A SysAdmin contract to die for, if you're not careful ...

Here's the editorial in the NYT today noting this amazing USAID contract offering:

December 3, 2005

Editorial

Iraq Fixer, No Exp. Needed, $1B-up

Anyone who caught a glimpse of President Bush's speech on Iraq this week - delivered from an elaborately decorated stage confidently plastered with "Plan for Victory" placards - may have thought the administration believes that a detailed victory plan is in place. But there's still work to be done, especially if you're in the business of blue-sky consulting.

As the president's speech was being headlined, a far quieter government announcement from the Agency for International Development, the main pipeline for Iraq reconstruction, was offering a $1-billion-plus opportunity for interested parties to dream up "design and implementation" plans for stabilizing 10 "Strategic Cities" considered "critical to the defeat of the Insurgency in Iraq" . . .

Go here for the rest: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/opinion/03sat2.html.

Not a good sign this deep in the process, but reflective of a growing U.S. Government realization of the need for what I call the Development-in-a-Box process.

The templating, as Enterra likes to say, is just beginning.

But the government needs to be real on this: just hiring some firm to try and nail this all on its own is a bit too monolithic. We need the matrix, as Steve DeAngelis likes to say. We need marketplace competition and the culling of best practices. We have a host of different NATO countries leading the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, bringing a variety of approaches. In that marketplace, the best practices can be derived and templated for future use. That's more matrix-like, but hiring one big firm to do it all? Sounds scary and rife for abuse. Even ten firms at $100m each is hard to imagine, but that's at least spreading the risk some.

A process that bears watching, but good to see the attempt and the strategic realization behind it.

I came, I spoke, I interviewed

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 2 December 2005

Three-day whirlwind consumed my week.

Flew Tuesday morning into BWI, grabbed a car, and high-tailed it to the McLean Hilton to give a luncheon keynote to a sizeable conference of senior players on the Reserve Component (Guard and Reserves), so a ballroom full of officers and Pentagon officials. Seemed to go well, with lots of good contacts made afterwards. Met many who said they read PNM but had no idea that a sequel was already out, so that made me feel optimistic on there being so many more books to sell through appearances.

Then I raced into Pentagon to meet up with Steve DeAngelis. We delivered a bunch of BFA hardcovers at a follow-up meeting with an office with whom we're working on a research collaboration that should be really fantastic, as in, generating important new rule sets for how we wage both war and peace.

Then I do a bit of shopping in Pentagon City Mall, then off to a dinner arranged by the national security people at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The meal was a get-acquainted session for a cast of characters (some old, some new, some borrowed, and even a Democrat or two!) being brought together for a significant and persistent (meaning, long-lasting) visioneering process. This is part of my new work and impending set of new titles with Oak Ridge, and I'm very excited about that. The talent that place offers . . . it's like being a kid in a candy store. You can tackle some serious problems with that talent pool, and I look forward to that. Oak Ridge is a place where I really want to set in motion some innovative thought on that Development-in-a-Box concept.

Tuesday was a killer: up at five and in my hotel room at 11pm. So blitzed I walk out of the room the next morning without my bite guard. Small piece of acrylic, but quite a hit to my pocketbook.

Wednesday it's a 0700 breakfast meeting between myself, Steve DeAngelis and a couple of seniors from Oak Ridge to finalize some aspects of the growing collaboration we've set in motion between Enterra Solutions and the lab. We all have the feeling we're going to do some great stuff and make some real history in this partnership.

Then Steve and I run off to a meeting with someone in the intelligence community: another line of cutting-edge work that we're setting in motion.

Then we dash off to a lunch with someone from the Department of Homeland Security, followed immediately by a meeting with another senior there (a part of the Reagan Building I'd never been to before).

At that point I'm blitzed by the pace. Watching Steve go full tilt across a day like that is amazing. The guy is so disciplined, you can see why he was such a strong political operative in campaigns in his younger days. Compared to me, his content never wanders.

I get my wires crossed with a planned dinner later that night, but it's all for the best, as I needed to do some serious daddying over the phone that night, plus I got in a load of good lap swimming at a Holiday Inn Express off 95. Forgot my swimming trunks, but when I saw the empty pool, I risked going at it in my pearly black Perry Ellis cling-on boxers, which, if you don't look too close, look like my Australian swim shorts. I know, I know, I'll go to hell for that (DeAngelis dared me to blog this part the next day), but it was flippin' sweet, as Napolean Dynamite likes to say.

Posted some story blogs, then collapsed for the night around 1 am.

Thursday I put my Esquire hat back on, as sped down to Quantico to receive four briefs where I asked a lot of questions. Some fascinating stuff that's going to make for a great story come the March issue. The day ended with an interview with the commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, a 3-star by the name of Jim Mattis. I interviewed this legend-in-the-making last spring for the Rumsfeld piece (didn't really fit, but I really wanted to meet him). He's very well read and articulate and about as charming and unaffected as they come for someone who's known as the hardest of chargers on the battlefield, so, naturally, he's a lot of fun to interview.

Day done, I race back to Reagan, drop off the car, and just make the 4:20 flight back to Indy, spending the flight editing the digital files of my interviews so I had them in small enough bits to email to Esquire for transcription. All in all, I almost got enough on this Day One to do the piece, but there are still three more command visits to come, two where I've gone before, but one where I've never been but always wanted to go.

But that's next week trips ...

Today lost to servicing one car, then Vonne Mei to the doc's, then me to the pharmacy, then me to the dentist (fitted for new bite guard), then run Jerry to school, then clean out the wife's car, then emailing all the files to Esquire, a bit of blogging, pick up the kids at school, then tour the house (upstairs totally plastered, first floor almost totally plastered, and basement totally drywalled-stunning to see all the change), then help fix dinner, then drive Kevin to his tutoring, then day is done and a glass of single-malt awaits (and no, I never get tired of watching Sponge Bob Square Paints DVDs with my kids-pure genius!).

Now to write the family Xmas card letter before the missus beats me with one of my Dad's golf clubs ...

Iraq: The same page was always there, now just more people are on it

■"Bush Gives Plan For Iraq Victory And Withdrawal: No 'Artificial' Deadlines; Strategy Loosely Follows Methods the U.S. Has Used in Afghanistan," by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 1 December 2005, p. A1.

■"Plan: We Win," editorial, New York Times, 1 December 2005, p. A34.

■"'Complete Victory': A strategy beyond 'staying the course' in Iraq" editorial, Wall Street Journal, 1 December 2005, p. A14.

■"For Once, President and His Generals See the Same War: Agreeing that the war is winnable, and also on the plan to win," by John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins, New York Times, 1 December 2005, p. A18.

■"U.S. Directive Prioritizes Post-Conflict Stability," by Bradley Graham, Washington Post, 1 December 2005, p. A21.

■"'A Beacon on the Summit of the Mountain,'" op-ed by Eliot A. Cohen, Wall Street Journal, 30 November 2005, p. A18.

Bush gives his more sober rendering of the won war, the botched peace, and a rationale definition "victory" leading to "withdrawal," which, quite honestly, just means lower numbers and most of those numbers behind the wire in camps. In short, it's the plan to finally reduce the number of U.S. casualties.

With this statement, Bush and the his advisers finally catch up to the military, which, once let loose from the idiotic search for WMD in the spring of 2004, began slowly but surely putting together the package that'll let us start to achieve "victory," which means, again, far fewer casualties and fewer troops in theater: we close the borders, we clean the bad nests, and we work up the Iraqi forces to deal with the remainders over the long haul, allowing our guys to retreat to the camps, as in, out of sight, out of mind, and off the front pages, which is how we worked our high frequency stuff across the vast majority of the 90s (e.g., low casualties mean the freedom to work the environment as much as you want).

I saw the speech as a big nothing, really, just a synching of Bush's rhetoric with the reality I've seen all around in my work with military commands like SOCOM (Special Operations Command) and CENTCOM (Central Command) and JFCOM (Joint Forces Command). Exciting and a big step forward for those who worry that the political leaders have grown excessively out of step with the military's judgment, but frankly, inside the defense community, few people I know had any other view of the conflict.

Of course, the NYT sees nothing new because they hate Bush so much, and the WSJ is very approving, because they like to see Bush all caught up to reality, but the NYT story by Burns and Filkins nailed it completely: Bush just made it explicit that he now views the war the same way as his generals do.

The gut-check practicality time that David Brooks talked about months ago has finally happened for the White House, at least in a public sense. Many could and will argue that it was there all along, just that Bush and his crew seemed loath to give a rat's ass about public perceptions.

That, apparently, has changed, but the underlying reality has not, nor has the strategy, which, again, came into being more than a year ago once the myopic focus on WMD was abandoned and we got more serious about training the Iraqis.

Now, if we could only get more realistic on economic reconstruction in Iraq, like we did long ago in Afghanistan, where Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) from a host of NATO countries have divvied up the country, allowing each donor nation to self-select provinces on the basis of their self-perceived skill sets best brought to bear on the problems.

You look at Dayton ten years later, you look at Afghanistan, you look even just at the Kurdish provinces and you have to say: this can be done and done reasonably well. We just haven't gotten comprehensively serious about templating (or best-practicing) that development-in-a-box concept I find myself talking about more and more: that ultimate post-whatever push package that meshes security, civilian infrastructure outsourcing (Steve DeAngelis' term), and both top-down institution building and bottom-up social engineering (e.g., central bank from above, private entrepreneurial spirit from below).

That's the win package. That's the ultimate victory package: build the market and pluralism will come.

So now we see the Pentagon officially declare that postconflict stabilization will be as important as warfighting, and we'll plan accordingly.

Some experts are disappointed that we don't create dedicated constabulary units, but this misses the point: the SysAdmin function is a whole lot more than the military (as the recent OSD directive argues). Trying to turn the military into the entire SysAdmin force would be a mistake. Trying to turn America into the entire SysAdmin force would be a mistake.

As I say in BFA: done well, with enough interagency, enough civilians, and enough coalition partners (basically the entire Core), the U.S. military doesn't really have to change that much. Over time, the air and sea forces naturally continue to specialize more heavily in the Leviathan's work, while ground forces are inevitably drawn into more SysAdmin work.

It's the function, not the force, that's ultimately split from warfighting. It becomes the off-season that obviates playing war by the old rules. We win more and more without firing a shot.

When we get confident enough in that function, we'll see that Department of Everything Else come into being, and the Department of War (Defense) will recede, becoming ever less important in the preservation of international stability.

A dream to some, a very clear vision and inevitable progression to me.

As I also say in BFA (and as I was reminded by my Chinese friends): the only logical vision is a mix of realism and idealism. Cohen nails it on the head. It's the veering back and forth that hurts. The key is to keep our eyes on the prize: globalization's expansion. Those elements that support that process in their countries and elsewhere: those are our friends and allies, no questions asked. That's realism. Those elements that oppose that process in their countries and elsewhere: those are our enemies and targets, no question asked. That's also realism.

The idealism comes in believing we owe history and the Gap to be consistent in that realism.

"Soon we must all make the choice between what is right and what is easy," so sayeth the realist-idealist Albus Dumbledore.

Happy child, happy genius

■"Lord of the Flicks: Director of 'Rings' Triology Is A Superpower in Hollywood, A Town He Abhors, Avoids," by Kate Kelly, Wall Street Journal, 2 December 2005, p. B1.

I cite this story just for the quote from actor Jack Black:

Ö actor Jack Black, recalling how Mr. Jackson grabbed a tommy gun and ran around in an exaggerated childlike way to prepare the "Kong" actors for a scene, says the director has maintained a starry-eyed approach to his work. "He decided somewhere along the line in his career to only do things that were interesting to him as a kid," says Mr. Black, "and this was no exception. It was sort of genius."

I agree completely. Every time I've veered from stuff or activities that fascinated me as a child, I get unhappy in my work. Whenever I stay deeply immersed in such stuff, it doesn't even feel like work.

It's a great, self-calibrating notion. Makes intuitive sense the minute you read it.

Saudi women: when connected to the outside world, no real differences found

■"'Oprah' Is Attracting Young, Female Viewers To TV in Saudi Arabia," by Yasmine El-Rashidi, Wall Street Journal, 1 December 2005, p. B1.

When Karen Hughes showed up in the kingdom with her public diplomacy a while back, a bunch of hand-picked professional Saudi women gave her what for on their alleged lack of opportunity. Of course, they were the cream of the crop, and despite being that they nonetheless lack the right to vote, drive cars, and a host of other things that women in the West take for granted. Sure, there are a host of feminized positions in Saudi Arabia's economy that they are allowed to pursue as professions, but they remain essentially minors politically and socially.

We are told they like it that way (and Hughes was told much the same) because they view life and the world differently than women over here per se.

And yet, given the connectivity of having Oprah's show broadcast in the kingdom, lo and behold we discover that young women are pulled into her orbit by droves. Why? She talks about all sorts of stuff they want to talk about but that aren't freely and openly discussed in that society.

Here's the kicker: "almost a third of Saudi Arabia's population of 26 million is women under the age of 25 years old." And guess what? This "group of women commonly perceived as sheltered and conservative was actually identifying with the same issues as women around the world."

We get this notion, and it's real, all the time about generations in the Middle East: that the young men are more conservative than older men.

This is true, by and large, because young men see radical Islam as a way out of the stultifying corruption and decay of authoritarian rule throughout the region.

But for women, the opposite, I will argue, is largely true. Few of them will escape much if radical Islamists take over: they will simply trade one form of oppression for another very similar. Here, I think we find that younger women will tend to be far more open to perceived Westernization.

And along those lines, Oprah will be a killer!

I have said it before and I say it again: to put it crudely, expanding globalization is mostly about liberating women and, when necessary, killing the young men who stand in the way of that process.

If Oprah can do it peacefully, then more power to her. Same argument I offer on hip hop in BFA.

Blueprint for Action hits #4 on December Foreign Affairs Bestseller List

Feels pretty good. Amazon's not much of a proxy measure when there are books in the stores. This list is pure Barnes and Noble.

We'll see how many more months it can stay on, but nice that it moved up, behind only 3 books with far more publicity (and actual reviews in major pubs!).

Here's the list:

1) The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (number 1 last month, 8 months on list)

2) The Assassins' Gate by George Packer (2 last month, 2 months on list)

3) Collapse by Jared Diamond (4 last month, 11 months on list)

4) Blueprint for Action by Thomas P. M. Barnett (5 last month, 2 months on list)

5) The Next Attack by Daniel Benjamin & Steven Simon (new, 1st month on list)

6) Imperial Grunts by Robert D. Kaplan (3 last month, 3 months on list)

7) The Great War for Civilisation by Robert Fisk (new, 1st month on list)

8) China, Inc. by Ted C. Fishman (8 last month, 10 months on list)

9) The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin M. Friedman (12 last month, 2 months on list)

10) Postwar by Tony Judt (7 last month, 2 months on list)

11) Illicit by MoisÈs NaÌm (new, 1st month on list)

12) Future Jihad by Walid Phares (new, 1st month on list)

13) 9/11 Commission Report by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (10 last month, 15 months on list)

14) Lawless World by Philippe Sands (new, 1st month on list)

15) Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid (6 last month, 3 months on list)

Go here for the complete list: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/book/bestsellers