Out of action

Tom is dealing with an acute medical situation (though not dangerous) and is out of action until further notice. He'll surface when he can.

Tom around the web

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new winner. Links to the TED video has finally been unseated by links to last week's column last week's column!
+ ZenPundit
+ Small Wars Council
+ IntelliBriefs
+ PrairiePundit
+ Libertarian Leanings
+ Stand Up America

Links to the TED video
+ US Cavalry ON Point (with some extensive discussion)
+ Iolaus of Full Size Bronco (that's right, a Ford Bronco BB. Go figure :-)
+ Roots and Wings
+ dbspin

+ The "boring" Long War is the real 5GW strategic goal was linked by Shloky.
+ Suicide bombing is about sex was linked by Far East Cynic

+ Brad DeLong linked Neocons' Chinese target: old news.
+ And again.
+ Opposed Systems Design calls the IHT article 'In China's safety woes, echoes of U.S. history' 'a TPMB comparison'.
+ ShrinkWrapped linked Bush's Big Bang strategy continues to provide opportunities for radical change.
+ New Yorker in DC linked Let's hope for a hero now discovered.
+ Phil Windley linked We can out-guerilla them.
+ Russia Blog linked Case in point on Putin.
+ Detroit Populist Times linked Why work at DHS?
+ Heritage Tidbits linked this week's column.
+ So did Dan's Blog.

Kill weeds or grow lawn?

Editorial :Asean-US ties: be seen, be heard, The Nation, July 16, 2007

This is a bad sign of the combined effects of the Bush post-presidency and the Jimmy Carter/Rose Garden-like imprisonment imposed upon Bush by Iraq. The Middle East is certainly the future of "weeds" in globalization's spread, but South and East Asia is obviously where the "lawn" is being grown most heavily right now.

True to form with this administration, America lives to kill weeds, leaving China to grow the lawn elsewhere (including everywhere inside the Gap except the Middle East, by and large, where Beijing's economic strategy of limited regret, when married to our own security version of the same, accomplishes virtually nothing while empowering Iran in the meantime). This strangely myopic approach (No wait! We are tracking Chinese sub developments, so we're on top of that all right!) gives China's "charm offensive" (Kurlantz's term) far more sway that it should have, given all of China's clear associations with globalization's negative externalities.

The clear irony for the neocons is, of course, that the more they try to maintain the one-superpower world, the more they unintentionally push the planet toward balancing us asymmetrically.

Thanks to Doug Clark for sending this.

Don't forget 'save Africa'

ARTICLE: Stop Trying To 'Save' Africa, By Uzodinma Iweala, July 15, 2007; Page B07

Another great perspective provider. The West loves to overindulge: either the Gap is awash in bloodbaths and religious strife or we must save it all.

What's missing in these two images are the realities of untapped capitalism already there (DeSoto), the huge commodities boom (thanks to rising New Core) and the pre-emptive nation-building going on in Africa with Indians, Chinese, even Brazilians. Of course, all of that then gets reduced to "oil grabs," which again, puts the entire process in terms of our presumptions instead of anybody else's real strategies.

Beyond "save the planet" (from global warming), "save Africa" is the other great counter-narrative to the global war on terror.

What does this strange competition show?

People want grand visions to order their world, and they do want to help, and they're desperately disappointed by the GWOT to date.

Thanks to Brad B. for sending this.

1/2 Sunni insurgency

ARTICLE: 'Saudis' role in Iraq insurgency outlined: Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says," By Ned Parker, LA Tiems, July 15, 2007

No surprise to me, as I've been saying for some time.

Thanks to Lou Heberline for sending this.

Tap into experience

ARTICLE: 'The Geezer Brigade: Wartime needs and military retirees,' BY RALPH PETERS, Armed Forces Journal

A sensible notion I have long considered to be a natural for the SysAdmin function. Good piece.

Thanks to Jay Soob for sending this.

Progress on North Korea

ARTICLE: 'N. Korea Shutters Nuclear Facility: Move Follows Delivery of Oil; U.N. Team to Verify Shutdown,' By Edward Cody, Washington Post, July 15, 2007; Page A01

This is a real achievement, assuming Kim's back-up facility comes into our view at some point soon in the negotiations.

Climate and economics

ARTICLE: 'Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics: Lawmakers Doubt Voters Would Fund Big Carbon Cuts,' By Steven Mufson, Washington Post, Sunday, July 15, 2007; Page A01

Article gives you a sense of the potential changes ad efforts/costs involved. Obviously, this is going to be a multi-generational affair, with biggest changes coming from leaders who are but kids today or not even born. So the question becomes, how do we get balls rolling, and the cap-and-trade seems like the best method to experiment.

'What global warming gets me'

Tom received the following email:

Dear Mr. Barnett --

I read your column distributed by Scripps Howard News Service in which you seem to say (unless I miread you) that you are persuaded, if cynically, that humans are responsible for global warming. Though we're not publishing your column, I was curious how you might answer the following from a New York Times comment board. The writer, Wendy Marshall, is responding to an earlier message by Times Science editor Andrew Revkin.

Admittedly, I am but a lowly journalist whose inquiring alleged mind wants to know. I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation of why CO2 was rising for 30 years between roughly 1942-72, yet global temperatures were falling during that time. When I was in high school in 1971, everyone was terrified because scientists were saying the the earth was plunging into a new ice age.

So perhaps my skepticism can be forgiven. I don't think 1 degree F. in 100 years is anything to get excited about even if true. Have you read Crichton's speech on consensus science? Aliens Cause Global Warming

RW

Tom writes:

I am very familiar with the IPCC's years of work on the subject, and know the chairman personally. It gets hard to critique away all their data and analysis, and just intuitively, when I know a huge mass of humanity enters into heavy CO2 production ranges in terms of industrialization and heightened transportation nets and the green revolution over the past 50 years, it simply makes intuitive sense to me.

More personally, there's simple the change of weather over my lifetime, which strikes me as profound.

When I read the critiques of the warming thesis, they seam weak. When I read critiques of the counter-theories (like warming sun), they're far more easily dismissed with hard data.

So you take all that and you go with prudence in strategic terms. What does prudence get me?

A global scheme (much needed) to bring advanced and emerging economies together on both regional and global pollution management. It also gets me (finally) advances out of oil and toward next generation sources and technologies (nuke, renewables, hydrogen (which I can crack cheaply with pebble-beds nukes), etc). Those are all good things technologically, environmentally, economically and politically speaking. I can run with all and do good things in transforming relations with emerging and disconnected economies around the world.

So it's not that hard to accept, especially since the apparent political divides on the subject are meaningless to me (leave it to Boomers to overpoliticize anything to the point of absolute stupidity).

If you want to rule the world, you don't fight the inevitable. The rapid expansion of globalization will put the planet into a lengthy period of extreme duress. To stem that impact, you need global causes to incite action and collaboration (point of my column).

Plus, I do think we need to follow the smarter Brits and rhetorically downgrade the war on terror mindset, which I find highly destructive on many fronts while producing little good. As a professional in global security, I see no benefit and much harm in the "war footing." In short, it won't take us where we want to go and it actually makes the security work harder to achieve by overpoliticizing (again, that Boomer skill of skills) every possible aspect..

The enviro footing, however, is much better suited for a host of global cooperative issues we need to explore and exploit with rising pillars like Brazil, Russia, India and China. With the EU and Japan already on board, I run with the consensus we have instead of running aground in the meantime with Bush's disastrous, isolating leadership.

This week's column

Ending today's crisis is as easy as naming tomorrow's scarier one

Last weekend I caught several hours of the consciousness-raising Live Earth concerts. I'm already on board regarding the scientific consensus on global warming, but like many, I'm uncertain about how much priority humanity should give this crisis versus others we collectively face.

Humans crave life-focusing crises. As globalization generates inescapable complexity, it's nice to have one big boulder to push up that hill every day, no matter how Sisyphean the task. We're naturally resilient creatures, and self-sacrifice is embedded in our evolutionary code.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Finances or subs?

ARTICLE: U.S. Urges China to Buy Mortgage-Backed Securities, By Josephine Lau, Bloomberg, July 13, 2007

Wow! What does that tell you about the new international financial order?

Still think it's all gonna be about subs blockading islands between us and China?

Thanks to LC for sending this.

See. China's synching up

ARTICLE: After Silence, China Mounts Product Safety PR Offensive, By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post, July 14, 2007; Page A01

China comes around so much and so fast on the consumer danger issue. This is a huge example of the leadership synchronizing its internal rule set with the emerging global one on free markets, free trade, collective security and transparency.

This is the process the China hawks ignore or downplay, but it's everything that matters right now and it's the source of our immense power in this bilateral relationship.

First draft of new proposal sent off ...

To agent Jenn Gates and Mark Warren.

Will turn it around early next week and fire it back to Putnam. I now have the book in mind that Nyren wants.

It was fun to plot out, and it'll be even more fun to write. The key, as always, was casting the questions in a way where my style of addressing them works for the reader. No sense in writing the book that anyone else can write.

Kept it simple and sweet, a mere 4,900 words spread over 16 pages.

Greek to me, Chinese for the rest of you

Got word from agency this week that the Greek version of PNM is now on hold. The small publishing house holding the contract went bankrupt (I believe we cashed that check!) and so the sub-agents (local Greeks) look for another.

Meanwhile, the word comes from Oriental Press in China that the Chinese version of PNM--with no censorship whatsoever--came out in late June and that I can expect eight copies in the mail (yes Dan, I will send you one).

Very exciting news!

Yesterday we had our home inspection for our ongoing adoption application (this time, we're ruled out on China due to number of kids, so we go with Taiwan, as--unfortunately--a lot of others are doing right now, so the wait is unknown), so the symmetry of getting this news is pleasant.

I know, I know. Barnett wants to "sell" Taiwan to China. I find that critique simplistic and silly. There will be an Asian Union centered on China and it will be in full bloom before I retire. That process of integration will change the world dramatically. It is inevitable and good and something we can steer somewhat but not control. The compromises in this process will be far harsher for China than Taiwan.

Meanwhile, we'll do our best to bring the two sides together within our own family.

If only we'd...

ARTICLE: U.S. is building database on Iraqis, By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY, July 12, 2007

Smart stuff and Louis is right: we should have done this from the start.

Thanks to Louis Heberlein for sending this.

Why Vol. III has to be bigger

ARTICLE: "A Voice Of Developing Nations asks the West for Compromise on Trade," by Heather Timmons, New York Times, 13 July 2007, p. C3.

Source is India's commerce minister, Kamal Nath, a key player in the Doha Round:

"The reality is that there is a new economic architecture. This new economic architecture is going to have new windows and new doors. It can't be wished away."

Bingo!

That's why my book proposal just got so much bigger.

Case in point on Putin

ARTICLE: "Total Settles for Less, Wins Russia Project," by Guy Chazan and David Gauthier-Villars, Wall Street Journal, 13 July 2007, p. A6.

Total gets to invest 25 percent, but can't win outright ownership of the gas.

Putin takes the FDI while keeping national ownership.

Get the picture, Mexico?

Global guerrillas versus global investment

ARTICLE: "Pipeline Sabotage Fuels Anxiety In Mexican Business, Politics," by John Lyons, Wall Street Journal, 13 July 2007, p. A4.

Right out of Robb's book.

But what's interesting here is that the state-run oil company is hollowing itself out of its own volition.

No matter who is behind the attacks, the perpetrators targeted a key pressure point in the Mexican economy. Despite the country's vast energy potential, the state oil company can't meet rising demand for natural gas, forcing the country to import more expensive gas from the U.S.--a situation that is fast becoming an obstacle to foreign investment.

Pemex refuses FDI (written into the Mexican constitution, I believe), so it's vastly underperforming as a matter of national pride. But now comes the squeeze so easily effected.

So one of two things happens: Mexico goes further downhill energy-wise is increasingly vulnerable to such tactics or it grows up on the question of FDI.

Think Putin's so unreasonable now?

On the Yingling column

I get more than one email (and comments in the Small Wars thread) saying it ain't "either/or."

As someone famous for arguing a split Big War/Small War force, I find that criticism odd.

Gotta get more famous, I guess.

Suicide bombing is about sex

ARTICLE: Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature, By:Alan S. Miller Ph.D., Satoshi Kanazawa Ph.D., Psychology Today

Excerpt:

4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim

Suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, but according to Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, when religion is involved, the attackers are always Muslim. Why? The surprising answer is that Muslim suicide bombing has nothing to do with Islam or the Quran (except for two lines). It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.

However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings.

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.

I have said it many times to many audiences. In the end, a lot of this comes down to sex, gender relations, and young men with no good prospects--not education, not poverty, not income.

Where income matters, as Collier points out (as does Benjamin Freidman) is stagnation--no matter the level.

So it all comes down to a sense of progress and potential, and that's why I argue most for individual-level connectivity.

Thanks to Jarrod Myrick for sending this.