Now a trifecta in the October issue of Esquire

Celebrating Esquire's 75 years, the October issue will feature a significant number of items.

As I reported earlier, I had penned two so far, one of my own invention and one dreamed up by the staff in their deliberations.

Mark Warren gave me a third assignment last night, which I cranked today (he asked for 500 and I gave him 724 to work with).

It was an easy assignment, because I wrote extensively on the subject in Great Powers. Still, I didn't crib that material directly but wrote it all anew, just for the discipline, I guess, but also to account for the differences in style and purpose.

So, assuming it goes through, this will make three short pieces by me in the historic issue, with which I'm very proud to be associated.

By the sound of it, it should be a very cool edition.

Quake-response by PLA not impressive

ARTICLE: “Quake Revealed Deficiencies of China’s Military: Chinese troops were eager, but they were unprepared to save lives,” by Jake Hooker, New York Times, 2 July 2008, p. A6.

James Mulvenon, an expert on the PLA for DC beltway bandit:

You basically had a bunch of guys humping through the mountains on foot and digging out people with their hands. It was not a stellar example of a modern military.

Exercises and think tank papers are nice to cite, but better to look at actual, unplanned operations to see what a military is capable of.

China’s air force took 44 hours to drop some bodies in one stricken region, and this from a military whose whole philosophy is still to dump bodies into war zones.

The upside? All the mil-mil cooperation that the PLA sought with national military establishments like ours and Japan’s.

Sense of how our sanctions turned Iran eastward, or just globalization?

THE WORLD: “Faith in a Windfall: Oil cash may prove a shaky crutch for Iran’s Ahmadinejad,” by Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 7-13 July 2008, p. 20.

Per my recent column disparaging Ahmadinejad’s rule, a good article on how shaky the economy is.

What catches my eye is eastern slant of oil exports: of the 2.5 million barrels of oil exported per day, Japan, China, India, South Korea and Taiwan (ranked 1, 2, 3, 4 and 9, respectively) account for 56% all by themselves.

Actually, that share is almost exactly the norm for the region as a whole, which underlies the difficulty of the West trying to isolate Iran on its oil. Like the rest of the PG, that horse has already left the barn.

ADM Mike Mullen when visiting AFRICOM senior staff:

"You, in many ways, represent the face of the future with respect to our combatant commands."

Prophetic words from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Read on.

A reminder of where the fight logically retreats over time

ARTICLE: “A Ragtag Insurgency Gains a Qaeda Lifeline,” by Souad Mehkhennet, Michael Moss, Eric Schmitt, Elaine Sciolino and Margot Williams, New York Times, 1 July 2008.

Do I expect al Qaeda to get big in Africa, either north or sub-Saharan?

No.

But I do expect them to try as they lose popularity in the Middle East.

This story is about Algeria:

Today, as Islamist violence wanes in some parts of the worth, the Algerian militants—renamed Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb—have grown into one of the most potent Osama bin Laden affiliates, reinvigorated with fresh recruits and a zeal for Western targets.

Thus the long-term utility of AFRICOM.

A glimpse of the future in China

ARTICLE: “A Hint of the Future China? One city pioneers socialist democracy,” by Edward Cody, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 7-13 July 2008, p. 21.

Local CCP leaders draft reform plan: expanded powers for local legislature, direct elections for some local officials, more independent judiciary, greater glasnost within the party itself.

Training wheels, my friends, by a lead goose in the Chinese system—Shenzhen. No surprise, because this is a city/region furthest along and most mature in the economic transformation started by Deng.

The process:

Shenzhen’s experiment was drafted over three months by 24 specialized teams assigned by the city party secretary, Liu Yupu, to produce a “breakthrough” reform plan that would turn Shenzhen into “a model city for socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Shenzhen party leaders formally approved it June 6.

One Chinese reform expert said is was a momentous move, basically “gathering in one document various ideas for reform that have arisen in the party in recent years but have never been carried out” (journalist paraphrasing source, Huang Weiping, head of Contemporary Chinese Politics Research Institute in Shenzhen). Direct quote; “And this is the first time that the goals of ‘socialist democracy’ and ‘rule of law’ are at the very top of the list.”

Shenzhen, the article says, is proud to have played a lead role early on in Deng’s economic reforms, and now the leadership feels it’s natural for Shenzhen to once again lead on political reforms.

Simply put, the next generation wants to turn the knob yet again.

Membership has its prvilieges

ARTICLE: Oil price shock means China is at risk of blowing up, By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph, 08/07/2008

This logic is the basis of my long-standing argument that a war on terror is a war of survival for the New Core in ways that it will never be for the Old Core. Raise oil prices enough, creating a big enough shock, and you beggar the more vulnerable New Core immediately, while the Old Core remains rich.

Of course, prices rise more now in response to heightened demand, but given the many investment choices, supply is destined to remain extremely tight for the foreseeable future, terrorists/instability have the potential to truly threaten a regime like China's.

Better than mine

Remember my post How's your Dutch? with the pdf of a review of BFA? Constantina Meis ran it by Bas C. van Fraassen who supplied the following summary. Thanks Constantina and Dr van Fraassen.

Review of Barnett, Blueprint for Action, by Caspar Veldkamp (Acting director for international financial directives, Ministry of External Affairs)

In Paris, the strategic advisers of the new French regime have this book at hand. It is an innovative work about globalization, war, peace, and much more. Barnett has been paid much attention internationally, especially after 9/11.

His work reads as a blog, full of spontaneous impressions and highly personal observations.

[On pages 2-3 this summarizes the main themes of his earlier book *The Pentagon's New Map*; starting on p. 3 what is new in *Bueprint for Action*. I'm looking for what is peculiar to this Dutch review]

p. 4 Barnett claims that the countries in the 'gap' had best become connected to the 'core' if we are to combat poverty and insecurity. But he does not explain well what makes the present gap a gap, except that it refers to places where globalization does not work. Do geography, culture, and religion play a role? He doesn't answer that. He does not have an eye for the threat people can feel from globalization.

Like most American writers he underestimates the impact of the European integration process, and the extent to which that helped the transformation of Central Europe -- or, alas, they discover that just as Europe is becoming tired of the idea of further extension.

The most important power of Barnett probably does not lie in detailed recommendations for action but in the force of his imagination which can catalyze, in contrast to the stunted, unimaginative way in which the issues are so often dealt with here in Europe.

Sichuan earthquake = system perturbation

POST: Weng'an: A turning point for China? By Adrienne Wong, Shanghaiist

Interesting site on China, with good post detailing emerging consensus that Sichuan earthquake is sizing up as significant System Perturbation, as I've noted in past.

China's continued emergence as a great power changes everything, but China itself most of all.

(Thanks: historyguy99)

First great catch-up on blog since book

Went through pile of unused articles and cranked a quick 27 posts today.

One thing struck me while going through so many recent headlines: Get a bomb and get respect from America. Kim blows one off and gets the offer of a peace treaty. Iran enriches uranium and fires off rockets and gets a low-level resumption of diplomatic ties.

Bombs really do work.

Supreme wiggle room

I just glance over the posts on the page and the attached comments and I realize you can basically write almost any possibility right now on Iran-US-Israel: plenty of people saying "when and not if" for almost every scenario out there.

That is "crisis" to most people, but it's also opportunity. That much in play from so many angles means there's significant wiggle room.

And that's when deals actually get done.

But don't expect most positions to un-harden. The closer you get to actual possibilities, the more strongly everyone argues for and against, so watch for signals galore from all sides, because all sides are deeply divided concerning the "wisdom" of any deal.

The worm finally starts to turn on Iran

ARTICLE: "Iran and U.S. Signaling Chance of Deal," by Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, 17 July 2008, p. A16.

The key bits signal the big change on our part:

In recent weeks, the White House already has approved a sweetened package of incentives to Iran that included a pledge to refrain from the use of force, supported a European gambit to begin preliminary talks with Iran and sent clear signals to Israel not to consider acting against Iran on its own.

In 2006, the initial package of incentives offered by the six countries included only a vague reference to Iran's security concerns because the Bush administration insisted that section of the offer be largely gutted. The new package, by contrast, offers to negotiate extensive security commitments, including supporting Iran in "playing an important and constructive role in international affairs."

Further sign:

ARTICLE: "US plans to station diplomats in Iran for first time since 1979: Washington move signals thaw in relations," by Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 17 July 2008.

Key bit:

Bush has taken a hard line with Iran throughout the last seven years but, in the dying days of his administration, it is believed he is keen to have a positive legacy that he can point to.

The return of US diplomats to Iran is dependent on agreement by Tehran. But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated earlier this week that he was not against the opening of a US mission. Iran would consider favourably any request aimed at boosting relations between the two countries, he said ...

There has been an intense debate within the Bush administration over Iran, with the vice-president, Dick Cheney, in favour of a military strike against Iranian nuclear plants and the state department in favour of diplomacy.

The state department has been pressing the White House for the last two years to re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran by setting up an interest section.

Obviously, this is all good news from my perspective. I've been waiting close to four years on this one.

It'll be interesting to see if Bush can get something done before the end of his term or whether the Iranians will simply play out the string, watching the election. Either way, it's a good start and better than subcontracting the non-kinetics to the Europeans and the kinetics to Israel on an issue of such importance to us.

In the end, though, we have to recognize this emerging thaw (always easily reversed) for what it is: Bush-Cheney have finally come to recognize the cost of the tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan and now have basically signaled their desire to sue for peace everywhere else.

We can claim the sanctions bit, but for every Total that pulls out of Iran, there's an Eastern oil company that would gladly step in, so all that was buying was a shift of Iran's connections eastward.

I still think, much like with North Korea, that those who hope such a thaw ends the nuclear question will end up being disappointed. Much like with Pyongyang, I think we'll face the reality of finessing it rather than getting any clear outcome without any nuclear capacity.

But who knows how far Bush may be willing to deal in the final months?

Becoming less inscrutable

ARTICLE: "In a twist, USA's Asians head to the Mountain West: Migration is fueling diversity in areas that have been mostly white," by Haya El Nasser, USA Today, 7 July 2008, p. 1A.

Last decade, Asian population outgrowing Hispanics in 14 states in west of Mississippi. "The explosive growth and rising clout of Asian Americans," notes the article.

This is crucial for my long-term goal of reorienting US strategic alliances to countries like China and India and to break the assumption that, as goes Europe, so goes the only alliance worth maintaining.

In short, every little bit helps.

I don't need a "league of democracies," but a collection of natural frontier integrators, and those allies will always be the newcomers to the system (other than us).

You want to build and extend "empires"? Then go with the empire builders of the age, and remember how you once behaved during your own "rise."

Want leverage with China on Sudan?

ARTICLE: China Expresses 'Grave Concern' Over Indictment of Sudan's Bashir, By Nora Boustany, Washington Post, July 16, 2008; Page A14

China doesn't really care about Sudan's leader, just about possibly losing out economically on the far side of that event (unlikely to happen unless some enforcing third party steps in and grabs the guy). Address that issue with China and you might get some serious leverage with locals on the subject of this guy's proposed prosecution. In short, there has to be some sort of buy-out package. The only government in Sudan that gives us the guy is a government highly incentivized to do so, and honey tends to outperform vinegar.

Bush:Iran::Farve:Packers

ARTICLE: American Envoy To Join Iran Talks, By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 16, 2008; Page A12

Watching Bush on Iran is like watching Favre on the Packers: sort of wants to do something but ... . It is intriguing, much like with Favre, to postulate that what Bush really wants is some diplomatic breakthrough. As I have stated many times, it is the one thing that could send his administration off on a far different note, especially if it allowed the next president to redirect sufficiently on Afghanistan.

But my guess here continues to be pessimistic: Bush will do just enough to look like he's trying but not enough to give Iran the sense of legitimacy it craves.

Still, one holds out hope because the clock is ticking--on Favre too.

Emerging candidate consensus on Afghan/Paki-stan

ARTICLE: Candidates Find Some Accord on Afghanistan, By Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, July 16, 2008; Page A01

Referencing my analysis of the Kagan & Keane piece, there seems to be some consensus now emerging with the candidates on the need to plus-up in Afghanistan/Pakistan. To Obama, that's a redirect that's justified, to McCain, it's additive to Iraq.

The most vigorous glass-half-full reading by two key architects of the surge

OP-ED: The New Reality In Iraq, By FREDERICK W. KAGAN , KIMBERLY KAGAN AND JACK KEANE, Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2008; Page A17

The big problem I see in this logic is that now is the time when we should be able to draw down (the original promise of the surge made last year) and redirect on difficulties in Afghanistan and Pakistan (which rise), but absent the diplomatic surge (that never happened), we're stuck implicitly arguing that Iran is now keeping us tied down in Iraq, something it can do ad infinitum at very low cost.

And that, to me, seems like an argument that goes nowhere, trapping the next president. The mission to deny Iranian influence in Iraq was lost the minute we toppled Saddam.

All this piece tells me is that the next president must figure something out with Iran or Afghanistan/Pakistan and whatever arises from there are effectively sacrificed, and to me, that sounds like Tehran is running our foreign policy, which I find stunning.

(Thanks: JFRiley)

Taking stock ...

The last year has been a burn-out for me: too much travel, too much chasing money, too big of a push on the book, and far too little time with my family.

One of the things I've always feared is the sense that I'm continuing to do things in the same ways because I'm afraid to break out of the rut, because I can't imagine any other path.

I will admit: it was a huge mistake for us to move to Indiana from Rhode Island, and that decision was overwhelmingly my fault. My Dad had died and one of Vonne's relative had passed and we felt this need to get back to our roots, but as we've discovered, it makes very little sense to try to go home again. You're coming back to an image, not a reality--a memory primarily.

If I had thought about it more carefully, I would have kept us there in Rhode Island, avoided the expenses of moving (always underestimated), and figured out better and more clearly what I wanted to do with my life and career at that point.

I must be having a mid-life crisis. I'm the perfect age for it, and just finishing the book creates a natural space for it. You start getting messages from your 401k saying that when you retire in 2027, you can expect this much per month at your current holdings, and you stare at the paper and think to yourself: "That's it? I'm down to 20 years?"

Then there's your oldest getting her driving license and thinking about college and you're still filling out papers for the next adoption, and you ask yourself, "Why do this?"

But then you're at the pool with your younger kids and 60 minutes later you realize that you've gone down the 170-foot slide 12 times and jumped off the high dive maybe 20 times, and you say to yourself, "Why am I still like that at 46?"

Because if I were better in tune with that, I'd realize why I was signing those papers to adopt again. And maybe I should be more in tune with that, because, quite frankly, when the burn-out feeling wells up, I simply don't know what I'm chasing anymore.

I'm neither surprised nor dismayed to be thinking along these lines. I actually think it 's quite healthy. Plus it certainly beats the sort of stupid mistakes that get you divorced, because I am quite certain how I feel about my family.

So you catch yourself, as I often do in these long moments, perusing obituaries in the newspapers, trying to find the formula for the good life, and you keep wondering, "Am I missing something?"

I know it's not God, nor the love of a great person in a committed relationship that still thrills me, nor my kids, who bring me such joy that I can't think about them without smiling reflexively.

So what is it?

I have friends who live for triathalons, or sailing on the ocean, or learning some intricate craft. My favorite fantasy for a while has been the piano. I don't play well, but I love doing it.

Then you meet old friends who took different paths and you wonder if they cracked the code better. "If only I had stuck with that . . .," you say.

But then you remember why you didn't stick with that then, and yet you still wonder if you're missing some logic on sequencing, or every thing in its time and place.

One essential truth that has driven my choices for a while has been what Peter Drucker wrote about talent: figure out what you're good at and what you're bad at and spend all your time and resources getting better at what you're good at and don't spend any time or resources getting better at what you're bad at. Instead, outsource all that bullshit like crazy (and it's always bullshit to you).

So the key to periods of burn-out like this, I guess, is figuring out what you're best at right now--at this point in your time, and redirecting at that.

And I guess I'm not that sure what that is right now for me. I know I'm a good public speaker, but I don't know if just continuing that great skill and improving it is the best I can do. It's familiar enough, but I distrust such familiarity, as I just stated.

I know I like the writing, but in some areas it's getting too easy for me, also suggesting a rut. Maybe I need a lot more discomfort there. I mean, I can see why musicians fear putting out the same album over and over again. It's really dangerous to your creative soul.

Anyway, I know this: I don't want to be in Indiana much longer. The pollen here simply kills me, dominating my entire schedule. I gotta get back East, near the ocean, where the air is easier for me.

I will tell you: I wrote most of PNM and BFA before 0800. I wrote most of GP after noon. That's not me getting older. That's the reality of living here. It just feels unhealthy for me--just not right.

If that realization, plus the burn-out from the previous year, force some dramatic thinking and resulting change, then that is just what's required.

I guess I do understand Favre right now better than I care to admit ... so I'll pick up my stone and head back into my glass, highly-AC'd house, hoping I don't wake up with the usual headache come morning.

But again, the prompt is good, and here I think more like Ted Thompson, the Packers GM. Unemotionally, you have to always ask yourself, "Am I getting better or worse with the current package?" Because if I'm not getting better, you know what the alternative is.

I've written three big books. I was amazed to realize I could cut tens of thousands of words on Great Powers and still have a book as big as the first two. I also have a 200,000-word unpublished manuscript sitting around somewhere in my office, also non-fiction.

I was also amazed my wife wanted to give our piano to the kids' school, because I don't play it anymore.

And it all does get me wondering: What comes between now and retirement? And should I just go with that, or should I plot something radically different?

This is when I usually bring up becoming an Episcopalian priest with Vonne, but the former minister's daughter typically shoots that one down pretty fast. And if Favre truly is gone, then I probably should give up my fantasy of getting in football shape and walking into Packer training camp.

So what provides the trigger? The book does this or that? The right speech? Certain things go right and I make a lot of money?

I gotta admit: one of the main reasons why I never fantasize about going back in time across my life (reliving HS or something like that) is that I never find any one point in my life to suffer any deficit of big issues. It just always gets more complex, which is good, I guess, for someone like me--until it's trumped by something better.

Sometimes I wish I'd just have some medical wake-up call that would force the issue for me, but that's such a cop-out for somebody who lives by their mind--especially somebody who thinks strategically about the future.

And so I think harder, and keep running miles with my oldest son, letting him do most of the talking--out of necessity.

From Tehran to Baghdad, Kabul to Islamabad

GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT: Now for the Hard Part: From Iraq to Afghanistan, By George Friedman, Stratfor, July 15, 2008

Friedman is always smart, but this is simply brilliant. There is so much I agree with in here, such as the missed regional geopolitical opportunity because we did the postwar badly in Iraq, the real courage Bush shows on the surge, but then also the reasonable and shrewd response from Iran, and finally the logic of the redirect on Afghanistan (which Iran would support).

You put that all together and I still see the distinct opportunity to redefine the relationship with Iran. No, Tehran gets no simple puppet state in Iraq (always an overblown fear, in my mind, given the Arab-Persian divide, which is real, even among Shia), but Iran will clearly influence quite a bit. No, there won't be a fast withdrawal (never a possibility), but a steady one that must occur because the Army is so broken and Afghanistan calls.

This piece codifies my thinking all along on the surge: no argument against more bodies from Mr. SysAdmin (the commitment signal being key), but clear disagreement on the need to confront Iran over nukes (not covered here by Friedman) when there was such overlapping strategic interests still on both Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan. To let Iran drive us so overtly on the nuke issue was to give Tehran too much control over our foreign policy and that decision gained us nothing really, the inevitable drawdown and proper redirect being in the cards all along. In fact, it is the danger of conflict of Iran that would be the ultimate diversion.

That's what I draw from the piece. You may draw other things. But again, it is brilliant analysis from Friedman.

True, but G-8 can be altered in ways UNSC can't

ARTICLE: "Group of 8's summit has a hollow ring to it: World powers meet--with notable exceptions," by David J. Lynch, USA Today, 7 July 2008, p. 1B.

Complaints that G-8 is do-nothing organization right now. Fair enough.

Part of the problem is Bush, of course. He keeps pushing a war-of-survival mentality on those for whom it's not a war of survival.

Part of the problem is that the real war-of-survival crowd (the New Core) is by and large not represented at the G-8 (just Russia).

So yeah, the G-8 is, in some ways, as bad as the UN Security Council, but unlike the UNSC, this group can change it's membership at will, and such collusion, during a frontier-integrating age, is a very good thing.

Trick is getting the Euros to fold themselves into a single seat.

But remember this: the G-8 is the only summit venue out there, so work with what you got.