Time's Battleland: "The future of Fifth Generation Warfare: Follow the food!"

Everybody thinks that the future is going to see fights over energy, when it's far more likely to be primarily over food. Think about it: The 19th century is the century of chemistry and that gets us chemical weapons in World War I. The 20th century is the century of physics and that gets us nuclear weapons in World War II. But the 21st century? That's the century of biology, and that gets us biological weaponry and biological terror. My point: obsessing over nuclear terrorism is steering by our rearview mirror.

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.

Chart of the Day: chocolate consumption (advanced v emerging)

From FT analysis of Kraft buying Cadbury (beating out Hershey) and how controversial that's been in the UK (flagship company and all), but this is no worse that InBev buying Budweiser - heh?

But in both instances, it's the future growth of the Gap countries that drives the purchases (InBev doing well there, Kraft hoping to take advantage of Cadbury's ability to market in India).  So far Kraft doing okay ($29 share price before, $35 since).

The chart on the left explains why:  Core populations can only eat so much more chocolate (few more bodies over time), while Gap and New Core are "discovering" chocolate in a big way (4X the growth because of sheer numbers entering middle-class status).

Same will hold true for food after food and beverage after beverage.

As I've said, it ain't about hearts and minds but bellies and wallets.

WPR's The New Rules: "For U.S., the Long War Shifts Back to the Persian Gulf"

As the United States debates just how much more effort it wants to put into the Afghanistan-Pakistan sinkhole, evidence mounts of the need to pursue a strategic pivot back toward the Middle East, where the Arab Spring is increasingly threatened by a Persian winter of revolutionary discontent. For some time now, Iran has been showing signs of mounting internal divisions between competing hardline factions led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But it has also become more desperate about asserting its alleged leadership of the region's ongoing wave of uprisings, including a far more active sponsorship of al-Qaida's Persian Gulf franchise. All this suggests that, if America is truly serious about continuing the fight against the post-Osama bin Laden al-Qaida, then Washington needs to admit that the center of gravity in that "persistent struggle" has shifted out of northwest Pakistan and into the Persian Gulf.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Kronos report to Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus on Iran-AQ Nexus

Download here.

Made available here as part of tomorrow's WPR column.

Wrapping up the spring speech tour

Gave a speech to a big conference of Navy supply corps reservists, the second such time I've done their huge, every-other-year event (I did one in Baltimore in 07, if I remember correctly).  Big audience of close to one thousand crammed into a wide ballroom.  Three huge screens, though, with great projectors.  Sound was also great (nothing like a great lapel mike to put me at ease).  The speech was broadcast globally throughout the Navy's supply corps community.  

Simplified the brief a bit by making the "map" sequence" less cluttered, and got through the 29 slides in about 65 mins. Answered questions for about 5 mins, and then held court outside for about 30 more, where I met a lot of great people.  It was a very lively audience that got a great performance out of me (the audience gets what it gives, as always). I came off the stage decidedly buzzed, despite the allergies (this place is blooming). Having now spoken in Atlanta, Chicago and Pittsburgh, I consider my post-Super Bowl speaking tour complete.

The hidden benefit of reservist conferences:  all have civilian jobs and a surprising number are in all sorts of industries that like to have me in for speeches, so it's a double-win. 

Off now til the fall schedule kicks in - come September, and that's looking good, with big speeches already lined up to a financial group in Chicago, a bankers group in Pensacola, and some big strategy gathering at Disney World (Grand Floridian) in early December.

Big treat on this trip was getting to spend a lot of face time with my long-time manager, Jennifer Posda, who is a close friend of our family.  One intriguing topic was how to exploit the Emily Updates' eBooks to launch an orthogonal speaking career on that subject.  Goal there would be to tap the wide medical market, motivational, etc.  I just know there would be a great brief coming out of the Updates, and it would definitely be the one I'd try in Keynote, since I'd be building from scratch and looking to use a lot of photos, video, etc.  More fun is considering the possibility of getting either my spouse Vonne or daughter Emily involved in certain venues.

But first, of course, we've got to get the eBook series out (4 volumes) and write the from-today's-perspective fifth volume before Em heads back to college.  On that front, the edited four volumes of Emily Updates (each about 50,000 words) now sit with my literary agency, which is using the project to launch a new eBook service within the agency.  First they take the Word docs and create special eBook-friendly PDFs, and then a German company is brought in to crank the eBook versions in the various formats desired by the iBookstore (iPad), Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes and Noble (Nook, I believe).  All in all, the schedule suggest we get out Vol I in Sept or Oct and then release the subsequent volumes in sequence (maybe one a month).  Then we just need to get enough word out to trigger the first speaking engagement, and boom!  The new "brief" will be born.

I can't wait.

Transcript from Morning Edition appearance (1 June 2011)

Originally here.

In full for my records:

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Osama bin Laden's death has put more pressure on the U.S.'s strategic partnership with Pakistan and its ongoing commitment to the war in Afghanistan. Our next guest believes those relationships aren't worth all the effort.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is chief analyst of Wikistrat, an online community for global strategists. He recently wrote in World Politics Review that the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan - and I'm quoting the article here - encourages enmities far more important than that of al-Qaida and denies us partnerships far more important than that of Pakistan. And he joined us to talk about that.

Good morning.

Mr. THOMAS BARNETT (Wikistrat): Good morning.

MONTAGNE: When you speak about missing out on partnerships, what precise partnerships is the U.S. missing out on there?

Mr. BARNETT: Well, the United States' pursuit of success in Afghanistan has been by my definition amazingly unilateralist. And we really haven't gone the path of encouraging regional neighbors to step in and become the great nation builders in this effort. We want to somehow make Afghanistan work, somehow integrate it with the global economy, while not letting the Iranians in on the process at all, while not letting the Indians in on the process at all, and while really trying to hedge against rising Russian or Chinese influence in the region. And that's just highly unrealistic. In geostrategic terms, it doesn't really get any dumber than that.

MONTAGNE: Well, though, you argue in your writing that Afghanistan's neighbors are highly, as you put it, highly incentivized to see Afghanistan stabilized. But in recent history, to accomplish that stability Afghanistan's neighbors have invaded - in the case of the Soviets - or backed a repressive government -as Pakistan did with the Taliban. I mean, that does not seem a very desirable outcome.

Mr. BARNETT: You have a huge market in India and a huge market in China. They want access northward and westward through Afghanistan to energy sources. Then you have major players on the other side of that equation - Russia, Turkey, Iran, so on, that want access to that major markets. And in the middle you have this dead zone called Afghanistan.

So it's a natural situation for network building. It hasn't been up to now, primarily because it's next door neighbor, Pakistan, using a rather antiquated mode of thinking looks at Afghanistan as its strategic depth in a conventional or even nuclear conflict with India to its south. For Pakistan to consider itself safe, it has to keep Afghanistan basically under its thumb.

And it's odd that America comes in, tries to do nation building, has all these incentivized local players that are interested in coming in and making things happen, and we pick out of that constellation of players the one player that's interested in keeping Afghanistan disconnected from the world, which is Pakistan.

MONTAGNE: China looms large in your thinking here. What does China stand to gain in the region both from Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Mr. BARNETT: Well, China has already made the largest foreign direct investment in Afghanistan's history - about $3 billion to $4 billion it's pursuing in terms of a copper mine there. So if you look at Afghanistan's mineral riches, there's the Chinese motivation to lock in access to resources.

With Pakistan, there's not so much the resource equation but the access to water equation, their logic being if they can make railroads happen down to the Port of Gwadar, which is a small kind of underutilized situation not that far from Karachi, the Chinese will have access to the waterways that connect them to their resources, their energy resources coming increasingly out of the Persian Gulf.

MONTAGNE: Where should, in your opinion, the U.S. focus its attention?

Mr. BARNETT: Well, if you project 10, 15, 20 years into the future and ask where are our resources going to be best employed in the near term to have the maximum impact, I think the argument is the Arab Spring presents more of a strategic opportunity - much more than the resources being employed today and potentially down the road in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which logically falls into the Chinese orbit and is more logically pawned off to the Chinese as a burden that they should naturally assume.

MONTAGNE: Thomas Barnett writes a weekly column for World Politics Review, an online service for foreign policy professionals.

Thanks very much.

Mr. BARNETT: Thank you.

Going to the Red Planet - seriously

Having done a lot of reading recently on the Apollo program, I found this WSJ op-ed to be a seriously plausible description of how we get to Mars:

1) one rocket sends unmanned capsule to Mars orbit with enough fuel for trip home (this is the lunar equivalent of the command module that did not go to the surface);

2) second rocket delivers to Martian surface a payload of chemicals that would use local materials to build up sufficient rocket power strength to ascend off the surface at Mars mission's end;

3) third rocket sends two astronauts to Mars, they land near ascent vehicle, spend 18 (!) months on surface, then ascend up to command module, dock, and fly that home.

Basic point of piece:  enough of the near-Earth stuff!  Let's get NASA back in the business of exploration and let the private sector work the near-space commercial.

Couldn't agree more, and like the logic of the mission plan.

Chart of the Day: why everyone loves shale gas

From FT story.  Simply answer:  because of its weirdly even spread.  Unassociated gas, meaning gas not associated with oil, is the future.  We always just found gas alongside oil and assumed its distro geographically was similar.  It's not.  Unassociated gas is everywhere, and this chart doesn't even include methane hydrates (unassociated gas frozen solid in sea beds).

You may think that gas is only so-so exciting compared to oil, but electricity generation is crucial, and avoiding coal is crucial to reduce pollution/CO2.  You go mostly gas on electricity to crowd out coal, and then go modular nukes to supplement that (especially where infrastructure is "hostile" in its enviro layout:  remoteness is big example), and you use the modulars to make water potable and crack it for hydrogen, and that's how you make transpo happen increasingly (hybrid electricals shifting to hydrogen, with ultralights providing a lot of the energy savings along the way).  

Oil has had its time.  Gas is the next big node going down the hydrocarbon chain.

The big hold-up/uncertainty on gas remains the enviro impact of fracking.  This is why I continue to think that methane hydrates will ultimately be more the answer.  But someone please disabuse me of that assumption.

Audio from Morning Edition appearance (1 June 2011)

From the NPR Morning Edition site:

June 1, 2011

Osama bin Laden's death has put more pressure on the United States' strategic partnership with Pakistan, and its ongoing commitment to the war in Afghanistan. Thomas Barnett, chief analyst of Wikistrat, an online community for global strategists, explains to Renee Montagne why the relationships with Pakistan and Afghanistan aren't worth the effort.

Listen to the almost five-minute segment here.

Time's Battleland: "According to new Pentagon cyber strategy, state-of-war conditions now exist between the US and China"

China has been pre-approved for kinetic war strikes from the United States at any time.  Let me explain how.

First off, what the strategy says (according to the same WSJ front-page article Mark cited yesterday):

The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

In other words, if you, Country C, take down or just plain attack what we consider a crucial cyber network, we reserve the right to interpret that as an act of war justifying an immediately "equivalent" kinetic response (along with any cyber response, naturally).  If this new strategy frightens you, then you just might be a rational actor.

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.

Wikistrat Middle East Monitor, May 2011

We're excited to announce the launch of Wikistrat's Middle East Monitor for May 2011, which can be viewed in its entirety here.

Summary

The killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan grabbed the attention of the world, but it has had no effect on the strategic equation of the Middle East. It did not result in upheaval or even a strong outburst of anti-Americanism capable of influencing the Arab Spring. The event will undoubtedly positively affect the West’s efforts to combat Al-Qaeda and its affiliates and has put profound pressure on the relationship with Pakistan, but it does not alter the balance of power by any means in the Middle East.

The region overall is currently at a standstill. There is still a huge amount of internal strife with consistent protests and bloody crackdowns, but there have not been any significant changes in these conflicts. In Libya, each side has fought to a stalemate. In Syria and Yemen, both sides are refusing to budge and the status quo has remained. The protests have grown in number, but neither side can claim that ground has been gained. Of course, these situations can quickly change in the event of key defections, massacres, international intervention, or galvanizing moment for the opposition.

Yemen is currently the country most likely to descend into civil war next month. President Saleh has again backed out of signing a deal to step down from power at the last moment. The time where the opposition concludes a peaceful transfer is impossible is drawing near. Indeed, clashes are quickly escalating in the capital and dozens have been killed. Major tribes and military commanders have defected since the uprising began, which could enable these clashes to quickly turn into civil war. In Yemen, the situation is more like Libya than Syria, as the latter has not seen significant military/government defections or tribal uprisings.

 

Wikistrat Bottom Lines

Opportunities

• There are multiple divisions within the Iranian regime putting it in a position of weakness. The parliament is divided between pro-Ahmadinejad and anti-Ahmadinejad camps, with a growing number of members supporting impeachment proceedings. There is also a very public split between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei. These divisions could limit Iran’s ability to project power in the region.
• The Arab Spring was unaffected by the Nakba Day provocations against Israel that the U.S. and Israel have accused Syria of engineering. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran almost certainly also were involved. This shows that the revolutions are focused on internal matters and it will be difficult for them to be directed against external actors.
• Hezbollah has publicly taken the side of the Syrian government. This decision will undermine support for the group. Lebanese and Syrians who have generally supported President Assad because of his stance against Israel and the West will have difficulty justifying the killing and detainment of protesters. Furthermore, the pending U.N. indictments of Hezbollah and possibly Syrian officials do serious damage to the group’s image as a “resistance” force.

Risks

• The U.S. and Europe are more vocally supporting the protesters in the region. Western pressure could restrain the governments, but could also convince them that their internal opponents must be immediately crushed in order to alleviate the pressure. It is also possible that demonstrators will become emboldened, thereby escalating the situation into greater violence and putting the West in a more uneasy position.
• The instability in Yemen is very likely to cause a decentralization of power. Al-Qaeda is already advancing in the country, and a weakened government would allow the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels to reassert themselves in the north. The secessionist movement could also be strengthened. Salafists and groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood will also benefit politically from any democratic process.
• Some governments are releasing Islamist prisoners and reaching out to extremist opponents. This is happening either because they genuinely believe Islamist forces are driving the opposition, or it is a gambit to put an Islamist face on the opposition.

Dependencies

• The impact of the clashes in Sana’a on the military, tribes and general population. The clashes are an indication that the patience of the opposition is running out. The increased bloodshed, combined with the realization that President Saleh is not genuine in his negotiations, could convince the defected military forces that it is time to fight on the side of the people.
• The degree to which Supreme Leader Khamenei believes he must distance himself from the increasingly unpopular President Ahmadinejad. He must also calculate how much he can distance himself, as his own position is weakened because of internal divisions within the regime.
• The effect of the formation of a transitional council by the Syrian opposition on the uprising and on the international community. The U.S. and Europe has hesitated to directly call for President Assad’s resignation and there are consistent news reports indicating that the West is concerned about what a post-Assad Syria could look like. The creation of a transitional council by Syria, as was done by the Libyans, could comfort the West that chaos will not ensue in the event of regime change.

Read the full edition here

Join Wikistrat to get access to more reports and live simulations. Click here to learn more on Wikistrat subscriptions.

On NPR's Morning Edition with Renee Montagne 1 June

Taped remotely this morning at WFYI here in Indy.

She said it would run near front of program, so EST at about 5:10-15, then 7:10-15, then again at 9:10-15.

Even hours on the West Coast.  All very confusing, but you know what I mean.

Subject is Af-Pak and America's choices.

Spoke for close to half-hour, but they will edit down to best bits, which should make my pollen-addled brain sound smarter.

My mistake

NPR reminds me this ayem:  it's Morning Edition, not All Things Considered.

I am embarrassed, because - frankly - I catch ME more than ATC.  It's when I take the kids to school.

WPR's The New Rules: "Why the U.S. Should 'Give' Af-Pak to China"

Nuclear Pakistan, we are often told, is the Islamic-state equivalent of a Wall Street firm: In geostrategic terms, it is too big to fail. That explains why, even as the Obama administration begins preparing for modest troop withdrawals from Afghanistan this July, it dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Islamabad last week to smooth over bilateral relations with Pakistan's paranoid regime, which were strained even before the killing of Osama bin Laden. But Clinton's trip and the Obama administration's instinctive embrace of Islamabad is a fool's errand, doomed by history, geography and globalization itself.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

COMMENT:  This piece fleshes out the most provocative scenario from the "4 options" column I penned two weeks earlier.  That column lands me a taping tomorrow on NPR's All Things Considered, and I wanted to state the most logical case more fully prior to going on.

One of the key things I think a genuine grand strategist is supposed to do is to remind decision makers of the logical consequences of their strategic choices.  We have made choices on Afghanistan, most importantly our unwillingness to regionalize the solution, because we're committed to "winning" in a very particular way.  We've also made some choices on China, as the Chinese have made some about us.  India and Pakistan intersect among those choices, and I believe we make a very bad choice by picking Pakistan amidst all those intersections.

Also, while I remain certain that China and the US are slated for high levels of strategic cooperation in the future for all manner of structural reasons, I think there are all manner of routes to that cooperative space, including some that involve serious learning for us both along the way.

But my definitions of good grand strategy require plenty of flexibility and adaptability along with the core principles.  I don't believe in fixing every state - just the ones that really matter.  I continue to think that Iraq was worth it - despite our fundamentally unilateralist pursuit of the outcome.  I think Afghanistan is worth it - if you accept the logic of a regional solution set.  But I have yet to be convinced that Pakistan, given its set of unique circumstances is worth it - or even salvageable.  

I see opportunity at this moment for President Obama, but only one option being provided.

Chart of the Day: Good governments come with good income

WSJ story on academic study.  Gist of story is that China cannot really move into high-income without dramatically improving its government, but the converse logic also holds:  we shouldn't expect too much from governments until their society's per-capita income level gets up there.  Yes, there are exceptions in each (rich-enough Russia, rich-enough emirates), but the basic pattern is clear enough.

Why the lag?  It takes a demanding citizenry to get good governments, and citizens get more demanding, the more money they have.  It's really that simple.

At the end of the day, all things being equal, there's no question that democracies outperform autocracies. But the "all things being equal" part doesn't include the catch-up phase, like the one China is going through now. 

When does that "catch-up" end and the democratization kick in?  The people decide that, usually between $5,000-$10,000 per capita income.

Note that the numbers above are PPP, so high.  China measured less relativistically sits at about $4400.

Chart of the Day: Asia and Africa's near-perfect asymmetry on trade

From FT.

Africa has raw materials to sell and needs manufactured goods, one would assume.  Asia is just the opposite. The asymmetry is acceptable so long as both growth as a result of the trade - like now.  But over time, everybody wants things to even out some.

And yet, with climate change, that logic may go out the window.  Africa will suffer, but it's got about half the unused or underused arable land in the system, whereas Africa is a major grain importer already.

North America will face similar asymmetrical pressures in its trade with Asia, begging the question, Will we be happy enough being - once again - the land of the plenty?

Why Mauritius highlighted on ease of doing business?  It's an Indian Ocean banking center (island) that aspires to be the main conduit of finance from Asia into Africa - the Singapore of this equation.

Tom on Backbone radio (Colorado talk) - 2 segments

Did two segments with Ross Kaminsky last Sunday night.

First one on Pakistan, second one on Israel.

Find them both here.

CoreGap 11.13 Released - Arab Spring Forcing US to Choose Between Longtime Allies

 

Wikistrat has released edition 11.13 of the CoreGap Bulletin.

This CoreGap edition features, among others:

• Terra Incognita 11.13 - Arab Spring Forcing US to Choose Between Longtime Allies
• IMF Chief’s Abrupt Resignation Sets Off Scramble on Replacement
• Latest Ministerial Meeting of Arctic Council Signals Rule-Making Maturation
• With Bin Laden Dead, US-PRC Military Tension Takes Center Stage
• Victorious in Putsch, Iran’s Ahmadinejad Now Comes Under Clerics' Counterattack

And much more...

The entire bulletin is available for subscribers. Over the upcoming week we will release analysis from the bulletin to our free Geopolitical Analysis section of the Wikistrat website, first being "Terra Incognita: Arab Spring Forcing US to Choose Between Longtime Allies"

US policy in the Middle East has long been based on a troika of bilateral relationships with Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  The relationship with Saudi Arabia was based on the economics of energy, hence Riyadh’s ideological excesses were tolerated – even after 9/11.  With Israel, security has always come first, and with Egypt, stability was prized above all else.  Now, as Egypt evolves tumultuously and Saudi Arabia deploys its own military muscle in defense of fellow monarchies, it’s clear that Washington will no longer enjoy the same relationship with either, leaving the question of how the Washington-Tel Aviv bond will hold up in the months and years ahead.

President Barack Obama’s 19 May speech appeared – at first blush – to throw a giant monkey wrench into those works: by citing the pre-1967 war borders as the framework for a land swap deal leading to a two-state solution, the president seemed to be putting Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on notice.  But subsequent backtracking by Obama in a speech to the powerful pro-Israeli lobby group AIPAC two days later indicated just how unprepared he is to significantly revise this alliance.

Read the full piece here

More about Wikistrat's Subscription can be found here

To say that President Barack Obama’s foreign policy plate is full right now is a vast understatement, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for a leader who needs to revive his own economy before trying to resuscitate others (e.g., Tunisia, Egypt, South Sudan, Ivory Coast – eventually Libya?). Faced with the reality that America’s huge debt overhang condemns it to sub-par growth for many years, Washington enters a lengthy period of “intervention fatigue” that – like everything else, according to the Democrats – can still be blamed on George W. Bush.

Referenced from Wikistrat: http://www.wikistrat.com/geopolitical-analysis/obamas-chinese-menu-of-past-presidential-doctrines/#ixzz1Gs4QTx6a

Time's Battleland: Army not lucky, just desperate to avoid Leviathan supremacy over next decade

Picking up on Mark's thread this morning, Galrahn, the eminent blogger at Information Dissemination, likewise sees a fight that's getting nasty, arguing yesterday that the Army was "lucky" (in that, Will-no-one-rid-me-of-that-meddlesome-flag-officer! way) to see two of its great rivals for the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff falter in recent days. Those two are current Vice Chairman and Marine General James Cartwright (recently clearedof decidedly smear-like charges of sexual misconduct with a subordinate officer) and current EUCOM/NATO Admiral James Stavridis (who we're now being told didn't do so well in his interview - something Galrahn finds incredible, as do I).

Read more at Time's Battleland blog.

Chart of the day: GM is the true globally integrative enterprise

WSJ chart and story on Toyota's struggles.

Whole point about being a globally integrated enterprise:  you source, R&D, manufacture and sell locally - all over the world, meaning your production isn't concentrated in your home country (reducing the perception of you being a "foreign" car everywhere you sell - to your advantage).

Check out the stats and you see that GM is the least concentrated in its home country.  I've always held up Toyota as prime example of what Sam Palmisano, CEO of IBM, means when he uses the term GIE, but to my surprise, GM is already more "there" than Toyota.

And yes, I am impressed by that.