream scenario that broke a lot of china--from today's perspective, so why not simply describe that journey and let the reader judge the plausibility?
As for describing an Hispanic president: I figured from the Berlin Wall moment perspective, we saw four elections and then an African-American won, so projecting ahead another four (Obama reelected, then Petraeus for 1-2 and an unnamed third president following him for 1-2) meant I could do the same sleight of hand regarding an Hispanic. The "soft border" concept comes, naturally, from the whole Af-Pak-India cluster (Pashtun to the north, Kashmir to the south), and then I toss in the Cuba scenario from past Esquire use, and run with the scenarios of state division so favored by many thinkers. In short, I wanted to respect the forcing function suggested by Robb's global guerrillas while showing the adaptability of nation-states.
I wrote the piece over two days: Day one got me the news story and the outline of the phases (imagined as a box inset alongside the piece), and day two saw me fill in the phases, which required a lot of recalibration for the storyline to hold enough water.
Overall, a very fun piece to write and hopefully a fun one to consider as a reader.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:32PM OP-ED: Liberate Iraq's Economy, By FRANK R. GUNTER, New York Times, November 15, 2009
What remains in Iraq is rule-set rationalization:
The chief problems in Iraq's commercial code are its incredible complexity, long delays in processing requests for licenses and high cost. For example, registering a new business in Iraq costs almost $2,800 compared to $139 in Delaware. (However, a group of Iraqi businessmen assured me that if $600 in cash was given to the right person, a license would be available immediately and no further fees would be required.)
The country could simply throw out its current commercial code and adopt a less restrictive, regionally acceptable one -- like Saudi Arabia's. Or, more realistically, it could make its code more user-friendly by, say, allowing business owners to work with one ministry -- as opposed to a dozen.
The government could take other steps, too. With the exception of tax collection and international trade regulations, responsibility for regulating private businesses could be taken from the Baghdad ministries and delegated to the country's 18 provinces. Encouraging the provinces to compete for private-sector jobs would lead to friendlier regulatory environments around the country -- just as it has in the United States.
But whatever is decided, the government of Iraq is running out of time.
Good piece.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:30PM ARTICLE: Inspectors Fear Iran Is Hiding Nuclear Plants, By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD, New York Times, November 16, 2009
Of course Iran is hiding other sites.
The horse has left the barn. We can pretend otherwise and we can pretend we can bomb our way to elimination.
Or we can get real, like I've been arguing in print now for almost five years.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:29PM OP-ED: Why We Should Put Jihad on Trial, By STEVEN SIMON, New York Times, November 17, 2009
When it comes to terrorism, experts don't come any smarter than Steve Simon.
Here he is making a case I believe in: we should have no fear putting terrorists on trial.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:12PM ARTICLE: Clinton Seen as Obama's Key Link to Afghan Leader, By MARK LANDLER, New York Times, November 19, 2009
Hillary picks her spots.
And this is a good one: handling Karzai.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:10PM OP-ED: What Geithner Got Right, By DAVID BROOKS, New York Times, November 19, 2009
Obama and Geithner, the consensus emerges, DID make the gutsy and right calls on the fiscal "surge":
Well, the evidence of the past eight months suggests that Geithner was mostly right and his critics were mostly wrong. The financial sector is in much better shape than it was then. TARP money is being repaid, and the debate now is what to do with the billions that were never needed. It now seems clear that nationalization would have been an unnecessary mistake -- potentially expensive and dangerously disruptive.
The course of events has vindicated the administration's handling of its first big challenge.
Sharp piece by Brooks. The "middling" approach is classic FDR: keeping the extremists on the margins.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 10:38PM ARTICLE: Miami firm says it will lay first US-Cuba fiber, AP, Oct 13, 2009
Good sign. Let's hope it goes through will little resistance from the Cuban gov.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 10:34PM ARTICLE: In Somalia, a New Template for Fighting Terrorism, By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, New York Times, October 17, 2009
A quote:
One widely held misperception about Somalia is that it is rabidly anti-American. This may come from the indelible images of gleeful Somalis dragging the corpses of American soldiers through the streets after militiamen shot down the two Black Hawk helicopters and a heavily armed mob finished them off. Later American policies did little to curb antagonisms. In 2006, the C.I.A. shoveled a few million dollars to predacious warlords in an attempt to stymie a competing Islamist movement. When that didn't work, the American government supported Ethiopia, Somalia's historic enemy, when it invaded. What followed was a nasty guerilla war that ended only when the Ethiopians agreed to leave earlier this year and the Islamists were allowed back in. Essentially, the 2006 status quo was returned, minus 15,000 Somalis, now dead.
Still, "most Somalis are not anti-American," said Afyare Abdi Elmi, a Somali-Canadian political scientist at Qatar University's International Affairs Program. "Most Somalis are pragmatic and they do not inherently oppose America's involvement in Somalia per se. They reject when such involvement is associated with warlords or Ethiopians. Neither condition exists now."
This could spell an opportunity, as the Obama administration seems to think. The United States and other Western powers have provided the new Islamist government with weapons, money and diplomatic support. While terribly weak, the government has proven to be relatively moderate, vowing to repel terrorist groups, and seeking a middle path in its interpretation of political Islam.
The United States, for its part, is helping the government in a crucial way, with pinprick counterterrorism attacks like the commando raid that killed Mr. Nabhan; these presumably advance the mutual interest of eliminating Qaeda terrorists and weakening the Somali insurgency, while avoiding civilian casualties.
So a new template for fighting terrorism may be emerging as the United States shows less desire to get involved in the local intricacies of nation building and more interest in narrowing its focus to Al Qaeda. The focus so far has been precise, limited and often covert, with attacks carried out with a parallel diplomatic strategy.
Lesson? The SysAdmin's job need not be as resource-intensive as conventionally assumed. The "narrowing" focus is misleading though, as we're now in the habit of calling just about every extremist group "Al Qaeda."
But the larger point still holds: using the military is always a delaying action, the hope being that something better can emerge. In Africa, as elsewhere, that "better" will come in the form of Asian economic connectivity.
Will the more bare-bones approach work everywhere? No. But the radical Islamic attraction remains weak in sub-Saharan Africa, a point I made back in "The Americans Have Landed," so no reason to assume a large effort, if you're doing the 3D approach (blending defense, diplomacy and development) effectively.
Nagl's closer quote:
To Mr. Nagl, in fact, Somalia is a counterterrorism planner's dream, with its desert terrain, low population density and skinny shape along the sea; no place is more than a few minutes' chopper flight from American ships bobbing offshore. "It's far, far harder to do counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan than in Somalia," he said.
What the two fronts have in common, he said, is that "you can't kill or capture your way out of this problem. You have to change the conditions on the ground."
So you tailor to the theater in question--a basic lesson of successful globalization in the business realm.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 10:32PM ARTICLE: Sudan's Critics Relieved That Obama Chose a Middle Course, By GINGER THOMPSON, New York Times, October 17, 2009
Per my "Obama's New Map" look-ahead in Esquire last spring: those hoping for the new president to pick all manner of confrontational fights with failed states are disappointed. It's not just that a disconnection strategy is inappropriate, or that the primary reason (Darfur) has largely gone quiet. The man is not looking for new fights with everything else he's got on his plate.
Thus, in the end, we find China's connectivity there more of an opportunity than problem.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 10:30PM NEWS ANALYSIS: Russia's Leaders See China as Template for Ruling, By CLIFFORD J. LEVY, New York Times, October 17, 2009
Wow, the naivete on this one is unreal.
Russia doesn't have a vast underutilized pool of cheap labor--the true "secret" of China's single-party rule.
This is confusing politics with rock-bottom labor prices. Anybody who expects the average Russian worker to put out like their Chinese counterpart is dreaming.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 10:28PM OP-ED: Darkness on the Edge of Monotown, By LEON ARON, New York Times, October 16, 2009
Good exploration of a huge hidden problem in Russia:
Yet on the inside the country remains dangerously close to a serious breakdown of authority. In addition to the Muslim North Caucasus, which is already barely governable, the most vulnerable places are the company towns, which could catalyze a nationwide explosion of political turmoil.
Products of Stalinist industrialization, an estimated 460 company towns grew around a single plant or factory. Hence their Russian designation: "monotowns" (monogoroda). Most were erected, often by prison labor, in the middle of nowhere and in complete disregard for long-term urban viability, not to mention the needs and conveniences of the workers and their families. In addition to being the single employer, these "town-forming enterprises" are responsible for providing all social services and amenities, from clinics and schools to heat, water and electricity, for populations of 5,000 to 700,000. (There are also more than 1,000 similar but smaller "workers' settlements.")
Remember that when you hear about a "resurgent" Russia.
No easy answers here:
This could be catastrophic: after all, a quarter of the urban population -- 25 million people -- live in monotowns and produce up to 40 percent of Russia's G.D.P. And these struggling workers embody Russia's work force: largely immobile, because the lack of affordable housing makes it impossible to seek employment elsewhere, and sadly inflexible, thanks to their overdependence on these paternalistic, enterprise-based social services, part of what President Medvedev has denounced as the "Soviet-style social sphere." Indeed, the monotowns seem more and more a bellwether of the national trend toward deepening impoverishment and further job losses.
Russia is destined to change politically for the better. Why? Because it's a practical way out of this wilderness, as Aron makes clear.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 2:32PM Since 10/29, the day of my successful surgery, I have noted three things:
1) I haven't taken any antibiotics against an infection, something I managed for about 10 days last May and before that, you have to go all the way to about this time last year;
2) I haven't had to pop my inner ears by holding my nose and blowing as hard as possible to force air up my eustachian tubes into my inner ear (painful, when you have reconstructed eardrums [from muscle tissue lining] like I do in both ears); and
3) I haven't been able to sustain a single lengthy bout of anger at home or full-blown tirade on the blog (my last good one being against Krauthammer on 10/19 in the final pre-surgical nightmare period).
I do now look back on the mid-Dec '08-through-late-Oct-'09 period like a drunken haze: I was constantly f--ked up with infections, either ramping up or peaking or coming down or hung over for the rare few days before it began all over again.
It was not a good year for me, and while I managed to perform as required across all venues, I was rarely a happy camper and often so much in discomfort that I was out of control anger-wise. Looking back over the blog today, as I research an upcoming piece, I was dismayed to find bursts of flagrant flaming in my work, or times when I just should have admitted I was way under the weather and not bothered to respond or critique or pick the fight. During these moments I simply denied my problems and pushed on, a bad choice I managed to put aside on the columns and other writings--thankfully. Sean did a decent job of catching some of these incidents, but the fault for the ones that slipped through is entirely mine.
I have always struggled WRT treating the blog "seriously." I've done it just long enough (since early 2005) to still consider it a web diary versus a media platform, and I've remained true to my notion that this is a personal but public workspace, meaning I don't try that hard to cover up incomplete thinking or first drafts or--quite frankly--my emotion on subjects.
But, again, looking over the last year (since mid-Dec), I feel like I must do better now that I feel more on an even keel. I think it'll be easy enough, because I don't feel so physically persecuted, but it has been a good reminder that you're nowhere without your health.
So when you have it, retaining a certain amount of graciousness in your interactions with everybody is crucial--a bare minimum, in fact.
And so I post-datedly apologize to anybody I've offended this year via the blog. I have plenty to be thankful for (Turkey Day looms . . .) and tremendous things to look forward to, so I want to take advantage of this moment of clarity (not many of those since last December) and make this declaration.
And now I'd like my Nobel, please.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 3:16AM 
Over the course of its long history, America has experienced numerous religious "awakenings," certain of which served as important precursors to the American Revolution, the abolition movement and Civil War, the Progressive Era (1890-1920), and the Civil Rights Movement. In effect, each "great awakening" served as a populist wellspring for radically new rules within our society, our economy and our political system.
Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 11:46PM ARTICLE: China's New Missile May Create a 'No-Go Zone' for U.S. Fleet, By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg, Nov. 17, 2009
You have to remember here: the U.S. Navy doesn't pursue anti-ship missiles like China does because, quite frankly, there aren't any navies out there worth blowing up. But from China's perspective, there is ONE navy worth protecting against.
So big surprise: #2 develops an anti-access strategy on #1.
Is it a waste of China's resources? Yes, it most certainly is.
Is it clumsily provocative? Absolutely, but immature rising powers are wont to behave in this fashion--go figure.
But here's the continuing reality: we may end up signaling for years about the reality of our interdependence on global security before China eventually abandons the bilaterally-focused defense buildup and starts building a force more suitable to its actual worldwide security needs. As the more powerful of the two parties, we have to make the first moves--plain and simple.
And as the more mature party, we have to have more patience.
I know, I know, the Chinese think in centuries and all that bullshit. But I see nothing in their force modernization that suggests that whatsoever. Instead, they're thinking about as short-term and unimaginatively as they can.
Symmetricizing our vision to their narrow one is not the answer, no matter what the knee-jerks on the hard Right declare in their intense indignation.
We need to continue playing the longer game, just like we did with the Sovs while we taught them the meaning of MAD.
(Via WPR's Media Roundup)
Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 11:44PM ARTICLE: Pakistani Military Encounters Little Fight as Militants Flee, By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ERIC SCHMITT, New York Times, November 17, 2009
Same old, same old: chase the roaches out of one apartment, and they head into neighboring ones to wait out your effort.
Taking turns with the Pakistanis is not the answer, no matter how you slice it.
(Via WPR's Media Roundup)
Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 11:39PM ARTICLE: The Terrorists Among Us, BY PETER BERGEN, Foreign Policy, NOVEMBER 19, 2009
What Bergen's analysis reminds us of: just one Al Qaeda success in the U.S. and we'd be back--like lightning--to considering Afghanistan-Pakistan to be far more the imperative and far less the choice.
(Via WPR's Media Roundup)
Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 11:38PM WORLD NEWS: "Debate Shifts to Afghan Exit Plan," by Peter Spiegel and Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, 19 November 2009.
Everybody on our side is worried about incentivizing the Taliban, when we should be more focused on incentivizing Afghanistan's neighbors.
