The lead goose is honking

ARTICLE: "Malaysia Transforms Rules For Finance Under Islam: In a Lesson to Arabs, Asian Bankers Mix Religion, Modernity," by Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, 4 April 2007, p. A1.

My favorite reformation-to-watch on Islam from Blueprint, laid out beautifully in this story.

Malaysia asks for Arab help in floating Muslim bonds back in 2001. All but one bank says no.

Then Malaysia pioneers the form.

Now banks in the Mideast have copied and new financial connectivity flows.

The clash always precedes the convergence.

Now Islamic bonds and financing approach one trillion $USD in holdings, so this oil boom transforms, thanks to Malaysia.

"Malaysia is the catalyst for change," says PWC's main guy in this sector.

For centuries, religious and cultural knowledge streamed from the Middle Eastern core to the Muslim periphery, as converted peoples in the South and Southeast Asia adopted the Arabic script, traditions and mores.

But now, increasingly sophisticated Muslim communities such as Malaysia are beginning to influence the Arab heartland, offering a vivid example that an embrace of the global economy can coexist with Islam.

Now if we can get those uppity Muslim women in North America, it'll just be those pokey Europeans who'll need to uphold their end of the bargain.

You remember the argument from BFA: religious reformation in North America, economic reformation led by lead geese in East and South Asia, political reformation with mainstreaming of Islamist parties in Europe, and the Middle East middle-ages.

Time is on our side, connectivity our ultimate weapon.

Searching for the Secretary of Everything Else

ARTICLE: 3 Generals Spurn the Position of War 'Czar': Bush Seeks Overseer For Iraq, Afghanistan, By Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post April 11, 2007; Page A01

Wow! Can it get any more obvious?

The White House begging retired 4-stars to assume a "war czar" role that will focus on winning the peace and--apparently, given all rejections to date--be anything but a czar (our skill at picking oxymoronic names knows no bounds).

The obvious goal?

Somebody to supersede and transcend the obviously under-powered, unambitious, overwhelmed and wholly dysfunctional interagency leadership process currently mismanaged by a senior National Security Council staff member (as anonymous as they come), whose departure, along with just-finished strategic reviews, is the declared bureaucratic trigger for the search.

Yeah, right!

But just as clear as the administration's desperation to get some unity of action across Defense, State, and USAID through unity of command in some new SECEVELSE, is its continuing unwillingness to really invest this putative "czar" with any real power (thus, the turn-downs).

Bush wants the "man on the white horse" (Iraq-the-System-Perturbation continues to roil our system almost as much as the Middle East), but hasn't made the leap of logic to the full department.

But look at how the pain drives movement to the obvious conclusion?

Pascuel, who ran the first wee little office in State that OSD launched across the Potomac cynically (Feith) a while back in a transparent and futile attempt to toss that tar baby in somebody else's lap, says the search for a man isn't the answer, fixing the bad policy is.

Well, duh!

But the search for the man is really only the tip-of-the-iceberg expression of the growing bureaucratic impulse to create a funding/power center of gravity in the system to transcend the clearly broken IA process, which the president owns second-hand through the NSC, which in this administration remains weak to Cheney's Veep (by design).

Why this search can come to no good end, of course, is because Cheney's power remains just enough intact to convince those being asked to take on the job to realize it's a doomed position.

Still, it's stunning to see the administration reach so baldly for this inevitable fix.

DoEE is coming all right, right on schedule--the schedule of failure and pain and political desperation.

Yes, yes, the SysAdmin force/function is a pipe dream all right--until you recognize the nightmare won't end without it.

The synchronization between internal rule sets and the emerging global rule set

ARTICLE: "India's Edge Goes Beyond Outsourcing," by Anand Giridharadas, New York Times, 4 April 2007, p. C1.

ARTICLE: "Vermont Becomes 'Offshore' Insurance Haven," by Lynnley Browning, New York Times, 4 April 2007, p. C1.

ARTICLE: "Seeking a Fix, by Russian Satellite: A Challenge to America's Global Positioning System," by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 4 April 2007, p. C1.

Interesting trio describing globalization's irresistible forces.

India, in a flat world, redefines the question of reasonably accessed labor pool.

So what must be the U.S. response?

It must make parts of America, wonderfully fungible in the form of these things we call states, into competitive images of the competition, and thus the sourcecode of globalization itself is increasingly recast in the form of the once-student, now master--the global rule set that none control but some can at times lead in terms of new definitions.

We clearly did that on GPS for a long time, but we naturally attract competition in that process (GLONASS revived!), and so the great game simply enters another phase.

Personal connectivity is worth preserving

ARTICLE: "A Lonely Road Home For Commuters: How Longer Drive Exact Social Costs," from The New Yorker (16 April), cited in "The Informed Reader," Wall Street Journal, 9 April 2007, p. B5.

Long commute times in your car are a connectivity killer. If you've ever endured an extreme commute (more than 90 minutes) it's a mind-killer on wheels. Books-on-CD help, but thinking time is compressed.

The hardest time in my life was when I drove so much in Northern VA, not just the killer commute but the anywhere trip that always dragged into an hour or more.

Bob Putnam, an old prof of mine at Harvard, says "every ten minutes of commuting results in 10 percent fewer social connections."

He's right. People do tend to undervalue such losses.

Honestly, that's why I do so much better flying everywhere, because I work so much on planes and in airports and actually drive so little (really, only with my family). When I'm home, I honestly don't work that much.

Still, I don't pretend my life doesn't take its toll in all directions. You try to balance things out. You calculate your larger obligations to the world versus those to your family, and if you're somebody who lives by your wits, you fence off that thinking time like it's the most valuable asset you possess after your family.

Know-your-customer today becomes know-your-biology tomorrow

ARTICLE: "Who's Monitoring Chinese Food Experts?," by Nicholas Zamiska, Wall Street Journal, 9 April 2007, p. B1.

China, as it increasingly engages the world, becomes a frequent source for tainted foods, in large part because of its "loose regulations and highly fragmented food production"--doubleplusbad in a connected world.

America is testing only a tiny fraction of food shipments from overseas, and that volume grows. Hell, everyone imports more food over time, so what to do?

Know-your-customer becomes know-your-supply-chain becomes know-your-biology. You will need to track everything soon enough from cradle to grave. Not by testing at chokepoints but by auditable transparency throughout the process, with new rule sets applied throughout, subject to oversight at home and abroad--at every link in the chain. Your product's entire reputation will depend on it. It will be amazingly complex and require automation of rules throughout. Those rules and the systems that apply them will need to sense, think, respond, plus grow in intelligence. Hard coding will not suffice. Everything--but especially the rules--will need to live and breath and enjoy constant refresh.

Welcome to the age of resilience.

Every time I read an article like this, I realize Steve DeAngelis is a real genius, which is why I stay with Enterra despite all the myriad challenges of helping direct a start-up tech firm (and I barely pull my weight compared to the titanic Steve).

But like I say in my massive blog post on my just-coming-out "State of the World" piece for Esquire, I don't believe terrorists will ever run the world, because globalization's normal demands will push us all in the direction of the resiliency that Steve not only imagines but invents.

This will be a government job only in the creation of rules. Their implementation will be more a private-sector affair. Companies will do it because it's good for business and it'll become the only way to stay in business in a connected world.

This is the ultimate pre-emption strategy: the systematic elimination of vulnerability.

Anything you can do, I can counter faster. I can track anything better than you.

Not a day's work, but a societal evolution.

Winning the Long War will be mostly non-kinetic, and everyone will do their part in a mobilization as profound but far more transparent than anything the greatest generation pulled off.

We are just beginning to see the winning strategy emerge, and it will be grander than anything enunciated--much less pursued--before.

It's cool to live in a home you design. It's cool to live in a world you make resilient.

It's amazing that in a time when so many feel powerlessness, real power is lying all around, just waiting for you to pick it up and wield it.

Coming in from the cold

ARTICLE:
U.S. READY TO UPGRADE TIES WITH LIBYA, Middle East Newsline

Another reader writes in to say:

>Moving strongly into Africa... I notice oil and gas exploration (with plenty of 'gushers' found) is exploding all over N. Africa and E. Africa as well as the telecommunications and the services industries. Libya, Egypt, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya...

I am teaching a current events class tonight for CAP-USAF Aux. Cadets: "East Africa's Path to Peace and Prosperity - Jobs, FDI, Connectivity, Security!" Its gonna be a blast!

I have done this type of class twice now. The Cadets perk up and get involved (even hours later they show up with thought or question after question), the parents and Senior officers slide in, participate and suggest topics for future classes. It's all based on looking at current events from the PNM point of view, simple, verifiable and believable. As a suggestion, if you were to write a "A Guide to Current Events Analysis - The Use of Horizontal Thinking" as a High School level textbook, you would create an entire new mind set in our younger people. I know you are strongly focused on the powers that be and soon will be, but a generational shift not impossible and without help - these kids are VERY confused about world affairs. Today's media and political parties, etc, do a wonderful job of keeping the kids ignorant and confused.

Tom says:

More good indication of the utility of Vol. III, which definitely will be a guide to horizontal thinking.

SysAdmin money to be made

ARTICLE: Spartan Buys Factories for Army Trucks, AP

Tom forwarded this commentary from a reader:

This is a company I have watched for over 10 years. I first found them when I was getting my Masters in a class to try to predict a 5 and 10 year investment outlook. Unfortunately, I never invested in them.

What Spartan does is make large truck type frames for fire trucks and motor homes (my interest back in the 90's was Boomers buying motor homes as they retire).

What we are seeing right now is a company rapidly expanding into the defense/peacekeeper market making the truck frames for bomb resistant trucks.

I think this fits your pattern of many new ways to make money from the SysAdmin role in old fashioned, hard, manufacturing industries.

The Big Bang's slow burn in the Middle East

ARTICLE: "The New Frontier: Mideast; Stocks in Persian Gulf Outpace Other Markets," by Joana Slater, Wall Street Journal, 4 April 2007, p. C1.

ARTICLE: "For Saudi Women, A Whiff of Change," by Karen Elliot House, Wall Street Journal, 7-8 April 2007, p. A1.

Watching Wall Street get more interested in "frontier markets" (I love that term) is really interesting. Most of these do not appear in global indices (good indicator of Gap-dom), but the overall trend is clear: greater transparency in local companies and more opportunities for foreigners to invest.

Big hold-up is Saudis keep foreign investment out of their companies. In general, the states there keep you out of the sacred energy sectors, so it's the other stuff that is opening up (banks, property, telecom--all nice infrastructure/connectivity-enhancing stuff).

Best recent sign? The Dutch-tulips-like bubble came and went and seems reasonably processed.

Even in Saudi Arabia, though, we find slim signs of progress. Despite being unable to drive, women are now being let into law school.

Little steps from big players, bigger steps from smaller players.

Connections to the Big Bang? Don't underestimate the sense of urgency created, or that feeling that things must change this time around or else.

Horizontal thinking leads to optimism

ARTICLE: Gulf states judged most competitive, Al Jazeera

The optimistic scenario on the Middle East is that the smaller, smarter, more agile Gulf states see the writing on the wall and use the windfall this time around to set themselves up for far more than just a continued role in energy in the global economy.

The lead geese role may always seem marginal at first, then you remember Singapore and Hong Kong in Asia and you realize that big change can come in small packages.

Also, you can say this is just resource-driven stuff within the region and you'd be right. But back off a bit and realize the demand connection to Asia, remember the rising east-east financial flows and Asia's rising commodities interest in Africa, and then things like Dubai looking to become a player in African ports looks a whole lot more interesting.

Think horizontally, see the connections, recognize the progress staring you in the face.

Horizontal thinking gets you optimism, not the other way around.

Thanks to Tyler Durden for sending this.

The 2nd Disc on "State of the World"

Spent day writing 6500-word blog post for Esquire's site to accompany "The State of the World" piece.

Sending it off now to New York.

Not sure how long it will take them to post.

When it's up I or Sean will note here and link.

I gave three comments per each of the 16 segments, plus the title page, plus that cover!: a deconstruction, a "how it holds up" bit, and a "looking further ahead" to wrap it up.

Owed such an effort to Warren on this one, because Esquire finally upped my take for an essay of this sort.

A better post ...

POST: Dutch Soldiers Implement Sys Admin Approach

by Steve on the Chivers/ Dutch PKO story in the NYT than I mustered previously.

A virtuous cycle brewing on Asian trade

ARTICLE: "U.S.-Korea Trade Deal Still Faces Hurdles," by Evan Ramstad, Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2007, p. A2.

ARTICLE: "China Plans a U.S. Spending Spree," by J.R. Wu, Stephen Yang, Zhou Yang, Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2007, p. A8.

As always happens when multilat deals slow down or stall, bilats flourish. Bilats seem to flourish in good economic times, whereas countries are more willing to place the bigger bets called for by multilats during hard economic times.

Since we're in good economic times, we're seeing the best friends cut the most logical deals. Not wild stuff, and yet very good stuff.

The proposed trade pact between the U.S. and Korea will be the biggest one since NAFTA in terms of volume.

The big thing, though, is that the deal will be perceived as giving Korea a leg up on trade with the U.S., creating competitive pressures throughout the region for others. Furthermore, like with any deal, it serves to set the terms for similar deals, so the demonstration effect can be huge.

In short, no one wants to be left behind with a market like the United States, so you see countries like China do whatever it takes to keep the customer happy. Trade deficit getting too big? Promise to go on a spending spree buying U.S. stuff.

Something like the Korean-U.S. deal could drive a lot of harmonization in Asia. If everyone, over time, falls in line with that rule set, then every nation's rule set in Asia gets further in line with one another, making a multilat deal more possible. Since the U.S. would be the harmonizing element, we're setting ourselves up not to be shut out of an ASEAN-plus process that, in previous years, was starting to look like a keep-America-out effort, so Bush striking this deal now is a big deal, assuming he can sell it to a Congress that's feeling fairly protectionist right now (watch the anger over Korea banning U.S. beef (mad cow scare)).

Still, you take progress where you can get it when the global economy is booming. Since the fear factor is low right now on lost trade (meaning protectionism is more easily indulged), political capital must be spent.

Hear and watch Tom at Pop!Tech

Man, I've been waiting for this for 6 months! The Pop!Tech talks are finally up.

Here are the links to the .mp3 (audio) and .mov (video and audio) files. Right click on the links in the previous sentence and save to your computer. Then listen/watch.

There are, of course, many other worthy speakers on that page.

Enjoy!

Nice angle off Halle Berry

May issue of Esquire just hitting stands. Halle on the cover, me just off her left hip.

As product placement goes, hard to complain.

Tom Chiarella does a very funny backwards interview with Berry (like many men, I've never quite gotten over "Monster's Ball"), in which she asks him what it's like writing for Esquire and working in Indiana.

Clearly, I'm working the wrong beat.

Speaking of which, I will blog a bit on Esquire's site in the next 48 to update the piece a bit (remember the first draft was written a while back and events do move, don't they?). Actually, I think the piece remains amazingly on target, so my post will be more an extension than updating.

Finally, A.J. Jacobs' obits on the last page are stunningly hilarious, especially the one on American "hegemony."

Esquire, to me, has never seemed stronger, as evidenced by 7 National Magazine Award noms announced recently, to include one for feature writing by Enterra Solutions employee and fellow "contributing editor" (Enterra now boasts two) Brian Mockenhaupt. After Brian's great profile of Steve DeAngelis in December, I talked Steve into hiring Brian to help tell Enterra's story in words.

DiB, China-style

ARTICLE: China's ZTE To Build Massive Wi-Fi Network For Mexico City, By W. David Gardner, InformationWeek, April 3, 2007

A little development-in-a-box from China.

Guess what kind of incumbency that creates for both the firm and Beijing?

Thanks to Andrew Fong for sending this.

Tom around the web

+ Opposed Systems Design linked Violence is decreasing per capita.
+ House of Chin linked No big surprise on Iranian hostages.
+ Red Hill Kudzu linked Tom's take on the ADN article.
+ MountainRunner linked Best take on U.S. tariffs against China saying 'Barnett is a great filter for stories on China from the financial press'.
+ Dreaming 5GW linked On second thought ....
+ A Wisconsin Librarian linked The side I've always been on.
+ Field Notes linked Those who protest Nixon's trip to China...
+ Phil Windley also linked Those who protest Nixon's trip to China..., along with Plant the flag and give 'em the vector and Economic freedom trumps political freedom.
+ In Search of 2nd Tier points to Tom as an important resource on nation building and links the Brief on YouTube.
+ Strategicboard picked up Self-inflicted strategic wound for its WaPo link.
+ ZenPundit linked Q&A.
+ ka1ogm linked Beyond lies in American food aid: the dead bodies.
+ Soob finished BFA and intended to compare it to A Coming Anarchy...

More later...

The correction is coming! The correction is coming!

COMMENTARY: "Words That Sow Fear: The 'war on terror' has undermined America," by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 2-8 April 2007, p. 25.

Brezinski really dislikes Bush, and that's okay.

Bush and Co. have definitely gone overboard on the fear factor in response to 9/11.

As I wrote in BFA, the "Dirty Harry" period was normal, but we have to move beyond it. And as I wrote in PNM, the "silly season" on terror is likewise a natural phase we go through.

In both instances, Bush's second term extends the learning curve. By that I mean it delays the natural swap-out and rule-set reset that comes with a new administration born from some extensive national debate connected to an election.

That debate now ensues, and I guarantee you, whoever gets in next will promote a far less rigid climate of fear (except maybe McCain) simply because that'll be part of their sales job in getting your vote ("Life will be better under me!").

I understand Brzezinski's critique and I agree, except--much like the climate of fear itself--I think he goes overboard.

America has very little going-overboard activity going on that can't be explained by the simple fact that our ever-increasingly connected lives/economies demand it. Yes, there are many high-profile spots on the upper East Coast (where Zbig and his types live) where you can see all the extra precautions and feel all the jacking-up, but that's a tiny slice of America outside of its oversized mass media footprint.

Terrorists aren't running anything. We have a few more drills on air travel and new regs sprinkled across our lives, but most of those changes are transparent to 99 percent of us, impacting us very little.

My point? Brzezinski over-reaches here himself on fear-selling and he's engaging in the mistake common to so many strategists right now: extrapolating the future of everything from the historical blip that will be the Bush administration.

All I can say is, Help is on the way!

So lighten up a bit ....

A glimpse of things not to come--in China

ARTICLE: "China Reconsiders Fairness Of 'Transplant Tourism': Foreigners Pay More For Scarce Organs; Israelis Debate Reform," by Andrew Batson and Shai Oster, Wall Street Journal, 6 April 2007, p. A1.

To me, this is a shift we'll see time and time again in China: what was just fine during the initial expansion and accessing of foriegn financing becomes no longer fine as China's internal markets and consumer class and sense of pride and ambition and entitlement grow.

You'll see it in adoptions.

You'll see it in FDI.

You'll see it in M&A.

You'll see it in international organ transplants.

Yesterday it's "be my guest" and "name your price" and "we welcome you," but soon it's "these are for Chinese first" and "we have to think of our own market/people" and "these aren't for sale."

A natural evolution signalling China's ever-deepening accession into the Core and the growing maturation of its domestic markets.

China will need its own organs/babies/companies, thank you very much, and the slightly kow-towing/sleazy/uncomfortable nature of past interactions will abate.

But all these shifts are indicative of China's rising, and they all demonstrate why the alliance I seek has a "don't sell beyond" date stamped on it, and the stamp belongs to China--not us.

Tom's column this week

Most important American ally you've never heard of

Name this country if you can:

1) Europe's largest NATO military force.

2) Loyal member of that alliance for over 50 years.

3) Booming economy, currently 17th largest in the world.

4) Fiercely secular political system.

5) Population more than 99 percent Muslim.

Read on at KnoxNews
Read on at Scripps Howard

Beyond lies in American food aid: the dead bodies

ARTICLE: "As Africa Hungers, U.S. Policy Slows the Delivery of Food Aid," by Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, 7 April 2007, p. A1.

I've written before about this Congress-protected iron triangle of food producers, food transporters and aid groups.

This story just makes you want to scream at the greed of it all.

For two years Bush and Co. try to change this insane law that says only food grown by Americans and shipped by American vessels with American crews and distributed by American charities can be used for foreign food aid.

So despite the people going hungry right now in Zambia and USAID being more than happy to buy food aid locally--as in, right in Zambia when the harvest was bountiful this year--USAID cannot do so because of this law.

Also because of this law, our food aid will likely be held up in terms of delivery for as long as six months. So people will die needlessly, according to Oxfam. Maybe 50,000 in the next half year alone.

The Bush administration says American taxpayers could feed an additional million more Africans if Congress just changes this idiotic law.

But Bush's efforts to change the law the last two years were thwarted quietly by Congress and the iron triangle's lobbyists.

Tom Lantos is a key villian, calling any attempt to change the law "beyond insane," because it will kill domestic support for food aid by harming our farmers.

Move beyond your lies, Mr. Lantos.

James Kunder, acting USAID deputy is quoted in the piece as saying less than one-half of one percent of US ag exports would be affected by the law being changed.

Sound like it might be worth it to feed one milliion and prevent 50k deaths in Africa in the next six months?

And don't even get me started on how this insane law retards agricultural markets in Africa and ensures steady death tolls over the years.

Guess who gets to die first, Mr. Lantos? The orphans of AIDS victims.

Please, somebody get Willie Nelson to wail on that one.

This is Lantos and others caving in to lobbying from Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Bunge and Cal Western, which sell "more than half the $2.2 billion in food for Food for Peace, the largest food aid program, and two smaller programs," according to USDA.

Bush should go on national TV to shame Lantos and his fat-cat ag biz allies and the greedy American shipping companies and the scummy nonprofit aid groups who are all in cahoots on this moneymaker.

This is all so amazingly dishonest and immoral, it just makes me sick.

And the bit about support for food aid withering from lack of support if this iron triangle isn't served is really indefensible.

Lantos should be ashamed of himself. He needs to go on this basis alone. He's been in for so long he can peddle crap like this and still get touted by DC types as some great man on foreign policy.

Because if Lantos was half the leader he imagines himself to be, he'd both change the law and boost Congressional support for such rapid-fire response aid.

But Lantos doesn't because he's more interested in credit than actually saving lives.

And I find that shameful indeed.