That was weird...

One of our readers wrote in to say 'Where's the sidebar?'.

Answer: I have no idea. I didn't even touch that template.

So, I'm piecing it back together. Sidebar under reconstruction until Saturday. Please excuse the mess.

Comment upgrade: Best candidate re: China?

Got this comment from Brandon Winters:

If the Bush administration is a lost cause on China, who would be a good candidate for President that would seek to engage, rather than contain China?

Tom's answer:

(Can you guess it?)

(I'll 'hide' it in the comments, just for fun ;-)

Another good move by Bush

ARTICLE; "Russians And U.S. Push Hard On Trade," by Andrew E. Kramer and Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 12 July 2006, p. C1.

Bush and Co., despite the harsh rhetoric coming outta Cheney, have done seemingly better with Russia than China in offering the sorts of carrots that get us the cooperation we seek diplomatically on Iran and North Korea, which we see inching forward on both fronts, in part thanks to Kim's piling it on right now.

This article indicates that, rather than take up John McCain's scary call to boycott the G-8 meeting in Moscow over Putin's policies, Bush is pushing to have an accelerated deal on Russia's entry into the WTO, presumably to trumpet it at the summit.

Sharp move by this administration, though I do harbor some fears that deals like this with Russia and China are all part of the master China containment plan, which, as I've said before, is doomed to fail simply because so many allies, both old and new, will not let themselves be forced to choose between old American fears and new Chinese opportunities.

Still, good move by Bush. The Euros were signalling their own desire to cut a special trade deal with Russia to lighten the perceived blow from a failed Doha round. That we perhaps beat them to it is just fine: any bilat pressure stemming from intra-Core deals only pushes these states collectively toward more realistic stances in the Doha Round, along with those who sit across the tables. So every little bit helps.

Keeping perspective on Iraq

PHOTO: "Memories Of a Massacre," Associated Press, New York Times, 10 July 2006, p. A3.

Hard to remember, as I point out in my upcoming Knoxville News Sentinel column, just how bloody the Balkans were.

By most reasonable accounts, we're approaching 40k deaths in Iraq since the 2003 takedown (still under the UN-estimated 50k we killed each year with sanctions across the 1990s), but the Balkans were a place where the massacres ran into the thousands, not just dozens.

The photo showed a woman touching the inscribed name of a loved one on a new monument in Srebrenica, where over 8300 civilians were slaughtered in one bloody stroke by the Serbians. Most were Muslim men and boys. Most bodies were never recovered/identified.

And yet look where the Balkans are today. Getting past the blood lust took some firm military intervention, followed by a major babysitting job with peacekeepers and development personnel, but now we had--as I witnessed in Dubrovnik this week--these states' diplomats all arguing over who can be a better NATO ally fastest or harmonize their political and economic systems most quickly to become viable candidates to join the EU.

Did you know that Macedonians and Croatians both serve alongside our NATO troops in Afghanistan today? No big numbers, naturally, but a real start.

Can you dream of Iraqi peacekeepers patrolling alongside American and Chinese (already there) peacekeepers in sub-Saharan Africa ten years from now?

All predictions seem to be moving too slow on Chinese cars

ARTICLE: "On the Road Again: A Chinese Company Intends to Build MG's in Oklahoma," by Nick Bunkley, New York Times, 12 July 2006, p. C1.

Remember that post of... oh... several days ago when I opined that someday soon American states would welcome in Chinese auto manufacturers like we do Korean and Japanese ones today?

As I have often said, it's tough to be a futurist right now. Economically, things are easily OBE, a phrase that began in the time of the Soviet bloc's rapid collapse.

Nanjing, the Chinese car maker, says it has $2B in investment to start rebuilding MGs, the old Brit car, here in the states. Awfully niche, this production goal, but an early indicator of things to come no doubt, as Chinese car makers want to build for here and there, as well as build them here and there.

More prosaically, Nanjing wants to give Mazda a run for its Miata money, which seems sensible enough. Can't have enough mid-life male crisis cars around.

Oil-peak fear-mongering suffers another blow

ARTICLE: "Saudi Arabia Tests Its Potential For Unlocking Heavy-Oil Reserves," by Bushan Bahree and Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal, 10 July 2006, p. A1.

So it's not just Canada unlocking the unconventional sources...

We forget that Saudi Arabia's known reserves have always been calculated in terms of the easily accessed light oil, or the stuff that just comes up when you pump some water down.

If [Saudi Arabia] succeeds in overcoming the technical hurdles, the effort could significantly increase Saudi Arabia's oil reserves over the next several years, potentially adding some slack to tight energy markets. It would also be a blow to so-called peak-oil theorists who have forecast that world oil production is on the brink of peakin.

Wow. That took long [the market response to high prices created by sustained rising demand coming out of the East], didn't it?

Hubbert's Curve works, on known fields. But it doesn't tell you much on Saudi Arabia's unexplored and unexploited heavy-oil fields, or Canada's oil sands or...

"Look for resources and ye shall find..."

My first globalization commandment.

The U.S. Geological Survey now estimates that in there is an much heavy oil in the Western Hemisphere as there is light oil today in the Eastern Hemisphere, or roughly one trillion barrels.

Rebranding Development-in-a-Box

DiB is the phrase Steve DeAngelis and I have used up to now to describe a rapid reconnecting of a post-conflict/disaster/whatever state to the global economy/global info grid.

We do get a certain push back on the term, primarily on the word "development" and the implication that something so complex can be so summarily packaged up and dropped on somebody's doorstep. That's the Left's problem. The Right's issue is more one of commitment--as in bucks and oversight implied. A middle-ground resistance centers on the implied-but-wrong assumption of top-down planning.

In sum, all this resistance says to me that "development," like democracy, is just too loaded a term for our purposes, so I'm going to start describing it more as Connectivity-in-a-Box (connectivity is my phrase for obviating the up-front demand on democratization anyway, and it's always worked wonders for me in that way by steering the discussion to where it needs to go instead of bogging it down in debates on cultural norms), which I think comes closer to Steve's old term, "civilian infrastructure insourcing," a great but a bit too technical phrase.

Why now?

I'm writing a new article on the subject that should get some good coverage, so it seems a good time to switch. Also, today Steve and I are meeting with an organizer of a major global conference and we're pitching the concept.

In the end, I think CiB is a much better fit, for carrying both less baggage and for narrowing down our goals more realistically, plus it plays into our "standards and metrics" argument better, plus it more accurately captures the promise of rapidity, which is crucial. So CiB deflects the Left on hubris, the Right on pricing, and the Moderates on centralization fears.

Plus it addresses all the feedback we've gotten on the term from wordsmiths who fear we pick too many unnecessary battles with the phrase while burying the lead, which is really the connectivity interface.

4GW is not some advance, but the Gap's last gasps

John Robb had an assessment of the Mumbai attacks: Bombing systems in Bombay.

Lexington Green responded on Chicago Boyz: The Mumbai Attack: A Success for "Global Guerillas"?

Tom's comment:

I think Lex is basically on target here. There is the tendency now to exalt the strategic cleverness of terrorists. I think Robb is correct on systempunkts being targeted, but I also think such targeting is unlikely to overwhelm. The key here is the desire of people to carry on. That's why Hamas and Hezbollah go nowhere, while Israel can turn the West Bank into complete disarray. Israelis refuse to give in, while the Palestinians stew in the victimhood.

4GWers in general buy into Occidentalist views too much: West are pussies and easily put into chaos (we've gone soft with our liberalism and rationalism and feminism and all those machines we depend on, thus we are so vulnerable). Meanwhile, the guerrilla cultures of all stripes are so tough, masculine (keep their women in place), close to nature, natural warriors--all the "good stuff" that we remember now in Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson movies.

And yes, this Occidental description extends into the East, so I'm not out of place extending it to rising India. In effect, this bias is now equivalent to modern development (such as Japan or South Korea) or even the aspiration for the same (or basically, my New Core states like India or China). To move in this direction is to suffer all the same weaknesses, in the eyes of the Occidentalist mindset. This is what I told the Chinese a couple of weeks ago: "Soon, you will be viewed by many in the Gap as the face of globalization/modernization and thus you too will be targeted."

Believe such a shift is impossible? Tell it to the Japanese: once the center of Occidentalism (it led them to believe the ultimate "punch" called Pearl Harbor would flatten the weak and decadent America), it is now a post-modernist dream, and thus a target itself of Occidentalism.

There is a profound reason why we're rich and powerful and connected and the enemy is none of those things. Terrorism is a strategy of the weak, and it earns them only what the powerful decide they no longer want.

As I opined in BFA, there are no lasting 4GW victories. Yes, sometimes conflicts are won, but what is really achieved? Look at Cuba or Nicaragua or Palestine--or best yet--Vietnam or China?

All these 4GW "victors" got was amazingly bloody disconnectedness, and--when they got smart--then they came back crawling to the system, the nets, the rules, the "decadence."

4GW is not some apogee. No Kaplanesque romanticism please. This is the dregs and nothing more.

Our nets are our strengths. They will attack and we will grow more resilient. Bush was right: Bring it on. Speed the killing. Flush the losers. Extend the nets. Be resilient.

Watch India. These attacks will accomplish nothing.

Comment upgrade: What does China want?

Here's a comment upgraded to post:

I apologize that this is slightly off topic. I have a question that has been lingering on my mind recently. When Dr. Barnett writes (regularly!) about the how the U.S. should engage (connect with) China more completely and ask/use THEM to help resolve the N. Korea matter I find myself in complete agreement. Now, I happen to read a LOT of blogs written from, in and about China. Lately many of them (especially the excellent albeit unsettling China Confidential (I have no affiliation with them)) have been writing that China does not WANT to help. That they are using the situation to keep the US preoccupied, distracted etc.

I guess my questions are:

1) Does Dr. Barnett agree with this assessment? and

2) Assuming it is true, what should the US being doing?

Thank you. Always enjoy the blog

Tom's reply:

It is true. It's because they feel Bush Admin basically seeks to contain them (also correct). So for now, this path unlikely.

This admin just not up for a different relationship with China. It wants China's help on NK, but offers nothing in return.

(Note: TMLutas had a comment over there, too.)

Brilliant self portrait

Dubrovnik pix

View from room.

Back side of big square.

Panel presenting before mine.

Straight-on view.

All the PMs lined up.

White Rhino Review of BFA

Al Chase of White Rhino Report sends in his review of BFA.

Al's an 'Executive Recruiter in Boston, with a specialization of placing senior executives who are former military officers and who have earned MBA from top-tier schools'. So, if you're looking for that kind of service, drop him a line.

(There'd normally be a 'review of the review' by Tom, but he's a little out of comission from his trip... ;-)

Pix from Wien

Franz Shubert in the Stadtpark

Those Scot-Irish Barnetts married a Shubert, which I believe is the maiden name of my paternal grandmother.

Hot day in Wien.

Another tight spot I found myself in!

Had mein brot und wurst off a vendor. Still wandering to find St. Stephen.

Wandering around backstreets in Wien's center, where there are many cool book shops, but all closed on Sunday.

The guy apparently behind all these buch stores. I believe he started with the Word.

Ze famous Anker Clock (Anchor Clock). How do I know? Said so on web.

One of many possible cool shots outside St. Stephen's.

Gargoyles at Stephen's.

Shot from inside looking to altar.

Paging Dr. Freud!

Waiting room at Berggasse 19, Wien.

More literature found

Alles über Star Wars und Star Trek.

My boys would approve of Peter Parker's prominence.

Too bad this one not open on Sunday. Would have gotten some comics in German for Kev.

In the Dollar I trust

ARTICLE: "China's Golden Cities," by David Dollar, Newsweek, 10 July2006, p. 65.

Reading all this back and forth among bloggers on the China book "Will the Ocean Sink the Boat," [Ed. mainly in an email thread] I am reminded of my simultaneous criticism and praise of old buddy Minxin Pei's recent work on corruption among the party in China: good and solid stuff that I do not deny, I just don't extrapolate as much of China's future on that one parameter as he chooses to.

An article that serves as partial counterbalance to both Pei and the "Boat" book is this neat one by the always impressive David Dollar from the World Bank (his co-authored book on globalization was a mainstay source for my work with Cantor and my first book for PNM--he is just stunning good on whatever he produces).

His article just attacks the notion that the impact of China's boom, both good and bad (as he puts it) is concentrated just in the coastal cities.

His article leverages interviews by the WB of 12,400 firms in China spread out over 120 cities.

Biggest point: no correlation between fast growth and the "breeding of corruption or pollution."

Basic notion: Cities that feature best climates for investment tend to be ones with lower state-run enterprise quotients. Those more burdened by SREs tend to be heavier in content (thus more polluting), plus they tend to resist reforms to protect what they've got and don't want to lose.

Meanwhile, the really positively blooming cities are those that were all industrial backwaters back in 1978, when this all began, and thus they were able to work off a cleaner slate, thus keeping it all cleaner both corruption- and pollution-wise. That's why the cities with the most square meters of green space per capita are also the best places for investors.

But getting to the "Boat" argument: I think it just shows the growing pressure to extend private land ownership rights to the rural areas, as I've blogged earlier. The speculation driving the corruption is feeding off that lack of a rural rule set, which has long existed in the urban areas. Once land in the countryside gets properly revalued, watch Chinese ag really take off from the shot of new capital and watch the population shift to the cities pick up even more speed.

All this says that China, as Zenpundit points out [Ed. in the aforementioned email thread], has a huge rural population with a huge development claim on China's emerging wealth creation. So does China get old before it gets rich? Sure. Does it also get hugely urbanized before it gets rich? Sure. Do those sequences make it that much harder for China to be confrontational with the outside world? You bet.

I don't expect the land reform to happen in Hu/Wen's second term. Really see it breaking in first term of 6th generation, primarily in response to Hu and Wen's tepid efforts and the overall mounting pressure described in things like the "Boat' book, which--again--I think is good and accurate. It just needs to be contextualized a bit.

These are not questions re: China's future civil wars or break-up. This is what I mean by caboose braking, or the rural interior of any state tending to set the lower speed limits on globalization, which --as always--is overwhelmingly a domestic policy question.

Someone named Kaplan missed the point...

Reader Michael Zaharis sent Tom the link to Counterinsurgency by the Book:The lessons of a new Army Field Manual, by Fred Kaplan (not the patron saint of Coming Anarchy, by the way ;-).

Tom's comment:

Kaplan is smart, but a bit too obvious in his agenda. Something like this FM is written with an eye to history and audiences I don't think Kaplan is understanding too well, given his short-term fixation on Rummy.

So, in my mind, not a particularly sophisticated analysis. By writing the FM (and I interacted with both Crane and Petraeus on this when I researched the "Monks" piece--even getting Crane's mega brief on the FM), Leavenworth is both stating the new case to the military audience while simultaneously writing directly to a political audience of current, but mostly future civilian leaders. So it's naturally cautionary in a way I don't think Kaplan's getting.

Seriously, I'd listen to Jaffe on the subject (so many great articles) than Kaplan, who I really think is--not atypically--in over his head on this one.

Then again, so are most journalists who cover the military, which is why Jaffe and a few others stand out so.

4th year in a row of addressing ICAF student body at National Defense University

People always asking when I'll speak in DC again at some event they might attend. While not just anyone can get into Ft. McNair, some of you can. I will give the max PNM/DiB/BFA brief to the student body of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces on the 18th of August (I believe, in the morning).

Naturally, I will try to get C-SPAN's interest, and will push Putnam to do the same.

I do this every year primarily out of great respect for, and friendship with, Paul Davis there. A retired USAF general, he has been a great mentor and influence on my work. A very good guy, I look forward to making him happy again this year.

Heads up...

Going back and forth by email with NPR's "On Point" about Long War story they plan for tomorrow. Since I am flying into JFK and have a layover in the right time frame, I may get on the show live, which is required.

NPR might find that scenario too iffy, so I suggested they might want to try John Robb. Why leak that in the blog?

One, to give Robb a head's up in case they call.

Two, to get credit for it if it happens.

Three, to emphasize my respect (even as I often disagree with his extrapolations) for Robb's efforts to think systematically on his global guerrillas' concept.

Four, I don't see any harm in it. Most producers I know run around with their hair on fire all day long, so I doubt anyone would read my blog, go "How dare he?!?!" and not call Robb (or worse, me in the future!) on that basis.

Seriously, I could never be a diplomat

Forget what I said about being ambassador to China. Sitting through speeches like these is near death. No WiFi and I go insane!

Most of the speeches sound a lot better when you take the simultaneus translation headphones off...