Four down, two to go

Flag captured after the Torching of Atlanta.

Next up are Da Bears!  They constituted our second consecutive victim (after the must-win over the Giants in Week 16) in this Long March to what will be our league-leading 13th NFL Championship.  

The Packers have a mere 12 championship now:

• 1929-1930-1931 [first three-peat]
• 1936
• 1939
• 1944
• 1961-1962
• 1965-1966-1967 [second three-peat], and 
• 1996.  

No other team in NFL has ever three-peated, nor won 5 championships in 7 years.  Bart Starr is also the only QB ever to win 5 championships.

This is creed I was raised to believe in.

The Bears, BTW, are second in the NFL with 9 league championships.  Steelers have six (4th after the Giants, who have 7 total), Jets just the one.

Learn your NFL history, which begins in 1920 with only the Bears (originally Decatur Staleys) surviving from that year, to be joined by the Packers in 1921--the oldest continuously operating team with the same team name.  Steelers began in the - real - NFL in 1933.  Jets are the only true AFL team still in hunt, having started with that league in 1960 as the Titans.

[I acknowledge a brainy assist here by Stuart Abrams, who apparently wastes more time on this than I do!]

On NPR's "All Things Considered" Weekend Edition with Guy Raz

Did the interview in local PBS studio back on the 6th during snowstorm.  Was told by host Guy Raz that I would be mixed in with Gideon "Zerosum" Rachman of FT and Jim Fallows of Atlantic. Latter apparently didn't happen, because the 11 mins is just Rachman and I.Guy Raz

Here's the excerpt from the site text on the segment, which is labeled, "The U.S. And China: Rivals That May Need Each Other":

Chinese President Hu Jintao's scheduled visit to the White House this week comes at critical moment in U.S.-China relations.

America has entered a new year with a rising national debt and deficit projections. Meanwhile, China continues its ascent as a global economic player. In the years to come, an economically bruised U.S. may have to share the superpower spotlight with the competition.

Still, former Pentagon strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett tells NPR's Guy Raz, American hype over China's rise is overblown, while foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman predicts that China-U.S. relations will get "bumpier" over the next few years . . .

Overblown China Hype

Yet Barnett, chief analyst at Wikistrat and contributing editor for Esquire magazine, cautions that Americans' concern over China's rise is "really out of control."

"It's very similar to the way the British looked at us, say, around the turn of the century," Barnett says. "They imagined we could have bought and sold them. The Chinese couldn't do the same with us. Their economy is still a fraction of ours."

That economy may be growing, but it will still be decades before China's people reach an economic status equal to Americans, he says.

Thus, a cooperative U.S.-China relationship is not only a good idea, Barnett says, but it's also "absolutely essential when you consider a global middle class aspiring to a lifestyle that the planet cannot sustain if we use old resource models."

The end of America's status as the world's sole super power wouldn't be a bad thing, either, Barnett argues. Part of the American contribution after World War II was establishing a global economic system that allowed great powers to rise without instigating a war.

"We've created the system for these people to rise, and now we seem uncomfortable with the fact that we're not going to be the sole pole anymore in the system," Barnett says. "And we don't seem to know how to ask for anybody else's help."

Our challenge with China, he says, isn't about competition. "Our biggest problem with them is getting them to come up to the level of responsibility that their networks and their influence around the world actually demands from them."

"We need that help," Barnett says, "because based on our own efforts, we can only do an Iraq and an Afghanistan — and not much else."

Go here for the audio and "story."

Tomorrow or Thursday:  Jim Fallow's various posted responses to the segment.

WPR's The New Rules: Why America Needs to Demonize China

President Barack Obama came into office promising a new sort of bilateral relationship with China. It was not meant to be. Washington hasn't changed any of its long list of demands regarding China, and Beijing, true to historical form, has gone out of its way to flex its muscles as a rising power. With the recent series of revelations concerning Chinese military developments, the inside-the-Beltway hyping of the Chinese threat has reached fever pitch, matching the average American's growing fears of China's economic strength.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Hot night in Atlanta for me and missus

For impressionistic version of this photo, see my final game tweet on left

Went down with my wife. She deserves it for the monster hours I've been putting in over past several months, plus the long trip to Beijing.

We left about 0830 Saturday and got to Chattanooga around 3pm to check in hotel. We're in downtown Atlanta by 5:15 and get parking in same informal lot where we parked last summer with kids when we went to World of Coca Cola!.  Then walk for half hour to Georgia Dome and enter with several hundred other Packer fans at Gate C.

We were on the goal line, about 25 rows up, on the Packer side (far left corner as you watched on TV).

Scary loud as game began, and all the waving black-and-red fans made this German nervous!

Game started badly (fumble on first drive, then after tying at 7-7, we give up TD return on Kickoff).  I told Vonne, "This is how bad games start."

But I held onto one thought (and my Henieken): first drive fumble, second went length of field, so no stops by Falcon defense.

Turned out to be story of night.  We never punted.

Rodgers was unreal, as was Tramon.

GA Dome beats Lambeau in one key regard:  much better food.

Below is excerpt from Milwaukee paper of note on Packers, the main story on the game.  Couldn't be truer.  We met people from all over and I high fived several dozen over course of game.  See my Tweets for pix.

Worth the trip

This was a game a lot of Packers fans had to see live.

For them, a spot on the couch in front of a television wasn't good enough.

And in many ways, the large turnout of Packers fans showed how Green Bay has remained a truly national franchise with a national following.

Mike Hager of North Carolina came to visit his son Daniel of Atlanta. They've never lived within 500 miles of Green Bay, but they apparently have green and gold running through their veins.

They wore matching cheesehead hats to the stadium.

"When I was 5 or 6 years old, my next-door neighbor was a huge Johnny Unitas fan," Mike Hager said, adding that instead of joining his friend in rooting for the Baltimore Colts, "I became a fan of green and gold."

Bryttani Cauble and Andrew Stebich, college kids from North Carolina, traveled five hours to see their first Packers game.

And it won't be their last.

"I don't know how it happened that I became a Packer fan," Stebich said. "I just love them."

Laurie Leaf of Rice Lake flew in on the day of the game. Her first flight was canceled. She was bumped from another one and only nabbed a seat on a final flight out because she cried.

"I had to be here," she said, tailgating in a parking lot with her friend Sarah Barlow, a native of Rhinelander who lives in Georgia.

Tom Bartz and Beth Mulvaney of Milwaukee had to be here, too. They drove 12 hours south, enjoyed the sights and relished mixing with the Falcons fans.

"These people are very cordial," Mulvaney said. "They're not like Philadelphia fans."

Lynnda Frederick and Sandy Nietz, northern Wisconsin natives who live in Minnesota, decided to take a chance to come to the game.

"Our playoff record on the road is horrible, 0 and 3," Frederick said of their travels following the Packers.

"This is the time we win and move on," Nietz said.

And it was.

This was a special night that began with noise and ended with the most beautiful sound of all: Silence.

Yes, we are going to the NFC Championship at Soldier Field--the wife and I.  No matter the outcome--an epic game for the rivalry.

Can't go to Dallas, though.  Too busy in early Feb, unfortunately.  Plus, waiting for Pack to come to Indy for SB next year.

Nice piece in FT on upcoming summit needing to defuse US-PRC tensions

Philip Stephens in Thursday's FT on the deterioration of the past year or so:

“You started it” has thus far been the shared refrain. So Mr Hu will be tempted to protest that the second of the two developments flowed from the first: the chill was a consequence of a US strategy to contain China. Mr Obama’s riposte will be that America’s diplomatic and military re-engagement in the region was an inevitable response to China’s decision to throw its weight around.

The sad thing is, how much this sounds like two children arguing.

Now to the real underlying tensions, which hardliners are taking advantage of.  Naturally, this was the guiding dynamic for our (Center for America-China Partnership) recent "term sheet" proposal for Hu and Obama:

This, of course, is before the two leaders get to the economics. Most of the headlines from Mr Hu’s state visit next week will probably be generated by differences over trade and exchange rate policy. China’s huge trade surplus generates strong protectionist pressure in the US. Washington’s oft-repeated demand for revaluation of the renminbi is seen in Beijing as unwarranted intrusion in China’s economic affairs.

These are the issues where the domestic political pressures most obviously bite. Mr Obama is presiding over a jobless recovery. Mr Hu is under constant pressure from the Chinese exporters who have driven the country’s growth.

The best point, which starts fleshing out our term sheet:

Taking a longer view, the success or failure of the White House summit will depend on whether the two presidents manage to break out of the loop of deepening mistrust over the balance of power in east Asia. The dangerous flashpoints in the relationship are to be found on the Korean peninsula and the seas off China’s eastern coastline.

On the face of it, there are powerful incentives to defuse the tensions. Neither country has anything to gain from an escalation of what already looks like an east Asian arms race. [emphasis mine] Both, albeit in different ways, are threatened by the unpredictability of the nuclear-armed regime in Pyongyang.

A longer bit reciting the recent Gates trip, J-20 show, etc.

The response of the People’s Liberation Army was to stage-manage the maiden flight of its new stealth fighter jet only hours before Mr Gates’s meeting with Mr Hu. The test of the hitherto secret J-20 inevitably fanned speculation about a power grab by China’s military chiefs.

Frankly, the rush to judgment on that last bit strikes me as silly.  Gates reads a face and assumes he knows how the Chinese portray surprise v. embarrassment v. putting on a good show ("What?  I know of no test" and so on).  Honestly, the speculation here, some by very experienced analysts on our side, is embarrassingly broad.

Chinese foreign policy experts acknowledge the rising influence of the PLA. Some of them worry about it. China’s economic rise, they say, has made the case for a rapid expansion of military capabilities to match the country’s burgeoning interests and vulnerabilities. The booming economy has provided the PLA with the wherewithal, while its leadership has proved adept at harnessing popular nationalism.

Can I get a "duh!" on all that.  Normal stuff for a rising power, and not at all illogical or particularly "provocative" as long as we act like adults.

The risks of misunderstanding and miscalculation reach beyond the particular ambitions of the PLA. Washington, too, has its hawks. What’s worrying is that the political leaderships of the two countries have thus far failed to provide an alternative narrative.

The true missing piece:  the "alternative narrative."  That's what the term sheet is for.

In the US administration’s version of events, Mr Obama’s offer in 2009 of a strategic partnership was misinterpreted by Beijing as admission of US decline.

Oh my, can we put away our shame for a second here and remember who we are?

China saw an America gripped by the financial crisis and facing secular decline. Its response was to push around its neighbours, to take a tougher line on Taiwan, to harden its maritime claims and step up the missile and other weapons programmes specifically designed to counter US access to the region.

All stipulated.  

In the Chinese account, the trouble began with US arms sales to Taiwan, its welcome for the Dalai Lama, its support for Japan in the disputed East China Sea and its declaration of a national interest in the South China Sea. Whatever Washington might say about partnership, its regional alliance-building, notably with India, and a provocative series of US military exercises smacked of a strategy of containment.

The second great "duh!" of the piece, but Stephens has to include, because that's how weak our dialogue on this subject has been.  We need to be reminded of our own actions and their consequences.  To me, this says the Obama crowd ain't all that different from the neocons.  The primacy impulse is still there--as in, "we call the shots, and you do the dance!"

A more objective view would say China did misjudge the reaction both in the region and in Washington to its more combative stance.

Clearly.  Point is, Beijing's reaction was not unjustified.  You're not paranoid if everyone around you is plotting against you.

In any event, you do not have to take sides to see where the present standoff is leading. China builds new weapons systems designed to push US forces farther from its coastline; the US develops countermeasures. The hawks’ prediction of inevitable confrontation then becomes self-fulfilling as mistrust feeds miscalculation.

Couldn't agree more.

There is no easy way out of this loop. China will continue to build its military and to stake its claim to a pre-eminent role in its own backyard. That is what rising powers do. The US is not about to abandon its role as the guardian of east Asian security. Great powers do not readily hand over to new ones. Anyway, most of the countries in the neighbourhood want the US to stay.

All true.

Washington is not trying to contain China. It knows the attempt would be futile.

Wrong.  Washington is being granted too much intelligence and foresight here by Stephens, who does not realize how strong the big war crowd is at the Pentagon.  Clapper was one thing, but just watch when RMAer Michael Vickers becomes USec for Intell.  Expect a steady stream of analysis on China as the looming big threat.  I could be wrong, but I see the combo of go light on terror (footprint) and go heavy on China as the new preferred mix in the PNT.  I think this is dreaming, because I know China will disappoint and Al Qaeda will not.

FT piece ends with a vague bit of, Can't we all just get along.

But other than the end, solid logic throughout and a great piece to see in the FT.

My WPR piece on Monday will extend this logic considerably:  It is entitled, "The Top Ten Reasons Why Washington Must Demonize China."

WIKISTRAT's "CoreGap Weekly Bulletin" (#11.02)

Greetings from the Wikistrat team.

We've just emailed a copy of the latest CoreGap bulletin to our subscribers.

We launch the wiki in less than a week! Wikistrat is offering 50% off annual subscriptions before the launch date.

Here is a video of Tom discussing content from the bulletin as well as a download link.

We hope you enjoy the bulletin.

See you on the wiki!

CEO Joel Zamel

CTO Daniel Green and

Chief Analyst Thomas P.M. Barnett of WIKISTRAT

Chart of the day: EU public sector debt as % of GDP

First, here's the slide I use in the brief for the U.S.:

So you get the sense of the US coming out of WWII basically 100% in debt and then spending three decades to whittle it down to just over 30%.  Then Reagan-Bush jack it up to almost 70%, then Clinton brings it back down to almost half, then W. send its back up to 70% and Obama sends it even higher.  On the current course, we're back up in the 100% range within years.

Scary stuff.

Here's a similar chart, but laid out as a map of the European Union:

So what do you take from this:  when you get in the range that we're heading for, you run the risk of sovereign default--unless, of course, you're the world's leading reserve currency (used to be 70%, now closer to 60% and dropping).  

You look at France at 84% and you realize why Sarkozy is taking on the public unions (Economist cover last week).  But you also look at Germany and you have to wonder about it's tough love vis-a-vis a Spain, yes?

Point being, almost nobody in the West is doing well on this score.  Lotsa glass houses to go around.

I join the Center for America-China Partnership

Happy and excited to join the team/theme.  

Playing SysAdmin is a lot of matchmaking

Spoke to Jason Kelly for this Bloomberg piece on Pentagon work in Afghanistan to foster economic development.  Article profiles Paul Brinkley, Under Secretary for Defense and his work in Afghanistan.  Enterra had worked for Brinkley's office in Iraq.  The theme, much in line with out Development-in-a-Box work in Iraq, is that of "matchmaker."

It's a good piece overall, capturing the challenge and the efforts of one Pentagon office to which I've offered advice and help in the past.

Here's the bit where I was quoted:

Beyond Allies

Getting companies from countries not directly involved in the military effort is crucial to the long-term success of economic development, says Thomas P.M. Barnett, chief analyst for Wikistrat Ltd., a Tel Aviv-based consulting firm.

“The guys who are going to benefit are going to be from the non-Allied pool,” he says.

Brinkley is agnostic and has recruited foreign companies, including automaker Daimler, into Iraq.

“This is not just about U.S. companies,” he says.

Another small mine project stands as a test of the viability of natural-resources investing in Afghanistan. JPMorgan Chase, based in New York, assembled investors who ponied up $50 million for a mine in the rugged fly-over country between Kabul and Herat.

JPMorgan bankers, drawing on knowledge of the country’s natural resources from its mining clients in the former Soviet Union, shared some of that intelligence with Brinkley’s team in 2008 and during the next two years worked to gather additional data. The results were presented to Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last January. With the money raised, the mining project was granted a license late in 2010.

Don't cross mama grizzly

In the afterglow of the Packer's big playoff win, I help my wife for a few minutes this afternoon in the attic, where she wants to locate and move down our collection of nice wooden blocks for our youngest girls to play with.

Anyway, we're up there moving these Rubbermaid tubs around, and as I bend down to the floor to pick up a piece of loose paper, I notice this amazingly realistic rubber bat figure lying on its back, wings spread, mouth agape, eyes wide open, etc., and I think to myself, "God, we have some stunningly good animal figures."

Until I realize this one is breathing hard.  

I start to exclaim, "I think that's a ba-"

From over my shoulder, where Vonne is standing up on some tubs to access upper shelves of storage, a purple Rubbermaid tub comes flying by to land with a deadening thud on top of the prostrate bat.

I correct myself:  "uh . . . a dead bat."

If I had thought about it, I would have been more spooked, but I grew up around them and we often had them in our house during summer nights. I was even bitten by one once, being forced to take the rabies series of shots.  I was later bitten by an actual rabid dog, forcing a second round.

I did all that, to include being hit by a speeding car in the street in front of my house, before the age of five - permanently skewing my sense of personal danger.  Now the father of six, I try to temper my type T personality (as in, thrill seeker), as my children routinely accuse me of trying to kill them atop mountains, in heavy surf, and so on.

But I learned something today about my wife:  watch for the quick strike if you threaten her in her house!

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Defense Cuts a Step in the Right Direction

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled his much-anticipated budget cuts last Thursday, signaling the beginning of the end of the decade-long splurge in military spending triggered by Sept. 11. Gates presented the package of cuts as being the biggest possible given the current international security landscape, warning that any deeper reductions could prove "potentially calamitous." Frankly, I find that statement hard to swallow.

REad the entire column at World Politics Review.

Movie of My Week: "The Kid Stays in the Picture" (2002)

From IMDB:

Documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans (the film shares the same name as Evans's famous 1994 autobiography)

I've waited for years to watch this documentary, which is about as innovative as they come in the use of stills and music and period film.  Really a visual feast, and how often can you say that about a docu?

Robert Evans had an amazing life:  born of the Evans-Picone fashion house, he's in Hollywood swimming as a young man and gets discovered by Norma Shearer (widow of Irving Thalberg), who wants him to play her dead husband opposite James Cagney as Lon Chaney. After that first film, gets discovered yet again on a NYC dance floor by legendary producer, Daryl Zanuck, who fights to keep him in a matador movie based on an Ernest Hemingway novel despite the author's public protestations--hence the phrase, "The kid stays in the picture!"

Evans realizes he's no actor and really wants to become a Daryl Zanuck, but how can this pretty boy, east coast fashion heir pull that off?  Evans goes on to run Paramount and produce a slew of famous films, only to suffer a crash later in his career.

The key to the movie is that Evans does all the narration and voice recreations, and it's a stunningly cool performance--very confessional, very arrogant, very everything.

I watched it twice in a row.

WIKISTRAT's "Middle East Monitor" (#1)

Greetings from the Wikistrat team.

We're excited to announce that we're launching our latest publication, "Middle East Monitor." To receive future updates and free analysis, sign up to our free mailing list here.

We hope you enjoy the Mid-East Monitor.

See you on the wiki!

CEO Joel Zamel

CTO Daniel Green and

Chief Analyst Thomas P.M. Barnett of WIKISTRAT

WIKISTRAT's "CoreGap Weekly Bulletin" (#2)

Greetings from the Wikistrat team.

We're excited to announce that we've just emailed a copy of the latest CoreGap bulletin to our subscribers. It costs nothing for you to join the free analysis mailing list here.

Here is a video of Tom discussing content from the bulletin as well as a download link.

We hope you enjoy the bulletin.

See you on the wiki!

CEO Joel Zamel

CTO Daniel Green and

Chief Analyst Thomas P.M. Barnett of WIKISTRAT

Much better, less hyped NYT piece on same reporting (Chinese stealth fighter captured . . . on film!)

Sorry, but China on the brain.  Spent half-hour taping today at WFYI (local PBS) for NPR's "All Things Considered" weekend show (based on my recent China-focused Esquire article).  I will be interspliced with the eminently sensible Jim Fallows and Gideon (Mr. Zerosum!) Rachman.

Just had to include this piece from the NYT because the same story in the WSJ (see below) just set me off a bit.

Best bits here:

First, from VADM Dorsett, who's the N2/6 (or combo intell and info dominance guy):

Still, a top Navy intelligence officer told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that the United States should not overestimate Beijing’s military prowess and that China had not yet demonstrated an ability to use its different weapons systems together in proficient warfare. The officer, Vice Adm. David J. Dorsett, the deputy chief of naval operations for information dominance, said that although China had developed some weapons faster than the United States expected, he was not alarmed over all.

“Have you seen them deploy large groups of naval forces?” he said. “No. Have we seen large, joint, sophisticated exercises? No. Do they have any combat proficiency? No.”

Admiral Dorsett said that even though the Chinese were planning sea trials on a “used, very old” Russian aircraft carrier this year and were intent on building their own carriers as well, they would still have limited proficiency in landing planes on carriers and operating them as part of larger battle groups at sea.

That guy is sensible.

Then this bit from the Chinese side:

In an interview on Wednesday, a leading Chinese expert on the military, Zhu Feng, said he viewed some claims of rapid progress on advanced weapons as little more than puffery.

“What’s the real story?” he asked in a telephone interview. “I must be very skeptical. I see a lot of vast headlines with regards to weapons procurement. But behind the curtain, I see a lot of wasted money — a lot of ballooning, a lot of exaggeration.”

Mr. Zhu, who directs the international security program at Peking University, suggested that China’s military establishment — not unlike that in the United States — was inclined to inflate threats and exaggerate its progress in a continual bid to win more influence and money for its favored programs.

Ouch!  Very ouch!

Nicely reported and written piece.  Makes me feel sad for the WSJ (see below), and makes me wonder if Murdoch's influence is weakening its objectivity.

I especially agree with the NYT citation from the expert that this sort of military porn is China's preferred deterrence.  I think that's a brilliant conclusion:

It is the J-20, a radar-evading jet fighter that has the same two angled tailfins that are the trademark of the Pentagon’s own stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor. After years of top-secret development, the jet — China’s first stealth plane — was put through what appear to be preliminary, but also very public, tests this week on the runway of the Aviation Design Institute in Chengdu, a site so open that aircraft enthusiasts often gather there to snap photos.

Some analysts say the timing is no coincidence. “This is their new policy of deterrence,” Andrei Chang, the Hong Kong editor in chief of the Canadian journal Kanwa Defense Weekly, who reported the jet’s tests, said Wednesday. “They want to show the U. S., show Mr. Gates, their muscle.”

Think about it:  they put together a plane that looks just like ours.  Can it get any more obvious?

Now, whether it operates as well as ours . . . that's a VERY different question.

Again, great piece.

Chinese military threat skyrockets just as Gates previews his defense cuts! Eta nye slyuchaina!

Gates announces his force structure cuts today on the Hill, culminating the burst of "sudden revelations" covered in the MSM about Chinese naval developments.

The PLAN submits a plan to build a carrier over the decade, but the WSJ describes it's "imminent deployment" (imminent apparently being in the latter years of this decade).  

The Chinese "carrier killer" missile is deployed and operational, claims PACOM, except it admits that it won't have the capacity to hit any moving ship until after "several years" of testing, so it's "operational" and "deployed" but not "fully operational."  The WSJ dutifully reports that the DF-21D is likewise looking at its "imminent deployment" -- again, correct if "imminent" means . . . oh . . 5 or 6 years from now.

In yesterday's WSJ  we see on page one the first images of China's 5th gen stealth fighter making a "taxi test." I can only assume it will be "operational" and "deployed" any minute now, despite being in testing for the next several years.

All of these announcements are meant to blow us away with the Chinese build-up, and we're getting this feed now because of the Gates' announcement on cuts and the initial presentation of the budget to Congress.  This is very similar to the drumbeat of stories about cyberwarfare that led up to the standing up of USCYBERCOM. You could call it "defense porn" or just plain propaganda and you'd be right.

But when we step back from the hype, you have to ask yourself what exactly do we expect to accomplish here?

Do we expect to somehow scare the Chinese into NOT building up their military as their economy expands so rapidly?  Is there any history that says this build-up is weird or provocative given China's rise?  We have several hundred military facilities around the world and regional commands that cover the world.  Does China have anything like that?  Are they outspending us or spending somewhere in the range of 1/6th of our budget?  Are they intervening around the world with their forces or is the exact opposite true and they're actually free-riding on all of our efforts?

More narrowly: Can we expect to maintain a confident supremacy over the Chinese military WRT to a small island just off its coast? Is that a realistic and practical force-sizing principle? Or is it open-ended in the extreme?

China's military is going to keep building up.  We can continue to encourage its focus on a big-war force by matching it in its neighborhood, but then we rule out enlisting Chinese help to protect China's ever-expanding global resourcing network, meaning we're effectively providing China a global security umbrella and allowing it focus on building a big-war force that we are determined to counter and remain supreme over in the single most stressing scenario imaginable (instantly reversing an invasion of a small island nation off their coast).

Anybody think we're going to be able to pay for such go-it-alone-ism globally while standing down the Chinese build-up in East Asia given our current and growing insolvency?  Sense any "realism" in this path or just full-specturm fear-mongering?

We were told by Team Obama that America would no longer seek to play unilateral global hegemon ("Primacy" as Paul Wolfowitz dubbed it), but the truth is, our national security establishment is crammed full of experts who believe in exactly that, even as few would identify themselves as neocons.  America must, in their opinion, dominate all domains of warfare and all players in all domains of warfare, because ANYTHING less means we've lost our grip on the world--the WORLD I tell you!

This is classic America being unable to handle the success of its multidecade globalization process.  We built a world in which multiple rising great powers could be accommodated peacefully, and yet now, as they display the temerity of actually moving in the direction of having militaries commensurate with their status, we're stunned to contemplate no longer dominating the planet militarily as we have over the past two, truly anomalous decades.

And so our answer is to freak out and demonize China, who just happens to be our huge trade and financial partner in the global economy--the same country which must help us "rebalance" both OUR economy and the world economy.

Spot a disconnect there?

Watch, just watch this sort of hype be used by Congress to fight Gates' reduction plan tooth and nail.  Their true intentions will be about jobs in their home districts, but the effect will be the same.

America is not handling this moment in history very well, and Obama is proving to be anything BUT transformational.  The GOP is no help whatsoever. There is far more business-as-usual here than real change.

So get used to being very afraid about the world, because that is what everybody is selling right now in Washington.

Yes, the real and serious adjustments will eventually be forced upon us by circumstances. I was just hoping we could meet them head-on thanks to real leadership. But we have no real leaders today--just followers and "good soldiers" and party "stalwarts."

Brzezinski: redefining the US-PRC relationship

Zbigniew Brezinski, who helped broker Jimmy Carter's normalization of relations with China in 1979, says in the NYT (HT, Robert Jordan) that the upcoming Hu-Obama meeting "should ... yield more than the usual boilerplate professions of mutual esteem" by aiming to redefine the relationship, something "that does justice to the global promise of constructive cooperation between them."

Hmmm.  Great minds think alike.

Why the effort?

The worst outcome for Asia’s long-term stability as well as for the American-Chinese relationship would be a drift into escalating reciprocal demonization. What’s more, the temptations to follow such a course are likely to grow as both countries face difficulties at home.

So show some ambition he says:

For the visit to be more than symbolic, Presidents Obama and Hu should make a serious effort to codify in a joint declaration the historic potential of productive American-Chinese cooperation. They should outline the principles that should guide it. They should declare their commitment to the concept that the American-Chinese partnership should have a wider mission than national self-interest. That partnership should be guided by the moral imperatives of the 21st century’s unprecedented global interdependence. The declaration should set in motion a process for defining common political, economic and social goals. It should acknowledge frankly the reality of some disagreements as well as register a shared determination to seek ways of narrowing the ranges of such disagreements. 

The instinct for the "grand strategy term sheet" is not idealistic--just timely.

Why so hard for the White House to open up its minds on the subject?  See my response to Zenpundit's musings here.

Iraq: the Bull-ish view

Bartle Bull in the WSJ on Iraq's oil-based future (what other future do you start with when you possibly own the world's largest oil reserve?).

His opening bid:  what was once a dictatorship and bully of the region (now replaced by Iran) is currently the region's best-functioning democracy (yes, the stalemate finally passed without any fight) and probably the world's biggest crude producer within a decade (the ambition).

After three decades of non-exploration, the country is now going to get surveyed.  Why? This is what the Iraqis offer:  you can own 100% of Iraqi companies, you only pay 15% flat tax on profits and you can re-pat those profits at your pleasure. [I don't think that describes the oil industry, however.]

Larger point:  having seen how the Saudis rose and got rich when their oil production took off.  The investment based on the oil deals signed last year could add up to $200B into the economy, and that money will attract that much more money.

Toss in the ability to grow food (once the region's breadbasket--especially considering the water-plentiful north) and the fact that the economy is unusually free for the region, and you've got a very dynamic package now that the basic security is there.

All the economic basics are solid, and the oil profits look to be extended to the public on an individual basis a la the Alaska oil account model.

Corruption still bad, but the oil industry is - by comparison - stunningly transparent (witness the auctions).  If anything, the biggest problem is the government's slow-paced bureaucracy. But a well-educated and ambitious people and - again - that stabilized security environment (40% fewer deaths from violence than Mexico - not to pick on Mexico but to provide some relative measure). 

A decade from now, when Iraq is rich and powerful and a hugely stabilizing force in the region, people will look back on the intervention with different eyes.  It will be viewed as a process of enormous difficulty, lots of screw-ups, stunning and unforgivable amount of wasted spending (we refuse to seriously organize ourselves for such things and remain - to this day - unilateral control freaks), a godawful amount of evolution forced upon the U.S. military (beneficial), incredibly painful for the Iraqi people -- and totally worth it given the positive outcome.

This is what I wrote in Esquire before the invasion:

As baby-sitting jobs go, this one will be a doozy, making our lengthy efforts in postwar Germany and Japan look simple in retrospect.

I wasn't particularly surprised by the difficulty of the occupation. The plans going in looked crazy optimistic and I knew our military just wasn't shaped for the challenge (we saw that in Somalia earlier). So I figured it would be bad and we'd change in response (think North Africa, 1942-43). As for the recovery. history told me it would be a generation - roughly.  So an Iraq that's on par with Saudi Arabia's oil production in 2020 sounds about right, because that country is going to experience once helluva boom.

Wikistrat's New Video

The Wikistrat team has put together a video to help explain the service.  I enjoy the evocation of "The Matrix"! Exciting stuff.

As before, you can also keep up to date on Wikistrat using the links below.

WPR's The New Rules: A Wish List for the New Year

To kick off 2011, I thought I'd put together my top-10 international affairs wish list for the year, going from left to right on my wall map. But like Spinal Tap, only better, my list goes to 12:

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.