Sounds like China moving on DPRK diplomatic front

 Reuters reporting on Yahoo News, with my HT to World Politics Review's media roundup email.

To me, this is a very good sign:

North Korea has held secret talks with Japan in what is believed to be their first contact since the death of long-time leader Kim Jong-il, Japanese media said, as Pyongyang's closest allyChina and South Korea vowed to work closely on denuclearizing the North.

Amid a series of diplomatic contacts over North Korea in China, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing to discuss ways to preserve stability on the peninsula as the unpredictable North undergoes a delicate transition of power.

Hiroshi Nakai, a former Japanese state minister in charge of the abduction issue, met the North's delegation on Monday for talks on the abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 80s, Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted sources as saying.

The two sides are also believed to have discussed terms for restarting intergovernmental negotiations, the Mainichi Daily News reported.

Nakai's office confirmed his trip to China. A government official declined to comment on the trip.

Two logical explanations:

1. China didn't want to push anything until Kim Jong Il passed; and
2. Beijing now wants to capture successor Kim Jong Eun on the diplomatic front before any internal purging process pushes Pyongyang toward displays of aggression toward the West.

How does Beijing do this?  It makes a big show of supporting KJE to put him in a good place, and says these efforts are part and parcel of achieving the same internationally.

If this is not China as a "responsible stakeholder," then I don't know what is.

So, again, a very good sign.

Would be nice if Obama Administration made it own overtures amidst this diplomatic flurry. Could prove decisive and keep us suitably in the mix.  Alas, I think the White House is already too invested in its "strategic pivot" to contain Chinese power in East Asia, which, to me, is a perfect 20th century answer to a 21st century phenomenon.

But I can always hope for common sense to re-emerge post-election . . ..

WPR's The New Rules: Welcome to Obama's Cold War With China

Faced with irreversible long-term fiscal pressures to reduce the U.S. defense budget, late last week the Obama administration began unveiling its supremely focused rationale behind future cuts. The result is an elegantly slim strategic statement (.pdf) that indirectly names its deepest fear in its title: “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.” According to the document, over the past decade the U.S. military force structure has been “by necessity” dangerously skewed by “today’s wars.” Now America must start “preparing for future challenges” arising from a frightening and apparently imminent “inflection point” in East Asia’s military balance of power. As such, “we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.” In sum, not only are these choices being forced upon America, they are the only path we can take if we are to maintain our global leadership.

Read entire column at World Politics Review.

NFL playoffs: my best guess scenario

Wild Cards:

• Thought Bengals would win on QB play, but happy to see Pats now probably have to play both Steelers and Ravens;
• Like Steelers over Broncos;
• Cheered very hard for Lions over Saints last night, and am suitably scared of playing the Saints - but less so outdoors and in the cold; and
• I see Falcons choking again at NYG, althought I am totally cheering for them.

Divisional

• Believed Pats would beat anyone with ease;
• See Ravens beating Steelers again;
• Believe Saints will pull it out in SF; and
• Know Pack should be able to handle Giants at home.

Conference championships

• Gotta go with Pats at home, but see this as hugely close; and
• Will say same about Pack v. Saints in Lambeau

Super Bowl

• Like my Packers in wild shoot-out (over 100 pts) over Pats.

Would like to see Pats lose to my Packers again - just like before. Also want to see Rodgers beat Brady in the Big Game.

Think AFC will go as I see it, with the championship game being close. In NFC, see the talent level being so high that it could go a lot of different directions. Really think any of the six could pull it out, much like last year.

As a Packer fan, I am simply grateful I've got reason to care about football deep in January and that they've positioned themselves well for a shot at championship #14.

Time's Battleland: How America Painted Itself Into A Corner on North Korean Succession

Great Washington Post piece on China’s intense desire for stability on Korean peninsula, thus the clear backing of the “Great Successor” Kim Jong Eun. Wrap-up paragraph says it all:

The notion of a democratized Korean Peninsula with U.S. troops positioned directly along the Chinese border — one scenario in a North Korean collapse — is threatening to China because of Washington’s other moves in the region. The Obama administration, describing the United States as a new “Pacific power,” has in recent months strengthened economic ties with the Southeast Asian countries it once neglected; it has also built relationships with some of Beijing’s neighbors, particularly Vietnam and Burma, threatening Chinese influence.

My company, the massively multiplayer online consultancy Wikistrat, recently ran a simulation . . .

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.

Mr. President, end this (drug) war!

Death toll in Mexico this last year: a stunning 12,000, according to WAPO.

Yes, some will write it off as only "professionals" dying, but the same is largely true in all conflicts.

We supply the money and the guns, and then demand that the Mexicans fight it out to the last man standing.

It's a wonder that all Mexicans don't hate us all the time.

Decriminalize drug use and you deny the cartels the big money that fuels their warfare.  You also stop US states from spending so much on jail time for small-time users and peddlers. You also medicalize our response, which is how the rest of the intelligent world deals with debilitating drug abuse.

End the drug war, Mr. President, and truly earn the Nobel, because that would take some political courage.

We can only hope that a second-term Obama, hemmed in domestically by a GOP House and Senate, will escape to some suitably radical foreign policy (back-dooring some sensible domestic policy changes). This would fit that scenario, but I have little hope of Obama making such a call.

Time's Battleland: More Evidence of the Glorious Do-Loop That Is the East Asian Arms Race

WSJ lead story about Chinese developing a ballistic missile designed to fragment - like a cluster bomb - on the deck of a U.S. carrier and wipe out all aircraft and personnel.  Naturally, it's unbelievably provocative to us, because in our world view, U.S. carriers get to come right up to the coast of any nation whenever we please, bringing all that magnificent power projection to bear.

What the Chinese tell us with this development - and so many more - is that the days of the U.S. doing that off China's coast are coming to an end.

Unless we pick up the challenge, of course!

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.

Time's Battleland: The "strategic pivot" to Asia now committed, Pentagon can float allegedly deep cuts

Nice piece in the NYT today previewing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's much-anticipated announcement of almost a half-trillion in defense cuts over the next decade.As Mark Thompson just noted, not a whole lot of details.  We are told that the US military will no longer plan to fight two wars simultaneously - long a preferred fantasy.  Now, it will be able to fight one big war (guess who that is), plus be able to spoil another's attempted dirty deeds (let's say Iran's counter to Israel's attack on its nuclear facilities).

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.

WPR's The New Rules: A Foreign Policy Wish List for 2012

Last year was a tough one in terms of global economics, humanitarian disasters and political leadership among the world's great powers. But it was also the year of the glorious Arab Spring and hints of similar developments in Myanmar, Russia and Ethiopia. So while the year's "fundamentals," as the economists like to say, weren't so good, it left us with plenty to be grateful for as globalization continues to awaken the desire of individuals for freedom the world over. Keeping all that in mind, here is my foreign policy wish list for 2012.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Wikistrat post: Fareed Zakaria's GPS blog at CNN World

China eyes North Korea's minerals; what's next?

Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy.  It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a patent pending crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.

Reuters reported that North Korea’s government will shift – for now – to rule by committee instead of by an all-powerful leader.  Most likely, a factional truce was worked out in advance of Kim Jong-il’s death.

Read the entire post at Fareed Zakaria's GPS blog at CNN's Global Public Square.

Here's the voting totals (by readers) as of 1506EST Tuesday:

 

 

Oh what a night!

Xmas present to wife, who's never been to Lambeau and wanted a piece of this magical season.

ARod's career-high 5 passing TDs and first time GB ever wins 14 games and only second time it clinches home-field-advantage-throughout-the-playoffs.  Plus, first time ever we beat Bears 4 times in calendar year (we also were at NFC Championship at Soldier Field last Jan).

Others: Driver becomes 36th receiver in NFL history to top 10,000 yards, and ARod breaks nearly 3-decade-old passing yardage record of Lynn Dickey (early 1980s).

Real nice seats behind Pack bench, on left 40-yard-line, and a surprisingly warm night - not onerous at all as far as the cold war concerned.

I did not think they would win the SB last year (felt they were a year  early) and feel like Ted Thompson, the GM, erred a bit on the side of offense this off-season - over the far weaker defense, but who knows?  I think they have a great opportunity to repeat, and that's all you can ask for.

Whom do I fear?  Saints and Pats are our mirror images. The Ravens, Steelers and 49ers are more polar opposites, with the Steelers probably providing the worst match-up (strong-enough O, always strong D).

Then again, I would have said the same thing last year.

"The Brief" back in 2002, before Esquire article, before the book, before everything

Gave this brief to the student body of the Naval War College at the request of the president, Admiral Rod Rempt, who introduces me. This is the basic brief I developed for Art Cebrowski while working as his Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Office of Force Transformation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2001-2003.

Spot the comments I make WRT mentor and good friend/colleague Bradd Hayes.  Why? I had just given an interview to a local paper (Newport Daily News) following my selection as Esquire's Best and Brightest. The writer did a job on me, quoting all the self-congratulatory stuff and skipping all the paired self-deprecating comments.  Lesson for me: If you give a reporter the rope, he or she will hang you.

Not that I've ever done that as a journalist . . ..

Home from Prague, digging out from under

Unfortunately, my one piece of luggage is still touring Europe, thank you British Airways!

For all of you who've been asking:   Yes, Wikistrat ran a post-Kim Jong-Il simulation last spring.  I'm presently summarizing the results.

Going to go below the radar til the end of the year so I can concentrate on getting the house straight and working in preparation of a big simulation that Wikistrat is launching for a client the day after Christmas (a holiday not on everybody's radar in this world).

Will pop back up once thingds are settled here.  No column next week.  First one of year will be my semi-usual top-ten foreign policy wishes for the new year.

Enjoy the holidays!

WPR's New Rules: Worried by China's Rise? Watch Out for its Decline

Much of what drives America’s current phobias regarding China stems from the dual -- and fantastically linear -- assumptions of America’s terminal decline and China’s perpetual ascension. We are thus led to believe that China no longer needs the United States and that America, in turn, can do nothing -- short of increasing military pressure -- to constrain the Middle Kingdom’s rise to global hegemony. On all scores, nothing could be further from the truth. China and the United States suffer a level of strategic interdependency that is vast and shows no signs of reduction. Simply put, America cannot stay rich without China, and China cannot get rich without America.

Read the entire post at World Politics Review.

Prague at Xmas

Flew overnight Wednesday into Madrid, then hopped to Prague.  Arrived late afternoon, got showered and suited up, and then delivered brief to select group of grad students at top local international relations institute (the host: Associace pro mezinarodni otasky, or Association for International Affairs).  Went about 90 and did another 30 Q&A.  Then dinner with Director Tomas Karasek.

Next day I oversleep and am awakened by host  15 minutes before scheduled talk at beautiful nearby old 19th-century building (same place I spoke the night before).  I scramble and we start 10 mins late.  Similar-length effort for select audience of diplomats and others.

Then have lunch with intern, who is my guide for afternoon-long walking tour of Prague.

Pix below.

See them in bigger slide-show format here (just click on any thumbnail to start show).

Quoted in Reuters piece on 2012 predictions

Find it here.

Opening:

Analysis: 2012 could prove even wilder ride than 2011

 

By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent

LONDON | Thu Dec 15, 2011 11:01am EST

(Reuters) - The ancient Mayans attached special significance to 2012, possibly the end of time. That has spawned a rush of apocalyptic literature for the holiday season.

My bit:

   CONFLICT, UNREST 

   After the fall of several veteran Western-backed Arab rulers, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is seen as the latest sign of the diminishing influence of Western powers in a region they dominated for some 200 years.  

   In the resulting vacuum, regional powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and an isolated and perhaps more erratic Iran appear in increasingly open confrontation. 

   Western intelligence estimates that Iran is moving closer to a viable nuclear weapon have a shorter timeline, and some analysts say 2012 could be the year when Tehran's enemies decide to go beyond covert sabotage with a military strike that could spark retaliation against oil supplies in the Gulf. 

   "The bigger wild card out there is an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and elements of regime control," says Thomas Barnett, chief strategist of political risk consultancy Wikistrat, saying neither the Israeli nor the Iranian leadership looks inclined to back down. "The setting here is scary... something has got to give in this strategic equation." 

   Even if the world avoids a devastating shock such as a Middle East war or a European breakdown, many analysts fear the business of politics and policy-making could become increasingly difficult around the world. 

My old Y2K brief

This was taped by USIA for use in US embassies around the world in the summer of 1999.  USIA was shuttered for good in September of that year.  Coincidence?  All part of the Y2K conspiracy!

Brief runs almost two hours.  We had to mute the REM song for the closing credits.  I'm sure you can guess the title.

It was a fun brief that I gave close to 100 times around the world across 1999.

Some downtime

After months of bitching to myself about my mortgage, we successfully sold our house yesterday, which meant we had to find a rental home last week and move in over the weekend to accommodate the closing. We could have rented from the new owners, but I don't like doing that and prefer clean breaks when selling houses (this being my third go-around).

As such, I am awash in boxes that need unpacking, so this will be a very light week on the blog, especially since I leave for Prague tomorrow and don't get back til Saturday.

We are very happy with the new house, where the rent is about 1/4 what I was paying on the old mortgage. That was my fault, because we tricked up the old house (new build) considerably, moving in at the height of the bubble.  But that tricked-up nature also meant we could still move it in a bad market when we found the right buyer.

So we feel very lucky to have gotten out of the old big house and into this slightly smaller but simpler home that hasn't sold because the owner is more stubborn on the price than we were with ours.  Our decision to cut and run from the old house is predicated on our desire to move back East in 2014, after several family members finish at various levels of school, and this way we can sked our departure with a lot more confidence as renters than as owners.  The recent market just scared me too much to wait and try and sell it when we really wanted to go, so we just kept dangling the home in the market now and then and eventually found the right buyer at an acceptable price.

What I already adore about this new home (other than the great room (which will soon feature an even bigger home theater screen!): my allergies here seem non-existent compared to the old house.  I think it's because we're not in the country anymore, surrounded by fields.  Or maybe it was something in the house.  Because it's stunning: in the old house, I woke up EVERY morning feeling like I drunk a fifth of vodka, and I'd be so drowsy and feeling so bad that I'd just want to shoot myself. I'd have to sleep about 9 hours to feel coherent, when before we moved in, I typically slept about 6-7 and would just wake up feeling fine - not able or wanting to sleep further.

Well, two nights at the new house and it's like my life is back.  I go to sleep around midnight and pop up awake and refreshed at around 6:30, and it's like my day is suddenly enlarged - plus I don't want to run screaming from the state every time I have to pop a pill, which I haven't bothered doing since we started sleeping here three nights ago.

Absolutely amazing and the best news (along with the significant reduction in housing cost) I've had in a long time.

So, change is good, I typically find.

Plus, the neighborhood here is about 10 times friendlier.  More middle class and less upscale.  Already, our kids have more friends in three days then they did in 5 years in the old development.

All makes me wonder why I didn't do this earlier.

WPR's The New Rules: India's Pastoral Ideal an Obstacle to Globalized Future

When most people think of revolutions, they imagine the overthrow of political orders. By contrast, most of what we see today in globalization’s continued expansion is not violent political revolution, but rather unsettling socio-economic revolution. Yes, when existing political orders cannot process that change -- and the angry populism that typically accompanies it -- they can most definitely fall. This is what we have seen in the Arab Spring to date. But more often this populism leads to political paralysis in countries both democratic and authoritarian. A case in point is the recent controversy in India over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s plan, since scrapped, to allow multinational retail chains like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco to mount joint ventures with local firms in direct retail sales operations. The public uproar showed that at times, globalization is simply too much change, too fast..

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Claremont Grad U deconstructs their Wikistrat "International Grand Strategy Competition" win

Tuesday Lunch Talk 9-6-11 from CGU SPE on Vimeo.

Interesting.

Christmas, actually . . .

FT story that reminds me of scenario I ginned up as part of Wikistrat teaser for simulation looking at rising consumerism in East Asia and its impact on various consumer products and food & bev industries.

I can't remember the first time I was in China during the Christmas holiday, but it was probably close to a half decade ago, and I was stunned by how much people embraced the whole concept while treating it as an essentially non-religious holiday.  I mean the country has a huge winter festival holiday (Lunar New Year) that runs in the Jan-Feb timeframe, so how could they pick this up too?

Well, it's that rising middle class that seeks more outlets for its downtime and money. So the Chinese are picking up all sorts of foreign/Western holidays on top of the ones they already celebrate.  Fairly American, actually.

The quote from local expert:

Christmas is like Chinese New Year, even poor people have to celebrate it. Hotels, kindergartens, schools, supermarkets, they all have Christmas decorations. As people born after the 1980s and 1990s grow up, the [Christmas] culture is having a growing influence.

So inscrutable, these people!

Plus, this year, Chinese decorations companies are surviving the downturn in the West by selling far more at home.