Tom in the Pro Jo

ARTICLE: Disappointed for different reasons, By Mark Arsenault, Providence Journal, December 7, 2006

Tom's old hometown newspaper quoted him on the ISG report. His parts:

War protester Stephany Kern, who lost her son to a car bomb in Iraq, laments the lack of "quick action" in the Iraq Study Group's recommendations, which were made public yesterday after weeks of speculation and leaks.

On the far other end of American politics, military strategist and author Thomas Barnett — a former professor at the Naval War College in Newport who penned articles advocating a war with Iraq — dismissed the recommendations as "not too bold."

Their politics could not be further apart, yet in interviews yesterday the protester and the military consultant agreed that the Iraq Study Group offered less than the hype would have suggested.

Actually, their politics COULD be further apart, but we'll give him a pass on that one ;-)

Barnett is the author of The Pentagon's New Map, and worked after the 9/11 attacks in the secretary of defense's Office of Force Transformation. Before the Iraq war, Barnett wrote articles in support of overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The study group proposals are "not too bold," Barnett said. "The whole thing is getting a lot more positive press than the proposal would justify in my mind."

The diplomacy component of the recommendations includes direct talks with Iran and Syria, "which [President] Bush has already said he won't do," Barnett said. And the troop withdrawal proposals are "far enough into the future to be almost a non-deadline.

"And they're advocating something that has already begun inside the U.S. effort there, which is to put more people into embedded advisory roles within the Iraqi military. Nothing that they proposed, given the Bush administration's unwillingness to deal directly with Iran or Syria, is going to dramatically improve the situation. To me it's not the salvation it's being presented as in the press, and it has not justified the anticipation."

What should happen?

"I think we should have a regional security dialogue to put the Iraq situation and Israel and Palestine into a larger discussion," he said.

"I think it's crucial we accept the fact that because of our failures inside of Iraq, Syria and Iran are off the hook for now," he said. "Any change is not on the agenda. And we're going to have to pay a fairly steep price with Iran [for help with Iraq], which this administration is simply not willing to do. We'd have to back off on Iran's nuclear development question, and basically make enough of a security guarantee that we're not going after the regime. And then we'll have to accept that their definition of help in Iraq is not going to be making Iraq the place we want it to be, but making Iraq the place they want it to be.

"That's the price for getting somebody else to take ownership of your problem, which we've so far screwed up because we didn't take advantage in the first year after the war to accomplish what needed to be accomplished."

Barnett predicts the administration will approach Iraq "like doing Vietnam backwards," he said. In Vietnam, "we started with an advisory role and went to direct action. Here, we started with direct action and we're going to go to advisory."

Put your cards on the table

ARTICLE: From Victory to Success: Can Iran and the United States Bridge the Gulf?, By George Perkovich, Foreign Policy

I went through Harvard's Russian Research Center's MA program with George, one of the most intensely thoughtful guys I've ever met (plus a very nice guy). He's made a career since in studying nuclear proliferation in the Indian Ocean rimlands, so he's to be taken seriously.

This is a short, mind-expanding piece, but well worth reading.

My favorite bit: Tehran and Washington are the two most despised and disruptive forces in the Gulf region right now, so getting the intentions of each more out in the open would be an end to itself.

Very sensible stuff, very coolly delivered.

Where's Gates on China?

POST: What to Expect from Bob Gates, By Blake Hounshell, Carolyn O'Hara

Here's the link to the post from Foreign Policy that Tom gave a quote for. His part:

How Gates views China, says strategic planner Thomas P.M. Barnett, is “the most important question one can ask of him.” The job of the secretary of defense is to “translate policy choices into budgets,” notes Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies—and China policy plays a leading role in shaping budget and procurement choices in the United States. Taiwan has been neglecting its own defense recently, says Cordesman, even as China is growing stronger militarily and economically. Gates testified privately last week that China “seeks to integrate Taiwan peacefully if possible.” Nevertheless, he affirmed the Bush administration’s policy of maintaining “capabilities to resist China’s use of force or coercion against Taiwan.” No shift in China policy would mean “no significant shift of resources from the Big War crowd to the much-stressed Army and Marines,” says Barnett.

Good move by Maliki [updated]

ARTICLE: Iraqi Premier Moves to Plan Regional Talks, By EDWARD WONG and HELENE COOPER, New York Times, December 6, 2006

With ISG proposal out, asking for dialogue with Syria and Iran, and the Bush White House already many times on the record saying "no way," we see Maliki deciding to take the ISG's advice and--by doing so--snubbing Bush again pre-emptively.

Good move by Maliki. Establishes his independence a bit more. Logical move. Makes him seem responsive to ISG.

By doing so, Maliki further builds the momentum toward the regional accommodation so long resisted by Bush but now apparently in the works via State.

But we need to be realistic here: the likely prices demanded by Damascus and Tehran will be substantial, rendering somewhat silly any attempted good cop (State), bad cop (White House) routine. So I would expect Ahmadinejad to continue his mocking of the Bush-administration-that-cannot-quite-bring-itself-to-admit-it-is-officially-talking-to-Iran-even-as-it-opens-channels-to-negotiate-with-Iran. PR-wise, this can easily end up looking worse than simply and openly and officially talking to Tehran by making our shame self-evident.

Then again, why should such obvious security setbacks abroad and such obvious political setbacks at home dent the hubris whatsoever?

The divvying up of the Middle East begins financially

ARTICLE: “Asia Finding Rich Partners In Mideast,” by Heather Timmons, New York Times 1 December 2006, p. C1.

Fascinating bit showing how Asia’s increasing resource pull on the region is changing everything. Still our blood, but now both their oil and their petrodollar recycling.

Nothing speaks to the reordering of the global economy more than this, because it shows how the rise of the New Core has effectively shoved it between the oil-rich states and their usual target for petrodollar recycling--the Old Core West.

What was traditionally shopped around in London and New York in terms of public offerings of Chinese companies is now quite often offered up exclusively to the Saudis and other Middle Eastern investors. It starts, this relationship, at the top:

While China has long sought to cultivate closer ties with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries because of its need for oil, a tour of China, India and other Asian countries this year by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and a state visit to Riyadh by President Hu Jintao in April have done much to encourage nonoil financial transactions between the countries.

HSBC calls this new flow “east-east” transactions, or from “mid” to “far,” I say.

So now the oil-rich Middle East recycles through the New Core East and the New Core East, in turn, recycles its trade surplus with the Old Core West.

In short, we’ve been disintermediated. Not a bad thing. In fact, a rather nifty expression of the “economic reformation” dynamic I described in BFA (plus a Knoxville column way back when; plus a staple slide in my current brief) that links the “lead geese” in Islamic Asia to the local replicators in the Middle East (one thinks naturally of Qatar, starring in the role of “Singapore”).

It is estimated that the Middle East will buy upwards of $20-30 billion dollars of Asian assets next year, compared to just $3.2B of U.S. assets this year (excluding the “nefarious” private equity firms).

Quick, somebody tell Michael Moore his soda-straw view of global energy finance is now both wrong and hopelessly outdated!

What’s interesting it that this east-east stuff is actually increasing Western banks’ profile in both ends of this dyad: they want to be more present in the Middle East to get in the way of this money flow and in the Far East to do . . . well . . . the same:

… bankers who work in the Middle East and Asia say they are looking at a promising pipeline of pending mergers, and negotiations are just beginning on dozens of others.

“We’re definitely seeing a big jump in terms of deal flow between the Middle East and Asia, and Southeast Asia and China in particular,” said Georges Makhoul, president at Morgan Stanley for the Middle East and North Africa.

No secret as to why this flow picks up:

The Middle East’s oil and gas is vital for China, Japan and all the fast-growing markets in the Asia-Pacific region. And the Middle East’s capital and liquidity generated by all that oil wealth is searching for investments with high returns, rather than low-return government bonds like United States Treasury securities.

Quick! Somebody tell Tom Friedman that China is funding both sides of the war on terror!

“Yes,” says the Chinese magnate years later, “your point is both true and completely irrelevant.”

I say again, lock in China at today’s prices.

In the end, this growing connectivity between Asia and the Gap Middle East is good and welcome and inevitable. The thicker the ties, the better the connectivity.

A number of countries in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf Cooperation Council have developed an Asia strategy that looks far beyond energy trade, noted the former OPEC director of research, Adnan Shihab-Eldin, in a report prepared for an International Monetary Fund meeting in Singapore this September. Already there are several free trade agreements pending between the gulf council and China, India and other Asia countries. They are expected to be signed long before a free trade agreement between the gulf and the European Union, he said.

Trade between the Middle East and Asia more than doubled from 2000 to 2005, reaching $240 billion last year. That number reflects rising oil consumption and prices, but it also includes a tripling of exports from China, India and Pakistan to the gulf.

Asian countries, particularly China and India, have made their own strategic plans clear in the Middle East as well …

As I have said many times before, the U.S. alone cannot possibly hope to connect the Middle East to the world, even as the Big Bang strategy of shaking things up grabs most of the headlines and--yes--even pushes it a bit as our aggressive approach in the region surely drives the Chinese toward closer ties to what they consider to be the most stable regimes in the region.

So yeah, the Middle East is joining the world, and the more it interacts with Muslim emerging markets in Asia, the better the positive influence these “lead geese” have on the region’s evolution.

Israel’s getting smarter, letting Hezbollah “size” its forces

ARTICLE: “Israel revamps its training after Hezbollah conflict: General says tough fight in Lebanon showed need for improvements,” by Yaakov Katz, USA Today, 4 December 2006, p. 15A.

Started getting USA home delivered because I like it, even as former newspaper editor spouse declares it almost unreadable.

Still, I’ve learned to like it so much on the road…

Good story here on how Israel’s already learning from Lebanon’s and Hezbollah’s splendid little war-not-designed-to-be-won.

Art Cebrowski liked to say that the Sovs sized our forces (Leviathan) during the Cold War, so the logical question today is, “Who’s sizing our emerging SysAdmin force?”

One would assume the best candidate is the best operating version out there on the web today: Hezbollah.

So if Hezbollah isn’t sizing our SysAdmin function somewhat (and I use the term “sizing” very loosely here to mean a lot of things), then we just ain’t paying attention.

Israel, on the other hand, is like our Marines: too small and too often surrounded to not pay attention to everything, especially those teachable moment of loss.

Israel lost almost as many soldiers (119) as we did in Iraq during the first phase (estimated at 137). The length of each conflict was roughly the same (roughly a month).

Israel claims to have killed 500-700 Hezbollah, not that that mattered whatsoever.

Like the U.S. military, then, Israel’s military “is overhauling its training and expanding a guerrilla warfare school in response to problems the army had in fighting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon this summer.” New items include a Hezbollah-style “red unit” (opposing training force) and a new urban ops training center.

All of this is back to the future for Israel, and it’s a fairly short and familiar jaunt.

Part of the blame for this poor display? Israel’s long-term focus inside the West Bank and Gaza. Too much occupation and not enough guerrilla work, apparently, along with a growing unfamiliarity among many troops with more high-end items like tanks.

Even within a military as SysAdmin-oriented as Israel’s, spanning the breadth of skills from high-intensity to the more mundane policing is difficult. Again, the similarity to our Marines shows.

A confession

I welcome the blog's problems forcing both Sean's big clean-up (cheap bastard that I am, I don't mind him working a bit more for that Xmas bonus he's already earned!) and a down-time from posting for me.

I wanted the break and am glad all that past voluminous output finally forced.

Just needed the break, especially Enterra's trajectory offers no let-up.

That family holiday looms, and I find myself moving toward the light...

Reading more of Bill Yenne's fascinating "Indian Wars."

Great factoid:

Indian Wars participants received 426 Medals of Honor. The only wars that attracted more were the Civil War (1,522) and WWII (464).

Korea, Vietnam and WWI collectively garnered approximately 500.

More fear on display by Iran's mullahs

ARTICLE: Censorship fears rise as Iran blocks access to top websites, by Robert Tait, The Guardian, December 4, 2006

I especially like the edict forbidding queries on the nefarious IMBD, or International Movie Data Base, site of many of my wife's stunning (and quite infuriating) victories over me WRT "oh that's the same guy who played the cab driver in that Ridley Scott one with so-and-so."

Vonne's a frickin' Beautiful Mind on such things, and IMDB is where all her superiority is daily confirmed.

Is this not the sad sort of tired authoritarianism we once witnessed in the on-its-last-legs Brezhnevian USSR? I mean, really. Any doubts who wins this "Titanic" struggle?

Thanks to Michal Shapiro for sending this in.

Underdogs play 'dirty'

ARTICLE: Offering Video, Israel Answers Critics on War, By GREG MYRE, New York Times, December 5, 2006

ARTICLE: U.S. Troops in Iraq Shifting to Advisory Roles, By THOM SHANKER and EDWARD WONG, New York Times, December 5, 2006

Israel's accusation reminds me of the apochryphal conversation years after the Vietnam War where the U.S. officer brags to his Vietnamese counterpart that America never lost a battle in Vietnam and the Vietnamese equivalent agrees, noting that that fact was completely irrelevant to the war's outcome.

I mean, of course Hezbollah played "dirty." That's what underdogs do.

Recent news stories indicate Israel is rethinking tactics and training following Lebanon. This is good.

Also good to see the U.S. Army finally making the embedded advisory effort more prominent.

p2p u-loans

WEBSITE: Kiva: loans that change lives

Neat. Sort of peer-to-peer micro-loaning. Maybe not so coordinated by traditional standards, but have some faith in the wisdom of crowds--as they say.

Thanks to Peter Kay for sending this in.

See, this is what I was talking about

The Movable Type StyleCatcher plugin, which is finally working, gives me a lot more power to change the look of the weblog instantly.

Trying this one out. No comments yet. Email me (webmaster@thomaspmbarnett.com) if you have a pertinent comment ;-)

We are also testing a different look for the home (index) page which may or may not be replicated over here.

Will Gates fund the SysAdmin?

ARTICLE: U.S. Army Battling To Save Equipment: Gear Piles Up at Depots, Awaiting Repair, By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, December 5, 2006; Page A01

Today, Foreign Policy's web editor emailed for a comment on Gates (provided), and my gist was that if Gates still employs spook-speak on China, expect no serious resource shift from air to ground, from NCW to 4GW, from USAF/USN to USA/USMC/SOF, from Leviathan to SysAdmin or from Cold War to Long War.

And that's not right, given the obvious strain on our ground forces, as indicated by this story.

My weekend column, BTW, speaks exactly to this issue with the incoming SECDEF.

Weblog update

Well, that was interesting.

We maxed out our host, and everything pretty well broke. All of the posts are still there. Everything linked from the home page is there. But most of the tweaks, customizations, etc. are not there. I can re-import all of the almost 4000 posts. The comments should still be there.

Not to be too Pollyanna, but I'm actually looking forward to the comparatively blank slate. I noticed already that the StyleCatcher Plugin that I could never get to work is now working. Maybe I can jazz things up around here and even get other plugins to work.

My current plan is to hold off on opening comments back up and importing the old posts. I want to tweak some things first and figure out how they're all going to work together.

Your patience is appreciated.

Does Iran have some capacity to influence violence in Iraq?

ARTICLE: "Hezbollah Helps Iraq Shiite Army, U.S. Official Says: Iran Seen as Facilitator," by Michael R. Gordon and Dexter Filkins, New York Times, 28 November 2006, p. A1.

Here's the key quote:

Iran is the one country standing between Bush and peace in the Middle East. Bush can't solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without its say-so, because the mullahs are the biggest potential spoilers in the region. They fund the terrorist groups that can effectively veto peace efforts in both Jerusalem and Baghdad. Iran is the one regional power that can still menace the Gulf militarily. Everyone else there operates in Tehran's shadows

Nah, just kidding. That's from my Feb "Mr. President" piece in Esquire in 2005.

China's "Florida" for its "Cuba"

ARTICLE: "Fujian: Digging for victory; A Chinese province woos Taiwan for the sake of its own economy," The Economist, 25 November 2006, p. 39.

Interesting article on new "Economic Zone on the West Coast of the Strait," aka Fujian province, poor step-child of China's boom. Plying ancestral and linguistic ties, Fujian hopes to attract the implied "East Coast's" investments, which have typically bypassed it for more northern provinces.

You can try a little tenderness, or you can buy a little tenderness...

Odds and ends

DATELINE: US Airways flight from Reagan to Indy, 30 November 2006

Blur of two days.

Up very early Wednesday for one-way rental drive to Oak Ridge and great meeting with Steve DeAngelis and Shane Deichman and number of senior Lab officials to discuss future collaborations. ORNL is amazingly talented at getting federal money because they've got such a super reputation for on-time and under-budget work. What we're cooking up next will make the Esquire storyline seem small in comparison, not that the December issue didn't attract some serious attention from players in NYC...

But that's another trip.

Then a flight to DC, where I veg out at hotel, blogging as best I could.

Then this morn I'm up for 90-min brief at GAO's HQ, where I've never been before, to three defense/int'l security units totaling over 100 people. Great crowd, good interaction, solid questions.

Then to McLean for afternoon with Native Alaskan-owned IT firm that's found itself improbably wiring up the Green Zone and the Iraqi gov these past three-plus years. Solid 2 hours with them on brief and Q&A. Definitely see good possibilities there.

Then check voicemail from "Kudlow & Co.," but got it too late to accept invite, meaning I called back at 1500 and they had booked up already. Too bad because I was plenty warm.

Nice email from Sean showing that last weekend's column on Dems picked up more than any to date, with many of the pubs being ones that now plug me in each week, so that seems to be going well enough.

Also finalizing deal right now on piece for Fast Company that should be a lot of fun. That's a spin-off from Pop!Tech. Will write week after next, methinks.

Jenn, my colleague and master of my sked, says she's combining the Alaska university junket with the Hawaii trip for the international special ops conference. The Alaska university hosts don't want me coming in February, as they worry the weather will be too iffy (already 21 below in some places). That will be a more interesting trip now, getting HI and AK in the same journey!

Also landed invite for return address to student body at Leavenworth next fall, which is gratifying. Hoping Petraeus will still be there.

Story blurb catches my eye in USA Today: in written responses to senators ("Gates to push for postwar planning"), SECDEF nominee promises "to improve the department's capabilities in this area."

Very nice to hear that Gates has both an agenda and some real ambition for his two years. If aggressive, he can still accomplish a lot. Nothing like the tail-end of a second term to load up on bureaucratic changes. Seriously, I see it happening.

Last bit from David Gallula's classic (published by old Harvard haunt, the Center for International Affairs, where Kissinger and Brzezinski both cut their academic teeth), Counterinsurgency Warfare (a book Petraeus makes everyone at Leavenworth read), where one is reminded that the Chinese communists originally devised the calculation that "revolutionary war is 20 per cent military action and 80 per cent political."

Here's the best part from Gallula himself:

It seems natural that the counterinsurgent's forces should be organized into two types of units, the mobile ones fighting in a rather conventional fashion, and the static ones staying with the population in order to protect it and to supplement the political efforts.

What bifurcated force concept does that sound like to you?

So even with the classic COIN volume, the Leviathan-SysAdmin logic surfaces.

If Gallula is mainstream, then how far off can I be?