Tom at UT yesterday

ARTICLE: Views on globalization studied, The Daily Beacon, March 23, 2007

The whole article's about Tom, so I'll quote it completely:

Enhancing trade relations between economically advanced states and developing countries would further global security in the future, as long as the advanced states protect themselves in the meantime from negative influences, a nationally recognized strategic thinker said during a lecture Wednesday.

Thomas Barnett spoke at the University Center Auditorium and shared his views on the current and the future state of global relations.

Barnett’s lecture began with a discussion of the various stances prominent 21st century thinkers take on the issue of globalization. The first was of political scientist Samuel Huntington, who contends that some states will never become players in the global economy. The second was of Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times who holds the opposite view that though some people still have not entered the global economy, eventually they will.

Barnett took Friedman’s view one step further in defining his view on the future of globalization.

“Some have it (globalization) now. Some don’t. And it’s inevitable that when the spread happens, it will generate conflict if not approached properly,” Barnett said.

Barnett backed his prediction by discussing past conflicts that resulted from globalization. He cited the historical threat of globalization on traditional, male-dominated societies. Globalization subtly reconfigured the conventional hierarchy of men as leaders and disproportionately empowered women. This trend has resulted in great conflict in countries where cultural tensions have led to violence and death, Barnett said.

He proceeded to map globalization’s future conflicts around the world. He labeled all economically advanced countries the “Functioning Core” and other countries the “Non-Integrating Gap.” The “Core” consists mainly of the United States, Western European countries, China, Japan, Russia and Australia.

Most of developing countries occupy regions in South America, Africa, most of Asia and the Middle East. All of the “Core” countries are linked to the global economy and follow rules of international trade, while the “Gap” does not.

Barnett said the “Gap” has been reducing in size as globalization is slowly spreading. However, since many terrorists have come from “Gap” countries, he said one of the best ways to move toward reducing terrorism and peacefully entering globalization is for developing nations to form alliances with “seam states,” or countries that are on the border of the “Gap.”

Barnett said three things are needed for this to be accomplished. First, he said, “Core” countries must improve their ability to withstand and mitigate 9/11-like “system perturbations.” His second point was that the “Core” must discretely filter out the “Gap’s” worst exports — such as pandemics, narcotics and terrorism — without affecting human migration trends.

“It is essential to keep immigration as wide open as politically feasible,” he said.

Barnett’s third point was to enhance and protect the “Core’s” security.

“Shrink the ‘Gap’ by exporting security to the worst sinkholes located there,” he said.

Making these countries stable, he said, will bring more investment to the global economy and create stronger linkages with the outside world. This can eventually create conditions to stabilize most countries, Barnett said.

The final result will be reduced international violence, when countries would become reliant on one another for economic prosperity and have reasons to avoid conflict, he said.

Barnett also noted that, since the end of the Cold War, U.S. military deployments have been in “Gap” countries.

David Jenkins, a junior in computer engineering, said in an interview after the lecture that Barnett’s ideas are pragmatic.

“His message was eye-opening. If all countries can become globalized, then war would decrease so much. That seems realistic.”

Good stuff from Pace in China

ARTICLE: Pace in China, urging joint ops, better ties, By Christopher Bodeen, The Associated Press, Mar 23, 2007

Thanks to Rob Johnson for sending this.

SysAdmin U indeed!

B-School Q&A: Colorado State Goes Green for Green: A new program in sustainable enterprise will educate future business leaders in producing working solutions to global problems, for a profit, Business Week, March 13, 2007

Like an MBA in building an emerging market in a sustainable fashion. Great stuff from Colorado. Methinks some military should definitely be encouraged toward such education as serious professional military education.

Thanks to Steff Hedenkamp for sending this.

History will say on postwar Iraq...

POST: A New Power Rises in Iraq

Cool blog post on traveling to Kurdistan today versus year ago.

Our most successful nation-building effort since German and Japan--a huge success, in fact.

So when the competing histories of postwar Iraq reach a consensus, they will say: Kurdistan a success because it wanted to be; Shiite Iraq a partial success because of Sunni-driven sectarian violence (fueled by nasty outsider to a certain extent); and Sunni Iraq a complete failure.

With the dream of a unitary Iraq finally faded, the realistic outcomes become clearer.

Basis of my column this upcoming weekend.

Thanks to Pat O'Connor for sending this.

Tom on Conversations with History

I'm particularly struck, on watching this video, by how it may be the best piece we have on Tom's early career and, especially the first 20 minutes, the best 'advice' to young grand strategists piece we have until volume 3 comes out (bad MIDI theme notwithstanding ;-).

Conversations with History: The Pentagon's New Map, with Thomas P.M. Barnett

Tom around the web

Pride of place this week definitely goes to Tom's short post on Chinese peacekeeping with the Stratfor graphic, Chinese contribution to UN Peacekeeping Operations. It got picked up by MountainRunner, Danger Room, Pacific Empire, and Robot Economist (who says he can't stand Tom).

+ Cheat Seeking Missiles says Tom's vision of the world is coming to pass.
+ Sen Harry Reid's memoir will be written with Tom's editor extraordinaire, Mark Warren. Tom is listed in Mark's work.
+ Neptunus Lex noted hearing Tom's Brief last week, then did a more extended treatment.
+ And The Happy Carpenter linked Neptunus saying we need deep thinkers like Tom.
+ igginzz links The Pentagon's New Map (article).
+ SCSU Scholars linked Price and technology AND the level of state involvement.
+ Chapomatic linked One of the weirder military sales jobs of this administration.
+ We've got these videos available other places, but if you're really into YouTube, here's a link to the seven videos of two Briefs over there.
+ Critt continues to add to his Grazr work on Tom. This one includes Google Video of Tom on Conversations with History.
+ Zenpundit linked The Pinkertons of the 21st Century.
+ Observing Japan links Tom as someone who wants China to be a stakeholder.
+ Big Lizards refers to Tom's Functioning Core.
+ Catholicgauze refers to Tom's Gap.
+ Outside the Beltway linked The readiness canard.

I have more, but I'm going to save them for Sunday.

Unity of effort requires unity of command

ARTICLE: "'Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen': Federal agencies spar while trying to revamp Iraq's food-rationing system," by Rajiv Chandrasekara, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 19-25 March 2007, p. 6.

ARTICLE: “Farm aid plumps up Iraq funding: Democrats insert $3.7B that’s unrelated to war,” by Ken Dilanian, USA Today, 22 March 2007, p. 1A.

ARTICLE: "International Support Is Sought at U.N. for Iraq Rebuilding Plan," by Warren Hoge, New York Times, 17 March 2007, p. A7.

ARTICLE: "U.S., Iraqis Join In Push to Curb Oil Smuggling: Aim Is to Stem the Flow Of Cash to Insurgents; Corruption Runs Deep," by Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, 15 March 2007, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "Iran Now Plays Expanded Role In Keeping Iraqi Economy Going: Electricity and Trade Tie 2 Lands Closer Together," by Edward Wong, New York Times, 17 March 2007, p. A1.

The story on our ag aid to Iraq is a microcosm of the whole sham that is the interagency process, and--quite frankly--what a disaster it is to have the State Department in charge of Iraq (you thought DoD was bad).

This is classic stuff: the idealists and can-do types in DC constantly overridden by the realists and the not-invented-here types on the ground in Iraq. The former don’t realize what they can’t do and the latter know all too well all too much about all the things that will never--ever--be done in Iraq.

This is the dumb leading the blind.

Regional experts tend to go native, constantly telling you how “that won’t work here” for all these idiosyncratic reasons, while the functional experts assume their one-size-fits-all. Between them there’s almost no one with any serious private-sector experience making all sorts of decisions regarding market and generating business activity. How screwed is that?

Class example starts the story: Commerce wants to end the food rationing in Iraq and move onto something more--CANYOUBELIEVEIT!--more marketized. State has a kitten and freaks out, believing the rationing was essential to continued social stability in Iraq (lots of that going around right now). I guarantee you this: leave State in charge long enough and Iraqis will be on food rations the rest of this century.

The story quotes “economics section” staffers at the embassy decrying the end-of-rations as this incredibly stupid idea that keeps resurfacing every twelve months. My God, we’re four years into this and we’re still keeping everyone on rations?!?!?

Here’s the kicker: almost all of the rations are imported.

Guess what that does to Iraqi agriculture.

Bremer’s crazy idea was “to cut off the rich and provide poor Iraqis with cash so they could buy the food they needed.”

But why treat them like adults when we can suppress market development all these years and keep them in a welfare mentality?

The last poor happened this August. Listen to the craziness proposed by Commerce:

“The [public food distribution system] is wasteful and creates a disincentive to produce,” the document stated. Iraq’s government “should press forward with a program to transfer the supply and distribution to the private sector.”

What kind of crazy talk is that? Don’t we realize that Iraqis never fed themselves until the Americans showed up in 2003? Do we want their ag and service sectors to recover when we could keep them showing up for their rations for many more years? Isn’t this how you rebuild an economy and society after war? Keeping them on rations ad infinitum.

This story is so oddly reported by Chandrasekaran: always approvingly quoting State bureaucrats calling the privatization idea stupid and always presenting the Commerce ideas as “off the reservation.”

State is so incensed about these proposals they’ve actually blocked Commerce officials from interacting with Iraqi counterparts, despite Commerce officials claiming that Iraqi officials want to see this happen (go figure, they don’t want to stay on handouts forever!).

What is the counter State plan? Never mentioned here.

A Rand Corp analyst who headed up the embassy’s own “Joint Strategic Planning and Assessment Office” came up with an even more radical and aggressive plan to torch the hand-out system. It wanted them gone in 38 weeks, which apparently passes for radical to our embassy in Iraq (over six months!).

Even though our ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad listened to this proposal, State officials on the ground led a bureaucratic push to have it killed.

So the embassy people (State, USAID, others) had lots of meetings. Naturally, no Iraqi officials were invited (why bother?).

The result of this big internal review? Stretch the proposal out to 100 weeks--almost two years!

Beautiful stuff:

To the embassy’s economists, saying they wanted to kill the program in two years was an elaborate ploy, the embassy official say. It would get them on the record as favoring major changes, but the timeframe almost certainly meant it would not happen. “Things in Iraq change every six months,” the first embassy official says. “If you say you plan to do something in two years, it means you’ll never do it.”

Need anything else to convince you that State COULD NEVER BECOME THE DEPARTMENT OF EVERYTHING ELSE--MUCH LESS “ANYTHING ELSE”!!!!!!!

Then when you think State couldn’t be more blockheaded, they go out of their way to fight Paul Brinkley on his plan to revive manufacturing in Iraq. Keep them on rations and stop any movement toward job creation.

The complaint? The factories in question were “dinosaurs.”

This is classic Six Sigma thinking on our part: gold-plated modernity or nothing at all. The point is job creation, not ideal positioning of the Iraqi economy in the global marketplace.

But we disband the Iraqi Army and now we’re dead-set against rebranding old state-run enterprises.

In the end, Brinkley gets his way and proceeds.

Meanwhile, we’ve created such an idiotic dependency culture in Iraq that our embassy officials brag that “no Iraqi politician wants to get rid of free food. It’s political suicide.”

Man, that’s a great accomplishment amidst all the sectarian violence and civil war and terrorism: protecting Iraqi politicians from “political suicide.”

Instead, our embassy officials say we’ve wasted so much time on this stupid proposal when so many other better things could have been pursued.

Right, right. Let’s not focus on jobs when a dependency culture is completely in the works. This is classic Official Development Aid mentality: the social worker who never leaves and who destroys local capacity instead of building it. Fukuyama has railed against this like mad in two books, but with diplomats and aid workers running the show, should we expect any better? Two communities who don’t know their asses from their elbows on market creation.

So let’s have another international donor conference--four years into this mess! That’s real progress, along with keeping Iraqis on food rations.

Plus, the bigger the food program, the more pork barreling possibilities back home for the Dems, so everyone’s served by this stupidity: both the brain-dead administration and the greedy opposition party.

Still, some good things to cite, like our ground forces working hard to cut down on the thievery and corruption surrounding the Iraqi oil industry, which accounts for 94% of Iraq’s $32B budget.

This matters plenty, because lots of the stolen oil ends up funding the insurgency to the tune of somewhere north of $25m and somewhere south of $100 million.

Locals are happy to see the Americans boost their presence in the oil industry. As one truck driver put it, “I want coalition forces to guard this place, not the Iraqi army. The Iraqis don’t care about the law.”

Meanwhile, neighboring Iran’s influence in the economy naturally grows:

While the Bush administration works to stop Iran from meddling in Iraq, Iranian air-conditioners fill Iraqi appliance stores, Iranian tomatoes ripen on the windowsills of kitchens here and legions of white Iranian-made Peugeots sit in Iraqi driveways.

Some Iraqi cities, including Basra, the southern oil center, buy or plan to buy electricity from Iran. The Iraqi government relies on Iranian companies to bring gasoline from Turkmenistan to alleviate a severe shortage. Iraqi officials are reviewing an application by Iran to open a branch of an Iranian bank in Baghdad, and Iran has offered to lend Iraq $1 billion.

The economies of Iraq and Iran, the largest Shiite-majority countries in the world, are becoming closely integrated, with Iranian goods flooding Iraqi markets and Iraqi cities looking to Iran for basic services.

After the two countries fought a devastating war from 1980 to 1988, Saddam Hussein maintained tight control over cross-border trade, but commerce has exploded since the American-led invasion of 2003.

Please don’t give me that crap about Iran “winning.” All this economic connectivity will change Iran more than Iraq, and the former will play Poland to the latter’s Russia.

Let the Westoxification begin the old-fashioned way: marketization!

And get the State Department’s social-welfare mentality out of there ASAP.

The caboose roars in India over rezoning from Gap to Core

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: “India’s Bet on Industry Sows Violence: Farmers Object to Plan to Forgo Agriculture for Economic Zones; Fights With Police Turn Deadly,” by Peter Wonacott, Wall Street Journal, 16 March 2007, p. A6.

Fascinating and clear example of caboose braking:

Deadly battles this week between protesters and police on a planned industrial-development site have brought into sharp relief a major problem in India’s economic boom: As local governments bet on industry rather than agriculture to deliver expansion, many farmers fear they will be left behind.

No comment necessary.

If Russia’s oil boom fuels domestic market demand, then connectivity has worked

ARTICLE: “Fueled by Oil Money, Russian Economy Soars: An Investment Boom Transforms Industries; Bor’s Barter Days Over,” by Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, 13 March 2007, p. A1.

This article speaks for itself:

On Bor Glassworks’ state-of-the-art production line here, workers in blue overalls churn out windshields for Russian-made Fords and Renaults--and offer a glimpse of an investment boom transforming Russia’s industrial landscape.

The glass company was once so poor it paid its workers sewing machines and other tradable goods. Now, after an injection of $100 million from Belgian investors, it’s a success story: Bor produces a growing share of windows for the western cars assembled on Russian soil.

“We have a great future ahead of us,” says Valery Tarbeyev, Bor’s chief executive. “Some people are waiting in line up to six months for a new Ford Focus.

Across Russia, companies are spending billions of dollars to upgrade facilities and expand capacity--all in an effort to keep pace with surging consumer demand. The activity is the latest stage of an economic turnaround that has delivered seven years of robust growth. Fueled by Russia’s vast energy sector but ranging well beyond it, the boom goes a long way to explain Russia’s new assertiveness on the world stage.

The revival--dating roughly back to the 2000 election of Vladimir Putin--is also a major reason for the president’s enormous popularity. Under Mr. Putin, Russia’s per-capita gross domestic product has quadrupled to nearly $7,000, and about 20 million people have been lifted out of poverty. Global corporations, such as Intel Corp. and Ford Motor Co., are fast expanding their Russian operations.

For the first time since the end of the Soviet Union, opinion polls show, more people are optimistic about the future than pessimistic.

Naturally, observers say there is too much state-involvement still and Russia lacks the overall entrepreneurial spirit of India and China, but guess what? That will change only when people in Russia, both on top and below, see that deficiency as the major hindrance to further increasing income levels. So long as the current system suffices, helped in no small part by high oil prices that India and China fuel, don’t expect much change.

But here’s the best part:

Businesses are now plowing profits back into fixed capital--assets such as machinery and new buildings.

As Benjamin Friedman writes in his brilliant “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth,” when incomes rose in America throughout its history, so did political freedom, and when it became stagnant or dropped, so did our long march to greater freedom. The same will be true for Russia, so we should continue to encourage the growing economic connectivity so long as the impact is rising income levels across a wide swath of the economy and society.

Save women from taxi risks, make money

POST: Moscow's Pink Taxis: Women Only

I do agree with reader: hopeful sign of bottom-up capitalism, which was all relegated to the "na levo" economy under communism (black/grey markets).

Yes Putin renationalizes energy, but rest of economy is functioning reasonably well.

Over time, that is what matters most--plus the economic connectivity with the outside world that results.

Thanks to Steve from Minneapolis for sending this.

How to excise that last vestige of the Cold War

ARTICLE: Cleaning Up the 20th Century, By JIM YARDLEY, New York Times, March 18, 2007

The slow consensus on our side: tie off the Cold War in Asia to gain the East Asian NATO.

If it can be done slow and easy, great. The "mini-me Deng" model is definitely preferred, but that would mean Kim buys the buy-out--an iffy proposition since it signals the inevitable end of his rule.

Thanks to Jarrod Myrick for sending this.

Buick goes to China

POST: First Chinese-designed car in U.S. will be the Buick LaCrosse, by John Neff, Mar 19th 2007

Get used to this story.

First, there's the natural bit that what was once U.S. became Japanese became Korean became Chinese (i.e., design prowess).

Second is GM tapping China to better sell to the bottom of the pyramid.

Third is China's car sales outpacing ours (across the board, sooner than you think).

Fourth, first "Chinese" cars to American will be ours, the next wave will not.

New player in market, new rules.

Thanks to Shiva Polefka for sending this.

Extend citizenship or borders

ARTICLE: L America migrant money tops aid, By Duncan Kennedy, BBC News, 19 March 2007

As you may remember from BFA (and assuming I do so correctly myself), this is basically one of the points I made about how Hispanic immigrants coming to America--legal or not--are generating far greater money flows back to their homelands (while spending over 90 percent of what they make here in our economy) than all the combined OECD aid.

This while simultaneously starting new businesses at a relatively higher frequency than natives and backfilling all sorts of 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) jobs in our economy.

Social stress? Definitely. A certain welfare burden for the state (education, med)? Certainly.

But considering all the poverty alleviation we're buying with this scheme, we have to either extend citizenship or our borders, because nothing else will satisfy.

Thanks to Bgrant for sending this.

Self-inflicted strategic wound

ARTICLE: Military Is Ill-Prepared For Other Conflicts, By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, March 19, 2007; Page A01

The strategic dangers cited here are real, but also oversold. The Big Army, whenever we get involved abroad, routinely decries the loss of readiness for Big War, which everyone knows is now air-heavy and ground light--as in, we'll bomb the crap out of people.

Still, you have to expect ground forces to wage this battle, which is all about the bucks necessary to buck up their services at the logical expense of Air Force and Navy.

Of course, none of this happens or is required if we do Iraq's war AND postwar like we did the Balkans, so this is a completely self-inflicted strategic wound--provided by the Bush administration in their eschewing of allies and their inability to win new friends while rapidly--and carelessly--expanding our lists of enemies.

Credit would be nice...

OP-ED: The west cannot hide from the disordered world beyond, By Philip Stephens, Financial Times, March 15 2007

Interesting example of the reproducible strategic concept popping up.

The ego in you wants credit, the visionary simply wants progress because life is short and demands meaning.

Thanks to Phil Costopoulos for sending this.

Paean to Abizaid

OP-ED: Abizaid's Long View, By David Ignatius, Washington Post, Friday, March 16, 2007; Page A21

Great piece by Ignatius on Abizaid: a great combo of best journalist and author in the subject of the Long War.

I am optimistic on Fallon now, after hearing numerous first-hand stories on his personal and intellectual growth at PACOM. I praise the selection in my upcoming Esquire May piece ("State of the World").

Thanks to Tyler Durden for sending this.

A great sign of business connectivity in China

ARTICLE: FedEx Raises Stakes in China Markets, By Bruce Stanley, Wall Street Journal

From my adopted home state of Tennessee.

Thanks to Peter Johnson for sending this.

Kaiser Soze lives!

ARTICLE: "Suspected Leader of Attacks on 9/11 Is Said To Confess," by Adam Liptak, New York Times, 20 March 2007, p. A1.

What didn't Khalid Shaikh Mohammed plot?

I'm sorry, but given the man's history on false statements and how convenient it is to have him confess to all sorts of things that will add nothing to his eventual sentence, I find this all a bit much.

Sounds very reasonable to me

ARTICLE: "Clinton Says Some G.I.'s in Iraq Would Stay if She Took Office," by Michael Gordon and Patrick Healy, New York Times, 15 March 2007, p. A1.

Here's the bit:

... she would keep a reduced but significant force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

Add the words "primarily through training and operational support by American air assets" to the end of that sentence and it's just about perfect.

Without offering as many good points, I make the same basic argument in my column this weekend.

Proof again to me: besides all the knee-jerking on Hillary from the right, she's an entirely sensible, solutions-based candidate.

The readiness canard

ARTICLE: "Army Brigade, Long a Symbol Of Readiness, Is Stretched Thin," by David S. Cloud, New York Times, 20 March 2007, p. A1.

Did an interview with "Inside the Pentagon" yesterday on this subject, but in reverse: would creating stabilization forces limit Big Army's ability to escalate?

The questions posed by the reporter reflect the Big Army's old trick to define SysAdmin-like forces as peacekeepers only. This has never been my argument, although some have described "stabilization" forces in this manner.

I see SysAdmin as a much larger function, so my embedded Marines readily rise up to Fallujahs or better. As I have written, I don't believe in the 3-block war. I want my Marines to remain Marines, and I want the non-combat portions of the SysAdmin function filled out by civvies and private sector.

As for turning Army into pure PKO-style troops, that's where the international/coalition factor must come into play.

We put 22-23 ground personnel per 1000 local population in Bosnia and Kosovo, and in both cases we're about 10 percent of total. That's a real model.

In Iraq we field 6-7 per 1K and supply over 90 percent ourselves. Surprise! That both fails and strains readiness.

But here's the kicker canard you'll now hear from Big Army in the budget battles ahead:

Military officials say that the United States, which has more than two million personnel in active and reserve armed forces, has a combat-tested force that could still emerge victorious is another major conflict arose. But the response would be slower, with more casualties, and would have to rely heavily on the Navy and Air Force, they said.

Bullshit, bullshit, and duh!

The response would not be slower.

It would not involve more casualties.

It would be air-heavy from USN and USAF asset bases, and it would simply win the war from above with no attempt to secure the victory from below. It would be pure Powell Doctrine, which is still valid and entirely proper for high-end scenarios (NK and Iran) being discussed

Do not be sold this line.

This is really the Future Combat System and the rest of Big Army's acquisition community squealing. But FCS is huge and expensive and largely inappropriate for the 21st-century battlespace that is the Gap, and no amount of readiness whining is going to change that.

Yes, we need more ground troops.

Yes, we need lots of gear replaced.

And yes, transformation in tactics and technology largely await application within the ground forces (unlike the air community--Vern Clark's point to me).

But the increased separation between air-dominated Leviathan and ground-pounding SysAdmin continues ...