Afghan says it wants connectivity again

Datelineóabove the garage, Portsmouth RI, 19 April

Reference: "Afghanistan Seeks Trade And Investors For Its Revival," by Carlotta Gall, New York Times, 19 April, p. A12.

Story about first international business conference in Afghanistan in over two decades. That, my friends, is serious disconnectedness, real isolation, and the essence of why all that nation can produce right now for export is heroin (roughly half its GDP).

Will the Taliban do whatever it can to kill whatever embryonic financial and business connectivity emerges from such efforts? You bet. Once that connectivity takes root, and there is an option for trade outside of poppies, what exactly does the Taliban offer the population besides a return to the past?

The White House: "Give us the Sys Admin Force!"

Datelineóabove the garage, Portsmouth RI, 19 April

Now, before you get all excited and start tracing cause-and-effect, let me assure you that the proposal known as the Global Peace Operations Initiative has been in the works inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense for several months. Again, all my material really does is provide the decoder ring for translating what seems like a mishmash of moves and initiative coming out of this administration as they struggle to adapt the national security establishment to the strategic security environment as they find it.

The plan, approved by Bush this month, calls for the U.S. to spend $660m over the next five years to help generate the capacity in Gap states to mount collective security, or peacekeeping efforts in response to failed states, civil wars, rehab efforts like Iraq, and so on. The short-term focus is Africa, because the fear is that the U.S., being so busy in the Middle East, can't manage squat in Africa in the meantime. But in reality, this proposal shows that this administration is warming up to the notion that a Sys Admin function is required to manage the Gap as a whole.

Like most things this administration tries, they want to do this on the cheap as much as possible, while retaining maximum freedom of action for the U.S. Such an approach may get the ball rolling, especially if you throw the better part of a billion at the problem (but that's really only peanuts over 5 years), but to really seed the beginnings of such a Gap-wide force, the U.S. has to not only admit its central role in enabling such a force on the ground (we are the hub, everyone else is the spokes, and when I say "hub," I mean command and control + logistics most of all), but realize that until we seed our own force in such a way as to constitute a serious Sys Admin contingent in its own right, other militaries will not be sufficiently attracted to the effort to really police the Gap in a comprehensive fashion.

Yes, a focus on African states is fine, but even getting a serious collective effort there isn't going to solve much on that continent. Getting New Core powers to pony up serious numbers, like I said in the Washington Post Outlook article of 11 April, is what will really get the ball rolling.

For now, this administration is only willing to throw some bucks at the general direction of Africa, in effect trying to outsource peacekeeping to the locals there. Not a bad start, but until DoD takes far more seriously the call of an Art Cebrowski and others that the U.S. military needs its own dedicated peacekeeping battalions, no one around the world is going to take such an initiative too seriously.

Yet, I cite this proposal (reference: "Bush Plans Aid to Build Foreign Peace Forces," by Bradley Graham, Washington Post, 19 April, p. A1) as yet further evidence that the system itself is groping in the direction of what I call the Sys Admin function in providing security across the Gap. Every step closer is one less step we need to take when the right disaster finally comes along to force the issue for good.

Talking ìeverything elseî with the Joint Staff and the Journal

Dateline: Reagan National Airport, Washington DC, 16 April

Today I spend four hours speaking to and with the Policy and Plans group within the Joint Staff, known by the code J-5. I give my full up briefing over 3 hours, with extensive Q&A. Youíd think the focus would be strictly war, but it was really on what I like to call the ìeverything else.î

By special permission, Greg Jaffe of the Wall Street Journal sits in on the proceedings.

Jaffe, a true student of how the Pentagon works, is interested in tracking how unconventional ideas move up the food chain within the building, and my brief fits his bill. Afterwards, we have dinner at Reagan National before I fly out. Talking with Greg is always a treat, because few know more about the current mood and workings of the Pentagon. All in all, a fascinating dayóworth getting up at 0430 to make happen.

One rule-set tidbit of the day: flying into Reagan means you canít get up from your seat to use the bathroom during the last 30 minutes of the flight. That is an essential rule set change that emerged from 9/11, geographically centered on one of the sites of the attacks.

As far as I am concerned, Reagan National Airportís slogan should be: Bin Laden means bladder control!.

Hereís today catch, culled by me during the flight into Reagan:

REFERENCES:

(1) ìAdministration Considers a Post for Intelligence: A Centralized Overseer,î by Douglas Jehl, New York Times, 16 April, p. A1.

(2) ìThe Iranian Hand,î by Michael Ledeen, Wall Street Journal, 16 April, p. A14.

(3) ìGreen Zone Start-Ups,î by Michael Broadhurst et. al, WSJ, 16 April, p. C4.

(4) ìTape, Probably bin Ladenís, Offers ëTruceí To Europe: Leaders Dismiss Any Negotiations,î by Richard Bernstein, NYT, 16 April, p. A3.

(5) ìEUís New Rules Will Shake Up Market for Bioengineered Foods,î by Scott Miller, WSJ, 16 April, p. A1.

(6) ìNewest Export Out of China: Inflation Fears,î by Keith Bradsher, NYT, 16 April, p. A1.

(7) ìMeeker Opines on China: Former ëQueen of the Netí Sees Much Possibility for Internet Stocks,î by Geoffrey Fowler and Suzanne Craig, WSJ, 16 April, p. C16.

Get me an intelligence czar!

REFERENCES:

(1) ìAdministration Considers a Post for Intelligence: A Centralized Overseer,î by Douglas Jehl, New York Times, 16 April, p. A1.

The completely unexpected continues to unfold: the Bush White House dusts off a year-old proposal from yet another presidential advisory panel (headed by Brent Scowcroft) that calls for a new super-DCI that would be called the DNI. There, dontcha feel safer already!

The DCI refers to the current position of the Director of Central Intelligence, the post commonly referred to as the director of the CIA. Actually, the DCI is supposed to oversee not just CIA but 15 total departments and agencies across the entire intelligence community. In reality, he oversees the CIA and little else. This unfortunate situation is described in the article as reflecting the legacy of an ìad hoc system created in haste after World War II.î

Actually, the National Security Act of 1947 (yes, two full years following the end of the war) created CIA and a host of other entities as the U.S. radically revamped its national security establishment to meet the new challenges of the new security age. Is the White House planning any radical change to this system? No, just adding another layer of centralizing bureaucracy on top, certain to sort everything out below.

I can see this poor guyís schedule already: 12-hour work days filled wall-to-wall with 15-minute office calls.

In short, I donít see much of an answer here. I have already said what I believe needs to happen to the intelligence community WRT to the emerging bifurcation of DoD into a warfighting-focused Leviathan force and a peace-waging Sys Admin force. The push to centralize the already secretive and distant-from-society (and much of reality) intelligence community strikes me as pretty mindless.

Thanks again, bin Laden!

The Middle Eastís forces of disconnectedness

REFERENCES:

(2) ìThe Iranian Hand,î by Michael Ledeen, Wall Street Journal, 16 April, p. A14.

(3) ìGreen Zone Start-Ups,î by Michael Broadhurst et. al, Wall Street Journal, 16 April, p. C4.

I say this time and time again about our attempt to reconnect Iraqi society to the larger world: this occupation pits us against all the regionís forces of disconnectedness.

The ìIranian handî in question is the strong connectivity between Moqtada al-Sadrís incipient intifada and Iranís mullahs, who are clearly hell-bent on making sure Iraq is not ìlostî to globalizationís creeping embrace. No, this is not just the paranoid ramblings of American neocons, but good intell from the Italian Intelligence Service, which has determined that what we face in southern Iraq is not just a domestic insurgency, but a systematic effort by Saddam loyalists with connectivity to Syria and Shiite radicals with connectivity to Iran.

Is this surprising? If the U.S. has been planning Saddamís downfall openly since 1991, should we be surprised that authoritarian regimes in the region likewise prepared to defeat any US-led level to remove Iraq from the ranks of the disconnected states? A free and open Iraq would put far greater pressure on both Iran and Syria to change than any UN-led sanctions, so in many ways, these regimes are fighting for their very lives when they support anti-coalition uprisings in Iraq. As I say in my upcoming (June) article for Esquire, the peace we wage today in Iraq is a battle for the entire soul of the region.

But even as all this conflict flares, on the ground we see the seeds of much connectivity sprouting. The great WSJ article on start-ups inside the Green Zone, or protected area in Baghdad, speaks to the natural desire of individual Iraqis to run their own livesófirst and foremostóeconomically. Yes, the political freedom to run their own lives is greatly desired as well, but itís the economic freedom that dominates anyoneís dayówhether they live in Baghdad or Boston.

As one returning sergeant remarks in the article: ìAll you have to do it walk through the Karadah district of Baghdad that looks like Times Square nowî to realize that ordinary Iraqis are desperately eager to set up shopówhatever the commodity. Why so? Under Saddam, the ruling Baath party basically controlled the sale of all raw goods, meaning all the economic connectivity in the country was verticalóor from the leaders to the led. Now weíre seeing the blossoming of horizontal connectivity, or what we might call peer-to-peer, and thatís where serious freedom begins.

Itís that sort of horizontal connectivity that authoritarian governments intrinsically fear, because when it becomes widespread, the ability to control the masses through the economy disappears. Thus, right now in Iraq, it is a battle of control from above (and outside) versus freedom from below. What U.S. troops in Iraq are really providing is bodyguard duties for the connectivity we hope will spread from below and render illusory Iranís and Syriaís dreams that Iraq can be kept isolated from the outside world.

Europe: Are you in or are you out?

REFERENCES:

(4) ìTape, Probably bin Ladenís, Offers ëTruceí To Europe: Leaders Dismiss Any Negotiations,î by Richard Bernstein, New York Times, 16 April, p. A3.

(5) ìEUís New Rules Will Shake Up Market for Bioengineered Foods,î by Scott Miller, Wall Street Journal, 16 April, p. A1.

The first story covers bin Ladenís remarkably frank offer to Europe of a cease fire if they agree to his demands for civilizational apartheid between Europe and the Islamic Middle East. For now, all the right responses are being heard from Europe, as this offer makes painfully clear al Qaedaís divide-and-conquer tactics that include the Madrid 3/11 bombings and likely many more to come.

Bin Ladenís offer is almost too good to be true for those who worry about the Western alliance coming undone over a host of diverging rule sets, one of the most contentious being the growing rift over genetically-modified organisms. And yet, when strong divergence exists first on technology, inevitably that divergence in rules spreads to economics, then politics, and ultimately to issues of security.

How we need to look at the world is as follows: there will always be a great number of overlapping rule set clashes operating across the system as a whole, like a security rule-set clash over how to deal with terrorism, or how to deal with technology, or how to deal with politically-bankrupt states, or how to deal with immigration flows, and so on. Nothing exists in a vacuum in globalization, and all rule-set clashes reverberate against one another.

Europeís general take on globalization right now is ìslow downîóalmost at all costs. The U.S. take is a mix of slow down (OMYGOD! Outsourcing is killing us!) and speed it up (the Bush White Houseís ìbig bangî strategy for the Middle East). People here need to understand that if there comes a time when the balance of forces in this country favors the slow-down approach, globalization may well not just slow down, but actually contract, given the inherent tendencies elsewhere to heavily favor that slow-down strategy. Weíre not just the engine of global growth, but the engine for globalizationís progressive advance around the world.

I got yer Chinese threat . . . I got it right here!

REFERENCES:

(6) ìNewest Export Out of China: Inflation Fears,î by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 16 April, p. A1.

(7) ìMeeker Opines on China: Former ëQueen of the Netí Sees Much Possibility for Internet Stocks,î by Geoffrey Fowler and Suzanne Craig, Wall Street Journal, 16 April, p. C16.

The Pentagonís preferred definition of future war is China invading Taiwan somewhere around 2025. That is the ìChinese threatî they understand. I have more problems with this myopic strategic vision than I can count, although my book goes out of its way to list as many of them as possible.

But my biggest gripe with that sort of ìabsurdly isolated point scenarioî approach (a subject I describe in the book) to thinking about how China might destabilize globalization over coming years is that it so dramatically ignores the range of far more likely destabilizing scenarios that can unfold between now and 2025óall of which would invariably segue into some security component of logical interest to the Pentagon. These two articles speak to the sort of triggers we should really be paying attention to, not just inside the Pentagon but throughout the entire U.S. Government.

On the issue of inflation, you might ask: just how influential is Chinaís economy anyway? No, China is not the dominating force within the global economy that some fear-meisters would have you believe. Itíll be decades before they really fight at a weight similar to the U.S. economy. But because China is a global manufacturing superpower on the low-cost end of the spectrum, they do wield an unusually influential sort of connectivity: their prices tend to set the low-cost prices for the planet.

So hereís the connectivity made real: rising energy prices means China has to raise the prices on its low-end exports, which in turn raise the price of low-end goods around the world. You want all those cheap goods at Walmart? Guess what! You can trace that price all the way back to stability and/or instability in the Middle East, and that connectivity runs through China, which is rapidly becoming, thanks to its increased marketization of its economy, a more rapid transmitter of ìboth pain and delightî (track that Star Trek reference, I dare you!) throughout the global economy.

As for the Internet boom currently raging in China, all that tells us is that China follows in our historical wake far faster than we might easily imagine, assuming it is simply a land of impoverished laborers. Remember, our Internet boom/bust in the stock markets was less than five years ago. So the current Internet stock craze in China is yet another good example of what-goes-around-comes-around in the global economy.

Deleted Scenes

As part of my effort to generate on this site a sort of deluxe, collector's edition, tricked-up "DVD package" of extras, I am generating a series of posts that I call Deleted Scenes -- material that didn't make it into "The Pentagon's New Map." Like Director's Commentary, this behind-the-scenes commentary on the making of the book is offered as additional background material for interested readers. To read all of this series' entries to date, click here.

Deleted Scene #1

Chapter One: New Rule Sets

Section: New Rules For a New Era

Commentary: This first "deleted scene" was something I ginned up in response to Mark Warren's concern that Chapter One really needed some firm explication of what I felt were the major rule-set shifts between the Cold War that ended years ago and the post-9/11 global security environment we find ourselves now inhabiting. We figured it would go in the second section entitled, "New Rules for a New Era." I cranked this out one afternoon after finishing some writing on Chapter Two. Mark liked the material and spent a lot of time trying to figure out where it might go in the first chapter, but in the end we decided not to use it because there was no easy place to put it and we feared it would slow down the pace with its intense summarizing qualities.

Deleted Scene #2

Chapter Two: The Rise of the 'Lesser Includeds'

Section: The Manthorpe Curve

Commentary: This second "deleted scene" constituted my first attempt at explaining what Mark Warren later called "the cult of the PowerPoint briefing" inside the Pentagon. As originally written, this was the intro to "The Manthorpe Curve" section in Chapter 2. Mark cut these paragraphs and started right with the one that followed: "In the early 1990s, William Manthorpe was Deputy Director Ö" [p. 63]. I include this deleted scene simply because I like it.

Deleted Scene #3

Chapter Two: The Rise of the 'Lesser Includeds'

Section: The Fracturing of the Security Market

Commentary: This third "deleted scene" was my effort to introduce the Waltzian three-tiered paradigm in all its glory. I have done this many times in reports over the years, feeling it is only right to give the man his due. Mark Warren cut this section because he felt it went on too long and because it came off as too academic. His point was that the reader really didn't need all this extra information for me to make the ensuing points in the text. Plus, because my use of this conceptual tool is unique enough, all I really needed to do was to give the man a good endnote, which I did.

A genuine blue-skying affair

Blue-Skying the Future of War in the 21st Century

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 15 April

Today I facilitated an afternoonís worth of workshop for the Office of Force Transformation (Office of the Secretary of Defense) at the Decision Support Center at the gaming facility at the Naval War College. Fun stuff with a substantial group of free thinkers specifically gathered to help Art Cebrowski think about what sort of naval force structure (mix of ships, aircraft, etc.) America needs in the future. Art being Art, it is a genuine blue-skying affair where people are instructed not only to get out of the box, but frankly, never to look back. Today, we spoke about the ìnew rulesî of warfare. The underlying theme? Providing the President with more options over time in this global war on terrorism and everything else DoD is on the hook for in the Era of Globalization.

What does blue-skying mean here? When you think of naval power in the future, donít assume itís all about ships. The only restriction on thought here is: stuff that moves over, on or through water.

In all a good workshop, I walk away from the afternoon with at least three big thoughts I can turn into articles that should turn heads.

BTW, Artís office has me ask Putnam for 8 copies of the book: one each for four chiefs of staff (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines), a couple for the Vice and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and a couple for SECDEF and DEPSECDEF.

That is how much Art Cebrowski likes this book . . .

Hereís today catch, culled by me during breaks in the action:

REFERENCES:

(1) ìSharon Coup: U.S. Go-Ahead: Move by White House Bypasses Palestinians,î by James Bennett, New York Times, 15 April, p. A1.

(2) ìSyrians Test Limits Of Political Dissent: Assadís Government Talks of Reform,î by Daniel Williams, Washington Post, 11 April, p. A23.

(3) ìMarines Use Low-Tech Skill To Kill 100 in Urban Battle,î by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 15 April, p. A8.

(4) ìSouth Korea Is Wary but Firm on Iraq,î by Norimitsu Onishi, NYT, 15 April, p. A10.

(5) ìEurope, U.S. Diverge on How to Fight Terrorism,î by Glenn Frankel, Washington Post, 28 March, p. A15.

(6) ìU.S. Seeks New Global Force To Protect the U.N. in Iraq,î by Robin Wright, WP, 8 April, p. A12.

(7) ìArmy Spouses Expect Reenlistment Problems,î by Thomas Ricks, WP, 28 March, p. A1.

(8) ìChina Recruits Foreign Talent: State Enterprises Seek Infusion of New Blood in Management,î by Ben Dolven, Wall Street Journal, 15 April, p. A13.

(9) ìCheney Urges China to Press North Korea on A-Bombs,î by Joseph Kahn, NYT, 15 April, p. A3.

(10) ìLatin America Warms Up to EU in Trade Talks,î by Geraldo Samor and Scott Miller, WSJ, 15 April, p. A13.

Iíll do them all in four clumps.

"We know how to sit on walls."

After Iraq, Itís On to the New Berlin Wall

References:

(1) ìSharon Coup: U.S. Go-Ahead: Move by White House Bypasses Palestinians,î by James Bennett, New York Times, 15 April, p. A1.

(2) ìSyrians Test Limits Of Political Dissent: Assadís Government Talks of Reform,î by Daniel Williams, Washington Post, 11 April, p. A23.

The first article speaks to the reality that Americaóand ultimately the Coreówill invariably end up giving Israel what it wants: a clear definition of its secure borders. Beyond that recognition, if we hope to advance the security agenda in the region andóby doing soógive impetus to growing connectivity between the region and the outside world, America in particular and the Core in general will need to move in the direction of providing security for the walls now going up between Israel and the West Bank/Gaza. Beyond winning the war of connectedness v. disconnectedness in Iraq, this looms as the great security task in the region.

You will say this is a failure: to accept these walls as a moment in history where walls are falling everywhere and new bridges and connectivity are arising. You will say this is a contradiction to the larger goal of connecting the Middle East up with the world at large. Both criticisms are valid but are easily put aside, because until Israel is effectively taken off the table as the whipping boy for Muslim regimes in the region, serious movement toward security solutions for the region as a whole will remain impossible.

You will say this is beyond our means or our patience, and I will tell you that the Coreóand in particular the Old Coreóis well practiced at sitting on such walls for as long as needed. We have sat on a wall in the Koreas. We have sat on a wall in Berlin, and across a Europe as a whole. We have sat on a wall in Cyprus. We know how to sit on walls.

As for the length of time, that calculation is fairly easy: roughly a generation and a half, or until the current crop of adults dies off sufficiently to be replace wholesale by a new generation or two that have never known the past struggle. In the meantime, we buy off the masses with aid and hunt down the troublemakers with a vengeance. We emphasize the inevitability of our success and the failure of their attempts to enforce disconnectedness over those who, in the end, prefer connectivity.

You will also say that our effort will go unrewarded in the region as a whole, and that weíll end up as the target of all that anger, all that rage, and all that desire to retain group identity. And I will answer that we are in a race with history, but that time is on our side. So when we sit on an Israel/Palestinian Authority stalemate and deny a Syria that outlet or venue for diversions and mischief, then we leave Syria with little else to do but to examine itself and wonder why it canít do better. There is no coincidence: we go into an Iraq and within months we hear news of Syrian reforms and discussions of reform that would have seemed unbelievable just a couple of years ago.

You can say itís all because the son took over the father, but again, that only says time is on our side.

Basic point: deny Arab authoritarian regimes the diversion of the Arab-Israeli conflict and they will be left to their own devices, their own stagnation, and their own problems to solve. But it will take time.

So why in the hell should you?

Everyone is Looking for the Sys Admin Force

References:

(3) ìMarines Use Low-Tech Skill To Kill 100 in Urban Battle,î by Jeffrey Gettleman, NYT, 15 April, p. A8.

(4) ìSouth Korea Is Wary but Firm on Iraq,î by Norimitsu Onishi, NYT, 15 April, p. A10.

(5) ìEurope, U.S. Diverge on How to Fight Terrorism,î by Glenn Frankel, Washington Post, 28 March, p. A15.

(6) ìU.S. Seeks New Global Force To Protect the U.N. in Iraq,î by Robin Wright, WP, 8 April, p. A12.

(7) ìArmy Spouses Expect Reenlistment Problems,î by Thomas Ricks, WP, 28 March, p. A1.

The story of our Marines in Iraq is not exactly a Tom Clancy novel in terms of high-tech wizardry. The day-to-day operations of the Sys Admin force is fundamentally low-tech, boots-on-the-ground sort of stuff. This is not rocket science, but it is good soldiering through and throughóat the constant risk of death. The Sys Admin job is not one of glory, but one of persistence. If you donít believe me, ask the Brits about administering Northern Ireland all those years.

Participating in the Sys Admin force is not scary in the strategic sense that we associate with war between states or global conflict. Instead, itís about sending sons and daughters into harmís way. For many countries we seek to pull into this effort, like a South Korea, we are talking aboutóeven in these limited contingentsóthe biggest overseas military efforts most have engaged in for several decades. For South Korea, for example, this is bigger than anything theyíve done since Vietnam.

Don Rumsfeld was asked when recently visiting South Korea, ìHow do you explain to Korean parents why they should send their loved ones to far away lands to rescue some nation and reconnect it to the world?î His answer was simple (paraphrasing): ìSomehow we managed to convince our young people 50 years ago to come to the Korean peninsula and look what we got in return!î Can we convince a South Korean society of the same long-term wisdomómuch less the personal sacrificeówith regard to an Iraq today? Much depends on the stories we tell of a global future worth creating.

Are we convincing the rest of the Core on this score? Consider the story on how our vision of the future is diverging from that of Europeís. Hereís the key quote from Javier Solana, foreign policy chief for the EU: ìEurope is not at war. We have to energetically oppose terrorism, but we mustnít change the way we live.î Meanwhile, a George Bush pushes the notion that the GWOT is ìan inescapable calling of our generation.î

You might think that this gap in perception reflects the European love of peace and distaste of blood, but in reality, experts will tell you, it really reflects that Europe long ago became used to living with terrorism, so a 3/11 does not shock them into action the same way a 9/11 + anthrax scare mobilized the U.S. in the fall of 2001.

Yet again, the Europeans are described as being above it all and the Americans are described as being so easily whipped into a frenzy by events. But I fundamentally disagree with the view. Europe, as I said in the Outlook article last Sunday, is basically ready to accept bin Ladenís offer of civilizational apartheid (made explicit just today in his first taped message in seven months!) and America, without Europeís long history of class distinctions, has a harder time with accepting such firm divisions, plus we have the recent decades of thinking about global security as a whole to fall back upon, whereas that skill set has deteriorated within European states, having lived so long under the umbrella of U.S. strategic deterrence.

Simply put, Europe has forgotten what it is to wage waróand purposefully so. The only way we awake them from this historical stupor is to motivate them through the forceful enunciation of a mutually-beneficial global future worth creating.

What we offer instead is reference #6: instead of offering the vision of the future worth creating, or the end, we focus so much on generating the meansóhere, the U.S. call for a ìnew global forceî to protect the UN in Iraq. This pleaóin so many waysóis a call for the Sys Admin force, a force that America has yet to seed sufficiently within its own ranks to make it attractive to potential allies whoóquite franklyórespond solely to sure bets. Simply put, until the U.S. creates within DoD the Sys Admin force to the point where our forces alone could basically occupy an Iraq effectively, we wonít get the allied contribution that will generate the superabundance needed to demonstrate to the forces of disconnectedness within an Iraq (or anywhere else weíll end up going) that theirs is a lost cause.

Right now, the correlation of forces is on their side: our forces in the field are battling the depressing thought that ìwe simply canít kill them fast enough long enough to win in the endóthere are simply too many of them.î But if DoD fields a sufficiently impressive Sys Admin force that attracts the peacekeepers not just from Old Core Europe but New Core Asia, then the superabundance of Core forces fielded in an Iraq turns the tables on our enemies there, forcing them into the depressing realization that ìwe simply canít kill them fast enough long enough to win in the endóthere are simply too many of them.î

When America fields a U.S. military in Iraq that is overwhelming in its Leviathan function and underwhelming in its Sys Admin capabilities, it says to the world: we really donít take the back-half of regime change very seriously, so why in the hell should you?

My point is this: donít expect anyone to come rushing to our aid in this ìnew global forceî until we demonstrate that as far as the Sys Admin force goes within DoD, in the future there will be no such thing as the category currently known by the phrase ìlow density/high demand.î LDHD is simply a fancy way of saying we have too few of the resources we need to win the peace in Iraq.

To put it even more succinctly, LDHD reflects DoDís ADHD in this GWOT.

Howís that for jargon!

Why does this matter? This bureaucratic sloth in terms of rebalancing our force structure to deal with this GWOT?

Reference #7 tells you why this is important: we do a poor job of using our personnel in Iraq and our reenlistment rates will plummet. The basic bad news of this frightening article was that a recent poll of Army spouses indicates that the spouses of roughly three-quarters of currently serving personnel expect the pace of operations in this GWOT to negatively impact retention levels. Half the respondents expect a major retention problem, and a quarter see minor problems. Only one quarter of respondents say it will have no negative impact.

These are mostly the wives back home talking, and if you donít think that matters, then youíve never been married.

Win-Win: China and America

China and America Swapping Expertise?

References:

(8) ìChina Recruits Foreign Talent: State Enterprises Seek Infusion of New Blood in Management,î by Ben Dolven, Wall Street Journal, 15 April, p. A13.

(9) ìCheney Urges China to Press North Korea on A-Bombs,î by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 15 April, p. A3.

The first reference is just yet another good example of Chinaís increasing integration with the outside world. In Chinaís hotel industry, firms are increasingly hiring American/foreign executives in an attempt to improve service and overall competitiveness in the global marketplace. This is a leading-edge indicator of China reaching out to the outside world: since tourism is defined primarily by visiting foreigners, you bring in foreigners to help you understand how to do a better job.

The second reference just warms my heart a bit: Vice President Cheney in China urging the leaders there to work more forcefully with us in pressing North Korean compliance with international sanctions on its nuclear programs. I donít believe weíll get anywhere doing this sort of thing with Pyongyang, I just like seeing the U.S. and China talking explicitly about possible solution sets. To me, getting China on board on how we eventually and inevitably topple Kim Jong Ilís regime is crucial to creating a follow-on security alliance in Asia that brings together a China, Japan, united Korea, and the United States. Alliances like a NATO come out of a successful war experience, and I canít think of any dictator who deserves one more now that Saddam is gone.

Unintended consequences

There goes my honey! There goes my baby! There goes my free trade zone!

REFERENCE: (10) ìLatin America Warms Up to EU in Trade Talks,î by Geraldo Samor and Scott Miller, WSJ, 15 April, p. A13.

To me, this is a scary article of sorts, like the one the Wall Street Jouranl ran a while back about how emigration flows coming out of Latin America are being redirected from the U.S. as a landing zone to Europe as a landing zone. In that example, the tighter U.S. borders resulting from the post-9/11 rule-set reset were cited, meaning bin Laden apparently has the power to attack the U.S. andóby doing soódeny us access to immigration patterns we hadóup to that pointóassumed would favor us over the Europeans.

What this article describes is a Latin America, tired of the lack of progress on trade negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, instead turning to an EU for similar-style negotiations. The negotiations in question concern the EU and Mercosur, or the economic trade alliance of more than 200 million citizens in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, with less integrated levels of association involving Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. You have to wonder, is this another unintended consequence not of 9/11 per se, but of Americaís response to 9/11?

If so, bin Ladenís ability to bend global history is far more than we realize, yes?

Terror.com: It's only business

"Crime Pays, Terrorists Find: Group in Europe Smuggles Immigrants and Forges Passports," by Glenn Simpson et. al, Wall Street Journal, 14 April, p. A13.

Since 9/11, the U.S. makes a huge effort on a global scale to shut down the funding mechanisms that support global terror. There is good evidence we are succeeding in many instances, but plenty more loopholes are still being exploited. But here's the even tougher reality of fighting a truly global, networked foe: while fighting the connectivity that globalization spreads they nonetheless exploit that connectivity to make ends meetósomething they can do almost ad infinitum.

So the Journal says "Terrorists have replacements for traditional systems of funding, like Islamic charities." Those replacements include the sort of seam-exploiting activities right on the edge of legitimate activities: would-be immigrants seeking new jobs likewise seek out the smuggling services and forged passports provided by terrorist networks. Being good at that for their own purposes means terrorist networks have a marketable skill set in the global economy. This is classic Mafia territory: they provide services and security for those who cannot go to legitimate authorities for same.

My point in raising this issue is not to dump on current efforts in this Global War on Terrorism, but simply to point out that we'll never dry up all their finances, nor kill enough of their soldiers. These are self-replicating forces that cannot be defeated by overwhelming mass. What we can do, however, is progressively constrict their operating domains: where they hang out, hide out, flourish, recruit, train andómost importantlyówhere they hope to effect real change. None of these groups really want to change life inside the Core, but only to get the Core to abandon particular regions or regimes in the Gap andófurtheróto accept the terrorists' goal of hijacking some particular society and isolating it under their rule.

In the end, the only real way we win this global terrorism is to deny terrorists the disconnected societies they seek to rule, and we do that by connecting those societies up to the global economy and letting the ensuing broadband economic, social, and political connectivity do the rest. Where we wage war is against any forces of disconnectedness: be they non-state actors hoping to hijack some society or some dictator currently keeping his population under his isolating control.

But if you think we can firewall this nation from this violence or hunt down the terrorist sufficiently fast enough to claim some long-term victory, you are kidding yourselfóor buying into Richard Clarke's vision of how to win the GWOT. We will never kill them fast enough nor put up enough walls between our good life and their pain and suffering. It simply will never happen.

Handicapping the Gap and Key Seam States

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 14 April

A quick tour around the dial before I get back to my Director's Commentary series on the book, which I am rushing to finish by Sunday. I can feel the crush of events getting ever closer WRT the release of the book on 27 April. Putnam is planning to run me as ragged as possible promoting the book in DC, NYC and Boston for roughly ten days, then it's a big conference down in the Big Easy, and right after that the Esquire article comes out on newsstands and I'm being told they want to push the hell out of that. So I am shoving all sorts of posts out the door in the direction of my webmaster, hoping to get everything on line that I want at this site before the deluge begins.

Today's references:

"Crime Pays, Terrorists Find: Group in Europe Smuggles Immigrants and Forges Passports," by Glenn Simpson et. al, Wall Street Journal, 14 April, p. A13.

"U.S. Squeezes Cuba Travelers: Castro Cited as Target, but Policy Seems Aimed at Florida Voters," by Neil King, Wall Street Journal, 14 April, p. A4.

"In South Africa, Democracy May Breed One-Party Rule," by Michael Wines, New York Times, 14 April, p. A3.

"Cruel Choices: We Can Save Tens of Thousands in Sudan," by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 14 April, p. A25.

"Indian Services Giant Hits $1 Billion Mark," by Saritha Rai, New York Times, 14 April, p. W1.

"In China, Troubling Signs Of an Overheating Economy," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 14 April, p. C1.

If No Threat, Connectivity is the Best Bet

"U.S. Squeezes Cuba Travelers: Castro Cited as Target, but Policy Seems Aimed at Florida Voters," by Neil King, Wall Street Journal, 14 April, p. A4.

Old argument about Castro: keep him under tight wraps and enforce as much disconnectedness as possible against his tyrannical and cruel regime, or open the floodgates and let the connectivity pervert his rule from within?

To keep the Cuban exiles/voters in Florida happy, administration after administration goes with the hard line notion of holding out against Castro. I don't really believe in this approach, because I think enforcing such disconnectedness only plays into the hands of dictators in general.

My rules are simple: if the dictator in question is a clear and present danger to own people or to world at large, then take him down and reconnect the society in the aftermath. Of course, we need a military that can do both the front- and back-halves of that game, and the Core as a whole needs an A-to-Z rule set that facilitates such processing. These are jobs to be completed.

Second rule: if the dictator is not the compelling clear and present danger, then you kill him with the kindness afforded by connectivity. If I were running the Cuba policy, I would flood that isolated system with as many American tourists as possible and open every floodgate I could find in terms of business connectivity. I would work through such rising connectivity to marginalize Castro as quickly as possible.

Then as soon as he fell away, completely irrelevant, I would begin floating the idea of Cuba as the 51st state. Tell me that wouldn't guarantee my party the exile vote in Florida from here on out!

And yes, I am being completely serious on that last point. America the closed club does not make sense in a world where the Core needs to open up to the Gap and the EU accepts new members in droves. Time to grow again.

The Africa holocaust mutates once again

"Cruel Choices: We Can Save Tens of Thousands in Sudan," by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 14 April, p. A25.

Nick Kristof of the NYTimes, to whom I gave the full-up brief back in 2002, has been waging a one-man campaign to get the West to give a rat's ass about the most recent example of mass violence and ethnic cleansing in Africaóthis time being Sudan. This is a classic clash between civilizations: where lighter-skinned Arab Janjaweed militias are systematically targeting darker-skinned tribal Africans for death and mass rape, all with the consent and support of Sudan's authoritarian government. While the war crimes pile up, what does the West do? Basically nothing. Sudan is so far inside the Gap as to fundamentally not matter. If there was more oil there, somebody might, but since there is so little and the security is so bad, these brutalities go unnoticed. No protests in Western capitals, no peace marchesónada.

The Core simply will not address the deepest Gap, or Africa, until we succeed in reconnecting the Middle East. I push for a firm course in Iraq because beyond all the effort we must make there, Africa waits in great painócompletely ignored.

Some of my best friends are one-party states

"In South Africa, Democracy May Breed One-Party Rule," by Michael Wines, New York Times, 14 April, p. A3.

No surprise here: the party that successfully navigated the nation from apartheid and white-rule to majority rule with a reasonably functioning democracy has come to dominate as a political force within the nation. The African National Congress, which frankly was an open client of the Soviet bloc for many years (so stupid were we that we refused to see the historical writing on the wall), is now the party without peer in South Africa, raising fears that a one-party state is brewing.

This is a misguided fear. One-party states are never the problem. Japan was one for decades, so was South Korea and Mexico and a host of other fine integrating economies of the New Core. So long as the ruling party rotates the leadership on a regular basis, that is not the problem. Real issue is whether or not the ruling party encourages growing economic, social and political connectivity with the outside world, orómore specificallyówith the global economy's Functioning Core. In my mind, the ANC has been doing this in spades, which is why no security experts are writing any more reports warning about the West "losing access" to precious metals in Africa. That was a huge subject when I was a student in the 1980s and we feared the Soviet bloc's relationships with the region's "countries of socialist orientation" would signal a new communist satellite camp in the making.

All of that fear is gone now, as is white-rule in South Africa. Meanwhile, the ANC does its best to act as a pillar for stability in the region, something Pretoria never did under the whites (mischief makers, they), so how we can complain about their success in election after election is beyond me. So long as the top rulers rotate with regularity, I say count your blessings.

"Chopped Liver" Getting More Expensive

óAnother India Success Story

"Indian Services Giant Hits $1 Billion Mark," by Saritha Rai, New York Times, 14 April, p. W1.

You read this great article about how Infosys Technologies, the "bellweather of the Indian software services industry," has just posted more than $1 billion in annual sales, and you say to yourself: this is why the U.S. and India are such firm security partners in global affairs, right? I mean, these guys are becoming huge in the global economy, connecting India as a whole to the Functioning Core of globalization like nobody's business. So much to offer, so much to exploit, so many business deals to be made.

We all know trade follows the flag, meaning our strongest security partners tend to be our strongest trade partners. But did you know that investment flows follow the flag even more? That's right, our strongest investment partners (we invest there and they invest over here) are overwhelmingly the same states with whom we have the strongest security relationships.

So what happens when New Core powers like China and India arise, sucking up our foreign direct investment (India far less so until recently, when their insourcing of foreign capital took off) and becoming significant trade and business partners? Does the flag follow all that trade and investment? Or does the U.S. chose to declare Pakistan a "major, non-NATO ally" instead (whole lotta trade there?) and reward China with a regional missile defense system aimed at them (ahem, I mean Pyongyang!)?

The Pentagon's New Map needs to be the negative of Wall Street's new map: where Wall Street is going is not where the Pentagon should be planning for war, and where the Pentagon is planning for war, rest assured that Wall Street has already opted out. Wall Street' map is about growing the Core, whereas the Pentagon's map is about shrinking the Gap, with the Core's help. India and China should be two of our strongest allies in coming years and decades as we wage this global war on terrorism and shrink the Gap. Simply put, our "flag" needs to look around and realize where all that trade and investment is going, cause we've got it backwards with these two New Core states.

Preparing for the inevitable in China

"In China, Troubling Signs Of an Overheating Economy," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 14 April, p. C1.

Yes, China's economy is overheating. Yes, the bubble will eventually be punctured and China will slow down or even contract a bit for some period. And yes, this will be a painful period for China that brings on a significant economic and political rule-set reset.

China is growing so fast and integrating with the global economy so quickly that all this must be expected. The question isn't: will it happen? The question is: how can we help move China down better pathways when the inevitable rule-set reset is triggered?

What we need to avoid most of all is scaring them needlessly down some path of withdrawal from the world or military confrontation with either Taiwan or the U.S. Are we doing enough in this regard? If you listen to U.S. Pacific Command (whose strategic planning documents routinely cite "Barnett's Gap"), I see a U.S. military keenly aware of its enabling role in China's progressive integration into the Functioning Core. But if you check out the Pentagon's long-range threat planning, it is all China! China! China!

There are actually intell analysts in my neck of the woods who openly voice the opinion that China "is looking ten-feet tall"ócode for "completely replacing the old Red Army threat!" This is complete nonsense, of course, but it shows how desperate some within Pentagon planning circles are to find the great power enemy worth plotting against.

Guess who will be yelling "I told you so" about the "scary situation" in China come the crash? Security experts hell-bent on building some fabulous and hugely expensive force to wage war with China in the Taiwan Straits somewhere around 2025. Most don't know their ass from their elbows on what China's really all about right now. They just know they like their "near-peer competitors" big, bad and communist.

I just hope more peopleósmarter peopleóinside the U.S. Government are planning better long-term strategies vis-‡-vis China. I fear this is not the case, because only the Pentagon really engages in such long-term strategizing, and that is a shame given their tendencies to myopically focus only on worst-case scenarios. It leaves us with a military that spends the vast majority of its resources betting on the complete failure of U.S. national security strategy instead of aggressively working to see that strategy succeed.

This is why the Pentagon needs a new map.