Comment upgrade: advanced Core-Gap theory

Alex wrote:

Going by this reasoning, Georgia and Ukraine are also Russia's 'front lawn' and NATO needs to stop knocking on the door. Sometimes the post-modern model of 'core' vs 'gap' articulated in your work seems to slip back into geopolitical neo-imperialism arguing for a good ol' 'American Century', where America enjoys greater rights than any other power in the international arena due to its 'exceptional' nature. Please attempt to be consistent one way or the other, I genuinely respect your analysis, but as a european 'from Venus', I don't get the American obsession with beating up on Chavez. You yourself have stated previously that he is no kind of threat, and band wagoning against hegemony is surely an eminently normal phenomenon in international relations.

Tom replied:

The Core-Gap delineation has always been presented as accounting for three particular rule-set domains: 1) a Core dominated by connectivity and rules and thus no war; 2) a Gap plagued by too little of each and thus plenty of conflict; and most importantly 3) the perceived rule-set concerning Core great-power intervention inside the Gap. On that last one, there logically remains a sense of places where individual great powers have special interests. For the US, that reach is basically global--as Leviathan. For everybody else, the reach is more limited--witness NATO's long debate on out-of-area ops. For Russia and the Caucasus, there is no great argument, as I have long noted, for anybody else other than the Russians to own that set of problems. At least I've never heard anybody make a compelling case for anybody other than the Russians.

With Chavez, left to his own devices, he's not much of a threat, but actually a good reminder to the region of what stupidity looks like. The drugs will probably never rise to the level of triggering a serious intervention, nor the meddling in Colombia.

But mining uranium for direct sale to Iran? That will get our attention, because Venezuela is easier to squeeze right now relative to Iran (where all the squeezing has already occurred and few new opportunities remain). The Right will also harp on Obama to do something, and then there's the historic sense that this is our neighborhood to police.

In general, then, I've long been accused of having little to say about LATAM and my response is always, "I just don't see the scenario worth discussing, especially once we de-criminalize the softer narcotics."

But Chavez exporting uranium to Iran will cross our big bugaboo line of WMD.

Of course, for Chavez to be going in this direction, and threatening nationalization of auto makers and such, suggests he's really fearing the continued recession there caused by his idiotic economic policies. So the worse that goes, and the more dangerous he behaves, he sets in motion confrontations that will get progressively harder to control, and uranium is a big leap in this direction--hence my post.

Yes, but by stating the obvious, Medvedev does indeed undercut Putin's fantasies

EUROPE: "Russian modernization: Dmitry Medvedev's building project: The Russian president talks up modernization, but to little purpose," The Economist, 28 November 2009.

"Modernization" replaces "stabilization" as the buzzword in Moscow, which can't help the stolid and unimaginative Putin, despite his continuing power and likely return to the presidency.

Just gives us a few more years to blow off Russia as . . . pretty much anything.

This article is mostly about pointing out how Medvedev is a domestic Wilsonian--all the right ideas and none of the skills or assets to pull any off.

But he does start the conversation as to whether modernization is possible without liberalization, and that counts for something.

A hit-or-miss global landscape for movies, and yet small pix abound

BRIEFING: "Media: A world of hits; Ever-increasing choice was supposed to mean the end of the blockbuster. It has had the opposite effect," The Economist, 28 November 2009.

Starts off promisingly by noting that last year 610 films released in the U.S., up from 471 in 1999. Cable and sat TV exploding around planet, with all of subscribers now in Asia-Pac (assume that includes us?), and online video is going great guns (20 hours added to YouTube every second--and all of it Kubrickian in quality!).

And then the mag whines about how "the ever-increasing supply of content tailored to every taste seems not to have dented the appeal of the blockbuster. Quite the opposite."

Then we realize, in the next para, that this boo-hoo is directed at Chris Anderson's "Long Tail" thesis (Anderson used to work at The Economist, so some personal payback may be at work here!).

But the truth is that both the big hits and the tail enders are doing well, killing--yet again--that old shibboleth about globalization homogenizing along with the opposing one suggested by Anderson: that unifying cultural events (Can't we all still love Lucy?!?!) were a thing of the past.

Stupid humans! Failing to conform to our extreme predictions!

Turns out that people still want to share culture--by definition!

Turns out that lotsa people still want hits--again, by definition!

I am not making this stuff up.

Oh yeah, and huge American action movies loaded with FX and minimal dialogue sell better abroad than at home.

I can't even begin to theorize why that is true . . ..

The Economist should leave this stuff to Variety, which is light years ahead on the subject.

A strangely silly article from a magazine in decline

NATION: "The Decade From Hell: .... and how the next one can be better," by Andy Serwer, Time, 7 December 2009.

Really? A "decade from hell"? With global GDP tripling over 8 short years, only to see the world economy suffer it's first truly global crisis and then pull through with no significant great-power conflicts whatsoever and a recovery that surprises damn near everybody?

That's the "decade from hell"?

Time used to be a serious magazine. Now it's just op-eds and this sort of silly, over-the-top stuff.

It reads like come-ons to my local evening news.

Do yourself a favor and renew your subscription to The Economist.

Then be unafraid! Be very unafraid!

Watching Iran

The continuing power of the street protests remains impressive.

Of course, we can expect the regime to continue going the extra mile in repression tactics, sensing--correctly--that if it does not that things can quickly unravel.

Would I like a more forceful expression from Obama on this? Yes.

I don't see much danger in negotiations as a result, because the worse this gets, the more likely it is (as it has always been, in my opinion) that such efforts will go nowhere and achieve nothing.

So why not turn up the rhetorical pressure and keep global attention high?

Take a breath: people adapt

ARTICLE: Officials Point to Suspect's Claim of Qaeda Ties in Yemen, By ERIC SCHMITT and ERIC LIPTON, Washington Post, December 26, 2009

ARTICLE: Passengers' Quick Action Halted Attack, By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LIPTON, Washington Post, December 26, 2009

And so the struggle over perceptions begins, with these two articles highlighting the competing hyping and de-hyping instincts: we are told this must be terror because of al-Qaeda's slim connection; likewise we note that, "despite the billions spent on counterterrorism efforts" it all just comes down to a properly aware public. So it's simultaneously a VERY BIG DEAL and NOT A BIG DEAL.

Can we split the difference?

Can we say it's, by definition, an attempt at terror and that the vast majority of such attacks are by loser loners who want to go out with a bang, but that everyone in that mode feels an intense psychological need to connect their acts to something big and--to them--meaningful? Can we not also say that al-Qaeda serves--for both sides--as that ultimate bogeyman, so that it doesn't really matter how real the connection was or wasn't, just that this sick fellow needed that inspiration (and whatever actual aid he got)? Nowadays citing the al-Qaeda connection is like saying "the devil made me do it." Of course he did! Just like God made you catch that football in the endzone to win the Super Bowl! See? It works both ways!

Ah, but at least we have the comfort that "officials point to the suspect's claim of Qaeda ties." "Officials," mind you. Not just people on the street, although, inevitably, their opinions are asked too, like the mother in Indy who sent grandmom and her two kids on a flight to a relative in Omaha and had to confess her intense fear (to the local TV station) that al-Qaeda (the Devil) would strike yet again this holiday season. Can you feel her fear? Of course this is a VERY BIG DEAL.

Ah, but I regress.

Can we not also say that security has simply shifted from big things like wars between great powers to small things like this, so yeah, we're going to spend billions to make things more secure? We can do that sensibly, along with making our public more alert. Must we scare them with semantic inflation and call everything a "war"? Or can we just say, "These are the dangers that remain in this otherwise amazingly peaceful world" and these are the simple steps every person can take to pitch in? In that way, quite frankly (and despite my long ribbing), TSA does a nice job of balancing fear and reasonable awareness.

So now we'll have a few new rules that make it that much harder. So nobody got killed. So ordinary people did sensible and courageous things. So it's not the end of the world or the beginning of "some new era in this global war!!!!!!!"

Humans are amazingly adaptive creatures, capable of great mental compartmentalization.

We can handle this threat all right, just as we showed on this routine flight, full of routine people, doing--now--routine things.

But please, "release the hounds" of perception "war"! For I will fight to the death for your right to hyperbolize!

I await the small universe of grim-faced "security experts" who will opine endlessly on cable TV in coming days, somehow linking this event to everything bad in this world that they (personally) have told us about previously ("Yet another indication why Iran must be attacked--now!").

Yes, yes. What if Hitler had had an invisible robot army?

[Tom, suddenly realizing he had pulled out the Nazi card too early in the post, decides to end it here.]

DoEE, here we come!

ARTICLE: Gates proposes $2 billion in funds to aid unstable countries, By Mary Beth Sheridan and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, December 24, 2009

Yet another radical thrust in the direction of the Department of Everything Else. You can tell by the vagueness of the institutional arrangements--not quite controlled by DoD alone and not quite controlled by State/USAID alone.

Naturally, it gets interpreted as a power play by the Pentagon, but the truth is, this is Gates trying to send this baby away from momma but knowing that only momma can trigger the process.

Remember this when you read my piece in Esquire next week.

(Thanks: waveman850, Jeffrey Itell and Robert Frommer)

China's funky foreign labor practices

ARTICLE: China's Export of Labor Faces Scorn, By EDWARD WONG, Washington Post, December 20, 2009

Very common trick by the Chinese: promise infrastructure development, import all the labor, and then leave them behind!

Chinese do this regularly throughout Africa, and naturally, as this article cites, there is growing blowback.

A big problem: the recipient nation is left with an unintegrated Chinese village left behind. The Chinese do not mix well, but stay very enclaved, unlike--say--the Indians across Africa.

The Economist's "The World in 2010"

YEAREND SPECIAL ISSUE: "The World in 2010: Beyond the economic crisis," The Economist.

What? No "decade from hell"?

Just some tidbits in passing, mostly from charts that catch the eye, because as much as I love The Economist, their year-end issues tend to be a bit boring.

From "Peak labour" by Barbara Beck:

A chart showing the combination of the young and old as a percentage of China's overall population: back in 1965, it was a stunning 80% (mostly made of young) and then it progressively dropped to its absolute low point in 2010, when it was a hair under 40%. The forecast is now a steady rise to just over 60% by 2050. That means 2010 will be THE golden year and that everything goes downhill from then on. By 2030 the Chinese will have a pensioner population equal to the entire U.S. population.

From "An imperfect storm" by Simon Cox:

A chart showing that manufacturing finally overtakes ag as a share of the economy in 2010.

We could do much worse than Kosovo

ARTICLE: Despite its troubles, Kosovo offers model for nation-builders, By Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, December 1, 2009

Of course, the analogy I employed in Blueprint for Action was completely crazy!

And yet, in spite of its problems and growing pains, Kosovo is cited by many diplomats as a credible model of nation-building, a sign -- relevant to the current debate over Afghanistan -- that a determined effort by foreigners can help to build a country from the ashes.

After years of ethnic conflict, security and stability are taking root. Predictions that independence would lead to revenge killings by the ethnic Albanian majority against ethnic Serbs, who make up an estimated 7 percent of the population, proved overblown. Early next year, NATO is expected to draw down its forces by one-third.

And yet, experts turn back to it time and again over the years.

We should lead on responsible nuclear use

ARTICLE: Nuclear power regains support, By Anthony Faiola, Washington Post, November 24, 2009

Gist:

Nuclear power -- long considered environmentally hazardous -- is emerging as perhaps the world's most unlikely weapon against climate change, with the backing of even some green activists who once campaigned against it.

It has been 13 years since the last new nuclear power plant opened in the United States. But around the world, nations under pressure to reduce the production of climate-warming gases are turning to low-emission nuclear energy as never before.

The primary reason why our obsession with nukes tends to isolate us more than anybody we target (at least additionally, since these regimes tend to be into isolating themselves quite nicely, thank you).

We need to be seen as facilitating this global boom in nuke use, meaning we lead on the monitoring and the networking of enriched fuel (which we seek to do) instead of having so much of our foreign policy wrapped around this axle.

Venezuela wouldn't be that much of a reach

OPINION: "The Tehran-Caracas Nuclear Axis," by Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 15 December 2009.

Stephens on the likelihood that Iran is prospecting for uranium in Venezuela. Seems like a decent and logical bet.

And what will we do when and if that package is discovered?

Chavez miscalculates if he thinks he's somehow untouchable due to his "powerful" friends. None will lift a finger when the hammer comes down.

Because this, after all, remains our "front lawn," where crazy is most definitely dealt with, when it reaches a level we consider dangerous.

Pakistan's best bet is probably soft borders

OP-ED: How partnering with the U.S. could strengthen Pakistan's sovereignty, By David Ignatius, Washington Post, December 17, 2009

Ignatius is usually one of the smartest thinkers around, but I tend to doubt the goal here of Pakistan accomplishing that which it has never really accomplished before: serious subjugation of the Pashtun belt.

In the end, Islamabad does not see enough "strategic depth" in this path.

I guess I'd rather see a path whereby Pakistan proper (the Punjab section on the Indian or southeastern side) remains confident to embrace globalization, having made its peace with its non-states-within-a-state portions (Pashtun, Baluch). Of course, that path would likely require, in combination, Musharraf's concept of the soft border across the Kashmir.

Complex, I know, because you have to get India to accept the soft border on the Kashmir to get the Punjab portion of Pakistan to accept the same regarding the Pashtun (arguably, along with an Afghanistan that does the same with its Pashtun south). But I've seen what intransigence on both sides has accomplished to date in the Kashmir (nothing), so why push the Pakistanis to pick the second fight in addition, hoping that will lead to stability and a "real" nation?

(Thanks: Jeffrey Itell)

At some point, you have to pay the SysAdmin

ARTICLE: RAF bases face closure under plan to shift resources to Afghanistan, By Richard Norton-Taylor, Andrew Sparrow and agencies, guardian.co.uk, 15 December 2009

Goes to show, in proportion, that the same rob-Leviathan-to-pay-SysAdmin dynamic happens in the UK. So the choice is a whole lot bigger than just, do we make this place work?

(Thanks: waveman850)

A familiar flight and--thankfully--a familiar ending

I've taken Northwest 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, even connecting through the Netherlands from Africa. I remember the African security being fairly lax, and the Dutch being much tighter, with the usual screening before you board the plane by special personnel (who ask a lot of questions).

Nice to see the spirit of United 93 lives on in passengers.

Will this stuff ever go away? Unlikely. But important to remember how easy it was to hijack planes in the 1970s and then how that tactic went away in the 1980s thanks to heightened security.

So the general tightening up matters.

As for fascination with the background of the bomber, let's just say that suicide-by-terrorism will always find a ready supply of unhappy people looking for an exit from their lives, much in the vein of the Fort Hood shooter. Higher education doesn't necessarily inoculate anybody, and ex-pat living abroad is often a discombobulating influence that can lead to personal epiphanies. Remember, most great revolutionaries in history spent time studying abroad, often as hard scientists.

Indeed, as my previous post below reminds, America has a long and twisted tradition of self-immolating gunmen looking to go out with a bang (and yes, they're almost always male and young and desperately unhappy and unsuccessful [at least in their own eyes] people). That supply will always remain strong in a modern, competitive society such as our own, with its peculiar fascination with violence, guns, and murder.

And as the rest of the world moves closer to our living standard, we'll see even more of these men, and we'll need new ways to process them into harmlessness--one way or the other--as quietly as possible.

Imagine that: home-grown mass murders in America!

WEEKEND JOURNAL: "Homeland Insecurity: The U.S. is facing rising terror threats from its own citizens," by Daniel Byman, Wall Street Journal, 12-13 December 2009.

The trick for any terrorist movement in the U.S. is rising above the noise of normally occurring mass murder in this country.

Of course, the experts tell us we'll go all wobbly once these dastardly types score another big one. Didn't happen after 9/11, but it is certain to happen next time!

Still, somehow we continue processing all these mass-murder explosions no different from Fort Hood. If the guy isn't Muslim, little note would have been taken, quite frankly.

That's how used to it we are, and how much we love our weaponry.

Said it a million times: we are an ultra-violent society. The Occidentalism of the Salafists is severely misguided. We are anything but wimpy momma's boys. We can't wait to kill, so we're the wrong society to pick a long war with.

Eventually, the Iranian protestors will get traction

ARTICLE: Cleric's Funeral Becomes Protest of Iran Leaders, By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI, New York Times, December 21, 2009

As streetcars go, this dissident cleric's death may prove to be an important one.

But don't fret if it doesn't deliver. More streetcars will follow, and eventually, the Movement will jump on one.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)

China doesn't want to sanction Iran

ARTICLE: China Signals Resistance to Iran Sanctions, Seeks Further Talks, By Bill Varner, Bloomberg, Dec. 22, 2009

As always, a "shocking development."

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)

Having finished Conrad Black's "Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom"

A huge book, with a text that extends over 1,100 pages, I read it slowly and with great intensity (just pages each night) starting in the early fall and ending this morning at 2:50 am. I am very sad to finish it; it was like having this great friend come and visit me every night just before falling asleep. It pains me to think of Black in prison for his white-collar crimes, because he wrote a fabulous book: very detailed and diary-like in its day-to-day coverage of the man's life and yet full of well-thought-out and well-argued logic regarding the big issues of his career and his place in history (where Black's arguments rang best with my mind). You read this book and you almost feel ashamed Time picked Albert Einstein as its man of the century at the end of 1999. Clearly, as a force of history and sheer good in this world, nobody compares to FDR--except the U.S. military in aggregate.

Suffering health-wise through the past few months (indeed, I purposefully started this huge book as a way to deal with the great insomnia caused by my chronic sinus infections), and stricken as I am now with a modest case of sinusitis (from an ear infection I developed after picking up a virus from my youngest), I found myself immensely drawn to Black's detailed descriptions of FDR's many and profound health problems (beyond the obvious polio) that afflicted him his entire adult life. Roosevelt led a stunningly inspirational life from that perspective, and it's one I will never forget or lose track of as I move through life--thanks to this book. Experiencing, as I am, somewhat of a midlife crisis thanks to the months and months of "bad brain," I feel very fortunate to have picked up the book and read it with such connection over these many nights.

It makes me want to stay strong in my life and to attempt to live it to the fullest and best extent possible. I now understand how FDR had that sort of impact on people's lives, those who lived alongside him and through him the tumultuous times of the Great Depression and World War II. I also feel--despite my many years of education and study on the subject--finally a full appreciation of FDR's vision for the world and America's place in it.

I don't regret not reading this book prior to writing my own history of these United States and its role in shaping our current world (Vonne, of course, picked this out for me to read, like most books I end up enjoying this much). I was glad to come to all these same conclusions on my own, meaning with the profound help of many fine historians (especially Elizabeth Borgwardt's "New Deal for the World"). Reading Black's book on the heels of my own effort was thus a fundamentally reinforcing affair, a communion of thought I don't believe I could have made without having previously researched and written Chapter Three of Great Powers,

In that sense, Black's book strikes me as a huge gift, like bumping into Ayn Rand during Emily's cancer struggle all those years ago.

I still have a great bio of U.S. Grant that I'm working, plus a bio of Jimmy Stewart, but I will be scanning my personal library for the next great one to follow. Also, armed as I am with $50 in Amazon gift certificates from my spouse, I am open to suggestions.

What an amazing day for me to have celebrated Christmas with Vonne and our four kids, ending it all with me and my four children all hanging out in our master bedroom, watching an entire season of a particular animated TV series that we love (a minor show that's an acquired taste), and then finishing this glorious book so deep in the morning.

I feel very fortunate to have built this home, this marriage, and this family.

Merry Christmas

Quiet Christmas at home for the Barnetts. Very peaceful and nice.

Late last night the older among us stayed up and watched Zach Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead" in the home theater. That is one great zombie movie.

Rewatched "Michael Clayton" this afternoon after the big meal. We did roast beef, and I'm never going back to boring turkey again.