Getting real about our real challenges

ARTICLE: “Bush’s Latest Energy Solution, Like Its Forebears, Faces Hurdles: Fuel from ‘Cellulosic Ethanol’ Is Costly, Hard to Dispense; Broad Political Support; Enthusiasm from Detroit,” by John J. Fialka and Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, 2 February 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Making an Oil Pledge: Declaration of Undependence Rests on New Energy Sources,” by Justin Blum, Washington Post, 2 February 2006, p. D1.

ARTICLE: “Climbing back: The economies of what used to be called the ‘third world’ are regaining their ancient pre-eminence,” The Economist, 21 January 2006, p. 69.

OP-ED: “The Nation of the Future: Thriving in a more competitive world,” by David Brooks, New York Times, 2 February 2006, p. A25.

Pundits and politicians alike rush to support the nonsense goal of energy independence, because, in their ignorance and fear, they believe that if the slim economic connectivity that the Middle East currently has with the outside world is suddenly severed, then regimes in the region would be forced to—and could actually handle—the popular pain that would be unleashed then.

It is a nutty argument. Instead of speeding to the logical conclusion of regional change through efforts like Iraq, we’d simply be delaying that process for a while, and then largely transferring the pain over here though the flow of people escaping the region at far higher rates.

And if you don’t think that would be the case, then please make your case for how the region moves toward democracy more rapidly thanks to the collapse of their economies. And if you care to make that case, I’d like to introduce you to the continent of Africa.

The push for new transportation energies is coming—from the East. The rising oil demand there, coupled with the unsustainable rates of pollution, will be the driver.

Watch Chinese firms Geely, Cherry, Great Wall and others blow into the U.S. auto market in coming years. Their first invasion will be all about price. But the second wave, engineered through strategic alliances with Honda, Toyota, Ford and GM, will be all about technology. This is the conduit by which fuel cells will come to America—not through any fear-mongering calls for “Manhattan Projects.”

I’m with David Brooks, a consistent favorite of mine: we tend to underestimate our capacity for technological innovation. And no, that innovation won’t be about the manufacturing giants of the 20th century, but about the high-tech giants of the 21st. So yes to next generations of energy, materials, biogenetics, and so on, but please, let’s stop pretending that preserving yesterday’s manufacturing is somehow addressing our future.

Touché! Or just touchy? Beijing wants no memories of a Chinese geisha

ARTICLE: “China cancels the release of ‘Geisha,’” by David Barboza, International Herald Tribune, 1 February 2006, p. 11.

You laugh, but Beijing is fearful of the passions unleashed among the young: “… Chinese officials had expressed concern that the public could react strongly to a movie featuring China’s best-known actresses as geishas, which many Chinese consider to be prostitutes.”

Of course, don’t expect the same officials to get off their asses and stop the street sales of bootleg DVD copies of the same movie. And if that doesn’t rock your boat, “many Chinese Web sites are now offering illegal free downloads of the movie with Chinese subtitles.”

Yes, yes, the Chinese Communist Party rules the web all right.

Rising connectivity, as it brings peoples together who haven't been so connected in the past, will always spike feelings of racism, nationalism, etc., especially among the young--something I cover in BFA.

But you know what? They grow up, and they get over it.

The family members I will someday meet from China

ARTICLE: “DNA rewrites history for African-Americans: Tests to determine lineage can reveal complex ancestries,” by Richard Willing, USA Today, 2 February 2006, p. 4A.

The widespread use of DNA testing to reveal lost genealogy among African-Americans is just the tip of the iceberg. This stuff will spread globally, and will be used all over the dial to solve all sorts of mysteries in coming years and decades.

And when it comes big time to China, my family may well find itself meeting long unknown members of our then-extended family.

Many girls given up for adoption in China are second daughters. The rule is: you have a female first child and you can try again for a son, at no penalty. What happens if you have a second daughter is, either choose to live with financial penalties, which are prohibitive for rural poor (if caught or prosecuted—and not all are), or give her up for adoption and keep trying for that son.

Do the math and it’s possible that someday I may not just meet my adopted daughter’s parents, but perhaps her sister and brother.

How would these people fit in our lives? Hard to say from today’s perspective, but I honestly believe it’s a conundrum that many parents of Chinese daughters will someday face—thanks to DNA testing.

Me? I will never bet against the human instinct for connectivity. I will expect to happen, and I will welcome its expression. Anything else is simply fighting the inevitable.

Repeat after me: grand strategy is a LONG TERM pursuit

Interesting bit on the myths and failures and hubris of any attempt at grand strategy by Fabius Maximus (yes, I know it's hard to take people seriously when they insist on using pseudonyms and silly ones at that) at Defense and the National Interest.

Find it here: http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/fabius_myth_of_grand_strategy.htm.

It's serious writing whose only flaw is this assumption I run into time and time again: if it can't be done within a couple of years, then your grand strategy is obviously a failure. Notice his analysis of Iraq (the people essentially reject our system). I simply don't see that in Iraq. In fact, I think it's quite amazing how well they accept our system. The notion that accepting it will magically lead to no conflict is a bit naive. I wonder if Fabius remembers how nasty and unruly our system was for . . . oh . . . the first hundred years or so.

Grand strategy isn't about this fiscal quarter, or administration, or even this decade. It's about decades of pursuing the world you define as worth creating. It will not be linear, and every difficulty does not signal complete failure, just a tougher row to hoe.

And yeah, it does scare me that so many people you'd expect to think long term get so scared so quickly by the difficulty of actually doing what they preach--I.e., think grand strategic and then stick to your guns.

And then there is this weird assumption of the 4GWers at DNI in particular: if you name a nation as being in the Gap, then clearly you assume we must invade! Talk about your close reading. Yes, I do predict US invasions of Brazil and Argentina (Oops Fabius, I actually put those states in the Core! But no bother, we'll invade those too.).

There is something strangely literal about people at DNI. It's a bit like arguing with bible thumpers ("If it's in the book, then by God...).

How these criticisms kill the utility of grand strategy or mine in particular is beyond me. Do we agree that the states we worry about in this Global War on Terror are geographically concentrated in what I call the Gap? Do we want to shrink that Gap over time? Do we see a role in this for the military? Must we change the military to adapt itself better for this role? Will it be hard? But will we not also learn from mistakes over time and get better?

Do you have any alternative to this world view other than to say this is hard and our first effort was quite difficult?

The Fourth Generation Warfare types argue themselves out of the debate with this approach, and what they offer as long-term strategy would require an America that few Americans would care to live in, because it would look a bit too much like Israel. That's fine for the Martin van Creveld addicts, but for the rest of us, we'd like America to still look like America at the end of this process and yes! We actually do believe that America is a model for the world, one that will be filtered and reshaped the planet over just like Japan shaped it for Singapore shaped it for South Korea shaped it for China shaped it for Vietnam shaped it for ...

But you know what Fabius? It won't happen by Tuesday!

You know, it's not serious navigation aid to sit in the back seat whining, "Are we there yet?" all the time.

These guys need to look beyond their blood-and-guts view of history. They're missing all the good stuff.

Here's my "bold" prediction on Iraq: Every good 4GWer knows that the average insurgency takes a decent decade to kill. We went into Iraq, allowed one to flourish, dealt with it badly, and now we're getting a whole lot smarter (my upcoming article in March issue of Esquire. By 2010, Iraq won't have an insurgency worth mentioning. We'll clock in on this one at about 7 years, or three ahead of schedule.

But guess what? Many experts will call this an absolute failure, even many 4GWers, and they'll be completely wrongheaded to do so.

It's a sad thing when those who seem most open to long-term strategizing are the first to declare surrender every time the going gets tough.

The "soft kill" on Iran--not so crazy?

Buddy Michale Lotus blogs this segment from Bush's State of the Union last night (seems I am always flying somewhere during these big speeches!):

"Democracies in the Middle East will not look like our own, because they will reflect the traditions of their own citizens. Yet liberty is the future of every nation in the Middle East, because liberty is the right and hope of all humanity. The same is true of Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people. The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon – and that must come to an end. The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions – and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian
regime to gain nuclear weapons. America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats. And tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our Nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran."

This strikes me as a big signal in a big speech: We'll push your leadership on the nukes, and you Iranians do what you can on the inside. To me, that's taking regime change by force off the table for now, and I think that's Bush listening to his military and understanding that we don't have the ability, with the current tie-down of assets elsewhere, to make that a credible threat.

I am thinking more and more that Bush is done, major intervention-wise, for his presidency. Question now is whether Iran or North Korea dominate a 2008 election debate. The "winner" is probably teed-up next for some sort of big push leading toward military action. I would prefer that target to be North Korea, and not Iran, for a lot of reasons I've already stated in this blog.

If I were advising Democrats or Republicans, I would say: pick North Korea and kill two birds with one stone (bad Kim and win over China in strategic alliance in the process). On Iran, I think you risk creating two monsters (Iran you can't manage and China turned against you in the region). I would take the win-win over the lose-lose. And hopefully smart candidates, thinking about how they would actually rule and not just how they'd get elected, would see things similarly.

Read Lotus on this on Chicago Boyz: http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/003898.html. As always, he is smart as a whip. His version of Fourth-Generation War I would actually wage.

UPDATE: Lotus continues in this vein.