Start with the navy

ARTICLE: 'PLA Navy urges greater joint effort against piracy,' By Greg Torode, South China Morning Post, November 13, 2009

As much as we fear China's growing naval capability, the truth is always that it's easier for navies to reach out to one another than armies or air forces, so we need to exploit this growing desire on the part of the PLAN to step up.

(Thanks: Ricardo Marquez)

Wishing China were a full-service superpower

STORY: Chinese-U.S. economic ties are uncomfortable but unbreakable, CNBC, 11/15/09

The global financial crisis makes clear to the average person now what plenty of us have been arguing for a very long time:

"We are in a fairly advanced stage of economic mutual interdependence," said Kenneth Lieberthal, a China specialist with the Brookings Institution in Washington. "I think the Chinese can pull the rug out from under our economy only if they want to pull the rug out from under themselves."

The problem remains, however, that China, while portraying itself increasingly as a great power, has zero desire to actually act like one, whether we're talking economics or security, so the free-riding continues.

Obama's task is a very difficult one: getting China to step up. Bush essentially punted on this because he preferred the primacy route. Well, having given that approach everything we could for seven years, we're now getting accustomed to realizing that China's counterparty capacity as the rising superpower of the age is nowhere near where we'd like it to be.

But again, no question I prefer Obama's cool to McCain's angry flash at this point in history--no question at all.

(Thanks: John.S.Weitzer)

China as non-monolith

INTERACTIVE MAP: The Nine Nations of China, by Patrick Chovanec, The Atlantic, November 15, 2009

For map lovers, this is kind of cool and worth a look.

Makes you better understand that China is more aptly compared to a Europe than just another nation-state.

Less a border all the time

ARTICLE: Money Trickles North as Mexicans Help Relatives, By MARC LACEY, New York Times, November 15, 2009

Interesting phenomenon:

Unemployment has hit migrant communities in the United States so hard that a startling new phenomenon has been detected: instead of receiving remittances from relatives in the richest country on earth, some down-and-out Mexican families are scraping together what they can to support their unemployed loved ones in the United States.

Another sign of the growing irrelevance of the border between the U.S. and Mexico. It is becoming our Durand Line.

(Thanks: Kenneth Nalaboff)

China does plenty of harm in Africa

ARTICLE: China Helps the Powerful in Namibia, By SHARON LaFRANIERE, New York Times, November 19, 2009

Example of China exporting its bad rules to Africa: the "princelings" approach to higher education.

I'm definitely in the February print issue of Esquire

You never really get "the call" or anything. You simply realize it's going to happen when a fact-checker (for me, the always fabulous Robert Scheffler) sends you an email requesting sources and you start the back-and-forth negotiation on specific factual points (e.g., I remember reading something to this effect and put it in the piece, but Scheffler can only find a cite that says something to that effect, and then we negotiate the most reasonable statement based on easily proven/obtainable sources). The negotiations only pertain to stuff I've pulled from memory, as the vast majority of cites in any piece come from interview notes or easily accessed sources that I simply turn over to Bob at the start, letting him find all the references on his own so as to make sure I didn't copy anything down incorrectly--and there are always such errors/typos (e.g., I remember and write "domination" and it was really "dominance" in the citation). Small stuff, but Esquire is suitably anal about all that. If I said it was a sunny day in such-and-such a place that afternoon, they'll actually check to see if that was true!

Anyway, fact-checking done and now I'm just going back and forth with Warren on length--the inevitable trimming of that "tail" that extends a page too far.

I wrote this piece somewhat backwards: researched and wrote the big-picture part and sent it to Warren, and then researched and wrote the more specific parts, and then wrote the material that stitched the specific to the big-picture. Typically, in terms of production, I'll go specific to stitching to big picture (or sheer reporting to unearthed themes to what-does-it-all-mean?), but that's how our original conversations went (I mention the big-picture thing and Warren says, "write that up for me," and then he tasks me on the specifics, which I write up, and then we argue/brainstorm/whatever about the stitching). So the original text order from me was big picture, then details and then stitching (which is usually an awkward progression for the reader), and Warren eventually shifted it to specifics/big picture/stitching, or sort of a set-up, larger context, and then how the two clash (which is nice and more the norm for a magazine article--as in, draw you in, contextualize, and then resolve).

So we'll see it on shelves come early January.

And yes, I'm very happy with the piece. I was very surprised to bump into the theme and thought it turned out nicely.

Something for everyone to hate

COLUMN: Obama's Stimulus 2.0 acknowledges government's limitations, By Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post, December 9, 2009

As you know, I almost always like Pearlstein's logic, and I especially do here.

More evidence of Obama's continuing ability to thread the needle--ideologically speaking.

And yes, that infuriates just about everyone.

Recession saps mobility

ARTICLE: Downturn keeping Americans' wanderlust in check, By Carol Morello, Washington Post, December 10, 2009

Certainly cured our case--for now.

Keep an eye on Sudan

ARTICLE: Violence Grips South Sudan as Vote Nears, By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, New York Times, December 11, 2009

Been waiting on this one for a while: the vote on whether the southern portion secedes from northern Sudan.

Naturally, as the moment nears, violence will increase:

Southern Sudan, one of the least developed and most war-haunted parts of Africa, is at a critical point, gearing up for a vote on independence that is likely to break an already volatile Sudan in two. It is the culmination of decades of civil war and an American-backed peace treaty to end it, but as the long-savored day approaches, many south Sudanese fear another devastating war is on the horizon.

If it really gets out of control, it will be hard for the West and even the busy US to ignore. It will also re-raise the issues of China's involvement with the central government (to include arms sales).

Sudan, a Brit colonial creation, has always been one of the fakest states: a south and north stitched together for no other reason than it made sense to the British who excelled at creating big, internally-torn (and thus weak) states that were easier for them to rule with few forces.

Some places need soft borders

ARTICLE: The War in Pashtunistan, By SCOTT SHANE, New York Times, December 5, 2009

Really nice piece of writing that's worth perusing, because it will make you that much smarter about the region and the issues at hand.

Key bit:

Today, the enemies of the United States are nearly all in Pashtunistan, an aspirational name coined long ago by advocates of an independent Pashtun homeland. From bases in the Pakistani part of it -- the Federally Administered Tribal Areas toward the north and Baluchistan province in the south -- Afghan Taliban leaders, who are Pashtuns, have plotted attacks against Afghanistan. It is also from the Pakistani side of Pashtunistan that Qaeda militants have plotted terrorism against the West.

And the essential strategic problem for the Americans has been this: their enemy, so far, has been able to draw advantage from the border between the two nation-states by ignoring it, and the Americans have so far been hindered because they must respect it.

That is because Pakistan and Afghanistan care deeply about their sovereign rights on either side of the line, but the Pashtuns themselves have never paid the boundary much regard since it was drawn by a British diplomat, Mortimer Durand, in 1893. "They don't recognize the border," said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, a Washington policy group. "They never have. They never will."

And that has enormously complicated the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Gets me back to Musharraf's bit about needing a "soft border" for Kashmir. Eventually it seems to me that we'll need to do the same for Pashtunistan.

(Thanks: VacationLaneGrp)

Cell phone diplomacy

ARTICLE: Better than freedom?, The Economist, Nov 12th 2009

The gist:

ASKED to name the single biggest benefit of America's invasion, many Iraqis fail to mention freedom or democracy but instead praise the advent of mobile phones, which were banned under Saddam Hussein. Many Iraqis seem to feel more liberated by them than by the prospect of elected resident government.

In the five years since the first network started up, the number of subscribers has soared to 20m (in a population of around 27m), while the electricity supply is hardly better than in Mr Hussein's day. That is double the rate for Lebanon, where a civil war ended two decades ago and income per head is four times higher.

Never mind that Iraqi mobile services are lousy and businessmen have to use different phones for different parts of the country. Lines crackle and wrong connections abound. The country's greedy operators blame sandstorms and security restrictions but few Iraqis believe them. The government fined them $20m this year to press for better services.

Still, customers sound happy.

Leave the place more connected than you found it, and that's what people will value most.

(Thanks: Gunnar Peterson)

Let China face the consequences

ARTICLE: China Holds Firm on Major Issues in Obama's Visit, By HELENE COOPER, New York Times, November 17, 2009

Not unexpected: China will say no on everything until sufficient pain and fear are felt.

Now is the time to let that happen, not in terms of the U.S. making threats it cannot keep. "Strategic reassurance" is a valid approach there.

But we have to stop shielding China from the world with our efforts. Let the forces that will inevitably come after Chinese interests do so. Let them learn what it is to be a big boy on the global scene.

The Chinese government doesn't help it's people

ARTICLE: China: Police Detain an Advocate for Victims of Tainted Dairy Items, By EDWARD WONG, New York Times, November 16, 2009

Nice move by Beijing. Very "progressive."

Should impress the public mightily about how hard their government is working for them.

People want to hype the Chinese people's alleged great nationalism (anger at the world), when the true monster in the room is the Chinese people's anger at their own incompetent government.

Do not believe the hype. The Chinese government is no magician. As a provider to its people, it sucks.

Internationals return to US schools

ARTICLE: China Is Sending More Students to U.S., By TAMAR LEWIN, New York Times, November 16, 2009

With 9/11 a fading memory, the Chinese are back in droves at our colleges, getting close to 100k per year and likely to dislodge the Indians from the top spot. Numbers also up from Japan and the Middle East.

Outsourcing reaches rural India

ARTICLE: Rural India Gets Chance at Piece of Jobs Boom, By LYDIA POLGREEN, New York Times, November 12, 2009

Good sign in India: de-enclaving the prosperity associated with IT and outsourcing firms.

A day that lived in my dreams for a decade and a half finally arrives

Emily, fifteen-and-a-half-year cancer survivor, became an adult today, celebrating her 18th birthday.

Many days and nights across her long and fierce battle with cancer, I dreamed of this day.

It was my first truly strategic vision.

China's Health Care Challenges Mirror America's

Last week, I noted that the GOP's defense hawks have taken to accusing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats of exploiting America's health care crisis to further their long-term "plot" to curtail defense spending -- and, by extension, our nation's capacity for military interventions abroad. The implied beneficiary of this "unilateral surrender"? Why, the Chinese, of course, who'd thereby be left free to conquer the developing world in their unending quest to secure raw materials.

Continue reading this week's New Rules column at WPR.

The military's really leading

ARTICLE: McChrystal's Afghanistan plan stays mainly intact, By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, December 7, 2009

Recalling some of my posts in the past on this subject, I've been waiting for somebody to write this piece!

Gist: McChrystal's plan basically still intact.

Like with Bush's "brilliant" ownership of the surge, we find a lot of showy demonstrations of review, but that, in the end, the politicians basically go with the argument made--by some--in the military all along.

Part of the package

ARTICLE: U.S. counterterrorism efforts set to expand in Afghanistan, By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, Washington Post, December 10, 2009

As we saw with the Iraq surge, this is an unstated part of the program (led then by McChrystal himself, and quite successfully so).

Sensible stuff that was always going to be so, but let's nonetheless bow in the direction of the almighty Biden.

Palestine-Israel is a sideshow

OP-ED: To the Arab world, Obama's Nobel leaves something to be desired, By Scott MacLeod, Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2009

Here's the sad truth: Obama's Nobel had nothing to do with the Middle East because, quite frankly, the whole Palestinian-Israeli thing doesn't really matter WRT regional stability or global peace. It is a sideshow and will remain that.

What matters is Iran-v-Saudi Arabia. The rest is for show and people who swallow Ahmadinejad's propaganda.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)