Now is the time for all good economists to come to the aid of the military-market nexus

ARTICLE: “U.S. Rebuilding in Iraq Found to Fall Short: Agency Blames Security Costs, Poor Planning and Priority Shifts; Of 136 water and sanitation projects planned, only 49 will be done, a study says,” by James Glanz, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A10.

ARTICLE: “Study Says 80% of New Orleans Blacks May Not Return: A university report poses a continuing question: ‘Whose city will be rebuilt?’” by James Dao, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A16.

ARTICLE: “’No one knew how to deal with it,’” by Anne Rochell Konigsmark, USA Today, 27 January 2006, p. 4A.

CHART: “Nations’ needs after tsunami: Estimated cost for long-term recovery in tsunami-hit areas (in billions),” by David Stuckey and Dave Merrill, USA Today, 27 January 2006, p. 1A.

ARTICLE: “Students Are Leaving the Politics Out of Economics: Shunning Advocacy To Focus on Science,” by Louis Uchitelle, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. C3.

OP-ED: “Axis of Evo,” by Mary Anastasia O’Grady, Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A9.

COLUMN: “Win-Win? Tell It To the Losers,” by Floyd Norris, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. C1.

Get used to a steady stream of official US Government reports on how we mangled Iraq’s rebuilding. The key dynamic was this: we didn’t secure Iraq adequately, and the decision to keep Shiites and Kurds on board by disbanding the Sunni-dominated army meant that this combined need to backfill on security while training up an entirely new force essentially diverted the bulk of the reconstruction spending into security spending.

The inspector general’s report cited here speaks of a “reconstruction gap,” defining it as the difference between what we promised to spend on the reconstruction and what we’ll actually end up spending. Consider it a penalty tax for not having an adequate SysAdmin force, one that the Iraqi people will end up paying for decades.

But FEMA’s “reconstruction gap” in New Orleans is probably just as big. Like the Defense Department, FEMA has no budget for actual operations, so it lives on emergency spending which creates the similar sort of jumping-through-your-asshole bureaucratic responses (“No one knew how to deal with it”) as that witnessed within DoD in Iraq on the postwar planning and operations. The tax in this instance will be a traveling one, as in all the blacks and underclass in general who will never return to the Big Easy because their version of it will likely never return. A harsh outcome for a roguish state. Still, LA never reached for WMD, so you’d think it would deserve better.

One can count up the reconstruction gap in South Asia as well. In Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia alone the combined long-term cost is estimated at just under $10 billion. Go back and do the math and I think you find the world came nowhere near that amount. But can we expect such an outpouring of public funds, or do we need to rethink how the public sector encourages the private sector to enter these postwar/postdisaster/postwhatever situations as early as possible instead of staying away?

Indonesia’s new president, a former general no less, seems to have done a decent job of this sort of thing, both on the public sector side (limited corruption) and on the private sector side (tapping business consultants to lure private sector investments in, on the advice of Singapore’s elder sage, Lee Kwan Yew).

Amazingly, in this last year of unprecedented postwar reconstruction efforts and unprecedented postdisaster reconstruction efforts, I don’t think I’ve read a single bold article on the economics of either.

Instead, we are all enthralled with “Freakonomics,” a good book whose reach is both profound (the abortion question on crime) and pendantic (don’t even get me started). And it’s this book that is apparently striking the nerve of young economics students across America: they want to be statisticians now, not policy makers. They want to eschew politics, and instead keep clean from such messy entanglements and such unnecessary ambitions.

Too bad. Because we need such ambition from the dismal science now more than ever. Think of America and the global economy without an Alan Greenspan, of a Paul Volcker before him. We need such giants, whether they have degrees or not, because plumbing the complex depths of the military-market nexus may prove to be the defining element of any long-term win in the global war on terrorism.

Because, remember, the only exit strategy that really works entails job creation. Peace is the ultimate aftermarket.

We get leftist swings in the Andean (not “Indian”) portions of Latin America because many ordinary citizens there see real activism and a regaining of personal control in the politics of populism. It’s an illusion and a dangerous detour, policy-wise, and yet it meets people’s emotional needs. Better to feel like Evo Morales or Hugo Chavez somehow controls the country’s destiny on behalf of the people than deal with the reality that globalization rules over everybody’s economy—whether they realize it or not.

We can’t win the GWOT by getting smarter only on the military side of that nexus. No sir, it just won’t do.

The connecting evangelicals take wing

ARTICLE: “On a wing and prayer: Faith-based travel-boom bears witness to big market,” by Laura Bly, USA Today, 27 January 2006, p. 1D.

Evangelicals are estimated to be 25 percent of the current U.S. population, or about 70 million, and they are moved by their faith, apparently all over the world.

So it’s not just Narnia and Joel Osteen and Rick Warren books they’re buying. They’re booking vacations and spiritual journeys according to their faith-based view of the world.

Estimates are that 600k Americans travel abroad each year in search of various promised lands, with 50k churches (1 out of 9) sporting some sort of organized program, a significant jump of 20% in the last five years.

For God so loved the world, he’s apparently sending his missionaries across the planet, and none too surprisingly, most of their destinations are found inside the Gap.

Another interesting example of the global connective tissue represented by evangelicals and missionaries of all faiths.

Nations adopt rules as they advantage them

ARTICLE: “Bush and China Endorse Russia’s Nuclear Plan for Iran: Tehran could operate civilian facilities, but not control the fuel,” by David E. Sanger and Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A3.

ARTICLE: “EU Lobbyists Now Back Push for Transparency: Mandatory U.S.-Style Rules Gain Momentum in Brussels; Abramoff Sets Off Alarms,” by William Echiskon and Glenn R. Simpson, Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A7.

ARTICLE: “At WTO Talks, Stances Are Hardening, “ by Scott Miller and Marc Champion, Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A7.

China says it’s all for Moscow’s plan to enrich uranium on Tehran’s behalf, but that it’s not interested in pursuing economic or political sanctions, which means there is no point in taking this matter to the UN Security Council. China is basically choosing to give Iran the same near-nuclear status that South Korea and Japan have long had, meaning they could go nuclear if they wanted in a relatively short period of time, but they choose not to do so.

Why isn’t China ready to grant sanctions against Iran? China’s a country that's amazingly dependent on globalization. You derail that burgeoning trade and investment flow, and there’s really no chance that the country can maintain its growth trajectory, meaning bye-bye to what political stability there is now in the interior provinces. So China doesn’t care for that rule set and the threat it entails, especially vis-à-vis a country that’s becoming a very important energy source for it.

Expect that to be a regular stance by New Core pillars like Brazil, Russia, India and China. International sanctions may be the coward’s war in the West, but it’s a fool’s errand elsewhere, because it tends to hurt too indiscriminately those who depend far more on the global economy’s advance.

The EU is willing to rush into U.S.-style rules on lobbyists, because they fear similar outcomes as the brewing Abramoff scandal here in DC. When the fit’s better, the transmission is rapid: good rules beget good rules.

But that fit is determined largely by where any country stands on the development curve, which is why the grand bargains required to make the Doha Development Round come to fruition in the WTO do not seem in the offing. Rob Portman, US Trade Rep, says the “Doha lite” option doesn’t work for us, because we want a deal that triggers significantly greater trade flows. Best estimate by WTO director Pascal Lamy is that the deal is about 60% complete, something Egypt’s trade minister will take today if nothing better is in the offing and the alternative is collapse.

Other Core players blame the vague nature of Doha’s expressed goals, which were born in the heat of 9/11 and spoke to the desires of advanced states to rapidly elevate the economies of underdeveloped states, lest they become (or can’t stop being) breeding grounds for transnational terrorists.

Problem was, “WTO members never agreed specifically on how that was to be done.”

Perhaps a good definition would be whatever it takes to get postwar situations like Iraq to work, don’t you think?

Or is anyone under the illusion that trade and investment flows don’t play a key role in that?

But apparently, not enough WTO members see themselves advantaged by tackling such issues, and perhaps that’s because few can imagine trade making a difference when the U.S. screws up the occupation as badly as we did in Iraq.

The education of girls and the World Bank

Tom writes of the following link:

Sent to me by brother Andy the reference librarian. A good sign.

A link from the Librarians' Internet Index to the World Bank's priority on the education of girls.

If you're familiar with Tom's work, you know the high correlation he touts between educating girls/women and linking Gap countries to the Core through globalization.

Thanks, Andy, and keep up the SysAdmin work!

Site maintenance

Our website host has a scheduled outage tonight, 11:00 PM PST - 5:00 AM PST. Also, I'll be permforming some site maintenance this weekend relative to hosting and Movable Type. So the site will be unavailable some in the next 16 hours or so. I will try to have everything done by 12 AM EST, but I'm not making any promises...

Where is Tom?

Recent criticism

Mark ZenPundit Safranski beat Tom to the punch on criticizing William Lind's criticism of Tom's work.

In that post, Mark also linked John Robb's criticism of Tom: Contra Barnett. I'm most interested in pointing out Robb's work because it's so much more even-handed than Lind's. Furthermore, the comments get really good with Mark and Robb going back and forth constructively. We want to link rational discussions of Tom's work, including those viewpoints that disagree. Check it out.

Big day, big plans ...

Dateline: hotel, Oak Ridge TN, 25 January 2006

As always, an interesting and whirlwind day at the side of Frank Akers ...

Started off with a fascinating brief/discussion with a staff senior who's working this interesting global network of visioneers through a major defense contractor. You sit through a presentation like that, and you see all that talent and energy being put against the problems presented by our enemies, and you just know we'll win this global war on terrorism.

We get smarter, they get more desperate.

Then another fascinating brief/discussion with a company that works with Oak Ridge on logistical planning, and you see this problem between the force we've been buying (institutional) and the force we've been using (operational): the latter has moved on to the networked realities of today and the horizontal scenarios of the Long War, but the former is still trapped with Cold War (acquisitions, and bureaucratic oversight in general) and even pre-Cold War (personnel) systems. It was an elevating discussion that had me scribbling mental notes rapidly--especially for Vol. III.

My favorite breakthrough: Peace is the ultimate aftermarket.

Then lunch with Frank, always an education in himself. He is a natural mentor. He is a walking history book on special operations and military history in general. He is worth the price of admission.

Then a stop by at the Howard Baker Center at U. Tennessee. Oak Ridge is appointing me a Distinguished Strategist, Baker is appointing me as a Distinguished Scholar. I am, quite naturally, feeling distinguished. I will be participating in a conference at Baker in late March on Churchill and the future of U.S.-UK alliance. Should be cool. We also discussed me giving some briefs at Baker and possibly running a strategy wargame. I will defiinitely resurrect a few tricks with my old colleague Bradd Hayes, late of the Naval War College and now with Enterra Solutions, in pulling that one off.

Final stop is the Knoxville News Sentinel for a sitdown with the editor to discuss a bi-monthly Sunday column. We'll give it a whirl for a while and see how it goes. If it works out, other possibilities emerge.

Then my third swim in a row and a Family Guy episode on the treadmill.

Tonight is the Thought Leadership dinner/meeting. Long day that goes from 0800 to 2200, but energizing across the board.

I am really beginning to love coming here.

Tech Central Station interview now online

Remember when Tom posted about his interview with Max Borders for Tech Central Station? The transcript, audio excerpt, and iTunes podcast instructions (search for keyword "TCS" in the iTunes Podcast directory) are now available.

Other link: TCS Daily Podcast RSS feed.

Thanks to Steffany Hedenkamp for sending in the link.

UPDATE: Corrections made to TCS transcript; deleted from this post.

Good audience, good brief, good day

Dateline: hotel, Oak Ridge TN, 24 January 2006

Up this morning in Atlanta and gave morning pair of briefs to about 75 business exec at one of these "master executive forums." Basically did the max version of the BFA brief spread over two sessions, with Q&A attached. Great venue, great audience, great Q&A--just great all around. Morning like that makes you very happy to do this as a regular working gig.

Made a bunch of good contacts. Topped it off with a nice lunch.

Then the short flight to Knoxville on Delta for a day at Oak Ridge tomorrow.

A weirdly relaxing day given all the effort and interaction. Topped off with another round of lap swimming and treadmill.

Almost feels like I'm settling in better to the road in 2006, like I'm learning how to be the more sensible, more balanced road warrior

We put Tennesse field rock in our basement fireplace. Just got finished today. Looks really great: very natural and rough. Felt like it was my homage to my new connectivity with this state.

Walking out of Knoxville's airport today, I saw the same rock cut as large tiles on the walkway--a nice feeling.

This has beenn the anti-Koyanisquatsi day.

Tomorrow will be a major exploration of this new relationship set: Distinguished Scholar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Oprah! Take the road of redemption and admit your mistake!

ARTICLE: “Treatment Description In Memoir Is Disputed: Several addiction counselors question James Frey’s book,” by Edward Wyatt, New York Times, 24 January 2006, p. B1.

Frankly, I just don’t get this one. If Frey had simply pulled the wool over Oprah’s eyes, then she admits she was lied to and fooled. Big deal!

But this article points out that suspicions were raised directly to Oprah’s senior producers even before Frey appeared on her show (or more than 3 months prior to Smoking Gun’s revealed investigation) by a veteran counselor who had worked at Hazeldon in Minnesota, a woman who had herself frequently appeared as an addiction expert on Oprah’s show in the past (so a trusted source, yes?). Oprah’s people were concerned enough about her reporting that Frey’s description of his time there, which basically defines the book in question (420 out of the 432 pages), was full of gross distortions and outright fabrications, that they conducted their own investigation (whatever that means, frankly). But in the end, Oprah sticks with her choice, does the show, and, in the events that follows, basically chooses to blow off the concern of counselors who say that Frey’s fantastic lies will actually end up deterring real addicts from seeking treatment at such centers out of fear that they will suffer similarly unreal experiences.

In sum, Oprah, despite knowing better, chooses her own aura of infallibility over the potentially disastrous harm this book ends up causing among the very population she purports to help through its promotion.

I say, Oprah, forget about running for political office. With this sort of self-preserving hypocrisy, you’re already there.

The sad thing is, Oprah’s learning the old DC lesson: it’s not the mistake, but the cover-up and the stubbornness in admitting the mistake that actually costs more in the end.

Oprah needs to dust off her own tale of personal redemption. I’m sure her spirit is willing, even if her ego is too strong.

Serious analysis on Iran from a former NSC player

OP-ED: “The Gulf Between Us: The solution to our Iran problem may lie in Riyadh,” by Flynt Leverett, New York Times, 24 January 2006, p. A25.

We are told by the Iran experts that our carrots haven’t worked in recent years, but this is bullshit.

Read on:

AS the United States and its European partners consider their next steps to contain the Iranian nuclear threat, let's recall how poorly the Bush administration has handled this issue. During its five years in office, the administration has turned away from every opportunity to put relations with Iran on a more positive trajectory. Three examples stand out.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Tehran offered to help Washington overthrow the Taliban and establish a new political order in Afghanistan. But in his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush announced that Iran was part of an "axis of evil," thereby scuttling any possibility of leveraging tactical cooperation over Afghanistan into a strategic opening.

In the spring of 2003, shortly before I left government, the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major players in Iran's power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A conversation I had shortly after leaving the government with a senior conservative Iranian official strongly suggested that this was the case. Unfortunately, the administration's response was to complain that the Swiss diplomats who passed the document from Tehran to Washington were out of line.

Finally, in October 2003, the Europeans got Iran to agree to suspend enrichment in order to pursue talks that might lead to an economic, nuclear and strategic deal. But the Bush administration refused to join the European initiative, ensuring that the talks failed.

Now Washington and its allies are faced with two unattractive options for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue. They can refer the issue to the Security Council, but, at a time of tight energy markets, no one is interested in restricting Iranian oil sales. Other measures under discussion - travel restrictions on Iranian officials, for example - are likely to be imposed only ad hoc, with Russia and China as probable holdouts. They are in any case unlikely to sway Iranian decision-making, because unlike his predecessor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disdains being feted in European capitals.

Leverett’s answer?

A “contact group” of Core powers (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China) + the Gulf’s powers coming together to declare a nuclear-free Gulf. This is the new Saudi proposal that does not link this goal to Israel’s relinquishment of nukes. In other words, we create an organization for the region like what the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe did alongside NATO in taming and ultimately integrating the old Soviet threat. We guaranteed security and seats at the table, and countries that could have had nukes when the Soviet empire fell apart chose not to make that choice.

Grand bargains are never in the offing. You build these relationships slowly but surely in tiny little steps—meeting after meeting.

We have come nowhere near to exhausting this process. What we’ve exhausted is our military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran-the-regime-change is not an option, because no one will help us on this one—bet on that.

We’ve waged the war as much as we can for now. Better get on with the peace.

The U.S. sucks at postconflict ops, but we’re still the best the world has—sad to say

ARTICLE: “Iraq Rebuilding Badly Hobbled, U.S. Report Finds: Problems From the Start; Understaffing, Infighting and Lack of Expertise Are Cited in Draft,” by James Glanz, New York Times 24 January 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Fear and Death Ensnare U.N.’s Soldiers in Haiti: Deepening Instability Forces a 4th Delay in National Voting,” by Ginger Thompson, New York Times, 24 January 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “African Union Is Divided by a Sudanese Bid to Lead It: Should a president said to foment war become chairman?” by Marc Lacey, New York Times, 24 January 2006, p. A3.

The draft of the official USG report on Iraq-the-postwar is an exercise in honesty. Understaffed, under-trained, under-resourced, under-prioritized, under-authorized, under-coordinated, and under the gun—as a result.

One observer, Steve Ellis, a VP at Taxpayers for Common Sense, says the spending spree by involved U.S. agencies looked “like a spoils system between various agencies.” That’s what happens when you throw a load of money in front of a bunch of bureaucracies. That’s what happens when you have about two dozen contracting agents working the scene. You want serious spending done seriously? Create a dedicated department.

Ready to give up on this impossible task?

Check out how good the UN’s running the show on its own in Haiti. Check out how the African Union is policing Sudan’s genocide janjaweed.

Still believe an international or regional organization is going to do this work for us?

SysAdmin and Leviathan fight to a doctrinal draw in QDR, with real loser being the federal budget deficit

CHART: “The American checkbook: Dollars spent by U.S. government in fiscal year 2005,” by David Stuckey and Sam Ward, USA Today, 24 January 2006, p. 1A.

ARTICLE: “Expanding Bush Budgets Irk Conservatives: With Next Blueprint Looming, a Look at How Defense, Entitlements Fuel Increases,” by Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2006, p. A4.

OP-ED: “’We Must Change Policy Direction’: A recipe for a competitive, and solvent, America,” by Robert E. Rubin, Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2006, p. A20.

The QDR reveals that the Leviathan is still king, but that there’s a new crown prince in the kingdom, and it’s called the rising SysAdmin force. Some will be dismayed by this, but I am quite pleased by how far the SysAdmin has come in this first great judging of the threat post-9/11 (and no, the last-second rewrite of the last one doesn’t count).

Rumsfeld loves all his children, and who can blame him? The men upstairs aren’t reigning in the spending, because they say we’re a nation waging war.

But when do we become the nation also waging peace?

Our defense budget is in the mid 400 billions, but we spent on national security last year almost $700 billion ($677b in all, counting all those supplementals). Yes, HHS and social security were almost $600 b each, and I’m pretty sure they’ll go up in coming years, so maybe—just maybe—we’ll have to figure out how to wage peace more efficiently cause we can’t keep spending as much as we do on wars we will not wage against enemies of our imagination. Defense is up almost 9% a year on average since 2000, and China’s the belligerent big spender on defense, when their double-digit percentage increases place it way south of $100b?

Rubin’s got it right. We can’t manage this deficit build-up. It’s not sustainable. Bush can’t—and frankly doesn’t need to—tell us where this is going. He’s writing checks other administrations—and generations--will end up cashing. Get me that happy ending, and get it ASAP. The Long War must be the Expanding Peace marked by the growing Core.

Want a responsible Hamas? Let it achieve responsibility through real elections

EDITORIAL: “Palestinian Democracy: What to do when terrorist win elections,” Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2006, p. A20.

OP-ED: “Regime Change in Palestine?” by Khaled Abu Toameh, Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2006, p. A20.

This has always been the warning of the regional experts: if we promote democracy in the Middle East, we’ll just end up with religious extremists in power.

This assumption forgets two realities: 1) those striving for power act differently than those who’ve achieved it (sometimes they act worse, sometimes they act better); and 2) most founders of countries start out as rebels and terrorists (as the members of the British Parliament reminded me when I spoke there a couple of years back, they still consider George Washington to be a master terrorist).

The question on Hamas isn’t whether they used terror. They did—like crazy. So did Fatah.

The question is, Is Hamas a fundamentalist group whose main aim in gaining power is to disconnect Palestine from the corrupt, outside world? Or, more to the point, to rub out Israel—it’s version of the corrupt, outside world?

If it learns to love power, and Palestine’s ability to exist on its own, the trade-off on Israel may not be so inconceivable.

I know, I know. Hard to imagine. But I haven’t seen a revolutionary party yet that didn’t lose something with power—their goals, their common sense, whatever.

If and when Hamas wins, it won’t just be that the population is desperate. It will be because it outperforms Fatah as a provider of social services a desperate population needs desperately. And because it’s campaign focused, according to Abu Toameh, on corruption, nepotism and anarchy.

And that, my friends, is democracy in hard times and hard places.

Settling in ....

Dateline: Hotel, downtown Atlanta GA, late, 23 January 2006

Such a day.

After nice go-to-church-and-bowling-with-kids on Sunday. Today is all rush and decisons.

Youngest, Vonne Mei, our baby from China, suffers lost of portion of three of her four front crowns (upper main teeth). We discovered over weekend. So morning spent at specialist who redoes them with great care, and we get even more instructions/limitations on what to do with her from now on. What an education on small kid teeth. Thought I had heard it all years ago with a two-year-old on chemo, but this is entirely new game, as it's not the secondary teeth we fear, but simply holding on to the primary or baby teeth.

After that (all works out), rush home and pack, then rush to new house for meeting with closet lady, who's really cool and easy to work with. So we go through the house, planning this and that, and I save the garage for last--most fun for the guy. My favorite: the pulley system to lift canoe up toward my 14-foot garage ceiling. Way cool.

Also work some issues with builder Kent, who continues to keep everything humming and turning out magnificently. He's a real dream to work with, and all his contractors will bend your ear about how much they like working with him--precisely because he's so demanding and precise and builds great houses they're proud to be associated with. I remain in awe of the coordination of it all. Done well, it's amazing stuff.

Thought I had Kent stumped on home theater floor strip lighting (my idea), but no, they worked that out beautifully in the baseboard. Today I tried special through-wall cat access to basement closet where I plan to store the litter box. He solved that one too, with ease. Working on harder ones in my head, but I will eventually give up, happier than hell he's going to have his guys build my Cedarworks playset extravaganza.

Hard to leave the wife and kids today. Been with them basically five weeks straight. Vonne said she was banking that time for the rest of 2006. I reminded her of the 20th anniversary Hawaii trip.

Flew to Atlanta tonight. Giving speech to about 100 local biz execs in an annual series they have here. Didn't get here until 9pm, arriving 3 hours late due to bad local weather. Spotted B&N across street (Georgia Tech) and signed one PNM soft and 2 BFA hard. Then swam laps in pool and did some treadmill.

Will be weird to sleep alone tonght. No wife. No baby. No cat. No five year old wandering in about 4 am.

I might actually sleep through the night.

That meeting set today (also had one with base painter) basically finished our decisions on the house (all the outside stuff already planned), so a real sense of settling into Indy with that hurdle crossed. Now have done my first remote, first speech, first coaching, first holidays, and have first house basically locked in--plan-wise.

And settling in with Jenn Posda's expanded role at Leigh Bureau and Sean Meade as webmaster... this is icing on the cake. Settled in with Steve and Enterra more and more (counting my first national TV appearance on their behalf with Kudlow). Just plain settling in... and it feels very nice.

Only hole right now? That G.D. Super Bowl with the Colts. That one bonded me. Next year it will be personal for me.

No transference though. Can have local AFC team. Never cared for Pats, even with all the wins on our watch. Just like Skins in DC when we were there. But Colts are old NFL in a good way (no bizarrely racist name, for example), and I hope they will balance my rebuilding Pack in my heart for next few years.

Next year, definitely scoring some tix.

More commanding heights for Putin & Co.

ARTICLE: “Russia Expands Bid For State Control: Top Nickel Producer Studies Merger With Diamond Firm That Is Run by Government,” by Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal 19 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Explosions in Southern Russia Sever Gas Lines to Georgia,” by C. J. Chivers, New York Times, 23 January 2006, p. A3.

Not content with the energy sector, Putin and Co. now go after the precious metals. Norlisk Nickel is big—very big in precious metals. It’s a true global giant. I profiled the company once a while back for a client, and it has a lot more impact on global markets than the Russian oil companies (but not gas giant Gazprom).

And it’s talking merger with government diamond company Alrosa.

It’s hard to say whether all this focus on natural resources will lead Russia down the path of becoming another “trust-fund state,” but I don’t see it happening anywhere like it does in the Middle East, given the high literacy and educational rates in the former Soviet chief state.

And no one wants to see a Russian states that’s impoverished, what with that substantial pensioner class and a chunk of its current labor force that’s largely past its prime. And this flow of income helps a state that’s done reasonably well at taxing business without retarding it (except in those clear instances when the state uses taxes as a weapon in its re-nationalization strategy in the natural resource sectors).

And then there’s the perceived rise in national “power” that controlling such resources brings, which, in the end, I think Moscow will be sorely disappointed in, for as OPEC learned a long time ago, the number one goal of selling such resources is to continue the market for as long as possible, not to make the biggest killing and certainly not to try and wield political power over customers, who will typically respond quite negatively to such threats in the short term while increasing their protective hedges in the long term.

But expect Russia’s learning curve on this point to be a long one, especially with New Core pillars like India and China rushing around the planet cutting new deals all the time (like the upcoming Saudi-Chinese pact).

Yes, yes, there are plenty of experts who will point to all sorts of resource wars in the future, but pay them little attention. More customers mean more stakeholders in Gap stability. The sooner the Core as a whole recognizes that growing shared interest, the sooner the push to shrink the Gap gets real.

Russia’s silly short term actions, in this regard, just speed up the learning curve for states like India and China.

First African female leader is inaugurated in Liberia

ARTICLE: Liberian leader promises break with violent past: Nation’s 1st female president inaugurated,” by Hans Nichols, Associated Press, Indianapolis Star, 17 January 2006, p. A5.

ARTICLE: “Liberian leader wants closer relationship with U.S.: New president says her war-torn nation needs help restoring stability,” by Rob Crilly, USA Today, 23 January 2006, p. 6A.

Thirteen years of civil war has left Liberia just about the poorest and least developed country in the world, teaming with only one thing: former combatants that number more than 100,000 out of a national population of 3.5 m (almost half of whom were made homeless at one point during the civil war).

Not surprisingly, the new president wants help in retraining those young fighters, far too many of whom served as kids, but she also wants a focus on infrastructure development.

These are the two essential SysAdmin functions, which don’t always occur in nations with insurgencies. This is why Fourth Generation Warfare thinking covers some of the Gap’s postwar landscape, but hardly all. So counter-insurgency is a nice backfill but not a build-up.

By focusing on creating a stable peace by rehabbing past combatants and building a stable security force, and working the infrastructure issues, you create the basics of the military-market nexus: just enough security and just enough infrastructure to attract investment. That foreign money must be made comfortable by a third key leg to this stool: just enough legal rule sets to make contracts and property ownership enforceable at reasonable costs.

The U.S. has pledged $1b in aid, but just sending the check rarely moves the pile. There is no urgency for success in Liberia because there are no American troops to be brought home.

And that’s where the military-market nexus is broken, as far as American commitment is concerned, so don’t expect much change in Liberia any time soon.

Evidence that the Army and Marines have learned better how to protect troops in Iraq

ARTICLE: “Attacks in Iraq jumped in 2005: Insurgents widen aim to Iraqi forces,” by Rick Jervis, USA Today, 23 January 2006, p. 1A.

You’re wondering what my point is with that title, right?

Attacks are up from 26k to 34k (04-05), but since the 277k Iraqi security personnel now outnumber the U.S. troops in the country, they take the bulk of the hits.

Over 2700 Iraqis died last year, compared to 673 U.S. troops (down from 714 in 2004). Wounded dropped by a quarter for the U.S., from almost 8k in 2004 to under 6k in 2005. Meanwhile suicide bombers rose from 7 to 67, and IEDs rose from 5k to 10k. Car bombs also basically doubled from 400 to 800.

All that rising activity and U.S. deaths and casualties drop, while Iraqi deaths outnumber ours roughly 4 to one.

The biggest reason for our drop, though, is that attacks on U.S. troops succeed far less frequently. In 2004, such attacks created casualties about 25-30 percent of the time. In 2005 that percentage of casualty-producing attacks dropped to 10%.

Simply put, we’ve gotten smarter in our tactics, techniques and procedures, and the Iraqis are shouldering more of the fight.

Leaving Iraq is not an option and really won’t happen. What will happen is that our casualties will continue to fall and Iraqis will continue to assume more of the fighting. Eventually, the public will stop noticing our efforts in Iraq because casualties will be minimal, as more and more of our troops stay inside the wire.

We get smarter, and the enemy gets more desperate. And that’s how you wins wars, no matter what “generation” you label them.

America’s ICC for the OAS

ARTICLE: Quiet Force in Raucous Arena: International Court’s Rulings Aid Democracy in Latin America,” by Bob Davis, Wall Street Journal, 23 January 2006, p. A15.

The Organization of American States has a 7-member panel of commissioners that does for Latin America (and rarely, for America itself) what the International Criminal Court basically tries to do for the Gap: provide a court of last resort when the local states’ legal systems don’t function up to par.

This international court goes by the name of Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and it’s been used plenty of times by individuals in Latin American states to bring political abuses by previous autocratic regimes into the light of day, thus facilitating national reconciliation processes and the movement toward democracy.

Naturally, with the behemoth U.S. always on the panel, it tends to offer only the casual advice to its host (the court sits in DC) on its own human rights abuses (like Guantanamo), but whereas the U.S. itself tends to ignore such non-compulsory rulings, they are taken quite seriously in Latin America, in part, as the article says, to avoid bad publicity and in part because the governments in question really want to change.

Isn’t it amazing that this court can work so well and yet we fear the ICC so much? And this fear exists despite our bilateral exclusionary immunity treaties with basically every state in the Gap, ones in which Gap states agree to basically never “sue” the U.S. for the actions of its military there.

Makes you wonder how much good the ICC could really do for the Gap if we supported it more.