Will we pose the right questions next time?

ARTICLE: Midlevel Officers Show Enterprise, Helping U.S. Reduce Violence In Iraq, By Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2007

Not surprising that a complex set of problems elicits a complex set of solutions from a wide variety of players. Good article.

We will see how well these lessons learned will be institutionally maintained, not so much in terms of answers but the right questions to pose next time.

And yes, there is always a next time.

(Thanks: Thaddeus Jankowski)

Who's gonna' take care of you?

ARTICLE: Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Toward Baby Girls, By CHOE SANG-HUN, New York Times, December 23, 2007

As with all such things, the sex-ratio imbalance self-corrects.

Why? In a pre-modern world, it's better to have sons in your old age, but once you reach modernity, it's the other way around.

(Thanks: kilngoddess)

Day of strategizing

Spent all day with Steve DeAngelis and Enterra's senior staff, to include our new COO, who comes to us fresh from growing a division of a global logistics firm from the low millions to over one billion in less than five years and doing it all while operating out of Kuwait (perfect experience base for our explosive growth trajectory and our Development-in-a-Box‚Ñ¢ work). Meeting was all about executing all these new contracts across 2008. That means a lot of ramping up, a lot of hiring, and a lot of turning on a host of strategic alliances that Steve and I have spent the last two-plus years building--carefully with an eye on exactly this inflection point.

Then, Steve and I go to the Pentagon to meet with some senior policy types within the Navy regarding maritime transparency stuff (the sea control of the 21st century). Old times for me!

Then back to the book reading ....

Long day, but I got a sweet sunrise lap swim in to kick it off, so a bit of balance achieved.

Maybe the mullahs aren't so crazy

ARTICLE: Iran Cited In Iraq's Decline in Violence, By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post December 23, 2007; Page A01

Apparently we can deal with the "crazy mullahs" once the fear of U.S. invasion is reduced.

For once, insurrection within the Intelligence Community is a good thing, thanks to our divider-not-uniter president.

Pessimistic and optimistic

POST: Can the Anbar Strategy Work in Pakistan?, By Clint Watts, Small Wars Journal, December 21, 2007

Very solid analysis that at once: 1) makes you pessimistic on a repeatable solution for Afghanipakistan; but 2) makes you realize the geographic limits of al Qaeda's staying power and thus more optimistic that, by focusing again more on the source, we're progressing in our overall strategy (both the learning and adjustment that's occurred in Iraq and how developments there enable more focus on back to where it was inevitably headed).

Gates has the right view

ARTICLE: U.S. Navy aims to flex 'soft power', By Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor, December 27, 2007 edition

Good article. Gates' role is seminal, and I don't know Winter, so I'll reserve comment there, but I also see a huge imprint in this new naval strategy from CNOs Mullen (now Chairman) and his succesor, Gary Roughead.

Roughead brought me out to PACOM in 2006 to address his component commanders' conference, and our off-line discussion fit this strategic shift to a "T."

Of course, the shipbuilding constituency in Congress will fight back, but that only shows that all serious discussion on the War on Terror begins with the question, "How do you view China's rise?"

Gates, apparently, has the right view.

(Thanks: Jim Zolinski)

Tom in AW&ST

Aviation Week & Space Technology's Person of the Year is Qian Xuesen, the architect of China's space program. It's in that context that they print an article entitled Why China Won’t Start a Space War ($) which features a reference to Tom:

Finally, China must upgrade its energy infrastructure substantially to fuel double-digit economic growth rates. That will require trillions of dollars in Western investment, says Thomas P. M. Barnett in his book, The Pentagon’s New Map. “There are only two financial communities that can handle that sort of request: Wall Street and the European Union,” writes Barnett. “That fundamental reality of the global economy explains why we won’t be going to war with China,” he notes.

Back in DC

Tom around the web

(Kinda short this week, since I caught up so throughly less than 7 days ago...)

+ Korea Times linked to last week's column.
+ So did Foreign Policy Watch.

+ Information Dissemination referenced Tom a couple of times in ' A Call For New Platforms To Fill the Gaps'
+ HG's WORLD linked Two new book lists and FAQs.

+ Naval Open Source Intelligence linked Recasting the Long War as a Joint Sino-American Venture.
+ And linked John Robb: Keeping up with Terrorists.
+ The TrueTalk Blog calls Tom's work 'demanding and enlightening'.
+ Mistress At Arms quotes Tom: "Freedom used to be defined as 90% political and 10% economic,now it's defined as 90% economic and 10% political".
+ Frequent commented JRRichard has a weblog entitled 'Dialectical Moose'. He linked The Iowa result.

The Saudi pardon of the rape victim ...

Was a good move, obviously.

My point: Saudi Arabia lives in a different world than just six years ago. The 9/11-driven scrutiny and mistrust remains substantial, but it's the larger glare created by globalization's creeping embrace of the region--indeed, the embrace of globalization by some of the smaller Gulf states--that creates an uncomfortable sense of popular comparison: who wants to be seen as "backward" when the global economy is surging toward frightening (it's always "frightening") new levels of connectivity (e.g., SWFs, the central banks cooperating over the subprime mess, the rising pressure within the commercial sector to reveal environmental costs both upstream and down)?

There is an analysis out there--conventional wisdom really--that says NOCs, and the regimes that own them, are burgeoning masters of the globalization universe.

Resist this (always) premature and overwrought verdict. Shifts are constant in a global economy of this range and force and dynamism. Remember when "hot money" ran all and held wimpy states in a "golden straight-jacket" (Friedman's phrase--almost Bryanian)? Then the financial crises themselves were viewed as uncontrollable. Then the "all-powerful" WB and IMF dictated life-and-death choices for weak governments (load of books there). Then govs built up their reserves to protect themselves, putting the U.S. debt in stark relief. Then the resulting SWFs gobble up "all" of sickly institutions in the shadow of the subprime, then America becomes "sharecropper" society and so on.

My point: every action triggers a counter-reaction that pulls all into more financial entanglements and rising interdependency. In these shifts, new "all-powerful" players and entities rise--and apparently fall--with stunning regularity, their preceived omnipotence and extreme vulnerability hyped--respectively--on both ascent and descent.

In short, we never lack for fear-mongers and Chicken Littles--both professional and amateur--ready to decry the "new" boss, missing its stunning similarity to the "old" one, aka,the markets' ceaseless churn and associated--and never-ending--process of reinvention

If you want to believe such evolution ends with some entity's crowning as "untouchable," then you will be regularly disappointed but never bored.

What I find: those closest to the power-in-question feel no such ascendancy. They, like the smart money, simply gaze nervously into the future for the next iteration to appear.

The difference at WDW

I wear my Manning jersey and no one bugs me.

I wear my Favre and I'm a celebrity.

One nasty run-in with yet another overbearing Pats fan (is there any other kind?)

He bellowed to his boy: "Son, show him what a 16-0 team looks like!"

I told him to "shove it up your asterisk!"

I know, Walt wouldn't have approved.

Or would he?

Middle East's youth have upside, too

YOUNG EGYPTIANS: Plugging in to democracy, BY JACKSON DIEHL, Miami Herald, Dec. 20, 2007

Again, on the Middle East's youth, recognize the upside potential as well as the highly publicized downside.

As soon as we recognize this world's strengths, the radicals jihadists are screwed as far as fundamentalism goes. But yes, expect more social conservatism as the partner of rising political freedom. It's a natural tandem, just as it is between social conservatism and globalization's spread.

(Thanks: historyguy99)

This week's column

Resetting the clock on the Bush administration

The White House's recent policy reversals amount to a stunning repudiation of the first seven years of George W. Bush's presidency. Where allies were previously disrespected, now they're viewed as essential. Where diplomacy was eschewed, now it's pursued with vigor. No longer running the government from his "base," Bush finally tries to lead the entire nation.

His political opponents detect weakness and regret and a last-ditch attempt to salvage legacy, while supporters point to a self-professed "dissident" leader extending a "freedom" agenda in his final months. Both perspectives hold much truth.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Another day at Disney

In search of Puumba...

We do a character breakfast every a.m.

Little Nemo show

What are the odds?

Paging Dr. Taleb!

Fighting comment spam

Ok, I'm bumping up the spam filter another notch because I'm spending too much time sorting the wheat from the chaff. Please do keep an eye on your comments. If they don't get published, they might be mistakenly marked as spam. The foolproof way to keep your comment out of the junk folder is to register with TypeKey and then sign into it from here. Thanks.

A painful condemnation of the Bush Administration's failure to adjust to the insurgency in Iraq

COVER STORY: "Strategy that's making Iraq safer was snubbed for years: It sounds simple: Get help from locals to stop bombmakers. But a USA TODAY investigation shows the Bush administration was slow to accept the idea," by Peter Eisler, Blake Morrison and Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today, 19 December 2007, p. 1A.

Good piece, if a bit of rehash in places, but some nice reporting on meets I've heard about but I hadn't seen covered before so prominently.

Petraeus gets a lot of credit, as I believe he should. I was glad to play a small role in elevating his profile when he was still back at Leavenworth--Mattis too.

Not every story of such efforts makes it into the press. In fact, most don't, so these reformers demand real respect, even if it took so long for guys like these two, plus Kagan and Krepinevich, to effect a breakthrough with the Bush team.

It may seem unfair to Bush to deny him credit for the current improvements in Iraq, but it's right to point out that the surge pales in importance to the COIN, which in turn--in Iraq-- owes much to Al Qaeda's screw-ups (going overboard, as always).

But clearly, these changes took too long.

So the win, such as it is, is logically handed to the change agents and not the political masters who took so long to convince--mostly due to their pride.

Our goose, China's gander

ARTICLE: 'Why TR Claimed The Seas', By Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2007, Pg. 20

Speaking of TR, a great piece by Stephens.

Too bad many like him can't see the same logic emerge for "rising China" and its "string of pearls" naval base approach to its growing energy dependency on distant regions.

Good for our goose is sensible for their gander, if you can remember across not just your own history but apply similar logic to the current trajectory of others.

The Iowa result

Wow! Say I.

It is still a hugely Clinton Democratic party and with the large Dem turnout, 70 percent said "no" to her, and "no" to a return of the Clinton crowd. To me, that's a huge vote for change, and not just a return to the 1990s.

And the Huckabee vote is nearly as powerful: he is the most clear-cut anti-Bush Republican--at least among the credible (sorry, but Ron Paul is just too incredible to me--as in, incredibly implausible).

Then again, I would have--and did--say similar things about Huckabee not too long ago, but IMO, his result just says to me how many GOPers want to distance themselves from Bush as quickly as possible.

Yes, yes, I know Iowa doesn't exactly pick 'em, but what a nice sense of hopeful change.

I wish Obama well in NH.

Spaceship Earth

Cool but fun.

Still my favorite ride.

Hello from Tom at Mission: SPACE

If you're really serious and don't want to see a guy in his Packers jersey cut into Neil Armstrong footage, be sure not to click on this link.