Calling all educated Muslims!

ARTICLE: “EU’s New Tack on Immigration: Leaders Talk Up ‘Brain Circulation’ to Cure Shrinking Work Force,” by John W. Miller, Wall Street Journal, 10 February 2006, p. A8.

Europe has always attracted Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa primarily in the same way we attract the bulk of Hispanics from down south: give us your poor and ambitious and largely undereducated and we’ll have them do the 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) jobs that we can’t find workers for.

That collection of low-end workers, when combined with the high-end ones that America so naturally attracts (our Muslims are better than your Muslims!), sends back to home countries over $100 billion in remittances each year (just $72B in 2001 and now $126B according to IMF). The entire OECD development aid package (meaning all the foreign aid the Core sends to the Gap) each year is just around $60B, so this flow is hugely important to shrinking the Gap (or keeping the worst parts afloat in the meantime).

What this article says is that Europe is beginning to realize it not only needs the 3D Muslims, but the more educated ones that we naturally attract. Why? The demographic aging of Europe proceeds with so much more speed than our version here, so they think the EU will be tens of millions short on skilled workers in coming decades (20m by 2030).

Think Europe is the “great alternative” and the rising superpower that will lead the world in the future? Or do you still see it aping America as it tries to catch up, ad infinitum?

Headway in Afghanistan? Head south, young NATO!

ARTICLE: “A charter in London, troops for the badlands: After painful prevarication, NATO gets serious about peacekeeping in Afghanistan,” The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 37.

ARTICLE: “Heading south: Despite much recent progress, Afghanistan is intolerably insecure,” The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 12.

Big London donor conference on Afghanistan still ends up being more about security than development, so we certainly haven’t come close to finishing the job in Afghanistan, although, much like in Iraq, we seem to have a tripartite outcome.

Northern Afghanistan is like Kurdistan: pretty lawful and open for trade. The central region is more like Shiite Iraq: government formed and reasonably stable. Southern Afghanistan remains like the Sunni Triangle: lawless and without any appreciable economic development, other than the resurgence of poppies.

Up to now, the NATO contingent in Afghanistan has stayed to the north, keeping the peace in the areas with no Taliban, so nice work if you can get it. In the south, the U.S. keeps killing significant numbers of Taliban each year, seeming to win the battle by winter, only to have more appear in the spring, or the basic cycle the Sovs went through for so long.

Now we see NATO committed to sending down several thousand troops into the south, meaning there will be fighting ahead, especially once they go after the poppy trade.

Still, this is historic stuff: NATO deciding to go into combat outside of Europe--a serious first. This is a big milestone in the formation of the Core’s SysAdmin function and force.

China’s rise is America’s savings

ARTICLE: “Some Assembly Needed: China as Asia Factory,” by David Barboza, New York Times, 9 February 2006, pulled from web.

Fabulous take on a subject we should all know about by now and yet we constantly get fooled into thinking otherwise by statistics touted so regularly by the media and politicians.

China’s “huge” trade surplus with the U.S. has always been a myth. It’s a relic of old accounting standards that don’t take into account a global production chain that has emerged.

Our imports from Asia actually decrease in recent years, with China simply stealing a bigger share from countries like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore and others.

The joke is, we only assign trade value at the point of final assembly. So when everyone makes parts that go into an electronic device and then all those parts are shipped to China for final assembly, does this mean China “manufactured” the device and therefore has “stolen” all that manufacturing from the rest of the world? Hardly. All this shows is that it should be labeled, “assembled in China,” not “made in China.” China may have a $200 billion trade surplus with the U.S. in this chain, but it has a corresponding deficit in the range of $140 billion with the rest of Asia, who are simply running a lot of their manufactures through China for final assembly.

Our multinationals are simply renting Chinese labor, which draws wages but never sees the profit. Foreign firms control almost two-thirds of China’s exports. If you count all that stuff as intra-multinational trade, there goes the vast bulk of our alleged trade deficit with China. As one UBS economist puts it: “In a globalized world, bilateral trade figures are irrelevant. The trade balance between the U.S. and China is as irrelevant as the trade balance between New York and Minnesota.”

It’s a great point, one I’ve long made about FDI figures. We are told that much of China’s FDI is actually Chinese money sent abroad and recirculated into China through trusted conduits like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, so we’re actually seeing a lot of greater China investing in China. Same thing is true for Europe’s huge FDI cumulative numbers: they count Austria investing in Italy. I have long contended in my talks that if you counted Michigan investing in Florida and vice versa throughout our 50 state system, our numbers would be astronomical.

In short, it all depends on how you want to count.

In the end, the U.S. benefits hugely by tapping China’s labor. Those who suffer on our end are the same who suffer all over Asia: low-end labor. What should be our response? Walls and protectionism? Or a lifelong learning system that continues to upgrade our talent?

Which path seems to point to a future worth creating?

Pentagon and Wall Street agree on which languages matter most in coming decades

ARTICLE: “U.S. firms becoming tongue-tied: Global trade requires foreign language skills,” by David J. Lynch, USA Today, 9 February 2006, p. 6B.

Weird, but neither side seems to pick Spanish. Instead we’re told by both to focus on Chinese, Arabic, Farsi (Persian or Iranian), Korean, Japanese, Russian and Urdu (getting into Central Asia).

Interesting that both the security and the business communities seem interested in the same New Core and Gap situations, apparently believing that these places are where security issues will be most fluid and profit potential most elevated, or a nice definition of what I call the military-market nexus.

Also interesting how the rest of the Western Hemisphere seems an afterthought in both camps.

I think, I blog, I get validated by The Economist

EDITORIAL: The one thing Bush got right: For all his other foreign-policy mistakes, George Bush is right about democracy,” The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 9.

SPECIAL REPORT (POLITICAL ISLAM): “Forty shades of green: Islam’s main political arms differ greatly in both tactics and aims. But that should not reassure America, The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 22.

Great editorial and piece on the “dangers of democracy” that we hear so much about today from both right and left in the U.S.

So much experience and yet so little faith.

Democracy’s defining feature--the freedom to hire and fire your government--does not guarantee that countries will make wise choices, or that democracies will be good neighbors. The lesson of the 20th century is that no people is immune from falling under the spell of some hypnotic voice or pernicious doctrine. In 1933 Germans freely elected the Nazi Party, which went on to reduce Europe to rubble. But only the most twisted history could blame democracy rather than dictatorship for the depredations of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. The merits of democracy are obvious and the appeal of it seems universal. So why do the familiar arguments have to be rehased all over again in the case of the Middle East?

Hardcore left and right in the U.S. seem desperate to believe in the "Bush-as-global-conquerer” fantasy, as if Afghanistan and Iraq constitute the world as we know it. Then there are the so-called realists who like democracy in the abstract, but consider its promotion naïve.

So do we give it a go in the Middle East, or do we stick with the dictators, knowing so well what they’ve given us for the last half century?

And if the Islamists don’t wise up in power, then we cajole and punish accordingly, as this piece argues. Just because you’re democratically elected doesn’t mean you get to wage war on neighbors you hate.

Meanwhile, we show some patience. We get--dare I say it?--more realistic.

Holding elections is not a panacea. Democracy cannot at a stroke heal national conflicts, create civic institutions or modernize traditional societies. But whatever else people think of Mr. Bush, on this one thing--the universal potential and appeal of the democratic idea--he is on the side of history.

The second article is a great one that presents a lot of good historical compare-and-contrasts on Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Big point: the more the MB and wings Hamas and Hezbollah cooperate in the political process, the wider the gap between those groups and Al Qaeda, which brooks no such cooperation. No easy dreams of divide and conquer, please, but also please ditch any nonsense about these guys all being on the same side in terms of agenda. One sees a world a states, the other does not.

And please don’t confuse either with Shiites.

And for those who fear the MB and others are pursuing the classic “entryist” strategy that uses elections as the front door to dictatorship, I say we’re better off getting through that process, if it’s in the cards, faster as opposed to slower. Can’t be any worse than the dictators we have now, who export their terrorists to the West more and more. And the sooner the masses see the falsity of this strategy, the better.

Again, the Big Bang was never about obviating any of this (dealing with Islamists, terrorism, old tribal hatreds), but merely about speeding it all up (the learning curve, the killing, the burning out). Plenty of ground to cover. Only question is how long you want to drag it out.

Mickey came, saw, adjusted somewhat, and will eventually conquer

ARTICLE: “Disney and the Great Wall: Hong Kong’s Magic Kingdom Struggles to Attract Chinese Who ‘Don’t Understand’ Park,” by Geoffrey A. Fowler and Merissa Marr, Wall Street Journal, 9 February 2006, p. B1.

It is fascinating to watch Disney’s adjustment process in Hong Kong. Like any corporation, it tries as much as possible to impose its rule set on the customer, while having to adjust to the local dominant rule sets in order to attract the highest possible frequency and revenue stream.

First big lessons?

Chinese like to travel on tour packages, where everything, right down to the menu of the group meals, is determined beforehand. We saw this in spades traveling around China on our adoption trip. Choice is rather frontloaded in China, as in, choose to go or stay home!

Another big lesson: respect the local holidays. The New Year is huge. Disney HK was overwhelmed. “Park capacity” is not a concept they get yet.

But for sure, Disney will learn. It learned Japanese and did quite well in mastering French, although visitors there still are rather stingy on a per head basis. Disney will master Hong Kong because it has its eyes on Shanghai.

My favorite bit in this story: Marie the Cat is the biggest star at Disney HK. Don’t remember her? She’s the female lead in “The Aristocats.” Why so popular in China? That movie apparently became a cult classic in southern China due to repeat showings on networks over the years. Plus Marie looks an awful lot like Hello Kitty.

[Minor editorial comment: Marie is the daughter of the female lead in 'The Aristocats', Duchess. And, this is even more quibbling, technically she is a kitten. *wink* Got some big Disney fans in my house. Sean]

Work hard, play longer

ARTICLE: “The land of leisure: Why Americans have plenty of time to read this,” The Economist, 4 February 2006, p. 28.

Interesting research on leisure time in the U.S. says we’ve actually picked up more non-work time in recent decades (almost a full day per week), but that so much of it is swallowed in activities and errands that we continue to see ourselves as more and more harried. Plus all the networking toys means we’re answering emails on the 9th hole, which we interpret as “neverending work” but really strikes the researchers as “nice work if you can get it.”

This research, done at U. Chicago’s Biz School, didn’t include anyone over 65, so the article’s author argues that the findings probably underestimate the overall rise in leisure time, unless you count answering emails from grandkids as work.

Eventually, the FDI tail will wag the Russian energy dog

ARTICLE: “Putin is pressed to liberalise energy: Head of electricity monopoly seeks more reform,” by Arkady Ostrovsky, Neil Buckley and Christina Freeland, Financial Times, 10 February 2006, p. 1.

Anatoly Chubais, who runs Russia’s electricity monopoly, publicly demands that Putin support the break-up of that network so that it can be privatized and reshaped by the resulting flow of private capital. Rising demand and years of underinvestment hit a wall this very cold Russian winter (the coldest in 30 years). Putin may want to retain the commanding heights, but it’s going to get a helluva lot chillier up there unless he gets access to more foreign investment, and people don’t invest in what they can’t own.

Yegor Gaidar, the architect of such liberalization strategies in the 1990s, says the gas industry is moving down a similarly dysfunctional path: “The gas sector reminds me of the oil sector in the early 1980s and I know what follows: a very serious crisis. The absence of competition, the under-investment, all of this creates risk . . . I do not like the way Gazprom is run in Russia.”

And neither do a lot of European leaders, who speak more and more openly of collective energy strategies to reduce dependence on the unreliable Russians.

This is the lesson that Putin will learn, just like OPEC did a generation ago: If you have customers, then your natural resources are indeed valuable. If you scare them away with high prices or unreliable service, then all you have is a lot of worthless stuff underground.

When pandemics hit the Gap, it’s Core bar the door

ARTICLE: “As Bird Flu Spreads to Africa, Health-System Gaps Raise Risks,” by Nicholas Zamiska, Wall Street Journal, 9 February 2006, p. A4.

Forty thousands birds dead in Nigeria from avian flu. It wasn’t recognized at first, and frankly, even if it had been, don’t expect AIDS-ravaged Africa to view it in the same light as the Core.

The World Health Organization has long held its breath on this subject, hoping against hope that avian flu wouldn’t make it to Africa, because of the rickety and easily overwhelmed medical nets. Fighting avian flu in the Core is one thing--an entirely other one in the Gap.

More than anything else, avian flu will push Core countries to explore more and more the sort of sensor networks designed to detect bad stuff. Security experts want to sell all this on the terror threat, but the reality is that in a globalized world, the usual threats suffice to justify such R&D.

Further refinements in the comment policy

Additions to the not-too-formal comment policy:

In general everyone has been doing very well with comments. We are up to 265+ comments. Thank you for your contributions.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to comment. However, the comment must be pertinent to the thread. And, while you are free to disagree with Tom, if every comment you write is in fundamental disagreement with Tom, there are other websites where your time would be better spent.

Furthermore, comments should be reasonably brief. There are many fine, free weblog services where your long writings can be posted.

UPDATE: Until I get Trackbacks up and running, anyone who posts at greater-than-comment length about one of Tom's posts should feel free to self-link in the comments.

Writing in from... but if I told you...

DATELINE: some mansion, near Austin TX, 10 February 2006

Been a whirl.

First, got funny email from Gen. Jim Mattis asking "where in the hell do you get off calling me 'casually profane'?" Apparently our mutual admiration survived the piece.

Thursday was drop off #2 to school (#1 sick), trip to new house, eye doc appointment with #3 child, playground with same, then drop off, then clean wife's car, then visit Catholic school near new house that we consider for next year (smaller), then pick up #2 & 3, then another trip to house (this time with spouse), then race to airport for plane to DC, then cab to hotel, then work brief on Middle East for 3 hours, then collapse.

Then up this morn for breakfast with old mentor Hank Gaffney.

Then I open conference of Arab jounalists talking Middle East in wired world at old company, The CNA Corp.

I go 45 and then 25 Q and A. Seemed to piss off some of the American experts, but plenty of the Arab journalists came up afterwards to say how much they liked my talk--especially on Iran.

Then cab to Reagan. Buy Valentine Day gifts, forgetting them in store. Sign books in Borders and Olssons in airport. Buy gear bag for my travel electronic gear and world's coolest clear rubber glove for my Treo. Then got to gate, and just as boarding begins, I realize mistake, race back to store, go through security again, and just catch totally full (middle seat) 3.5 hr flight to rainy Houston (lotsa turbulence on way). Then just make connection to Austin.

Speaking to select audience tonight. Security tight, so will tell you tomorrow.

[Posted for Tom]

Great day to get up!

DATELINE: in the Shire, Indy, 8 February 2006

So happy to be back home.

My swim and workout were great. So amazingly relaxing in late morning.

Then out of hotel and off to Chinatown for lunch with my old friend from my WTC workshop days. Great discussion. I always knew China would loom very large in my personal future, so the question was never “if?” but merely who and when. All good to work the biz and the security, but at the end of the day I want to leave the scene accomplishing the goals that first attracted me to the field, and global peace begins with a strong U.S.-Chinese strategic alliance in this era of globalization. No alliance, no shrinking the Gap. So I welcome the personal connectivity renewed, because these relationships matter very much to me.

On that score, my friend agreed with my theory that we’re only 5-7 years from facing the reality of the Fifth Generation of Chinese leaders being so much more sophisticated about the world, economies, and the U.S. because so many of them were educated here. His only caveat? It really comes at us much faster, like 3-4 years. The debate on who comes next is going on right now. Once Wen and Hu start their second five-year terms in a couple of years, that question gets settled relatively fast and the emergence of the new progressively lame-ducks the old—just like here.

Then the SWA flight outta BWI back to Indy. Quick stop by house on way to pick up son at Sylvan tutoring.

As much as I hate this apartment and dream almost nightly of living in the new house, it’s very good to be home. I simply miss the physical contact: all that hugging and kissing and touching. It’s a cold world out there, no matter how exciting it may seem. Time to regenerate while I can.

The most color-blind generation in America versus the cartoon wars of Europe and Islam

ARTICLE: “Colorblind: A new generation doesn’t blink an eye at interracial relationships,” by Sharon Jayson, USA Today, 8 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “West Coming to Grasp Wide Islamic Protests As Sign of Deep Gulf,” by Alan Cowell, New York Times, 8 February 2006, p. A9.

ARTICLE: “Contest for Cartoons Mocking the Holocaust Announced in Tehran,” by Nazila Fathi, New York Times, 8 February 2006, p. A9.

ARTICLE: Chechnya Expels Danish Aid Agency,” by staff, New York Times, 8 February 2006, p. A9.

I know a lot of people around the world and here as well like to view America as a country with very troubling racism, but in reality things are much cooler here than in the vast majority of the world. Our racial tensions don’t really hide much under the surface anymore, compared to when I was a kid growing up in the 1960s. Instead, they’re out and about and argued and debated so regularly here now, that we confuse that vigorous exchange with racism’s alleged persistence in our society.

The amazing and encouraging truth is that you can grow your way out of racism by simply raising a different sort of generation. Within about 15 to 20 years of effort, your forever-young society will strongly reflect that new outlook. We’ve done this sort of transformation on a number of fronts socially, such as drinking and driving, smoking, environmentalism, etc. It doesn’t take “generations” but just one well-raised generation to send a values shock wave through a society, especially one whose consumerism is so tied to youth trends as ours is.

I remain so optimistic about shrinking the Gap primarily because of that fundamental realization of how quickly a society can change, for good or ill (look at young kids the world over involved in violent conflicts, for example), that I first learned by watching Russian and East European societies change so rapidly once the Wall came down, and now watch even more rapidly unfold in China and India.

As for Europe and the cartoon wars, I think we need to be clear that this is not a “Western” problem per se, but a European one that is tied up primarily in the issues of immigration, demographics and the rapid aging going on there. Europe’s getting more and more caught up in the Big Bang we laid on the Muslim Middle East by toppling the Taliban and Saddam primarily because the tensions generated reveal some serious sociological, economic and political fault lines there.

Did the Big Bang create tensions that weren’t there? Absolutely not. Did it speed the killing/violence/crises? Absolutely yes. Is this bad or good for Europe? Just like for the Middle East, it’s a good thing. Holding on to the bad past is what gets you civil wars and race riots, two lessons we ourselves took a long time (roughly one century for each) to learn. America would have been so much better off so much earlier if some exogenous event or power had forced those issues.

So I guess all this really means is that America continues in its historic role as global meddler and revolutionary without peer. In contrast, our alleged near-peer competitor China hasn’t done diddly beyond its borders in decades, preferring a sort of commercial-only relationship with the outside world that our George Washington would have envied (truly, no “entangling alliances” to speak of, just crass commercialism).

Truly sad right now to watch the opportunists jump into the fray, like the Iranian hardliners or Putin’s puppet in Chechnya (oh yeah, we’re kicking out NGOs over cartoons all right!). Calls for cartoons to mock the Holocaust will only prove the point further: what can the Iranians do on this subject that Mel Brooks hasn’t already explored?

It’s the old joke about the American who says to the Soviet during the Cold War: “I can criticize my government openly on the Mall in Washington.” The Soviet answers, “Big deal, I can also criticize your government openly in Red Square in Moscow!”

The continuing and increasingly idiotic tit-for-tat here just makes Islam look more stupid by the minute. In the free world, you can mock any religion, but in the Islamic world, you can really only demonize non-Islamic faiths.

Feedback, as I always say, tells one more about the sender than the target. Islam increasingly feels victimized by history. Got it. Stipulate it. But so do the Europeans on this subject, because they built a free world of their own and they don’t plan on surrendering those freedoms to the stultifying sort of taboo-based culture that keeps so much of the Middle East disconnected from the larger world and the amazing economic growth it’s enjoyed in the last several decades. I don’t blame the Europeans for feeling scared on that score. If I lived there, I’d feel scared too.

Instead I live in America, with its warts and all, but likewise with racial tensions that cannot long remain suppressed among generations that increasingly grow beyond such self-imposed limitations.

The post-presidency comes early because the candidates can’t wait

ARTICLE: “White House hopefuls, activists are stirring: Political teams assemble in key states,” by Susan Page and Jill Lawrence, USA Today, 8 February 2006, p. 5A.

Yikes! A sad list of candidates on both sides. Frankly, only Hillary, McCain and Kerry seem heavyweights.

Kerry is one simply because he returns. Clinton is clearly one. McCain is the only celebrity the GOP has.

But all come with such baggage. Meanwhile, the lightweights are truly lite!

My name-association responses (GOP):

George Allen: Puh-leaze!

Sam Brownback: Impressive guy and amazingly practical given his intense faith, but I doubt an avowed evangelical can win even a nomination right now, despite the fact that Brownback would certainly rise above the designation.

Bill Frist: Zero excitement factor. As a Democrat, hard not to cheer him on.

Newt Gingrich: Smart as all get-out, but way too many enemies. I would expect to see him in a cabinet, though. Seriously.

Rudy Guliani: Possibly quite strong—as a Democrat. He’d lose the GOP base.

Chuck Hagel: You have to wonder here. Bit of a bridge-burner in his party. I find him off-putting and sort of arrogant, and yet I think he’s talented enough to overcome perceptions. Hard to dismiss, I guess, which is a strong sign this early.

Mike Huckabee: I have no idea how someone this unknown pulls it off. Running for something other than president, in my mind.

John McCain: The anger thing will be his downfall. Just a time bomb waiting to go off. Napoleonic complex since birth, so yeah, I’m saying he’s too short to be president.

George Pataki: Competent but too NY-ish. Just don’t see it. Tall, though.

Mitt Romney: Possibly quite strong. Big question on the Mormon thing. Hard to say, thus.

Now the Dems:

Evan Bayh: Needs to grow up quickly. First impressions do not impress me. Comes off as lightweight trying too hard to seem tough and commanding. If he’s so smart, he better start showing it more, and stop reading so obviously from scripts.

Joseph Biden: So amazingly off-putting. Totally a vanity ride. Very depressing to consider him as SECSTATE.

Wes Clark: Zero excitement. Doesn’t have a political bone in his body. Confuses mastering the art of political general with that of general politics. Too smart in intellect, and he knows it. Being president is a people skill he does not have.

Hillary Clinton: I just wish Emma Thompson could play her in the presidency. That would seal the deal for me. Tough enough and smart enough to pull it off. Just such a weird story, and that alone makes it so American. She is the first candidate I have ever considered giving money to—seriously. I’m just excited to watch the ride, no matter how it works out.

John Edwards: I really think he won’t wear well, and the natural confusion between him and Bayh will cancel each other out. I don’t know why I have no sympathy for him. He’s really pretty good and a great campaigner, but I have low expectations. Just don’t see him as presidential enough for now and can’t imagine what changes that perception.

Russ Feingold: Just too off-putting. You’d think I’d cheer the Wisconsin guy, but for now, I find him very hard to warm up to. He may surprise in debates and other public performances, but I think he’s just too left to win the general election.

John Kerry: I continue to think he’s smart as hell. Will be very interesting to see Hillary and he go at it. Good for the party to have a tough regular season, I think. Just not sure what will light the fire under his ass this time that didn’t last time. Then again, the regret factor on Bush may do that for him in the eyes of enough voters.

Bill Richardson: Don’t see it happening, despite his obvious charisma. Think he is first Hispanic (okay, “half-Hispanic”) national candidate though—for VP.

Tom Vilsack: It would have to be a war of attrition and self-destruction among the Dems for this guy to emerge. Not impossible, but not likely.

Mark Warner: Intrigues many. May quickly surpass Bayh as “thinking man’s” favorite dark horse. He’s such a break from the fear and loathing atmosphere of current admin, with his Clinton-like focus on bright futures, that he may quickly emerge as alternative to whoever survives the Kerry-Clinton wars.

Whew! Fun and completely impressionistic. Like picking Oscar winners in August.

Gotta tell you, though. Feel better for Dems than GOP on basis of talent. Might actually balance the GOP’s usual edge in organization, although hard to get much closer than last two elections, yes? So the talent factor may be big.

The blog is my silent partner--until it needs to speak

10 am and already I've put in enough of a day to justify my title of Senior Managing Director of Enterra Solutions.

And I will admit that the title was more aspirational than operational until things started kicking into high gear over the last month. Steve DeAngelis was very nice and respectful of my obligations surrounding BFA's publication in October, allowing me to ramp up my participation at a pace that made sense for my other endeavors and my family.

In the last four weeks, however, the SMD title has come to define my identity more and more, to the point where I consider myself that more than anything else right now.

And even in my work at Enterra, the blog remains my silent partner. It connects me to so many great people who remain invisible to me until such time as they decide it makes sense to surface.

Late last week the CTO of Accenture surfaces, taking some righteous umbrage at my tendency to crack nasty on the Redskins, a franchise that--quite frankly--I despise first and foremost for that image of Lombardi post-Green Bay (and yet, Lombardi Cancer Clinic is where Emily, my daughter, was treated in the mid-1990s, and that experience softens my dislike somewhat... toward DC while not impacting my dislike for the Skins whatsoever!).

Anyway...

This guy takes me to task a bit. We trade some emails. He's been checking out Enterra. So we set up a breakfast this am with Steve.

Great conversation ensues, in which this guy validates a lot of our approach and market definition, even our handling of various suitors (and there are several). I mean, it was very solid to walk away from a meeting like that--very validating.

And then there's the very tangible prospects of work together...

Listening to Steve and this guy talk was pretty amazing--like two flags talking concepts of operations. There was a sequence of about five minutes there when neither said a single word of English that most humans would recognize, just acronyms masquerading as words. I know just enough to follow and pipe in now and then, but I'm not arrogant enough to butt in when I'm not needed.

What's so cool about what Steve DeAngelis is doing with Enterra is that he's amassing serious A-Team talent. In most situations, you see this sort of talent step aboard and it makes you nervous in a zero-sum way (is my influence or stardom diminished by this addition?). But with Enterra, given the scaling challenges we face with all this interest and dealmaking opportunties, I'm happier than hell every time he hires somebody--the more world-class the better.

It's the oldest strategic planning story: planning for failure is easy, but planning for success--especially runaway success--is amazingly hard.

Being Senior Managing Director for Enterra is both hard (dealing with that scalability issue) and easy (blog it and they will come). My confidence comes primarily in the partnership with Steve: I do my part and he does his and ever the opportnities will meet.

And now back in the hotel, I sneak off for a swim and gym workout. Got a VC type flying down from NYC to have lunch with me. This guy goes all the way back for me--to the World Trade Center. Strong China connectivity. More amazing opportunities to consider--by lunchtime.

I feel like I'm at the end of one of those choke-me-up commercials: "I am Thomas P.M. Barnett, and I'm Senior Managing Director of Enterra Solutions!"

[Flash logo]

[Fade to black as James Earl Jones intones solemnly, "BE RESILIENT!"]

[splashing sound...]

Go Guys! Go!

The sun is not up, and yet it is not a time to sleep.

Now is the time to get up. Now is the time to work. Go Guys! Go!

Two guys, in a car, in a District and two states, without overcoats, in February.

The light is red. Stop Steve stop!

The light is green. Go Steve go!

Two tall guys walking into a big office building.

Two white guys going up in an elevator.

One guy in front of the screen. One guy at the laptop.

Two white guys going down in an elevator.

Two tall guys going out of a big office building.

Corporations. Big corporations, little corporations, black corporations and white corporations. Green corporations and blue corporations and yellow corporations and brown corporations--all at a big corporate office building.

Do you like my Development-in-a-Box?

I do! I like that Development-in-a-Box!

Good bye!

Good bye!

Joined at the hip

All day in meetings today with Steve.

Never boring. Anything but, given the huge possibilities that seem to come Enterra's collective way.

But definitely tiring.

Still, nice to feel to belong to something this cool. Cool to have Steve as partner. Cool to be doing and not just talking about it.

The exaggerated pendulum shift in the Bush foreign policy team

ARTICLE: “As ‘Neocons’ Leave, Bush Foreign Policy Takes Softer Line: Ms. Rice Changes Approach To Iran and North Korea; Democracy Still Key Goal; Cheney’s Waning Influence?” by Jay Solomon and Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 6 February 2006, p. A1.

All this article really says is that we ended up with the Kerry foreign policy without Kerry and the Democrats. The neocons created an overhang of serious length by invading Iraq with little-to-no desire or interest in executing the second-half effort with the vigor necessary to win the peace.

The great “shift” is nothing more than the operational/rotational tie-down created by Iraq. This denies the second Bush administration of many of the options favored by the neocons, who saw the writing on the wall and left the scene.

And thus the “neo-realists” led by Rice “rise” to the top by default. True, Rice is a better bureaucratic fighter than Powell was, but his standard was so low that anybody in that job would have scored higher simply by engaging in something other than full-time ass covering.

If a truly new foreign policy mindset was at work in the Bush administration, the neocon view of the world wouldn’t still be driving the budget/QDR process in the Pentagon, and we’d see that Pentagon back in the business of supporting diplomacy rather than diplomacy simply hiding our current military inadequacies.

The QDR vision is a lose-lose-lose

ARTICLE: “Military Budget Spares Weapons From Cutbacks,” by Jonathan Karp and Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 6 February 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Pentagon Adds Initiatives, Retains Old Ones,” by Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, 7 February 2006, p. A11.

ARTICLE: “Defense Plan Puts Off Cuts for Weapon Systems: Proposal Lifts Funding 4.8% To $439.3 Billion for 2007; But Doesn’t Fix ‘Mismatch,’” by Greg Jaffe and Jonathan Karp, Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. A17.

ARTICLE: “Bush Would Boost Defense, Security In Budget Plan: Social Programs Face Cuts In Proposal for Fiscal 2007; Worries Over Heating Bills,” by Deborah Solomon and John D. McKinnon, Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Broad Ripples Of Iraq War In Budgets Of 2 Agencies,” by David S. Cloud and Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 7 February 2006, p. A14.

ARTICLE: “One Small Step for Drones: Legendary ‘Skunk Works’ Helps Lockheed Martin Jump Into Unmanned-Plane Market,” by Jonathan Karp, Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2006, p. B1.

First, let me say that I do welcome all the many moves in the QDR toward the SysAdmin force, although I note, as many do, that the vast majority of these changes are operational and organizational, without touching force structure.

The QDR vision, then, is to have it all: to hold onto the past while trying to deal with the future.

And to me, that is unsustainable. So I argue as much in the blog.

I get an email today from a GS-15 from Joint Force Command who says either I make specific recommendations for how the Air Force and Navy can better support the ground forces in the Global War on Terrorism or my arguments against the strategic vision of the QDR are “amateurish.”

Fair enough, say I. I thought I was being clear enough, but let me be as explicit as possible here now.

I think the Navy and Air Force should reduce their force structure ambitions for the long term and accept the notion that funding should be shifted from their services to the Army and Marines to accommodate their rising manpower and current equipment costs. I think you can take basically every new platform requirement enunciated by both services and cut them in half, filling in by continuing to buy current technologies rather than upgrading them in these new platforms. I would then shift those acquisition savings to the Marines and the Army to allow them to plus-up their end strength and treat them better by shortening their overseas deployments (historically, the Navy has preferred to send out its ships for 6-month deployments, so why not the same for soldiers and Marines, instead of year-long affairs?).

In doing this, I would be accepting greater future risk from a “rising China” threat in order to maintain my country’s ability to manage the world in the near and mid-term, believing, as I do, that I am far more likely to obviate any Chinese threat in this manner rather than sub-optimizing my GWOT effort and keeping my powder dry for a China that I outspend, when supplements are included, roughly 10 to 1.

When I make a better world, I give China a better chance to develop peacefully, and I’m more likely to get China to help me in this effort with its own manpower. That is a win-win-win.

When I suboptimize my ground forces’ effort in the GWOT and keeps those much needed resources fenced off for the Big War crowd’s preferred enemy image of China, then I run my Marines and Army ragged (needlessly sacrificing far too many in the meantime), I get a worse world that’s far more likely to push the Chinese toward aggressive acts out of fear, and I deny myself China’s resources. To me, that is lose-lose-lose.

What my JFCOM critic wanted to hear was how I’d rearrange the Air Force and Navy budgets to give each a force structure better suited to supporting the GWOT effort. But again, what I want to do is stop pretending that each service deserves its sacred share no matter what. To me, that’s not strategic thinking, but simply pork-barrel politics and inter-service rivalries at their worst. Navy and Air Force officers and civilians are wrong to persist in this stagnant, unchanging assumption that equal shares somehow answer the strategic mail. Rumsfeld and company let them get away with it, because Cheney and Bush let the Pentagon get away with such overspending.

Worst of all, plenty of Pentagon officials, both civilian and military, know that this have-it-both-ways budget strategy is completely unsustainable—ESPECIALLY IN A LONG WAR.

We can sustain our effort in the GWOT, but we require some services to sacrifice so that others can get the job done.

If stating that simple truth makes me “amateurish,” I accept the charge with gratitude. But sometimes, simple problems meet simple solutions.

The real war, the real peace

ARTICLE: “Pentagon Widens Program To Foil Bombings In Iraq: Spending Will Be Tripled; C.I.A. and F.B.I. Aid Push to Stem Rising Toll—Technology Hurried,” by Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 6 February 2006, p. A1.

OP-CHART: “31 Days in Iraq,” by Adriana Lins De Albuquerque and Alicia Cheng, New York Times, 6 February 2006, p. A27.

It is heartening to see the Pentagon move harder on IEDs. If we had lost a bunch of aircraft or any ships, frankly, the resulting sound and fury out of the building, not to mention Congress, would have been totally out of proportion. But lose a Marine or soldier day after day after day for months on end? That gets up the “tripled” effort three years into the occupation.

I am less impressed by the NYT’s constant efforts to chart the Iraq insurgency’s impact in Iraq. We are told that over 800 people died in Iraq in that time period. All the icons on this huge chart are displayed for emotional effect, because graphically speaking, it’s almost impossible to get any other impression than that there’s simply a lot of them and they come from all over Iraq (not true, but the icons are artfully arranged to fill the space all around the map, when in reality they come overwhelmingly from the Sunni triangle).

Here’s my preferred chart: a bar chart that shows 4k dead each month in Iraq for years on end across the 1990s as our collective sanctions killed, on average according to the UN, 50k kids and elderly each year; then the totals dropping to below 1k per month since we toppled Saddam, giving, on average, more than 3k Iraqis a chance for a better life each month.

But that would be an unfair chart, focusing as it would on the long term. We don’t want to think long term in this Long War, now do we?