Anonymousí brilliantly myopic plan to win the GWOT

Why intell weanies should never be in charge of anything important

ìQ&A with ëAnonymous,íî USA Today, 19 July, p. 13A.

The basic argument you get from the CIA intell vet who directed the agencyís research on bin Laden for several years in the late 1990s (and now available in his anonymous ìImperial Hubrisî book) is the same logic youíll get from a lot of Middle East experts, terrorism experts, and diplomats familiar with the region. In effect, theyíll say itís all Americaís fault because what really drives al Qaeda is their hatred of our policies. End all those policies and al Qaeda and other terrorists will stop hating us and trying to kill us. Any other approach to the Middle East ìdooms us to failure in the GWOT.î

Anonymous sums up bin Ladenís offer of conditional surrender on our part as well as any other expert Iíve interacted with recently. Here are the six demands:

1. Stop supporting Israel against the PLO and Hamas

2. Get U.S. troops out of the Arabian peninsula

3. Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan now

4. Stop supporting Russia, China and India in their suppression of Muslim extremists or separatists

5. Get off oil ASAP so weíre not always pressuring OPEC to keep oil prices low

6. Stop supporting corrupt Muslim regimes in the region.

If we do all these things, the world will be a much safer place for Americans with regard to Middle Eastern terrorists trying to kill us and harm our interests around the world.

Not too much to give up, is it? Just turn over the Jews, who shouldnít be our problem anyway (I mean, God! We didnít commit the Holocaust did we? We just let it happen!). Also we need to let radical fundamentalists rule the Gulf and send oil prices skyrocketing so poor countries all over the Gap are immediately priced out of that energy market or, if they choose to pay such prices, suffer huge debt crises down the road. We should also let Iraq and Afghanistan go back to what they were: dangerously disconnected states that bred both internal terrorism and external threats either through militarism or the open support of transnational terrorist networks. And itís not too much to tell the New Core powers that we wonít stand for their efforts to keep their states whole and instead inform them that if theyíre going to depend on Gulf energy in the future, then they damn well better plus-up their military budgets pronto so that they can do all the strategic heavy lifting in the region in coming decades (Isnít China going to be our strategic enemy anyway?). And we should move America onto to hydrogen so the Middle East can turn itself into another Central Africa as quickly as possible, oróalmost as worstóanother Soviet-like gulag of repressive regimes whose dictators are corrupt fundamentalists as opposed to the corrupt elite dictatorships we now suffer there.

Yes, if we do all that, weíll really be pursuing a grand strategy of ìpeace and justiceî that will buy us coexistence with the fundamentalist radicals who dream of plunging the region into the same 7th-century paradise that the Taliban built in Afghanistan across the 1990s. Then weíll really be safe and weíll have the strategic stability that should have defined the post-Cold War era if only America didnít have so many wrongheaded policies in the Middle East.

Yes, give the terrorists everything they want and they wonít be pissed off at us any more. And the global economy will be better as a result, and stability will sweep the planet.

Itís a brilliant plan, proving yet again that intell weanies make the best grand strategists.

More evidence that Iran is in its late Brezhnev period

ìSorry, Wrong Chador: In Tehran, ëReading Lolitaí Translates as Ancient History,î by Karl Vick, Washington Post, 19 July, p. C1.

Interesting article about the bestselling book, ìReading Lolita,î which is a very well-written account of what it was like for a literature professor to teach in Tehran during the early 1990s, or before the rise of the reformist elements represented by Mohammad Khatamiís landslide election as president in 1997. No one argues with itís depiction of life back then, the only gripe raised by many living in Iran today is that the book is basically a historical offering that too many in the West are reading as an accurate description of current events.

In that regard, ìReading Lolitaî reminds me of reading pediatric cancer studies when our first-born was undergoing her treatments in the mid-1990s. The problem with all such studies was that they represented a past treatment rule set that no longer existed. A good medical study tended to stretch over several years, meaning it looked at patients who were treated roughly a decade earlier. The analysis generated tended to be far more scary than the current reality of the treatment protocols, because frankly, things had progressed dramatically since then. So I was always wary of reading such articles, because they tended to darken oneís outlook on the future in a disproportional fashion, meaning they exaggerated the dangers your child was actually facing in the here and now.

The same seems to be true of ìReading Lolitaî: itís a great depiction of what was Iran about ten years ago but not what Iran is today. That Iran today isnít what it was ten years ago doesnít mean the mullahs still arenít authoritarian and bad, or dangerous in their pursuit of WMD, but it does mean we need to understand the larger context. As society there increasingly slips out from under the mullahsí control, itís only logical that these repressive leaders will seek external opportunities to bolster their regime legitimacy, meaning more confrontations with the West. Understanding that longer-term dynamic helps us realize that Iranís talk and actions will grow in aggressiveness in direct proportion to their own fears of regime collapse.

That dynamic got us the resurgent Cold War tempo of the late 1970s and the early 1980s, when the Soviets got more adventuresome and ended up getting Reagan as a result. When our push met their shove, the hollowness of their regime revealed itself. Doesnít mean Reagan ìwonî the Cold War, but it does mean the guy was right to push back at that point in history.

This is something we need to remember with Iran in coming months and years as they inevitably acquire WMD.

What did Buddha say to the hot dog vendor? (reviewing ZenPundit)

Dateline: Amtrak train from Kingstown RI to New York Penn Station, 18 July

I used to employ this joke at the beginning of my mega-brief. I heard it from Phil Hartman during his last appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He claimed to have made it up on the drive to the show, but a lot of people say itís a much older joke than that. You just never knew with Phil . . ..

When I used the joke in the brief, I would simply throw up the question against a black background and wait and wait . . and wait . . . until the audience got a little uncomfortable. Then Iíd click the remote and the screen would fill with a shot of the Earth from space (the one Al Gore liked so much) and as it would appear the sound effect from the old movie promos for Dolby Sound would blare and the punch line would materialize below:

Make me one with everything!

Cheesy I know, but it often got a big laugh. Always bigger on the Left Coast than the East Coast, and a great laugh overseas everywhere save one countryóIndia. Gotta be careful with Buddha jokes there.

The point of the delivery was to tell the audience that I was going to cover an insane amount of ground in the brief: not just the 20th century, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era, but also 9/11, system perturbations as a new model of crisis, a new ordering principle for DoD, a model for how globalization works, the emerging American way of war (and peace), and a grand strategy for the U.S. in the 21st century (making globalization truly global). All that in 90 minutes!

So it made sense to joke about the briefís insanely ambitious scope.

But I liked the joke on another level. As I have said earlier, I see my material and vision as fundamentally one of peace and balance and a sense of global justiceóalbeit one informed with a realistís perspective of war and the role of security in making all that happen. I purposely seek the middle ground, where both the right and the left either find themselves attracted or find me impossible to dismiss casually.

I think both sides seek that middle ground right now. The right, in many ways, needs something to be ìconservativeî against, meaning it needs an enemy of sorts, and just bitching about diversity, or multiculturalism seems awfully sad as an ideology (Keep the world safe from gay marriage!).

A good article in the Saturday Times looks at this trend: ìYoung Right Tries to Define Post-Buckley Future,î by David Kirkpatrick, New York Times, 17 July, p. A1. Many young conservatives are wary of Bushís attempt to transform the Middle East, and yet polls show that young conservatives trust the government in general far more than their parents did a generation earlier. So theyíre often meandering somewhere in between a desire to deal with global terrorism in a strong way while not trying to take too much on in terms of government intervention. One brand of logic, marketed by a group of theological conservatives, is summed up by the word ìsustainability,î a phrase familiar to anyoneólike myselfówho worked in the development community in the 1990s, when it became the rage in foreign aid circles. At its most basic, sustainability is about seeing all the connections and having a healthy, almost conservative respect for balance over ìgreat leaps forward.î But the overlap is even stronger than that, because both theological conservatives and the development community in general have a strong focus on community institutions or the general notion of ìcapacity building.î What makes the ideological approach both compassionate and conservative is that it focuses on private-sector institutions, like churches, as it believes fundamentally that minimal governmental control is the key to empowering people and their communities to look after themselves as much as possible without creating dependencies on the government, aid organizations, etc.

Internally, the conservative approach yields one type of social programs, but externally, it begins to sound an awful lot like nation-building in search of an operating theory of the world, as in, ìWhere do we put our nation-building dollars so as to have the biggest positive impact on the world?î

And thatís when you begin to see the tie-ins with my work on securityóyou begin to become ìone with the worldî by recognizing the imperative of making globalization truly global. You see the flows and you naturally want balance. You want no one left on the outside, noses pressed to the glass. The Global War on Terror, then, quickly starts looking like a very poor stand-in for a grand strategy, as if simply killing the most violent extremists in the way would make this outcome come about all on its own, when you know instinctively that only killing the bad guys in a GWOT is the individual-level version of the Pentagonís Cold War tendency to think of and define war solely within the context of war, and not within the context of everything else.

Make me one with everything!

So, when I get lumped in with the neoconservatives, I donít mind so much so long as the vision isnít simply ghettoized by that distinction. I want my grand strategy to make sense to the neocons, because if it doesnít, it wonít go anywhere. But I also want it to make sense to the lefties of the leftóthe serious anything-but-war crowd whoíve been living too long in the dreamworld that says the right mix of foreign aid and trade will bring development to regions suffering serious deficits of security and freedom.

So when the conservative journals review the book, Iím happy, but Iím even happier when the liberal end of the spectrum finds the essential truth in the material, and doesnít simply write me off as an apologist for the Bush Administration (as I believe the Post and Times have done in not reviewing the book).

So imagine my delight when Iím turned on by my webmaster to the writings of the ZenPundit, whoís taken more than a passing interest in the book. Now remember, more than once Iíve received reviews or emails from people accusing me less of being a warmonger and more of being a closet Buddhist with a dreamy belief in the end of war as we know it (hell, I basically predict it in the book!).

Who is ZenPundit? Just a guy named Mark with a blog.

But more than that, what he does with PNM is what every writer dreams of: he sees so much more in it than other readersóso much so that he can actually elevate above the material and pull more out of it that even I had previously realized.

But enough preamble, letís dive in with his first post:

ZENPUNDIT @ http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2004/07/pentagons-new-map-handy-guide-to-must.html

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

THE PENTAGON'S NEW MAP - A HANDY GUIDE TO THE MUST-READ FOREIGN POLICY BOOK of 2004

Tom Barnett has written an exemplary book that enunciates something you very seldom see in American public debateóa long-term strategic vision for the United States that gets beyond the crisis de jure. Moreover, it's a strikingly positive vision that can politically connect with the American public across party linesóìShrinking the Gap" is a clarion call that can supported from liberal humanitarian interventionists to neocons to cold-hearted realists. As a paradigm, this is the Convergence of Civilizations, not the Clash.

Moreover, the PNM builds on the historic American commitment since FDR to freeing markets that every administration has supported since WWII. The Pentagon's New Map, as a concept, represents both innovation for the post-9/11 world and reassuring continuity. Ted Rall and Michael Moore are going to hate it. So will Pat Buchanan. Everyone else however will be willing to give Barnett's ideas at least a serious look.

A Quick and Dirty Guide to PNM Terminology:

The Core: The industrialized, connected to the information economy, mostly peaceful, rule of law abiding, liberal democratic world.

The Old Core: The heart of the core, the old G-7/NATO/Japan states led by the United States.

The New Core: Those modernizing states that decided to join the Core in the 1980's and 1990's - these are not always as liberal, democratic and law-abiding as the Old Core but they have more or less irreversibly committed to moving in that directionóChina, India, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil and the like.

The Gap: The Third World regions mostly disconnected economically and politically from the Core. Hobbesian in character, ridden by violence, oppression, poverty and anarchy. Ruled by despotsówhen ruled by anyoneócommitted to keeping their nations disconnected as a political survival strategy.

Rule Sets: The explicit and implicit rules that provide the framework by which nations interact and function internally. There is a clash of rule sets between the Gap and the Core and within the Core between Europe which mostly cannot and will not intervene in the Gap to enforce rules and the United states which can and sometimes must.

Connectivity: The degree of acceptance of globalization's many effects and the ability of a nation's individuals to access choices for themselves. Most international hotspots are in the most disconnected parts of the Gap.

Global Transaction Strategy: Barnett's equivalent to "Containment"óa national and Core strategy to "Shrink the Gap" by connecting and integrating into the rule sets of the Core.

I am going to discuss some of Dr. Barnett's more specific observations and recommendationsóand where I see caveatsóin a subsequent post but overall the PNM is a book that will have an intellectual impact that will be both broad and deep.

What I liked about this initial post was that the ZenPundit actually came up with better definitions of the key terminology than I did in the book. Not different ones, just more elegant and direct. As I said to Mark in a post I left on his blog site:

That's one of the best definitions of connectivity I've ever come across. Wish I used it in the book.

I await your detailed analysis. The convergence of civilizations concept I actually covet. I can't imagine why I never came up with that, especially since Sam is an old professor of mine, and probably the first guy who ever seemed to get me at Harvard.

To say the least, I am fascinated by your review so far. What really makes me feel like I've writen a good book is when I come across something like this and realize that readers can make more of the ideas than I did myself in putting them on paper.

Keep up the good work.

Mark the ZenPundit returns the favor in a follow-on comment:

Thank you very much. I found your book to be extremely stimulating intellectually and I've recommended it to a lot of my friends and colleaguesóin fact the delay in my further review is partly due to loaning out my copy of PNM to a friend. You also solved a problem for me regarding the charges of "Empire" against US policyóI knew that was incorrect but I couldn't articulate it very well in the simple way critics like Chalmers Johnson or Paul Schroeder make the accusation. You did & my hat is off to you.

Feel free to use the "Convergence " metaphor. I think cultures quite naturally tend to bleed over into one another memetically with until you get to the mutually incompatible core valuesóHuntington is looking at that aspect while you are looking at the merging element (Is the glass half-empty or half full?). Islam, which has "bloody borders" has a very limited set of principles but they are unfortunately currently non-negotiable in a way concepts like "democracy" are not.

In a later email exchange, Mark joked about how odd it must be for me to get a positive response from such a lefty Buddhist!

But it isnít really. As one previous review pointed out, my effort to seek the balance of everything is very Buddhist (or, as I would point out, very Christ-like in his more Buddha-like moments). Thatís how so many critical reviewers can laud me for my naÔve desire to save the world while simultaneously condemning me as a war-monger and dangerous idealist. I donít just want war, man, I want it all!

But to want it all is to see it all, which gets me to ZenPunditís second post on the book:

ZenPundit

Saturday, July 17, 2004

THINKING ABOUT THE PENTAGONíS NEW MAPóCONNECTIVITY AND THE FOUR FLOWS OF GLOBALIZATION

Tom Barnettís book , The Pentagonís New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century is hip deep in concepts which makes it both an intriguing read and a difficult review. But since this is a blog Iím free to tackle the book in parts and today Iíd like to look at Barnettís key concepts of Connectivity and his four flows of globalization that "connect" societies and nation-states into an interdependent whole. If you have a copy of PNM handy I strongly recommend you take a look at Chapter 4 "The Core and the Gap.î Itís the one where Dr. Barnett lays out the war on terror in "the context of everything else"ówhich is the essence of strategic thinking.

Context is important because itís what usually gets dropped in these types of discussions because most government experts and academics are by definition niche specialists. They resist moving their arguments and ideas into the realm of everything else because it messes up their crisp clean models with real-world complications in fields where they do not feel nearly so expert. This is a major reason why American national security, foreign policy and even military planning seldom rises above the level of tactical thinkingÖthat is when we are not stuck in crisis management, ad hoc, muddle through mode. American strategic thinkers have been so fewóBrooks Adams, Alfred T. Mahan, Woodrow Wilson, Walter Lippmann, George Kennan, Paul Nitze, Herman Kahn, Richard Nixonóthat a book like PNM, like Kennanís " X" article, fills a crucial intellectual gap at the policy planning level of our government.

Dr. Barnett advocates a Global Transaction Strategy to "shrink the Gap" and promote Connectivity to integrate disconnected states into the Core, advancing the process of globalizationóand in so doing extending the benefits provided by the "Rule Sets" associated with liberal democratic capitalism and the rule of law, broadly defined. Barnett further refines the enormous historical phenomenon of globalization to "four flows" between the Core and the Gap (p. 192).

PNM MODEL OF GLOBALIZATION

"Öfour essential elements, or flows, that I believe define its basic functioning from the perspective of international stability. These four flows are (1) the movement of people from the Gap to the Core; (2) the movement of energy from the Gap to the New Core; (3) the movement of money from the Old Core to the New Core; (4) the exporting of security that only America can provide to the Gap."

In other words, Barnett is defining globalization as a dynamic exchange relationship involving migration, resources, money and power.

He further elaborates on his model with "the Ten Commandments of Globalization" (p.199-204):

1. Look for resources, and ye shall find

2. No stability, no markets

3. No growth, no stability

4. No resources, no growth

5. No infrastructure, no resources

6. No money, no infrastructure

7. No rules, no money

8. No security, no rules

9. No Leviathan, no security

10. No will, no Leviathan

"Leviathan" is the enforcer of rule sets, in all practical purposes the United States acting alone, with an ad hoc coalition or through international organizations where we have a preponderant influence.

Dr. Barnett concludes his chapter with a superbly insightful (i.e., I agree with him here 100 %) explanation that conceptually ties together rogue state dictators and non-state actor terrorists into the Gordian Knot of menace that they truly are in reality (p. 205):

" A bin Laden engineers a 9/11 with the expressed goal of forcing the Core to clamp down on itís borders, seek its energy elsewhere, take itís investments elsewhere and ë bring the boys back home". He wants all of that connectivity gone, because its absence will afford him the chance for power over those left disconnected."

Ö an explanation that applies equally well to Kim Jong-Il as to the erstwhile master of al Qaida. I'm just wondering why the hell the Bush administration hasn't grabbed this one since they've been struggling to convince their critics (who are invested at treating rogue states, terrorism and WMD as disparate unrelated problems in order to do little about any of them) that the dots that they know in fact to be connected, connect in a comprehensible way.

MY COMMENTS:

My first reaction to the section on the PNM Model of Globalization was that, while Barnett has described the major categorical relationships of globalization, the idea could still face some further refinement in terms of defining globalization (and what connectivity really is) as an action. What exactly is it?

Jude Wanniski once made the brilliant observation in his book, The Way The World Works, that there is and always has been only one market in existenceóthe global market. Wanniskiís statement implied, correctly in my view, that the term "Globalization" is really describing something other than a new connecting of markets and cultures because they have always been connected to some degree however small. Even North Korea, in its self-imposed lunatic isolation, was never an autarky. The DPRK always had foreign goods, people and ideasóstarting with Communism itselfóflowing across its bordersóthe difference was in terms of degree.

Tariffs, immigration quotas, censorship, banking regulations, propaganda, environmental rules, cultural preferences or aversions, borders, police, armies, bureaucratic paperwork and all the other man-made obstacles to Tom Barnettís "four flows" do not stop the transactions and interactionsóthey slow them down and limit them to an artificially narrow, politically chosen, rate.

I would therefore define globalization as "the general acceleration of the rate and widening of the parameters of exchange." When we discuss globalizationís effects we are looking at the results of a recent global increase in the speed and the range of human interactions compared to the past, thanks to trade liberalization, the internet, the fall of Communism and the other systemic changes of the last twenty years.

"Connectivity" might be a good way to express the degree to which a nation has maximized their possible rate and range of exchangeóthe UK is more "connected" than Russia, which in turn is more "connectedî than Kazakhstan. If I was more able at quantitative analysis I could probably bat out a reasonably valid, rough and ready 100 point scale to measure a nationís connectivity in terms of "the four flows" (Unfortunately "Öthis is a job forÖBrad DeLong !" or at least somebody with a Ph.D in Econ). It could be plotted out on a bell curve and at a certain tipping point a nation could be considered "disconnected," which is where you would expect to find many states of the Gap. I would also include the movement of ideas as a "fifth flow" of globalization, particularly scientific ideas but Dr. Barnett was looking at globalization the prism of strategic American and Core interestsóhence the movement of people, energy, money and security.

Next post I want to examine the PNM strategy as it relates to Chinaís connectivity as part of "The New Core". Four years ago, on the H-Diplo listserv, in a post called "The Coming of the Global Hypereconomy," I posited some observations regarding the potentially centrifugal effects of an uneven spread of connectivity with high rates of speed in a nation of the size of China. I'm not certain if I would be as pessimistic today but the post does retain a great deal of congruence.

All I can say is, this guyís analysis really makes me overtly jealous! Like I was taking a nap or something when I wrote the book!

Again, ZenPundit extends the material, which is enormously exciting to any writer, but especially so to me, given my ambitions. To replace containment as a grand strategy, I needed to enunciate something so all-encompassing and yet fundamentally direct to peopleís understanding of how the world works in this age that it could be both readily understood by layman while retaining its coherence under the sort of microscopic analytical deconstruction of the sort that ZenPundit offers. In short, it needs to be both very robust and very flexible, which is hard, because robustness in theory is usually bought at the price of rigidity (great theory, until the crucial flaw is discovered and then it all comes tumbling down). That is why I purposely chose the language of information technology, proving yet again that PNM really began as a serious theorizing effort when I got involved with the Y2K debate (see, Star Trek didnít teach me everything!).

Other than his fundamental sloppiness with certain aspects of punctuation, I really donít have any critical comments to offer here on ZenPunditís exploration of the book. It is quite thrilling to watch someone locate so much ìroomî inside your thinking, especially when he arrives from the left versus the usual right. Simply put, Mark made my entire weekend during a period in my life when tension is rising.

Which gets me to the reason for this trip: going to NYC to get the visas for myself and Vonne for our upcoming trip to China (so you can imagine how interested I am in ZenPunditís next post!). The whole adoption process is really just as tense and draining as a pregnancy. I donít offer that from a womenís perspective, because I donít have any, but from the prospective of the dad who has lived through both methods nowóbiological and adoption.

I know, I know, I have a long way to go on this one stillóliterally. But I have to say, the process provides ìboth pain and delightî (another ST reference) in measures approaches even the difficult biological pregnancy (as our third one was).

So dad is off to NYC to go through the expedited, same-day visa service at the Chinese Consulate on 12th Street in Manhattan. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mom sweats out the final notice from our agency about our actual travel dates (so many summer camps to cancel, so little time).

Hereís the weekend catch:

Iraq: the real transformation begins

ìReporting And Surviving, Iraqís Dangers: Only when Iraq calms down will it become clear how well its most critical moments were covered,î by Ian Fisher, New York Times, 18 July, p. WK1.

ìTwo Bombings Aimed at the New Government Kill at Least 6 Iraqis,î by Ian Fisher, NYT, 18 July, p. A10.

ìU.S. Diplomat Starts New Job By Deferring to the Iraqis,î by Somini Sengupta, NYT, 18 July, p. A10.

ìIn Slow Steps, Iraqis Take Their Places in the Ranks of Security Forces,î by Somini Sengupta, NYT, 18 July, p. A11.

ìAn Elite Squad of Iraqi Soldiers Tests Its Newfound Autonomy,î by Ian Fisher, NYT, 18 July, p. A11.

ìIn Iraq War, Death Also Comes To Soldiers in Autumn of Life,î by Edward Wyatt, NYT, 18 July, p. A1.

How about a Department for the Gap?

ìNever Again, No Longer? Post-9/11, humanitarian intervention has gone out of fashion, and the people of Darfur are paying the price,î by James Traub, New York Times Magazine, 18 July, p. 17.

ìDespite Appeals, Chaos Still Stalks the Sudanese,î by Marc Lacey, NYT, 18 July, p. A1.

ì9/11 Report Is Said to Urge New Post For Intelligence: C.I.A. and Other Agencies Likely to Fight Idea of Cabinet Job,î by Philip Shenon, NYT, 17 July, p. A1.

The great race between India and China

ìA Young American Outsources Himself to India,î by Amy Waldman, NYT, 17 July, p. A4.

ìHow a Technology Gap Helped China Win Jobs: Beijing moves quickly to overcome Indiaís advantages in software development,î by William J. Holstein, NYT, 18 July, p. BU9.

ìIn Fire, Striving India Town Finds Dangers on Path to Modernization,î by David Rohde, NYT, 18 July, p. A1.

ìEditorís Death Raises Questions About Change in Russia,î by C. J. Chiver, Erin E. Arvedlund and Sophia Kishkovsky, NYT, 18 July, p. A3.

Nicholas Kristof at his best

ìJesus and Jihad: Massacres of non-Christians draw a crowd,î by Nicholas D. Kristof, NYT, 17 July, p. A25.

Iraq: the real transformation begins

ìReporting And Surviving, Iraqís Dangers: Only when Iraq calms down will it become clear how well its most critical moments were covered,î by Ian Fisher, New York Times, 18 July, p. WK1.

ìTwo Bombings Aimed at the New Government Kill at Least 6 Iraqis,î by Ian Fisher, NYT, 18 July, p. A10.

ìU.S. Diplomat Starts New Job By Deferring to the Iraqis,î by Somini Sengupta, NYT, 18 July, p. A10.

ìIn Slow Steps, Iraqis Take Their Places in the Ranks of Security Forces,î by Somini Sengupta, NYT, 18 July, p. A11.

ìAn Elite Squad of Iraqi Soldiers Tests Its Newfound Autonomy,î by Ian Fisher, NYT, 18 July, p. A11.

ìIn Iraq War, Death Also Comes To Soldiers in Autumn of Life,î by Edward Wyatt, NYT, 18 July, p. A1.

Iíve blogged in the recent past about how I think weíve reached a real tipping point in Iraq with the political handover to the interim Iraqi government. Todayís Sunday NYT offers a slew of supporting arguments, I would argue.

Hereís the opening paras from the first article, an insightful piece from Ian Fisher in the Timesí Week in Review section:

We were cornered last week by a few dozen members of the Mahdi Army, the violent and unpredictable militiamen loyal to the rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Moktada al-Sadr. They were yelling at usóit seemed like all of them at once, these poor, angry young men who two months ago would have chased us away or worse. But this time, the screaming was not about the injustices of America or the glory of jihad but about . . . about . . . about their high school final exams.

ìWe studied!î bellowed Mahdi Kazal, 20, who wants to study communications (and whose other vision of the future included a threat to kill the new Iraqi minister of education). ìThere is no water. There is no electricity. But we studied!î

This is the sort of moment that a reporter dreams of stumbling upon, because it was surprising and revealing. But as the violence in Iraq spiked this spring, such scenes had become largely off-limits to Western reporters because it was just too risky to wander around watching the new era in Iraq unfold.

It turned out that many Shiite high school students in Baghdad had flunked final exams, leaving them blocked from applying to college, because of suspected cheating. They said that the accusations were trumped up: that the new government was cracking down on Mr. Sadr by punishing his young followers.

Whatever this says about the Mahdi Army, it was an instructive moment for me, as a reporter here. The young men in the slum of Sadr City were approaching us. We did not feel threatened. They wanted to talk, and not just about the evil of America. They were talking about their futures.

Scenes like this tell you that something in Iraq has shifted, even if it is unclear exactly what or for how long. In the last few weeks, since the new Iraqi government took over, the hair-trigger tension has slackened, and many Iraqis are permitting themselves the luxury of hope in the midst of a long and unpleasant occupation.

That can be the description of an important tipping point, or it can describe yet anotheróbut far sloweródescent into disconnectedness. Much will depend now on the economic largesse of the Coreónever a good bet.

The other stories speak to themes Iíve raised earlier: that the violence will increasingly be directed at the Iraqi government itself, raising the uncomfortable issueófor the insurgentsóof Iraqi-on-Iraqi war. You can call the government ìpuppetsî all you want, but when youíre being egged on by foreign terrorists like Zarqawi, at some point you have to start asking yourself what is the point of Iraqis killing other Iraqis to either please or piss off foreign powers.

More and more it will become harder to justify the violence strictly in terms of the ìoccupiers.î Our new ambassador John Negroponte will have a profile several godheads lower than Uber-chief Paul Bremer, and as Iraqi troops start doing more and more of the patrols, they end up taking more of the bullets and making more of the kills.

The tipping points wonít all be on their side, however, as the occupation will inevitably change us as much or more than our enemies. Already, weíre seeing a fundamental shift in the tenor of our boots on the ground as this occupation pulls in more and more reservists, who tend to fit my Sys Admin description quite well: older, more educated, married with children.

When they bring grandpa home in a body bag, you know weíre waging a different sort of war this time aroundóboth in terms of the motivation of those on the front lines and the suffering back home that their lost lives trigger.

How about a Department for the Gap?

ìNever Again, No Longer? Post-9/11, humanitarian intervention has gone out of fashion, and the people of Darfur are paying the price,î by James Traub, New York Times Magazine, 18 July, p. 17.

ìDespite Appeals, Chaos Still Stalks the Sudanese,î by Marc Lacey, NYT, 18 July, p. A1.

ì9/11 Report Is Said to Urge New Post For Intelligence: C.I.A. and Other Agencies Likely to Fight Idea of Cabinet Job,î by Philip Shenon, NYT, 17 July, p. A1.

Every time the U.S. engages in anything resembling nation-building, there is a huge recoiling from the effortówithin the Pentagon, within the U.S. political system, and within American society writ large. It happened after Vietnam and stuck with us for a couple of decades. But it also happened ever so predictably after Somalia, then Haiti, and it tinged every decision we made across the years in the Balkans.

Just as predictable as the negative reactions to the actual efforts are the non-interventions that follow: like our cut-rate Reagan Doctrine of the 1980s where we sold rebels arms and did nothing else, or our blind eye regarding the ìkilling fieldsî of Pol Pot in Cambodia, or our ignoring of the Balkans for so many years, and our general indifference to Africa in general, or our complete non-registering of that half-a-Holocaust that was the dictator-fueled famine in Kim Jong Ilís North Korea in the late 1990s.

God forbid we ever act unilaterally!

The Sudan situation today is just the latest hand-wringer for humanitarian interventionalistsóor Democrats with a conscious. These debates are all the same: lots of whining about doing something, brave talk about sanctions and other diplomatic bullshit, and then stone-cold silence when the reality sets in that if you want to stop the disaster youíre going to have to send in somebody with guns to stop the bad guys from doing that voodoo that they do so wellówhatever the particular incarnation is.

If we are ever going to get serious about really winning a global war on terrorism, weíll realize that shrinking the Gap is what deserves a new cabinet-level post, not some intell weenie who can run around Richard-Clarke-like, screaming about the end of the world or the sky is falling!

Creating a cabinet-level czar for intell will solve nothing. Itíll just create someone new, right below the President, to hear a load of conflicting advice and caveats from a dysfunctional CIA and its lesser includeds. That new cabinet position will be all about making America feel good about itself, as if 9/11 and the global war on terrorism was all about us! Our feelings! Our fears! Our needs!

A new Department of Everything Else to go with our stellar Department of War would say to the rest of the world: you matter. But that would be too much of a leap of bureaucratic faith, we are told (even by someone as astute as Sebastian Mallaby writing for the Post recently). No, instead of what we really need to interact with the outside world better, weíre going to get a Chicken-Little-in-Chief.

God help us if we get that numbskull Gary Hart in the job, or even worse, our man with the white bed sheet over his headóRichard Clarke.

You think John Ashcroft is scary, Michael Moore? You ainít seen nothing until youíve seen Richard Clarke as the new Intell Czar.

The great race between India and China

ìA Young American Outsources Himself to India,î by Amy Waldman, New York Times, 17 July, p. A4.

ìHow a Technology Gap Helped China Win Jobs: Beijing moves quickly to overcome Indiaís advantages in software development,î by William J. Holstein, NYT, 18 July, p. BU9.

ìIn Fire, Striving India Town Finds Dangers on Path to Modernization,î by David Rohde, NYT, 18 July, p. A1.

ìEditorís Death Raises Questions About Change in Russia,î by C. J. Chiver, Erin E. Arvedlund and Sophia Kishkovsky, NYT, 18 July, p. A3.

Neat story about the native American who goes to India looking for a career. You can really tell when a country joins the Core, because then you see fresh young graduates heading there from America itself, in a sort of reverse ìnew worldî phenomenon.

But if India is starting to attract that reverse flow today, China has been doing it for a while, as weíve seen in previous stories about mid-career types leaving their staid U.S. surroundings for the rough-and-tumble world of China. Heck, remember all those stories about the ìwild westî Russia attracting all sorts of adventurers across the 1990s.

The difference with India, though, is telling. This guy isnít going back to carve out some new industry or sector amidst a ìwild westî atmosphere of tectonic shifts. Heís going there for a sense of long-term career opportunity. In Russia, the right sort of questioning attitude in business can still get you a bullet in the head, whereas in India, if enough people ask the same question, youíll get a peaceful shift in ruling parties (something thatís still hard to imagine in either Russia or China).

So yes, Putinís got things under control in Moscow and the fourth-generation of Party leaders seem firmly entrenched in red-hot China that is poised to supplant India as THE great back office to the Old Core any day now, but Indiaís got a rule set that the other two emerging pillars of the New Core do not: they can rotate not just leaders but entire ruling parties, and that speaks to a stability for long-term business that suggests that Indiaís future may be far brighter than either Russiaís or Chinaís.

And yes, I see that brighter future at work whenever I read some Triangle-Fire-like story like the one about the private school in India, where almost 100 kids were killed in a disaster that any well-functioning fire code would have prevented. In a situation like that, itís better to see rules rolling in rather than heads rolling off, as weíd be more likely to see in a China or Russia. In China, the old doc who blew the whistle on the governmentís SARS cover-up is getting his mind ìreeducatedîóone painful day at a time. In Russia, Forbes is looking for a new editor brave enough to write about corruption while wearing a flak jacket.

In India, youíll see an explosion of government regulations regarding fire codes. Rules will hold sway, not reeducation nor revenge killings.

Thatís not to say India doesnít have its own set of problems, just that itís farther along in synching its internal rule sets with the emerging global rule sets associated with globalization than either Russia or China is. India rarely gets much credit for that, but frankly, its why India was never seriously mentioned inside the Pentagon since the end of the Cold War as a potential ìnear-peer competitorî of the U.S., whereas both ìresurgent Russiaî (in the early 1990s) and ìrising Chinaî (since the Taiwan Straits crises of the mid-1990s) frequently were/are.

Good rules, good neighborsóinside this growing Core of the global economy.

Security types now like to crow that America has a ìborderî with Iraq. Well, weíve had one with India for a lot longer. We just didnít notice.

Nicholas Kristof at his best

ìJesus and Jihad: Massacres of non-Christians draw a crowd,î by Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, 17 July, p. A25.

Brilliant piece from Nick Kristof, who is just hitting his stride as an op-ed columnist, which means heís about five years from deteriorating into the painful predictability of a Tom Friedman whoís increasingly trapped by his own mega-celebrity.

But for now, I say just enjoy him for all heís worth.

This piece is about the ìLeft Behindî series of apocalyptic novels that have sold like hotcakes for years now, even though the entire phenomenon is largely ignored by the establishment press like the Times.

Kristofís point is a simple one: imagine how America would interpret a publishing phenomenon in the Middle East in which a bestselling series of fictional novels exploring a religious-inspired ìend timesî themeósay, based in the Koran vice the Bibleóculminates in a final book whereby Mohammed comes back to earth and makes every non-Muslim ìinfidelî explode in flames at the very sound of his voice. Do ya think we might find such a social phenom more than a bit scary?

Well, imagine how the rest of the world might interpret America in light of the unprecedented popularity of the ìLeft Behindî books.

And then ask yourself if President Bush doesnít simply give (some of ) us what we really want whenever he lets slip the ìCî word.

Notes on the Atrocities: dissecting the Gap concept

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 16 July 2004

Yesterday was the tonic required from travel. Picked up two oldest at track camp in Providence and noticed white caps in Hope Bay on way home, so we immediately suited up and rushed to Second Beach in Middletown. We were not disappointed. For the first time this year, just getting to the wave-crest zone was a workout in itself, because you had to plow through or jump over a very vigorous crash zone. This was a day to ride waves, and it did us all some good to do so. We go to the beach about 3X per week (typically just for about an hour or so at dinner time), but this was one of those rare days that happen only about 10X per season, and we caught it right at high tide.

Got the following from Jeff Alworth, who writes at the site "Notes on the Atrocities and other minor indiscretions." He was apparently sent a review copy by Putnam, and here he offers not so much a review of the book as an exploration of the Gap concept spread across two posts. My commentary follows:

Into the Gap (posted 7/14/04)

In the documentary Fog of War, Errol Morris' discussion with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, McNamara makes an observation about perspective. "The Vietnamese saw us as replacements for the French. They thought we were fighting a colonial war, which was absurd. We saw the Vietnam conflict as an aspect of the Cold War, but they saw it as a civil war." If we had understood the motivation of the enemy, the war might have followed a radically different script. The lesson is that accurately diagnosing the situation is critical to understanding how to address it.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, US foreign policy has been in disarray, in large part because we have failed to diagnose the world situation. This failure is all the more serious following 9/11. In the past 15 years, two models have tried, and both have proven disastrous. Cold-war dead-enders dominated Pentagon strategy following the Soviet collapse, arguing that the emergent threat would be a Soviet analogue--an enormously powerful state; China, for example. Not recognizing the threat of non-state terrorists, this left us blind to the approach of al Qaeda. The shift in policy to the neocon interventionist model, wherein cancer is cut out before it spreads, has proven--if possible--a greater failure.

These failures are the result of faulty diagnosis. What is the threat? What are the intentions of those who threaten us? Thomas Barnett, currently a professor at the Naval War College, may have the answers. This April, he published The Pentagon's New Map (Putnam, $26.95), wherein he describes two worlds the "functioning core," and the "non-integrated gap." As with many astute theories, it's clean and simple. It's a theory he worked on for years, and a rough draft was published in Esquire.

I'll spend the rest of this post describing the diagnosis. Of course, he also has theories about what we should do with the diagnosis, and here I think he's off the mark. I'll discuss that tomorrow.

Rule Sets

Rather than describe the world through ideology or alliances, while working on his theory, Barnett enlarged his field of vision and took a look at globalism. He saw an interesting pattern.

"If we map out U.S. military responses since the end of the cold war, we find an overwhelming concentration of activity in the regions of the world that are excluded from globalizationís growing Core--namely the Caribbean Rim, virtually all of Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and much of Southeast Asia."

--Esquire, March 2003

The resulting map contains countries with absolutely nothing in common with each other. So what about the other half, the part where violence is rare?

Once again, these countries look quite different politically. What they had in common was a de facto "rule set." They all accepted the freedoms and limitations that come with interconnectivity--economic and otherwise. India is a democracy, but it has a caste system that offends equality-minded Americans. Likewise, our loose morals and libertine ways offend Indians. But a larger rule set is in place that allows us to interact. We accept that the interconnectivity of markets, the effects of satellite broadcasts, the internet and so on will bring us challenges to our cultural norm. The rule set allows us to interact even if we don't perfectly agree. (And the result is we both become more like the other--another consequence we're willing to accept.)

But in the violent regions of the world, countries reject these rule sets. They function by different rules and demand that any integration is done on the terms of their own rule set.

The Non-Integrating Gap

According to Barnett, the principal characteristic of the non-integrating Gap (hereafter Gap) is not religion or politics, but disconnectedness.

"To be disconnected in this world is to be kept isolated, deprived, repressed, and uneducated. For young women, it means being kept--quite literally in many instances--barefoot and pregnant. For young men, it means being kept ignorant and bored and malleable. For the masses, being disconnected means a lack of choice and scarce access to ideas, capital, travel, entertainment, and love ones overseas."

--The Pentagon's New Map

As a result of this disconnectivity, life in the Gap is characterized by a number of conditions. Poverty - of 118 countries with incomes less than $3,000, 109 are in the Gap. Poor leadership and oppression - of 48 countries listed by Freedom House as "not free," 45 are in the Gap. Only one in ten Gap states has a stable rotation of leaders. Violence and disease - all of the countries with median ages of less than 20 are located in the Gap; all countries with median ages of 35 or more are in the functioning Core. Life expectancy is low, and crime and war high. Disconnection - communications within the Gap (independent media, internet) are far lower than in the Core.

I think Barnett has hit on a killer app here. It doesn't address individual conflicts or offer guidance on a case-by-case level. Viewing the Israel-Palestine conflict through the lens of the Gap doesn't suggest a course of action. But it is useful in pulling it out of the quagmire of culture, history, and religion--the blinders that have prevented solutions for 50 years. In fact, looking around the globe, using this lens has the same effect of changing the discussion from explosive political rhetoric and directing it toward larger and less volatile possibilities.

The real test is, having diagnosed the problem, can we come up with effective, long-term solutions? Tune in tomorrow for a discussion.

Out of the Gap (posted 7/15/04

Yesterday I began discussing Thomas Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map, wherein he described a model for interpreting global security threat. In the post-9/11 world, as people cast around for theories about what the threats are, where they're coming from, and what to do about them, Barnett is the first person to come up with a credible suggestion to the first two questions.

He believes that the world can be divided between a "functioning core" and a "non-integrated gap" (Gap and Core). What characterizes the Core is implicit agreement about the free flow of goods and information, even though these will challenge cultural, religious, and economic norms. The Gap, by contrast, does not accept this rule set. Instead, volatile leadership enforces a rigid cultural rule set, cutting off the free flow of information and goods, plunging the country into poverty, violence, and disease. It matters little if the rule set is defined by the ruthless secular beliefs of Kim Jong-il or the theocratic dictates of Iranian Ayatollahs. It's not the dogma that distinguishes the Gap, but the disconnection.

As far as diagnoses go, I think Barnett's is the most useful I've encountered. But even if we accept it on the face, then the third question of foreign policy becomes paramount: what do we do about the threats? And here a successful diagnosis of the problem isn't sufficient. In his book, Barnett praised the Iraqi invasion, arguing that it would successfully bring Iraq out of the darkness of Hussein and into the Core. Oops.

In order to begin to bring the Gap into the functioning core, we need to look at things on three levels: broad policy toward the Gap; political institutions to confront states and terrorists in the Gap; and political strategies for specific conflicts within the Gap.

Broad Policy

If the larger issue is not country-specific but a disconnection from the functioning core, the remedy is integration into the world community--using Barnett's language, slowly shifting the rule sets of countries within the Gap. The current approach is a patchwork of NGOs and the UN, operating under the old rule sets of Gap countries as they try to provide basic services to the masses. While this may alleviate suffering individually, it's not going to bring countries out of the Gap. Instead, we need a more radical solution.

What Barnett essentially describes with his "functioning core" rule set is a crude democracy. In democracies, we agree to give up some control to secure other control. We agree to allow non-malicious behavior, no matter whether we agree with it or not, in order to 1) secure the freedom to conduct our own activities, and 2) make larger flows of goods and ideas available. The notion of the UN was a good first effort, but there's neither carrot nor stick there. A more interesting way of providing a stick is an EU-style body. In order to join, you must agree to certain rule sets--and actually, the EU is a great example. But once you join, there are many benefits--the carrot. Such a body could create funds that member nations could access for education, infrastructure, start-up money and so on. The US would spend far less in the long run and accomplish far, far more with these funds than it would building up a massive invasion force.

Political Institutions

Of course, it wouldn't address the North Koreas of the world. The Core, in whatever configuration it chooses, must have a multilateral approach to the most incorrigible states. As we've seen, the UN is an ineffective way of managing these problems. But if the UN is too broad to be useful, US unilateralism is too narrow. To use the language of Barnett, neither one has the credibility to enforce rule sets. The US has no credibility because it appears to be acting in an effort to benefit itself, or at least acting arbitrarily. (Never mind what the intentions of the US actually are--they could be perfectly guileless, but most of the world thinks otherwise. Rule sets depend on agreement.) The UN also lacks credibility because it supports no rule sets--witness the selection of Sierra Leone and the Sudan to the Human Rights Commission. Instead, a credible coalition from the Core must form that can handle the worst abusers. NATO was once a comparable organization, but it's function as a counter to the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact makes it nearly obsolete in the al Qaeda age. It's time for a new institution.

Political Strategies for Specific Conflicts

I'm constantly amazed that when a Rwanda or a Sudan disaster unfolds, the world has no plan to address it. Nations seem insensitive to the danger such disasters represent to their own well-being, never mind the moral imperatives. In bi-or multi-state conflicts like Iraq generally a single country drives the process for its own purposes, not in the interest of the larger Core. The Afghani invasion is a case in point. While the US put together a respectable coalition for the invasion, it was essentially a US project. There was no thought of integration into a larger community, and the larger community abandoned Afghanistan after the invasion as a US reconstruction. Now it has fallen mostly back to the warlords and its danger as a threat to the Core has spiked back up again.

While I would suggest strategies for particular conflicts, the work of creating these strategies needs to be multilateral from the start. Is there any person alive who doesn't comprehend the danger the Israeli-Palestinian conflict represents to the Core? This kind of instability is a global problem as much as it is a national problem. It is clear that the Israelis and Palestinians are incapable of resolving the problem. The US shouldn't be the only country to try to arbitrate--mainly because we've already lost our credibility there. Our intervention isn't designed to enforce a rule set, but the result of confused national politics going back a century.

A new NATO of Core counties needs to develop specific strategies for how it will handle emergent hot spots. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, it may make more sense to establish interim Core governments to conduct Germany and Japan-style reconstructions. (I don't want to get to focused on the details--the point here is that rule sets should be the foundation of predictable interventions by such a body.)

*

Current US foreign policy is a confused stew of competing agendas. If Bush is re-elected, that confusion will deepen, as neocons and cold war dead-enders battle it out--neither one able to see that the enemies aren't arrayed against us because "they hate our freedom." John Kerry's election may be a step in the right direction. He appears to understand that the global security situation does not hinge on ideology (an "axis of evil"), but arises from instability. He's had the courage to suggest that "America to engage diplomatically in creating alliances that enhance collective security." Working with the Core is a great start. Building supports for long-term projects to integrate countries in the Gap is the next step.

COMMENTARY: I won't quibble with the analysis of the diagnosis in the first post, but in the second post, I come away with the feeling that he hasn't really read the book, but perhaps just skimmed the opening chapters. It's odd, because he suggests that he likes the diagnosis in the first post, but then promises to explore the shortcomings of the prescriptions in the second, only to come up with ideas very similar to my own (suggesting he didn't get all the way through the book). What that tells me is that I've created something akin to a reproducible strategic concept, meaning: if you accept or come up with the same diagnosis of the security environment, then you'll come up with similar solution sets. Saying the EU is a good model is basically saying the US is a good model, because the EU is a slow-motion version of our own integration approach. In effect, the rise of the EU is the franchising of the US globalization model, which isóI believe going to be replicated in China, India, Russia, Brazil, and elsewhere in coming years (internally at first, and then it will network externally). As I say in the book, we need to look at the world as consisting of two types of situations, where people live already in states united, and where they someday will.

To deal with security situations inside the Gap, Alworth wants something not quite US and not quite UN, or what I call the A-to-Z Core-wide rule set on how to process politically-bankrupt states, something I put out on the table in the last chapter.

His last section on specific strategies for particular conflicts calls for a Core-wide NATO, as do I in my "Ten Steps for a Future Worth Creating" in Chapter 8. The concept goes all the way back to the early 1990s for me, as back then I called it a Northern Hemispheric Security Alliance, building off the Baker-Shevardnadze concept of an alliance that stretched from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

So to sum up, this quasi-review works pretty well for me in that it seems to validate the reproducibility of the prescriptions stemming from the diagnosis. Given my strong suspicion that Alworth really hasn't read the book in full, this was sort of blind test.

Here's today's catch:

The misadministration of Iraq

"In Iraq, the Most Coveted Item Now Is a Passport," by Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 16 July, p. A1.

"Iraqi, Not U.S., Cash Spent on Rebuilding," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, 4 July, p. A1.

"Engines of Industry Sputtering in Iraq: Lack of Market, Materials Bars Progress," by Doug Struck, WP, 10 July, p. A14.

"U.S. Army Changed by Iraq, but for Better or Worse? Some Military Experts See Value in Lessons Learned; Others Cite Toll on Personnel, Equipment," by Thomas E. Ricks, WP, 6 July, p. A10.

Scaring off the global commuters in Iraq

"Philippines Viewed as Being Forced to Yield on Hostage," by Carlos H. Conde, NYT, 16 July, p. A12.

Jiang Zemin's long goodbye in China

"Former Leader Is Still a Power In China's Life: Repressive Effect Seen in Jiang's Long Reign," by Joseph Kahn, NYT, 16 July, p. A1.

"The New Weapon In China's Arsenal: Private Contractors: Once-Lethargic PLA Becomes Stronger Force With Help Of Modern Defense Sector: A Bigger Threat to Taiwan?" by Charles Hutzler, Wall Street Journal, 16 July, p. A1.

The misadministration of Iraq

"In Iraq, the Most Coveted Item Now Is a Passport," by Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 16 July, p. A1.

"Iraqi, Not U.S., Cash Spent on Rebuilding," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, 4 July, p. A1.

"Engines of Industry Sputtering in Iraq: Lack of Market, Materials Bars Progress," by Doug Struck, WP, 10 July, p. A14.

"U.S. Army Changed by Iraq, but for Better or Worse? Some Military Experts See Value in Lessons Learned; Others Cite Toll on Personnel, Equipment," by Thomas E. Ricks, WP, 6 July, p. A10.

The hottest service provided by the newly sovereign state of Iraq to its citizens is the issuing of passports. Given a choice of staying to rebuild a new Iraq or escaping, a good portion of the population simply want out.

Some of this demand is the logical build-up of being trapped under Saddam's repressive rule for so long, when traveling abroad was basically forbidden or made prohibitively expensive, but a lot of it is simply people wanting a peaceful place to raise their kids. Sound familiar?

Of course, a lot of the demand is from businessmen who want the right to travel around the region for business purposes, and they've basically been stranded throughout the 15-month reign of the CPA, when no passports were issued. But the economic issue driving the demand most is simply the lack of work inside Iraq. As one Iraqi was quoted saying, "If we found work here, we wouldn't be leaving." Or, as another put it, "I am really looking forward to it, I want to make something of my future."

Why are so many ordinary Iraqis not seeing such a future at home? The CPA basically bungled the reconstruction effort. Last year Congress approved $18.4 billion in aid to Iraq for immediate use. At the point of the handover in late June, the CPA had managed to spend only 2% of it. What does this sound like? It sounds like the usual speed at which the last truly centrally-planned economy, otherwise known as the Pentagon, has long operated at in terms of contracting and acquisition.

So no surprise, we took down a regime that basically controlled the entire economy and then dawdled for more than a year in getting new, non-state economic activity flowing in its place. The result was completely predictable: the economy came to a standstill. The only businesses prospering are those who are supplying goods and services in the security realm, such as generating uniforms for the new Iraqi military. Again, the CPA, dominated by a Department of Defense mentality, did mostly that which it knew best: it focused on security generation but ignored the "everything else" of the occupation process, or the restarting of the economy.

Will the Pentagon learn from this? A big question, but I think yes. So much will depend on how the Army interprets the failure of the occupation. If they believe it was all a failure of tactics in dealing with the insurgency, then no. But if the Army understands that what the occupation really lacked was a far more comprehensive understanding of what is really involved in standing back up a devastated economy and society, then yes.

The problem for the Army is, they hate the notion of ever becoming an occupational force, because they fear it saps their warfighting spirit. But the reality for the U.S. military as a whole is, if the Army does not accept that challenge, the warfighting capacity of the entire force will be far more damaged. The transformed Leviathan force we now possess does not really need the Army for much of what it does. What it needs from the Army is the ability to do the "back half" workload a whole lot more. Army does not want to hear this, but until they do, we will not be any more prepared for the next Iraq-style intervention.

Scaring off the global commuters in Iraq

"Philippines Viewed as Being Forced to Yield on Hostage," by Carlos H. Conde, New York Times, 16 July, p. A12.

The Philippines pulls its puny military contingent out of Iraq because insurgents there threaten to executive a civilian Filipino truck driver held hostage there. Did we lose a military ally? No. That presence was strictly for show.

What we really lose is access to the Filipino mobile workforce that came to Iraq in the thousands, filling a slew of crucial job slots.

Why did the Phillipines' PM Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo stop that flow of workers? Here's the correct analysis:

The crisis could also alienate the millions of overseas Filipino workers whose dollar remittance had been propping up the economy for decades but who contended that the government had not done enough to protect them, said Maita Santiago, secretary-general of Migrante, a group of Filipino migrant workers.

This is the real way in which the insurgents' "anti-access asymmetrical strategy" is damaging our occupation effort in Iraq: they grab one Filipino hostage and de-access one of the U.S. military's crucial private-sector labor inputs.

Jiang Zemin's long goodbye in China

"Former Leader Is Still a Power In China's Life: Repressive Effect Seen in Jiang's Long Reign," by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 16 July, p. A1.

"The New Weapon In China's Arsenal: Private Contractors: Once-Lethargic PLA Becomes Stronger Force With Help Of Modern Defense Sector: A Bigger Threat to Taiwan?" by Charles Hutzler, Wall Street Journal, 16 July, p. A1.

Jiang Zemin, great leader of the 3rd generation of Chinese leadership, gave up his posts as party chairman and president of China to Hu Jintao in 2002, but he kept control of the military as sort of a Secretary of Defense-plus. This has given him a lasting power in all matters of foreign and national security policy. His continuing focus on the need to prepare for war with the U.S. over Taiwan is a dangerous one that not only introduces unnecessary uncertainty in what should be an emerging strategic partnership with the United States, but likewise keeps the People's Liberation Army shielded from the budgetary pressures it should logically face as the newly installed fourth generation of leadership seeks to deal with the stubborn reality of rural poverty in booming China. Also, Jiang is a constant influence against further transparency emerging in China, as evidenced by his hard-line cover-up approach to the SARS epidemic.

Of course, many security experts in the West will cite his lasting influence as further evidence of the looming strategic danger posed by the PLA, but that's a bit of a stretch. Jiang is more about cementing his "grand legacy" that truly seeking a military clash with the U.S. over Taiwan, and he's simply leveraging his position as head of the military to remain a power within China's ruling elite.

As for the great evidence of China's "leapfrogging" thanks to private contractors, I wouldn't read as much into that as Defense Department China watchers will. The PLA was forced to get out of the business of self-financing through the production of consumer goods a while back, and so they're logically moving toward greater reliance on commercial technology to modernize their forces because they have to be smarter now with their money. Watching this "leapfrogging" process in the military is a lot like watching their space program emerge: it's largely a catching-up phenomenon, not a great leap forward. So China finally got a man in space. Whoopy-do! They also just got encrypted emails for the PLA. Holy cow!

So yeah, the PLA is seeking to modernize, and yeah, they're relying on commercial-off-the-shelf more and more, but that just means they're following the example of the U.S. military, whose R&D budget alone is roughly equivalent to the entirety of the PLA budget. So again, a little perspective is in order here.

Catching my breath and gearing up for China

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 15 July

One of those weeks when you've past the 50-hour mark and it's only Wednesday.

Good to be back home, as invigorating as the meetings at Central Command and Special Operations Command were the past few days. Time to get the car tuned, pick my kids up at camp, hit the waves with them and score some ice cream.

But also more plans and preparations for our upcoming trip to pick up adopted daughter and child #4 Vonne Mei Ling. Waiting for exact dates of travel from our agency, and then a slew of preparations get kicked in very quickly, including a quick trip to NYC to the Chinese consulate to get the visas.

Other good news from China in the making: three major publishing houses make offers on PNM and we're zeroing in on a decision. To go to China knowing that my book is being translated for publication there even as I walk its streets will be pretty cool.

Short-haul run today:

Exactly how Iraq fades away

"10 In Baghdad Die As Suicide Blast Shatters a Calm: Assassination In North; Iraq Chief Calls Bombing Insurgents' Response to New Crackdown," by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 15 July, p. A1.

Gap clichÈ is the leader who can't lead but won't leave

"Mubarek the Pharaoh: Egyptians want an elected presidentówith term limits," by Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Wall Street Journal, 15 July, p. A10.

K.I.S.S. works in A.I.D.S.

"Fixed-Dose Mixtures of Generic AIDS Drugs Prove Effective: Results of the first large study in poor nations hold promise of simpler therapy," by Lawrence K. Altman, NYT, 15 July, p. A3.

Science matters across all Four Flows of globalization

"Bush Faces Challenge From Scientists: Administration Is Criticized for Its Use of Information in Divisive Issues: Republicans note the president supports research on hydrogen fuels, nanotechnology," by Antonio Regalado, WSJ, 15 July, p. A4.

Marriage amendment: it's the thought that counts

"Winning While Losing: Bush Refines Position on Gay Marriage," by Richard W. Stevenson, NYT, 15 July, p. A19.

Siemens to competitors: My Chinese are better than your Chinese

"Vaunted German Engineers Face Competition From China: Siemens Taps Beijing for Help In Designing New Phone; Wanted: Flashier Models: 'Leopard' Leaps Into Fray," by Matthew Karnitschnig, WSJ, 15 July, p. A1.

Exactly how Iraq fades away

"10 In Baghdad Die As Suicide Blast Shatters a Calm: Assassination In North; Iraq Chief Calls Bombing Insurgents' Response to New Crackdown," by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 15 July, p. A1.

How Iraq becomes another Afghanistan in the popular imagination of the American public is captured in this article: "naked aggression against Iraqi innocents" with American troops increasingly on the sidelines, behind base security fences. Our troops will continue to kill Iraqi insurgents, but we'll be operating more and more from defensive positions over time. For example:

In western Iraq on Wednesday, American marines killed more than 20 guerrillas near Ramadi, Lt. Col T.V. Johnson, a Marine spokesman, said the guerrillas struck at the marines with rocket-propelled grenades and homemade explosives. The marines suffered no casualties. Colonel Johnson called the engagement "a failed complex attack."

Yes, we will continue to lose people regularly (3 deaths were confirmed yesterday, two in a traffic accident), and yes, the terrorist will drive out the weaker coalition members like a Philippines, but it will mostly be Iraqis killing Iraqis and the U.S. keeping it from getting out of hand while the Allawi government slowly reestablishes control over the countryside. Not pretty, but increasingly not the election driver that the Democrats and Michael Moore were hoping for.

This is why Kerry and Edwards as the "sunshine boys" is important: I maintain that the most optimistic (as perceived by the voters) candidate always wins. Of course, Bush is going to play that game with great gusto as well, so it will be interesting to watch this careful dance unfold between the two camps over the coming weeks.

Gap clichÈ is the leader who can't lead but won't leave

"Mubarek the Pharaoh: Egyptians want an elected presidentówith term limits," by Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Wall Street Journal, 15 July, p. A10.

Hosni Mubarek is now the third-longest serving ruler in Egypt's 4,000 years of recorded history, and what does this country have to show for it?

Well, it is a quiet place among Middle Eastern states, without any significant militants threat, but it's also a largely stagnate society that is poorly connected to the global economy. No free media really exists, as everyone there turns to the BBC and al Jazeera for news about their own country, a sure sign of strong disconnectedness. Instead, what Egyptians enjoy is their 23rd year in a row of a government-declared "state of emergency."

Here's the best bit in the op-ed:

In May, Egyptians had experienced another jolt when the minister of youth and spot assured the nation that Egypt had sewn up enough votes on the FIFA Executive Board to host the 2010 soccer World Cup. When the vote was finally cast, South Africa was first with 14 votes, followed by Morocco with 10. Egypt was lastówith zero votes. To many Egyptians, this was as serious a calamity as the 1967 military defeat at the hands of Israel. The World Cup debacle, ironically, has become a rallying cry for the Egyptian opposition, not for dumping this or that minister but for a total "regime change."

Remember my story in PNM about Nigeria's attempt to host the Miss World competition? This is very similar and equally as embarrassing for the regime: it's basically the world saying Egypt couldnít be trusted with something as important as the World Cup, and who can blame FIFA? Would you pick a country under its 23rd year of a "state of emergency"?

Mubarek is a classic "Big Man" who needs to go, not so much because he's a bad leader but because having a leader for that long isóin itselfóvery bad for the political, social, economic, and security evolution of the country. It simply deadens the soul, and scares off the rest of the world from pursuing the connectivity it otherwise might desire to enable. Ultimately, Egyptians themselves lose out the most.

K.I.S.S. works in A.I.D.S.

"Fixed-Dose Mixtures of Generic AIDS Drugs Prove Effective: Results of the first large study in poor nations hold promise of simpler therapy," by Lawrence K. Altman, New York Times, 15 July, p. A3.

So now we're getting ever more solid evidence that the three-in-one pills that employ generic brands work just as well as the brand name drugs taken individually according to far more complex schedules and at much higher cost. The date comes from Doctors Without Borders. The combo tested by the docs was the same one advocated by the World Health Organization, which to me signals a solid emergence of a new global rule set on the treatment of AIDS. For the Bush Administration to fight against this emerging conventional wisdom on behalf of Big Pharma simply won't work in coming years, no matter how much those giant pharmaceuticals support its campaign.

Expect some serious backtracking by this White House if reelected, and expect Big Pharma to get pissed off as a result, but the writing is on the wall.

Science matters across all Four Flows of globalization

"Bush Faces Challenge From Scientists: Administration Is Criticized for Its Use of Information in Divisive Issues: Republicans note the president supports research on hydrogen fuels, nanotechnology," by Antonio Regalado, Wall Street Journal, 15 July, p. A4.

I'll skip the contents and the debate and focus on just one quote from Kerry economic adviser Jason Furman: "If you look at the four core issuesójobs, health care, energy and securityóscience plays a really important role in all."

I get asked a lot about why technology isn't one of my Four Flows in the globalization model (admittedly reductionist) that I offer in PNM. My stock answer is that I can't track a coherent flow in this regard, because technology seems to be everywhere and in everything. If I match FDI to jobs creation in the global economy (very solid link), migrations to health care issues (we're learning that link more and more with AIDS, SARS, etc), and then take energy and security at face value, I basically find my Four Flows in this guy's analysis, which I think is dead on.

Marriage amendment: it's the thought that counts

"Winning While Losing: Bush Refines Position on Gay Marriage," by Richard W. Stevenson, New York Times, 15 July, p. A19.

The effort to shove the anti-gay marriage amendment through the Senate never had a chance, but that was never the point for the Bush White Houseósimply making clear the President's election-year stance was the real point of the entire endeavor.

Bush goes out of his way to say he's against laws restricting same-sex relations, but that he's unwilling to let traditional marriage be redefined. It's not a position much different from Kerry's, to be honest, just a whole lot more forcefully stated, which is why we witnessed the Senate effort this week, doomed as it was from the start.

Polls show most people in the country are not in favor of gay marriage, but that itís not a hot election-year issue for most, except the fundamentalist far-right. So Bush loses the vote in the Senate, but energizes the base, and gains yet another chance to pin Kerry on his careful both-sides-of-the-fence language.

I think we're going to watch this dynamic again and again in this election. Not really dirty or unfair, but awfully consistent and fairly damaging. Why? Bush has solid ranks in both houses of Congress willing to push issues like this on his behalf in various venues, while the Democrats tend to be far more scattered all over the dial. This strategy is going to be hard for Kerry to overcome, leaving the conclusion that this race, like most reelection campaigns, is strictly a Bush-vs-Bush affair. In that regard, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a pretty good microcosm of the whole thing: Kerry's not even mentioned in it.

Siemens to competitors: My Chinese are better than your Chinese!

"Vaunted German Engineers Face Competition From China: Siemens Taps Beijing for Help In Designing New Phone; Wanted: Flashier Models: 'Leopard' Leaps Into Fray," by Matthew Karnitschnig, Wall Street Journal, 15 July, p. A1.

During the Cold War the old joke went that the U.S. got ahead of the Soviets on nuclear bombs because "our Germans were better than their Germans," meaning we captured the pick of the litter from the collapsed Nazi regime that had worked pretty hard on the bomb, missile technology and the like.

What's so amazing about this story of Siemens AG, the classic German technology giant, turning to a slew of young engineers in Beijing to design their next generation cell phone, is that we could all be making similar jokes about the Chinese.

Li Tao, a 33-year-old engineer for Siemens AG, unfolded a silver, clamshell-shaped mobile phone and broke into a grin as the orange lights in its frame began flashing.

"It's unique," he said with an excited laugh.

What's more remarkable about the handset, nicknamed "Leopard," is its birthplace. It was developed not at Siemens' headquarters in Munich, but in a white six-story building on the outskirts of Beijing, by Mr. Li and a crew of young Chinese engineers.

Siemens' decision to turn east for engineering know-how represented a big gamble for a company that has relied on the ingenuity of its German engineers for more than 150 years. It also reflected one of Germany's biggest economic challenges ever: The erosion of its dominance in engineering, long the lifeblood of the world's third-largest industrialized economy and a source of cultural pride.

For years, Germany, like many other countries, lost manufacturing jobs to China and other low-wage countries in Asia and Eastern Europe. But its engineering sector remained a safe haven, one of the few areas where the country could hold its own globally. Highly paid German engineers proved their worth with a steady stream of innovations, including the world's fastest train, designed by Siemens and ThyseenKrupp AG.

Now engineering jobs are beginning to move abroad as well.

The U.S. has the most researchers and spends the most in R&D, with the EU second in both categories, but China is now # 3 in researchers (with Japan fourth) and is closing in on Japan in terms of R&D. When broken out alone, Germany is nowhere near the totals of either China or Japan in researchers, and has already been eclipsed in R&D spending by China.

That, my friends, signals the emergence of a new rule set in science and technology.

At the center of the universe in Tampa

Dateline: SWA flights from Tampa through BWI to Providence, 14 July 2004

Last of four days with Special Operations Command, where our ìexpertsî group briefs out our first workshopís worth of ideas on strategy in the Global War on Terrorism to the command. Not a bad start, and the senior leadership seems happy with the broader perspective weíve brought to the problem set. We leave with a set of questions to work on over coming months and a promise to reconvene again back down in Tampa sometime before the end of the year. I donít think we did any harm, and I think we opened up a few mindsóincluding all of our own as we encountered one another in this diverse array of expertise.

It was sort of odd, because I had as much or more experience of working with the military than anyone else in the group save one, and thatís not usually how it works for me. Typically, Iím more the idea hamster in a fairly military audience, whereas here I was more the voice of reason and practicality from the military perspective. Over the course of the four days, I said my peace but didnít exactly push my agenda because I knew I was the only person there who actually had a grand strategic package of ideas for the future of U.S. military power already sitting in the staffís hands in the form of the book.

Of course, with a distinguished crew like this, weíre talking about everyone having a book (or books) or some series of reports/studies, but I was the only one with a comprehensive approach looking at the world from the Pentagon out, meaning something that talked structure of forces and command, operational and strategic applications, and the enunciation of a grand strategy, within which the Global War on Terrorism is but a minor subset. So for me, at least, the discussion of how to wage and win a GWOT was awfully narrow, because I donít see the world revolving around al Qaeda, or the number one strategic goal of the United States being either the killing of terrorists or the prevention of more terrorists from joining the fight. To me, those are tactical realities and operational guidelinesónot a serious component of a grand strategy.

Thatís not to say I didnít learn a ton about terrorists, terrorism, and the Middle East in this workshop, because I did. I also learned a lot about the GWOTís parameters and potential pathways, but not to the extent that I came away from the experience consumed by its vision. There will always be terrorists, and we will always be fighting them (as we have in the past). At some points in this conflict those struggles will appear to take center stage, operationally speaking, but never strategically speaking. The strategic agenda is really one of shrinking the Gap and making globalization truly whole, and eliminating those who standóready to employ violenceóin the path of that historical unfolding does not constitute the bulk of that strategy nor define it in any meaningful way. It is merely a crucial task. The progressive integration of the Gap is far more ambitious and complex a series of tasks than the GWOT will ever become, even as we casually employ that phrase as a poor descriptor of the overarching goal we truly seek.

My personal inputs to the final outbrief were all ones Iíve used in mass media appearances on in this weblog, with the exception being my specific advice on the institutional challenges that inevitably lie ahead for Special Operations Command as the GWOT unfolds.

I may get back and give the brief to select people in SOCOM prior to the end-of-year second workshop, but Iím sure Iíll be doing it for Central Command sometime this fall. Right after the outbrief to the Deputy Commander of SOCOM, I was whisked away to CENTCOMís headquarters, also at MacDill AFB, for a quick meeting with quartet of senior officers in the policy and planning division. To say the least, that was a fascinating discussion. Almost immediately I find myself deep into the material I know will constitute the Son of PNM, and I canít wait to get back there for more conversations andóhopefullyóthe right briefing audience. Of course, if anyone in the U.S. military has their hair on fire 24/7, itís these guys, what with both Afghanistan and Iraq in their area of responsibility, plus Egypt, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel-PA, Iran, and Pakistan. If thatís not the center of the pol-mil universe right now, I donít know what is.

Coming out of a series of meetings like that is pretty heady stuff. Iíve never met such senior people into two commands like that all in one trip, much less one morning. All I can say is two things: 1) PNM is finding an audience in all the right places in MacDill; and 2) these are some of the best people youíll ever meet in this businessósharp as tacks, honest about what they know and donít know, and as self-aware of the world around them as you could ask for. We really do have the best military leadership in the history of the world.

Notice I donít say political leadership, not that thatís my main point . . ..

But a day like today makes me think it simply will never be possible for me to ever get out of this business entirelyóor at least for any great length of time. The work is too important, the people are too good, and the historical stakes are simply too high to ignore. At this point I really should never again complain that my career didnít get a chance to unfold at an important juncture of world history.

Long delays on my flights home mean I have time to explore plenty of articles today.

Hereís the catch:

Targeting the at-risk-of-terrorism population

ìSaudi militant on video gives up: Bin Laden aide may help track him down,î by Barbara Slavin, USA Today, 14 July, p. 1A.

The back half of regime change: not easy for UN either

ìKosovo Report Criticizes Rights Progress by U.N. and Local Leaders,î by Nicholas Wood, New York Times, 14 July, p. A5.

Helping a country of AIDS-orientation

ìEarly Tests for U.S. in Its Global Fight on AIDS,î by Deborah Sontag, Sharon Lafraniere and Michael Wines, NYT, 14 July, p. A1.

Billionaireís trial: Russia both jittery and settling down

ìBillionaireís trial unsettles Russianís economy: Investors, business leaders have serious case of jitters,î by Bill Nichols, USA, 14 July, p. 10B.

Europe exporting some rule sets of its own?

ìEuropean gay-union trends influence U.S. debate: Lawmakers look to other nations,î by Noelle Knox, USA, 14 July, p. 5A.

That time of year for the long-term survivor

ìEfforts Mount to Make Cancer Treatment Less Toxic: New Drugs Aim to Reduce Side Effects of Chemotherapy; Protecting a Childís Hearing,î by Amy Dockser Marcus, Wall Street Journal, 14 July, p. D1.

Targeting the at-risk-of-terrorism population

ìSaudi militant on video gives up: Bin Laden aide may help track him down,î by Barbara Slavin, USA Today, 14 July, p. 1A.

The Saudis offer a month-long amnesty period for terrorists to turn themselves in. So far three have done it, but the one who came in from the cold yesterday outta Iran was somebody special: the very same guy who is seen celebrating 9/11 with Osama bin Laden in the famous post-tragedy tape.

This guy is both pretty beat up and pretty much out of the mix, and yet the Saudi program speaks to something I learned at the workshop at SOCOM: weíre not probably going to convert any terrorists, but we can prevent the at-risk population from succumbing to the group peer pressure that drives these collective acts of self-sacrifice. Offering amnesties and having guys come in from the cold is a powerful example to that at-risk population: it says that itís a rough life with little reward and that given the chance to give it up, some will with little regret and more than a little desire for redemption.

Terrorists really fight and die for each other as much or more than for the cause. It is a supremely communal environment, much like the military itself, where guys fight for each other and not abstract ideals. The weak links in both processes are the larger circles of friends and family who must tacitly support the choices made by such warriors. Discredit the act and it becomes hard to recruit terrorists.

On the other hand, you might say the same about Michael Mooreís ìFahrenheit 9/11î and itís impact on the U.S. military.

So I guess both sides have their at-risk populations, leaving us to judge which side has the better cause.