Another link between SysAdmin and SOTU

No one's trying to say Tom came up with this idea ex nihilo. In fact, the rejoinder Tom often gives when asked how much influence he has is 'Is it true?'. As a grand strategist, as a futurist, is he seeing the trends right? First it's impossible, then more people start to come to the same conclusions (plenty independently), then it's de rigeur.

All of that to say, MountainRunner also makes the connection between the Civilian Reserve Corps and the SysAdmin.

And, maybe best of all, he's got this great .png imge that looks like it's from the DVD! ;-)

The happy sight at Reagan Airport Borders

Job of tax cuts is done

ARTICLE: Budget Office Forecasts Drop in U.S. Deficit, By EDMUND L. ANDREWS, New York Times, January 25, 2007

Fascinating, confirming what many have said all along: the tax cuts were a huge cause in deficit.

On other hand, you have to factor in counter that says cuts were great stimulus for economy.

So, if self-correcting in their budget impact, then job of cuts is done and they should be allowed to lapse and Bush gets credit for both ends.

Or... GOP gets stubborn, Dems get overly partisan, and this doesn't get done?

Just a thought...

SysAdmin in the SOTU

A reader sent in this quote from the SOTU noting that it sounds like the SysAdmin:

A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

Yes, I am pleased.

[Editor's note: DefenseTech noted the similarity, too, at the bottom of this post.

Downtime

All caught up in reading and have ton of blog posts I want to do, but strangely exhausted.

Actually, not so strange.

My Meyer-Briggs said I was a closet introvert, the key identifier being: "after you spend time with people, are you tired or energized?"

Answer for me? Tired.

And the bigger the interface, the greater the fatigue.

Today I address remarks to Intel (corp)-hosted VIP luncheon of execs and mil brass at Network Centric Warfare 2007 conference atop Ronald Reagan Building (a cool, rooftop circular pavilion-like room right outta Godfather III).

I didn't eat lunch, but got up in front of the 50 or so people and just spoke extemporaneously about Art Cebrowski, NCW and Transformation and the future of globalization. It was a strange, gravelly-voiced (game throat, still) perf by me: I hadn't expected to talk about Art like that, so I spoke in a (for me) unusually measured tone. Then took questions for 30 or so.

Then rushed to giant, football-field-length ballroom (screens at goal line and 50) and did brief to about 600 or so. I swapped in 18 slides I rarely use because I wanted to slant this one differently (something like a band mixing a play list to stay fresh on stage).

The choice worked wonders and I was in rare form. Went about 45 and did 10 or so in questions.

Then signed books and did another 45 or so follow-on with individuals.

Afterwards, I feel exhausted. That huge room and big audience drew a magnificent flow of energy, really more their doing than mine--they just sort of suck it out of you.

Good audiences are like great interviewers: both make you feel like the partner of a great dance lead. You just relax and whiz around the floor. It's so unconscious when it works.

Another big help here: with lavalier I'm able to roam from goal line to 50-yard line, so to speak, and I'm also great when I am impelled--by layout and size audience--to move a lot and stay non-stop. I am the Favre of briefers: I suck at podiums (like Favre in pockets) and am without peer on the move (rolling-out Favre is a thing of beauty to watch).

It is my only fear of speaking, really, far outdistancing my queasiness over PPT failure (gotta be a pill for that!): having to stand still at a mike. It really drives me nuts for some reason, draining the passion out of a performance (you should see me pace like some "Rain Man" character when I do radio over the phone). I also get far darker when I can't move, and the humor disappears (I will confess I use much physicality in my delivery).

Anyway, a thrilling afternoon for me, especially since my biz agent/manager (please, I regret ever downgrading my profound appreciation for mentor and close friend Jennifer Posda to the lesser phrase "scheduler," because I respect her so and really appreciate the stability she's brought to my career!) Jenn was there to share both experiences. Jenn has become such an integral part of my success as a thought leader, and such a huge, stabilizing anchor in my personal life (everything she manages means more time for Vonne and the kids, something I treasure with more than half my nights in hotels), that it was really great to spend some time with her (much like Warren, we talk so much on the phone, but our F2F time is surprisingly rare given the solid bonds--such is the life).

Warren, BTW, loved what I penned over the weekend. Question is April or May in Esquire (there are few things in my work I love hearing more than Mark psyched on a piece!). Another question is special project I proposed, that I hope he and Granger bite on. I have a scant track record in coming up with my own ideas on pieces, but I think I've got a winner with this idea.

Anyway, beat for the night and will blog in morn, if time found. Better to have worked out. Makes me a better everything to everyone that matters.

Awesome blog post by Steve

POST: Wikileaks and Secrecy

Confirms my belief that best "ideological warfare" waged by our masses, not by our government.

Tom on Hugh's show

The transcript and audio are up.

I liked this last question from Hugh and Tom's answer:

HH: Dr. Barnett, putting Chapter 3 into context, imagine for a moment that after General Petraeus was done testifying today, you had a chance to make an opening statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee. What would you say in the first two or three minutes of that statement to them?

TB: What I would say is that we really have to think more broadly about what we’re trying to achieve in the Middle East, other than just create a security force that’s able to generate enough security to kind of cover the tracks of our withdrawal, or to put enough names on doors inside of government buildings, and claim that we’ve built a nation along those lines, that we really need to commit ourselves, first and foremost, to creating the economic conditions by which Iraq brings itself up from this long, lengthy period of dictatorship, and now this seemingly also quite long period of violence, that it’s our commitment to connecting the Middle East up to the outside world on the basis of something other than oil, that’s going to get the kind of economic opportunity that puts 70% of a lot of these countries’ populations that are either underemployed, or totally unemployed, and don’t see futures to connect to. And it’s that kind of problem that gets you the 27 year old lawyer, married, father of two, who decides that his best connection to the future is to strap on a vest of dynamite and step onto a crowded bus and blow himself up. It’s that kind of despair, ultimately, that we’re attacking, and Petraeus knows that, because Petraeus is a huge believer in the notion that you’ve got to create stakeholders. And stakeholders are mostly about economics, not politics. It’s mostly about economics, is giving people a sense that they have a future that they can wait for, a future that’s going to be better for their children than it was for them. And unless you put those hands to work, and connect people to those dreams of a better future, you’re going to face the kind of despair that radical ideologies can come in and take advantage of, and you’re not going to solve this problem. So I would caution everybody in this process to admit to the fact that there is no exiting the Middle East, until the Middle East connects to the outside world.

Bush risks leaving global security worse than he found it

ARTICLE: World View of US Role Goes From Bad to Worse

This is a huge and growing problem for America. You can say, "We gotta do what we gotta do!" But when your war is waged--inevitably--within the context of the everything else that is globalization (What is globalization? It sure provides more work-arounds than gate-keepers), that just isn't good enough. That attitude gets you stalemates at best, and quagmires at worst.

Me? I like to win--all the time And America can't win with a rule-set population of 1-and-a-half (us and hardliners in Israel) in a world of close to a couple hundred (and counting) statesl

That, my friends, is the grand strategy equivalent of pissing in the wind. Basically, it's a terrible way of washing your socks (I prefer taking myself to the cleaners).

Bush first-term was great for establishing the need for a new rule set on global security.

Bush second-term has been a disaster in getting buy-in from the world. So bad, in fact, that he risks leaving the global security order far worse than he found it, and that's too bad, because I believe he was the right man for the job. He just stayed too long at his post.

Bunch of signed paper BFAs at Reagan Airport Borders

Dropped in because I was passing through today and have signed copies there before, so wanted to see if they had sold.

They had, so I signed 11 more. They had 5 in history and 6 up front on display at the door.

Never in too big a hurry to skip that duty...

Petareus will have his hands full, unfortunately

ARTICLE: In the Vortex of Baghdad, Staying Put This Time, By MARC SANTORA, New York Times, January 23, 2007

Supporting evidence on our fortessing strategy versus their ramping up of Baghdad bombings.

Easy prediction to make

ARTICLE: General May See Early Success in Iraq: But Sharp Rise in Insurgent Violence Could Soon Follow, Officials Say, By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, January 23, 2007; Page A01

Everyone knows surge is to pave withdrawal and history of insurgencies says they always ratchet up violence at end. Why? Want to create impression that occupier forced to pull out because of that ramping up. Very effective strategy and--of course--somewhat true.

Hezbollah and Hamas do this every time with Israel's withdrawals, so makes sense to expect it here.

Turkish compilation

Tom got an email from his Turkish Publisher:

My name is Onur √ûen and I am the editor of Prestij & 1001 Books, which published your books, The Pentagon's New Map and Blueprint for Action. We would like to prepare a book compiling some of your articles with an introduction written by you If this is possible. Our main concern for the book will be Middle East, USA's new foreign policies, China, The Role of Turkey in the new world etc. I want to learn your reaction to this project. What do you think?

Tom's comment:

I was just thinking about somebody stepping up to offer this, given the volume build-up since 2003. Peters just cranked a collecton of his columns and articles.

Hadn't guessed Turks would jump first, and yet these guys are the only foreign publishers to do both volumes. Guess it just makes sense that seam states most interested and Turkey is the king of the Seam.

Pix from the game

Here are the pictures that Tom took at the game.

An amazing game

Sat behind the Pats bench, 3rd row, exactly on the 25 (far left as you look at the TV screen).

Place was rocking at two hours before the game, and fans were screaming themselves hoarse during warm-ups as faces of players were flashed on the big screens during warm-ups.

We (Vonne and I) were sitting with a bunch of original season ticket holders from the 1984 season (after Irsay had snuck the franchise out of Baltimore during the previous winter), so these people had waited 22 years for this day (first home AFC championship, which is big as it gets for any home crowd).

When Pats scored easily at first, you could sense some angst. Then we got the FG and felt okay. Then the Pats march again and we're all getting far more nervous, but the intense yelling during the Pats offensive plays doesn't abate whatsoever (we stood for the entire game in our section).

Then Peyton immediately follows up with the INT for TD and we're down 21-3.

That was definitely the low-point.

Then we drive and come up with just an FG before half, and the long-timer next to me comes back at kickoff with AFC Champs T-shirt he just bought. Now that's optimistic at 21-6 down!

I told wife that first drive would either indicate big adjustment (their corners were shutting down the outside lanes on Harrison and Wayne very well, so you sort of expected more over-the-middle stuff to backs and TE) or signal a very long game.

Fortunately the former was true, and TE Clark started to kill the Pats over the middle.

So it was 3 TDs in a row for us, with first two tying Pats at 21 (with a 2-point thrown in) and third getting us even again at 28 following that bad call on Gaffney's back-of-endzone catch for Pats (he had stepped OOB just prior to jumping up for the catch--or so we fans judged).

Both times Pats got back ahead at 28 and 31, they had big KO returns, which just killed us all night (the special teams), so there was this feeling we could only overcome that so many times and we'd run out of luck.

But Manning was brilliant, even as Wayne and Harrison were clearly subpar most of the night, so he gets huge credit. He was pressured on many of his throws and got hit a lot, but he is such a joy to watch, especially all that audibilizing he does.

The last drive for the TD was a thing of beauty, naturally, sending the place into a frenzy.

Today my throat is pretty blown out and my ears still ring some. Being in the third row was magnificent, because so much of the game was right smack in front of us (we often had to duck to look under moving camera-guy's line-of-scrimmage platform).

Additional bit: row behind us was all Pats fans who bought, like I did, great season tix from locals (Colts fans known as soft touch on that, and I think because it's a lot of money for people around here). They were unbearable from the start, loudly proclaiming how the Pats would whip us and how we were all chokers and what not. At 21-3 they were calling friends on phones and bragging in advance of the partying they'd be doing all night, and cautioning each other out loud not to celebrate too much in the 2nd quarter when they'd be so busy in the 4th. They also took turns guessing how bad the final score would be.

I tell you, it was hard to silently take it all in.

Boy, were they all silent as soon as the opening 3rd quarter drive began. From that point on only whispering among themselves. They slinked out at the end, leaving us to the celebration.

Psyched that it'll be Indiana v. Illinois. Frantic couple of weeks foreseen. Many bragging rights up in the air.

Really hope Colts get the title. Last one here was ABA in '73, so the state is due

Tom around the web

+ Indistinct Union linked Is Gates really saying....
+ Hidden Unities linked Petraeus and Fallon are good choices.
+ NonParty Politics linked the transcript from the coverage of PNM's first chapter on Hugh's show.
+ So did Penraker.
+ Humoud linked Time for America to grow up about the global connectivity of foreign direct investment.
+ Opposed Systems Design linked FEMA: we don't budget for disasters and The virtuous circle on security: the slippery slope to resiliency.
+ leahpeah linked I wouldn't dream of giving up the blog.
+ Phil Windley's Technometria linked Can Israel and Iran grow up?.
+ Observing Japan linked Infantile US Strategy on China.
+ So did The Moderate Voice.
+ So did ATARAXIA.
+ Juan Freire, writing in Spanish, linked Tom's weblog as an interesting reference for 'open source war' and 'net war'.
+ ZenPundit linked the transcript for the coverage of the second chapter of PHM on Hugh's show.
+ So did Power Line.
+ Dumb Looks Still Free did a long post on it.
+ A Fistful of Euros linked today's column and Can Israel and Iran grow up?.
+ Mike Burleson referred to Tom's take on Petraeus in Monks of War in his editorial Bush Finds a General.
+ 21st Century Schizoid Man linked last week's column.
+ Big Lizards said he wanted 'to find something to complain about ever since he dissed naval air on Hugh Hewitt's show', so he picked last week's column. (I didn't find the critique effective.)
+ New Yorker in DC linked Getting smart on Sys Admin: the crashing course.

+ And finally, when Critt couldn't find an online link to the paper where he saw Tom's column, The Patriot Ledger, Monday, January 8, 2007, editorial page, he sent in a scan. I forgot to post it last week, but here it is this week. Thanks, Critt!

Tom's column this week

Putting a man on the moon, or anywhere disaster strikes

In the future dystopian film "Children of Men," Britain soldiers on with a Ministry of Homeland Security whose forces scour the island for illegal immigrants. Evoking a siege mentality in a world suffering from an infertility crisis, security equates to sealed borders that hold a chaotic world at bay.

General David Petraeus, new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, tells of encountering the man-on-the-moon syndrome among Iraqis following Saddam's fall: "If America can put a man on the moon," they surmised, "then surely it can rebuild Iraq quickly!" Following Hurricane Katrina, that naive assumption seemed wholly disproved back home. We couldn't manage New Orleans, so what made us think we'd fix Baghdad?

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Breaking in the new office

Really only got my home office exactly the way I want it just this last week: all the furniture located just so, all the pictures hung, the new iMac to replace the aging Gateway, finally a printer, and so on. Part of that was just the reality of getting totally and finally moved into this house (e.g, we've now just hung every painting and picture that we wanted to decorate the house with, following the Xmas season we've now opened and repacked everything we keep in storage). Another part was truly getting adjusted to the new schools (everyone switched from last year). Still another part was my continually hectic schedule and the overhang of discombobulation from spending our first ten months in Indiana in a cramped apartment with the vast bulk of our stuff in storage.

But now, after all that confusion, I find myself sitting in an office just the way I've always wanted it, in a house that's just the way I've always wanted it, with a mix of work and homelife that's . . . worth the hassle given all the goals being simultaneously pursued (no point in saving the world unless you preserve the family, and no sense in preserving the family if you ain't gonna save the world), I find myself writing a new article (proposed) for Esquire and it feels like a new chapter for me.

Trying something both radically different and somewhat familiar with this one, and having fun. Have no idea if Warren will like it, much less publish it, but it's been a good intellectual drill regardless.

Getting psyched for the game tomorrow. It'll be historic no matter what happens...

What if China tanks?

ARTICLE: Q&A: Author Will Hutton on China's Future, By James Pethokoukis, USNews.com, 1/5/07

Good examination of our economic interdependence with China.

Can Israel and Iran grow up?

ARTICLE: Rebuke in Iran to Its President on Nuclear Role, By NAZILA FATHI and MICHAEL SLACKMAN, New York Times, January 19, 2007

More evidence of Ahmadinejad's declining stock.

Meanwhile talk grows in Israel of a second Holocaust and pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Iran (Israel's getting bolder about admitting it's had nukes for decades).

All I can say to Israelis is welcome to our world, for now it faces the same conditons and decisions we encountered half a century ago (and have lived with ever since): possible annihilation versus the chance to kill millions in a nuclear holocaust. The choice is very Old Testament, the escape route very New Testament.

A magnificent power it is, the ability to extinguish entire peoples and wipe countries off the map. Historically, it clarifies the strategic mind (America remains the only country ever to use them--despite all the logical predictions of their inevitable re-use by "irrational" regimes over the subsequent decades). What Israel's got to figure out is whether they want peace more than death. The Core is defined by that decision, the Gap by its inability to confront it.

America heard the threats of "we will bury you" when we didn't enjoy the strategic superiority that Israel has so long held, thanks in large part to all that military aid from us. But somehow we moved beyond those threats and fears and made peace with an enemy whose whole ideology centered on our destruction (yes, yes, we now all remember the Sovs as cuddly thugs with no ideologies whatsoever, so it was all just a fantastic dream). We did so by growing up and leaving behind our own apocalyptic fantasies (it always takes two to tango).

Big question is whether Israel can do the same, or whether they instinctively, out of their own long history of defining themselves--as nationalists the Gap over are wont to do--primarily in terms of shared suffering at the hands of others (the source of all chips on all shoulders, with everyone's injustice being far worse than everyone else's--by definition), continue their eye-for-an-eye approach ("it takes a tank to raze a village" being Israel's patented counter-insurgency tactic) that has gotten them no strategic security to date--just more of the diabolical same from enemies whose death cult far surpasses its own in perceived righteousness (all killing is "justified" in the Middle East, according to the murderous logic of its practitioners).

Of course, the whole Middle East is built around this vengeance model (the ultimate in infantile zero-sum logic, suggesting an evolutionary retardation of the most primitive sort), which is why, no matter Israel's many laudable achievements, it remains hopelessly trapped inside the Gap.

Eventually, somebody sees a better deal to be cut with the outside world, and that somebody needs to be a Muslim state that shows real power and dignity can be achieved through brains instead of just oil and violence. Israel cannot prove that for the Muslim Arab/Persian world, that can only occur from within its ranks.

But Iran moving to nukes is more pretext than problem: all it does is speed up the inevitable choices on all sides--just like for us, the Europeans, the Slavs and the Chinese.

There is nothing new or unique in this dynamic, just the past refusing to die in a part of the world where its grip on minds is stunningly strong.

Everyone's excuse for inaction remains the same: what he did! Strategically speaking, it is passivity and fatalism of the worst sort.

America should not get sucked into this fatalistic logic by our own irrationals who will say either we act or it's the end of civilization and perhaps even the "end times."

Nothing would end with the Middle East's strategic suicide--at least nothing that matters to the Core. The adjustment would be made, and we'd simply move on, calm in the knowledge that Darwinian self-selection still works to the benefit of all mankind.

PNM, BFA ROTC demand

Tom got this email:

Dr. Barnett,

Wanted to share an anecdote. I was a relatively "early adapter" to PNM when it caught my attention on Amazon or some other online bookseller. Have since purchased BFA as well, the CSPAN DVD of your presentation, etc. and have shared your ideas with friends on the left and right many times in the past few years. You and I also exchanged a few emails a year or two back....I've always been impressed by the thinking behind what you write. Don't always agree with it, don't always like it, but always respect it.

Anyway, I have a pile of military history books sitting on my shelves, and frankly, it's getting dangerously large and threatening the well-being of the various small children and animals running around the house. I recently decided to offer the lot to a local Army ROTC program, and they asked for a list so they could pick and choose what they thought would be best for their purposes. You may be happy to know that your two books made their short list, and while I'm sad to see them being boxed up now for delivery, I'm thrilled to donate your thinking to the future platoon leaders, division commanders, and possible JCS Chairmen of this wonderful country. Your legacy lives on!

Thanks for writing in, John!