America and the ICC

OP-ED: A Court for a New America, By ROGER COHEN, New York Times, December 3, 2008

Good op-ed by Cohen. Obviously, well covered in Great Powers, given the importance and symbolism and what it says about the Bush-Cheney years. A much-needed realignment to follow.

(Thanks: Dan Hare)

Yet another important brick in the SysAdmin wall

ARTICLE: U.S. to Raise 'Irregular War' Capabilities, By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, December 4, 2008; Page A04

First para says it all:

The Pentagon this week approved a major policy directive that elevates the military's mission of "irregular warfare" -- the increasingly prevalent campaigns to battle insurgents and terrorists, often with foreign partners and sometimes clandestinely -- to an equal footing with traditional combat.

Another example of the impact of Gates, who is described as having "lobbied outspokenly" (odd construction) for the new policy. It's why I was so eager to see him stay another year or two, because I see the lock-in on things like this being so much more profound on that basis.

Naval gazing

PAPER: From Preponderance to Partnership: American Maritime Power in the 21st Century, By Frank Hoffman, Center for a New American Security, November 2008

Good and thoughtful paper from Frank Hoffman, who is always intriguing and a lot of fun personally. It is nice to see ... From the Sea get the credit it deserves. That was my desire in putting it into PNM.

Definitely worth perusing. Mullen's vision is most excellent and is well interpreted here by Frank.

(Thanks: Galrahn)

Core crisis upside

ARTICLE: World Leaders Agree to Seek Major Reform, By Glenn Kessler and Anthony Faiola, Washington Post, November 16, 2008; Page A01

Expected and logical and most welcome.

One of the serious benefits of a crisis like this is that the New Core is forced to argue for its rights--and thus incur its responsibilities--more.

(Thanks: Keir Lauritzen)

New financial kosher

ARTICLE: Islamic Finance May Be On to Something, By Frederik Balfour Frederik Balfour, BusinessWeek Online, Nov 14, 2008

Sharia-compliant funds become the new financial kosher in an age of over-leveraged debt.

There's something to learn from everyone.

(Thanks: Patrick Squire)

Column 131

Revitalizing our national labs for the great technological challenges that lie ahead

As a strategic planner, I'm wary of the "Manhattan project" mindset. In general, I find it escapist at heart -- as in, "Big government, make this problem magically disappear!" But with all this talk of a huge government stimulus package, I find myself warming to the idea. Let me tell you why.

Since 2005, I've advised Oak Ridge National Laboratory on long-range strategic issues, and one thing I've definitely noticed is the staff's pronounced aging. When the average age of your scientists begins to hover around 50 or higher, that's not a good sign for American research and development.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Daddy duty

Madrigal dinner: Wed and Thurs nights I build castle walls (duct tape galore). Last night and tonight I prep and help cook the dinner. Tonight I actually get to watch!

Kick-ass on so many levels: Shinseki as Sec Vets Affairs

Nice symbolism and a good pick to boot.

You want to say, "What a cabinet!"

But then again, didn't we say that about Bush too?

Still, the all-stars keep rolling in . . ..

Hard to improve on Gates

ARTICLE: A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age, By Robert M. Gates, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009

Excellent summation of his thinking and his attempted impact in redirecting the Pentagon budget from its heavy Leviathan focus to something far more balanced toward the SysAdmin portfolio.

Hard to improve upon.

(Thanks: JFRiley)

A glimpse of bad things to come in the FATA

ARTICLE: "Pakistanis Mired In Brutal Battle To Oust Taliban: A Network of Tunnels; Army, in Largest Drive Since 2001, Tries to Retake Vital Area," by Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times, 11 November 2008.

Sounds like trying to clear out Geronimo and the Apache, spliced with the networking tunnels of the Viet Cong.

No easy stuff.

We need to modernize our nukes

ARTICLE: Strategic Command Chief Urges Quick Nuclear Weapons Modernization, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, December 5, 2008; Page A09

While I am a huge skeptic of strategic missile defense, I believe strongly in maintaining a strong second-strike deterrent, which means we need to consistently modernize the nuclear stockpile of weaponry.

So I am all for this.

Tom in the Economist

ARTICLE: Cyberwarfare: Marching off to cyberwar, Economist, Dec 4th 2008

Here's the part with Tom:

It may make more sense for existing military bodies to concentrate on defence, by identifying the most vulnerable parts and working out how to protect them. "Anything they can do to us, we should be able to counter faster--that's the appropriate deterrence paradigm for this cyberage," says Thomas Barnett, a military strategist at Enterra Solutions, a technology firm. "We should concentrate on making ourselves resilient."

Sure sign of a system perturbed

ARTICLE: How India fumbled response to Mumbai attack,
By Padma Rao Sundarji, McClatchy Newspapers, December 3, 2008

Sure sign of a system perturbed: the deep acknowledgment of response failure, not unlike in NYC on 9/11. But whereas our problems with primarily command and control leading to a sloppiness of response (however brave), here we're talking a much more snafu'd effort, with the ten-hour delay on commandos being somewhat stunning.

I would expect India to upgrade here fairly dramatically, not so much because of the loss of life (not that much given the country's long history of terrorism) but because of the loss of face regarding foreigners being killed in their star globalization city, which gives off a terrible vibe that undercuts India's legitimate sense of its rising great power status.

(Thanks: Jack Kenigsberg)

Compromised general?

ARTICLE: One Man's Military-Industrial-Media Complex, By DAVID BARSTOW, New York Times, November 29, 2008

I was stunned by the level of reporting on this piece on McCaffrey. The jump section extended across virtually two full pages, which is a huge investigative effort on the NYT's part.

Clearly, this is a follow-up to the piece months back on the generals being paid, secret spokesmen for the administration ("message multipliers") whereby Barstow found enough out about McCaffrey to justify what must have been a huge reporting effort on his part.

It will be interesting to see if this hurts McCaffrey at all. He is sort of a King Kong figure. You read his reports and they always reference his West Point status, but I was really surprised to see how many commercial entities he works for.

The phenomenon of retired generals doing this is well known. Some refuse the temptation of such synergy, and others go whole hog. McCaffrey, on all levels, seems to be in a class by himself.

What constitutes wrong here? Not easy to say. But clearly, McCaffrey loses the perception-of-conflict-of-interest battle here.

(Thanks: Thaddeus Jankowski)

Entice the Chinese to fight pirates

ARTICLE: Call made for China navy to battle Somali pirates, AP, December 4, 2008

Nice step forward--at least rhetorical for now. Question being, How does the U.S. take advantage of this opportunity to draw the PLA (Navy) out and into more cooperation? And who takes the lead?

(Thanks: Sean Kreyling and Steve Schroeder)

Yes, we pass a rule for everything we do in the Long War

ARTICLE: "Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda In Many Countries: Outside The War Zone; Authorized Since 2004 to Hit Across Borders of 15 to 20 Nations," by Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, 10 November 2008.

This story is column one lead, like it's a revelation, but seriously, did anyone not think there was a piece of government paper somewhere that gave the military a get-out-of-ICC-jail card.

I know some observers (of the wise, blogosphere kind) view this sort of thing as absolute proof of the vast imperial conspiracy and what not, but all this tells me is that everyone in the bureaucracy likes a signed piece of paper.

The list basically defines the perceived current theater: Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, etc.--or one stretching from the FATA down through the Horn.

Again, hardly news to anyone following the long war.

D.R. Congo--take II

WORLD NEWS [not]: "Rwandan Genocide Echoes in Congo Rebel's War," by Sarah Childress and Cassandra Vinograd, Wall Street Journal, 31 October 2008.

EDITORIAL: "Congo: Don't let it happen all over again; The United Nations must be given more and tougher peacekeepers to prevent a catastrophe," The Economist, 1 November 2008.

INTERNATIONAL: "African Leaders Agree to Send Military Advisers to Congo to Defuse Conflict," by Jeffrey Gettleman and Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, 10 November 2008.

We hear of yet another rebel leader overrunning yet another city (Goma). His demands are pricelessly illustrative of the frontier-integrating age in which we live:

His current demands: talks about a $9 million Congolese deal with China that would exchange minerals for infrastructure projects, and the disarming of a Rwanda Hutu military that he says is supported by the Congolese government.

See, I told you, China's version of Development-in-a-Box‚Ñ¢ is out there as the default mechanism.

When there's no security, though, even Chinese connectivity--as corrupt as it often is--is hard to come by.

So the Economist begs the UN to do more--awfully naïve for such a sophisticated observer.

The dark reality: "In the even longer run, it is questionable whether Congo will ever hang together as a proper country."

Why should it? It's a completely fake state--the left-over chunks in the middle stitched together by the European colonialists, it has no business being a state whatsoever. Globalization will remap it--plain and simple.

And much violence will continue to be attached to this process.

The only question is, How much will the Old Core care to do anything about it? New Core pillars will pay whatever bribes are necessary, but don't expect any of their blood to be shed.

The Africans will do the usual: send observers who snap photos (They shoot dead people, don't they?) and talk endlessly about doing something they cannot possibly mount on their own.

This is why we need an Africom.

Germany is the new France

EUROPE: "Germany's foreign policy: The Berlin stonewall; Has Germany replaced France as America's awkward ally?" The Economist, 1 November 2008.

You just knew this article was coming, with Sarkozy (Hungarian background) being so openly American and that Osterner Angela Merkel always clucking at us disapprovingly like some Marxist schoolmarm.

Now Germany can't hide behind France's anti-Americanism, meaning our policy clashes over Russia and Iran, two axis of diesel types whose fortunes clearly wane, will center on Berlin and not Paris.

The upside?

Germany is getting more comfortable sending troops abroad to actually do some fighting again. It's now up to #3 provider of troops in Afghanistan and it has small military missions in Lebanon, Sudan and Bosnia.

'Iraq and Beyond' requests your comments

DOCUMENTARY: Iraq and Beyond Produced and Directed by Dan Hare

Dan Hare just made it easier to post comments about his documentary film at http://iraqandbeyond.com, in which Tom figures prominently, and would like your thoughts to help him package for distribution pitch to cable networks.

CNN on post-Great Depression recessions suffered by US

Interesting bit: Average US recession (11 since 1930s) lasts less than a year (or 6-12 months) except for two (early 1970s and early 1980s) that were global ones, in addition. Global ones run 12-18 months.

Now we are told (rather retroactively, I might add) that the advanced Old Core world has really been in recession for close to a year, so the thinking becomes we're about halfway through this.

That corresponds to a lot of predictions I've seen that say the recovery doesn't begin until the second half of 2009.