Great post from Steve on Africa

POST: Africa and Science

Great Steve blog that really got me thinking, given my recent African sojourn and watching "Blood Diamond" (Leo WAS amazing) last night with Vonne in the home theater.

You see the whole "conflict diamonds" scheme and you can't help but be for it, but then there's the bit when the local villager, whose entire community is in flames, opines, "I hope they never find oil here, then things will really go bad" (or words to that effect).

And you wonder: is it the stuff they've got in Africa (raw materials they inevitably fight over) or the options they lack (everyone in the movie wants the pink diamond so they can escape in wealth)?

Create wealth and the options multiply. Fight over fixed resources and it'll always be zero sum

All rule of law gets you is confidence that, if you try and actually create new wealth, you can keep it. All markets get you is the chance to securitize that effort by being able to sell what you create. And all S&T is about is that search for what's useful and sell-able next.

So yeah, the Economist makes perfect sense to me.

But I always remind: security is 100 percent of your problem until you get it. Then it's only 10 percent of your exit strategy solution.

Judge not by answers

ARTICLE: Triggering the Next Iranian Revolution (Part II), By Grzegorz W. Kolodko, The Globalist, Thursday, March 15, 2007

More evidence of the good timing on killing-Iran's-mullahs-softly-with-connectivity. Great piece by Globalist.

Just goes to show: judge not by their answers to your questions/demands but by their own questions. Answers are mostly about futures to be avoided. Questions are more about futures desired.

Thanks to Erwin van der Rijnst for sending this.

Where the real battles will be waged on global warming

OP-ED: “Al Gore’s Outsourcing Solution: U.S. companies should buy ‘carbon offsets’ in China,” by Gregg Easterbrook, New York Times, 9 March 2007, p. A23.

Interesting bit from Easterbrook that underlies where our global coin is best spent on global warming: quite naturally where the growth will be biggest in coming years in terms of CO2.

Easterbrook’s point fits nicely with my “New Core sets the new rules” philosophy: you can either strangle our economy with too much effort for too little gain or you can invest far more wisely in the infrastructure build-out underway in Asia and make sure that goes down a far smarter, more environmentally-sustainable path and--in doing so--you’d get huge bang for the reasonable buck.

The best part?

As a bonus, American investments in reducing Chinese and India air pollution would improve public health in those nations. Today smog in Chinese and Indian cities is worse than any in the West since London of the early 1950s. The result is far higher rates of respiratory disease in China and India than in the West.

A great summing-up last para:

If our goal in legislating against carbon releases is not simply punishing the West and its power companies but truly trying to reduce the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the main event will be in the developing world. We must pursue the smartest possible economics, and that means investing in China and India.

Access the current build-out, change the world in the process.

This is good business and a moral imperative.

I think I need to get this guy’s book (The Progress Paradox). Anybody read it?

Obama’s been around, and that is good

OP-ED: “Obama: Man of the World: Can a Jakarta ‘street kid’ grow up to win?” by Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, 6 March 2007, p. A23.

Cool piece by Kristof exploring what nifty international life experience Obama brings to the table. Indeed, in terms of knowing the world outside of America (if not the leaders), he truly brings a lot to the table. I mean, don’t you want somebody who “gets” Islam to lead us in this crucial early phase of the Long War? Doesn’t that make a certain amount of sense?

If I were God (sometimes considered a possibility), my bipartisan ticket would be Rudy for prez and Obama for veep. I’d pick Rudy to be a reasonable continuation of what was good about Bush but likewise a pragmatic fixer of what Bush got so terribly wrong--especially the explanation. Obama would be my bridge-builder to the future, and my articulate strategic communicator. It would be a killer team.

Frankly, I welcome the death of the primary season. I think a national referendum or by-party run-off vote is the way to go. States have with congressional delegations to kiss their collective asses. We’re picking the leader of the free world, or as close to globalization’s king as it comes. That’s a global election. So the run-ups should be at least truly national elections.

But beyond a national run-off to decide the nominees, I’d also kill the team-ticket concept and let the two offices be contested more independently. I like the idea of mixed tickets as a way to avoid the inbreeding we so often get in administrations--the self-licking ice cream cone phenomenon.

Just dreaming, I guess.

Interview with Tom in Chinese

Google told me that Tom was mentioned in this forum post. It links to an interview with Tom reported in Chinese (The picture towards the bottom confirms ;-).

Google came up with a pretty good translation that I'm going to copy here

According to Barnett : If China is ready to interview U.S. strategists
DWNEWS.COM-- 2007年3月19日20:51:49(京港台时间) --多维新闻网DWNEWS.COM-- at 20:51 on March 19, 2007 : 49 (Beijing time RTHK) -- According to the news network

Farewell press reports Wangqinchuan 1951 / U.S. strategists Barnett said : strategic planning, national security, foreign policy, consultants and other experts in the field of military action to the views I hold an open mind, I with these people through the exchange China's influence in the fifth generation of leaders take over. On the contrary, is the fourth generation of leaders more, I can not accept the theory that they fear conservative. They want more attention to the internal affairs of our country, to avoid making too many in the international community's response

China is interested in cooperating with the United States

Farewell : The United States in the six-party talks held in Beijing last year, called for North Korea to give up its development of nuclear weapons. for the United States to lift financial sanctions against North Korea, but North Korea that the United States should first lift financial sanctions. lead to the breakdown of the six-party talks, North Korea and all the second guessing when the testing of nuclear weapons. In the book, you mentioned that China and the United States should cooperate together to check North Korea's development of nuclear weapons; However, economic interests between China and North Korea, China's current attitude seems to still own interest. not with the United States, to work together to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons development, so as not to enrage his North Korea, in the circumstances, it really would help the United States resolve the North Korean issue?

Barnett : China and North Korea's economic interest is not how big, in fact, Instead, the economic interests between China and South Korea is much larger. China and Korea, or other Asian countries should understand that trade between the Compared with the protection of the interests of the Korean economy will be more important, in addition, China and Korea, and Taiwan should set aside some of the "burden", will look at a broader level, cooperation with the United States to establish a strategic alliance.

According to the Digest in March 2007 (No. 24 overall). (Farewell)
„ÄÄ„ÄÄI think China should be interested to cooperate with the United States because China is the source of political instability in the energy, merely concerned with their own short-term interests of these countries do not want to damage relations on their own or that they can maintain the status quo or to solve problems in the near future, they will be found, This is unsustainable.

For alliance between China and the United States have yet to be established, I think it is because both parties have a blind spot in terms of coordination. made to the development of Sino-U.S. relations, and military or economic alliance in Asia can not be hastened. Therefore, China and North Korea not to the narrow interests, it will abandon the great advantages of cooperation with the United States, China, which is risky behavior. However, I think China has seen the advantages of the alliance, and has the will to cooperate with the United States. is whether economic or military, the Chinese mentality are not yet ripe; alliance, China is bound to bear more responsibility, but China is not able to accept this responsibility; China has enough confidence, North Korea's stability is not yet prepared to take up the mission.

In fact the Korean issue, the United States should take the responsibility not to the Chinese. Although China does not support North Korea's nuclear weapons because tests, but in certain areas has been interpreted as a representative of North Korea. So in addition to North Korea with China's interests, but also have a negative impact on China. In fact, it is not difficult for China to give up North Korea, China and South Korea if North Korea were continuing to import trade. When these two economic development, North Korea's economic situation has not improved, but at this time North Korea may be dissatisfied with my heart, Asian or have a negative impact on the world.

China has the ability to compete with the major powers

Farewell : A recent missile destroyed the old meteorological triggered international tensions. This is all speculation China's real intentions, do you think China launched missile. it would allow expansion of the "core function" of the target has become more difficult? You also mentioned that if the United States regards China as a friend, China is likely to become a friend : If the United States regard China as an enemy, China will become an enemy, in the United States and there is no consensus on the North Korea issue. China test-fired missiles such circumstances, the relationship between the United States and China?

Barnett : China's action to the United States a message that the United States military is as a partner, China has become more powerful. China already has the capability to compete with the major powers in aerospace technology, not only to launch satellites, but can also destroy satellites, but If China moves before doing that, he need not comply with the space weapons agreement with the prior consultations. so the idea is absolutely wrong, because anti-missile tests, after a great impact.

After the end of the Cold War, the United States and other countries have consensus, and to prevent an arms race in space. China should sit down and talk about a good performance out of space weapons agreement with the United States would like the attitude Even if it is not easy for China to destroy satellites, but the destruction of the satellite debris, but it will cause harm. spent a lot of energy to remove the future, and space weapons if China wants to ignore the agreement, China will allow other countries to be more disappointed. China must take to destroy satellites after pressure from the international community, therefore, to focus on China and its development will destroy satellites. If not peace efforts on the development of aerospace technology, otherwise it will be China's political and economic influence.

However, I am also worried that if the United States wants China to consult China's anti-based and not because he did not want to do to respond to this question seriously. China's silence but for the international community to destroy the satellites of suspected motives for China negative, -- this would create a dangerous deterioration in China's international relations.

The current relations between China and the United States, I think in a very close relationship between the economy and technology. whether in trade or energy-dependent economy, while the United States in seeking alliance targets, we naturally think of China, so interrelated than the political and military relationship to the race. So the United States, with which China is establishing a military and political connections to the overall balance of relations between China, , to a significant military and political relations and close economic ties if alienation, let mutual suspicion between the two countries.

Even worry that the pressure from outside the United States

„ÄÄ„ÄÄFarewell : If the United States in military action after the end of the Cold War, The vast majority of those operations were found to be "crack" it coincidence that the United States almost a decade of military operations in accordance with your theory. moving to narrow the "cracks" the goal, launched by the United States to narrow the "crack" wars. is the war in Iraq. (a proxy war)Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki, in an interview with CNN on January 31, Iraq is turning into a war between the United States and Iran, "Acting War" (a proxy war). At present, the American media are asking the United States to sign the next war will be Iran, Do you think the Bush administration has been bogged plight of the Iraq war, Iran launched the war?

Barnett : The current chaotic situation in Iraq, saying that "civil war" is the dispute between the Shiite and Sunni, as it is a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iranian-backed Shiite sustained growth will be a serious threat to Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries.

However, I am even more worried that the pressure from outside the United States. Now, whether the United States or the Republican members of the public, or even international, that the United States will be aimed at a target Iran, if the Bush administration really will be the last attack on Iran as the next target. Bush also retiring before the war, this will lead to a very dangerous situation; This will cause great harm to the United States. In particular, the relationship between the United States, China and Iran because of the high degree of dependence on oil.

However, the Bush asking Iraq, I have to condemn the targeted Russia, China and India. This should only three countries to send troops to Iraq and assist the Iraqi reconstruction order in the territory, because once the outbreak of the energy crisis The United States will not be affected, but China, Russia, India. Iraq, the United States is not dependent on the region's energy, is really a heavy reliance on China, Russia, India; These three countries should be aware of : We should not take (USA) blood, in exchange for their oil. China, Russia, India should take the responsibility to solve the Middle East issue. understand that their future will be one of the countries leading the world, the best way. each country is 50,000 people troops to Iraq, if so, then there, together with the 200,000 U.S. troops. stabilize the situation in the Middle East.

But at the moment there is the tendency to spread in Iraq disputes, China should go the distance, adding a timely manner. otherwise it would affect the interests of China in the future. In international security affairs, China, as a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick's "responsible stakeholder" take the attitude should be pursued two solitary wasp situation, such as Iran's nuclear issue, China is also the United States could be used as an intermediary with Iran for diplomatic negotiations. I was encouraged by the leaders to the fifth-generation

Farewell : You study long-term military strategy, and has served as a senior Defense Department. There are many political and military ties with the United States, do you think the United States military and the official number of people agree with your point of view? In addition, your contact with the Chinese government or related very frequently, whether you agree?

When I discussed his theory with senior staff, and with my generation, who is about 40, and more young people themselves, very acceptable from my point of view, they are rational and willing to accept different voices. older than I, regardless of the current situation indicates that China has made a number of changes. These inherent still difficult to change the view of most of them remain skeptical, but by refusing to accept other view.

„ÄÄ„ÄÄCompared with American officials, I fewer ties with China, but I spent a lot of time a series of trips to China in these trips, I plotted strategy with China, the national security, foreign policy, military operations, as discussed his theory of expert consultants. I think these people adopt an open attitude to my point of view, but the most open-minded young people. I have with these people through the exchange to influence the succession in China's fifth-generation leader.

In comparison, on the contrary, is the fourth generation of leaders more I can not accept the theory that they fear conservative. They want more attention to the internal affairs of our country, to avoid making too many in the international community's response. Conversely, the fifth generation of leaders that the responsibility to cope with the world situation, but also wanted to do something in an attempt to change the heart. Fifth generation of leaders is also important that the relationship between the United States and is based on a core of the world.

In China, the fifth generation of leaders has given me a lot of encouragement, which is the next opportunity to accelerate progress towards a major world power.

My big fat Greek near-death experience

Flying back from Europe for the second time in two weeks, I am sick of airline food.

But consider this: since 1 March I have seen up close or traveled to the shores of or flown directly over the Pacific, Atlantic, North, Med, Red, Persian, Arabian and Indian oceans/seas. I think that comes close to covering all the biggies, maritime-wise.

After my long Africa trip, I was home for Saturday night (one son’s b-day), all day Sunday (another son’s b-day party), and then Monday morning (bunch of errands to run).

Then I flew Monday afternoon to San Diego via Phoenix (writing my “two wives” column on the way), ending up right on the Pacific Ocean for a Tuesday morning session (the longest brief I do in one sitting) with the boss of the U.S. Navy’s air community (VADM Zortman, a very cool guy very much in my thinking mode, so naturally I like him) and all his senior officers, plus many of their spouses (this was a three-day professional development effort and my talk was the one also offered to spouses). That was a great but exhausting brief, with good Q&A. Total elapsed was about 3.5 hours.

After that I go first class (joy) to Dallas, hang in the cool cat lounge, and then go overnight to London Gatwick on a nice American Airlines plane where the biz class had this near-flat lie-down seat which worked just fine for me (after a nice dinner, the movie “Déjà vu,” an Ambien, and then the movie again--if I’m not mistaken).

Then spent better part of a day in Gatwick having a nice meal in a pub (good beer) and writing a slew of posts.

Then a late afternoon flight on Wednesday to Naples (first time to Italy), crossing the Swiss Alps in the process (very cool to observe from above). I head there upon invitation by the Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe/NATO Naval Forces to brief both his rank and file staff in a straight lecture and his senior leadership in a strategic review exercise at a retreat (Crete). As soon as I’m off the plane and through customs I’m greeted by the PAO and protocol officer and sent with a driver to the big man’s own house, where I spend the night with my old friend, Admiral Harry Ulrich (who really could and should play himself in the movie).

His house, built by the Italian government for NATO’s naval boss decades ago, is an Italian villa of the coolest, most marble-filled sort. The back terrace is a stunner, overlooking both the bay and the famous volcano (Vesuvius) in the distance. I get the main guest suite to myself, and it’s big enough to get lost in.

We have a nice dinner: me, Ulrich, his Naples-born wife of 32 years Mary (whose mom still lives within two blocks; Mary often gazed at this villa as a kid wondering who lived in such a palace and now she does!), VADM “Boomer” Stufflebeam and his spouse Nancy. It was a great meal with great conversation. Stufflebeam, you might remember, was the voice of the Pentagon during OEF. Far cooler to me? He’s played on Lambeau’s hallowed turf as punter for the Detroit Lions (1975-79). If you can believe it, he actually moonlighted from the Navy. His nickname goes without saying.

The even cooler story to most people? Mary’s older sister won the Oscar for best supporting actress in the Italian film “Two Women,” the one in which Sophia Loren won best actress. Loren is a local legend in Naples as the hometown girl who made it big.

Very nice to see Harry again. Harry’s done some amazing things with the command, giving me tons to think about in Vol. III.

Maintaining these sorts of relationships over the long haul (Harry was my immediate boss at CNA in the early nineties when he was a commander) is something I want to explore in Vol. III. The visionary’s networking is almost as important as his content. As I wrote in PNM, there’s having the answer and then there’s having the answer at the right time with the right audience. Harry is a serious visionary, and a management change guru in his own right. He is a product of three great guys: Owens, Cebrowski and Clark.

How Harry ever became a four-star is a story in itself. The man couldn’t pull a punch if he tried, and yet it was fascinating to watch him over the next few days, playing motivational leader one minute and suave diplomat the next.

Thursday, I get up and have breakfast with Harry and then we careen through Naples rush-hour traffic in his government car with blue-light flashing. “Grand Theft Auto” has nothing on his driver, who moves aggressively through traffic like a motorcycle ambulance. I simply concentrated on my discussion with Harry, who clearly grew oblivious to this a long time ago (been there three years).

We whisk to the base and they walk me into a movie theater, where I do a 75-minute brief on stage to a full house. Great questions after, as Harry promises Sunday afternoon off to whoever offers the toughest question. It was the last one, BTW.

Then we’re whisked out to an airfield and jump aboard his command aircraft, a nifty C-26 (if I remember the designation correctly, it’s very much like a Gulfstream), and take off for Crete (a very cool view of Mediterranean islands along the way).

We sit opposite each other up front, with the PAO observing, and I tape a two-hour interview with him, as he runs me through his stuff. I am stunned, frankly, by the breadth and depth of his innovation. I’ve gone around for years saying we should do this or that, and Harry’s actually pulled off several of my dreams. He’s kind enough to say he’s read my book, but that’s not the causal link. Harry would have done these things anyway. I will claim only that great minds think alike.

Nice lunch aboard the jet, and by the time I get off, I know the trip was completely worthwhile in terms of data gathering. That two-hour interview alone did it all.

We land in Crete at the naval air station, meet all the base leadership, and then walk directly to an all-hands meetings that Harry leads without any notes. Imagine Clint Eastwood channeling Phil Donahue channeling Peter Drucker, and you get the picture. It was fascinating to watch.

Then we’re driven to an allied WWII cemetery (the Germans invaded and occupied Crete in 1941), where the two of us wander around for a while, chatting about our careers and just catching up further (Harry has had a truly interesting run, working for all sorts of historical figures). I discover a “D. Barnett” buried there among the Scots. There are also Australians and New Zealanders among the many British names.

The rest of his senior officers and their wives then show up in a bus.

For the next run we ride in the bus with everyone else, listening to a local tour guide. I get the chance to talk a lot of inside-the-business history with Ulrich and his chief civilian analytic brain on loan from CNA, Jed Snyder, who is the guy who engineered my trip. Jed is a very cool guy who’s worked for a lot of legends in this business over the years, and it was very neat to finally cross paths with him.

The next trip of the day is to a German WWII cemetery. Believe it or not, but 1.7 million German soldiers from WWI and WWII are buried abroad in roughly 100 countries.

The final trip was to a former German concentration camp.

Then we bus to the seaside resort in Crete where the planning retreat will be held. I get in some email time thanks to Ulrich’s comm guys and then it’s dinner, where I sit at the head table with Ulrich and his spouse, the local base commander and his spouse, and the town’s mayor and his spouse. The mayor, a nephrologist, has had a long career in both national politics and Greece’s Olympic Committee (he was a famous long-jumper in his youth). The meal was great, especially the baklava.

Day ended late with a final drink with senior officers at the bar. As the guest brain of honor, you feel compelled to stay up until everyone who wants to approach you has had their chance to do so. I’m not getting any real money from the command for this trip, but it’s one of those gigs you’re more than willing to do if you take the grand strategist thing seriously.

Got to bed late, but up early--of course.

Over breakfast on Friday I chat up one of Harry’s reserve-component admirals who’s doing a lot of innovative stuff in Africa, barely noticing what I eat. That was a grave mistake, but I probably wouldn’t have been any more careful if I had paid attention. It was a buffet, and I tried a bit of everything. I’m eight of nine. It’s just my birth-order genetics.

Something I ate induced a severe allergic reaction. I got worse over the morning, looking stranger and stranger according to officers sitting around me. About 1130, even though I was scheduled to talk for two hours starting at 1215, I tell Ulrich I’m off to the head to throw up breakfast.

It was the most unusual and painful incident of vomiting I have ever experienced. It was like my face was throwing up instead of my stomach. When I came up and glanced in the mirror I was shocked: I had burst tiny blood vessels all over my face and a recently emerging bit of keratosis (hardening of the skin that I simply have frozen off with liquid nitrogen) near my right eye had turned blood red, giving me an immediate skin cancer spook. My face was swelling and looking like I had that roseacea (spell?) thing going on. Every muscle on the front of my head hurt. It was truly bizarre, like I had a face transplant or something and the graft wasn’t taking well. I felt like I had some strange mask on. It was really noticeable to everyone who encountered me the rest of the day. Good thing they turned the lights down low for my presentation.

I was somewhat wobbly afterwards but felt better after puking. Ulrich sends his doc out to check me and he tells me to take the stomach antibiotic I carry for just such occasions. Everyone’s asking if I can go on, since I’m the center of the day’s activities.

I drink a Coke and say, definitely. The showman in me is not to be deterred. Simply put, I’ve gone on sick before and I just hate traveling somewhere and then disappointing an audience (how in hell could I travel all the way to Crete and then take a powder?). I had heard from too many there that they were psyched for the talk, having heard how well it had gone for the staff the day before back in Naples. Simply put, my ego overcame my aching face, which really did feel like I’d run a marathon on it.

It was one of my best, most funny performances, reminding me of how I often played my best in high school sports when I was injured. I guess I just had to get myself inspired to pull it off, so it was an inspiring show. Still, I almost fell over a few times, I was that woozy.

Great discussion afterwards, one of the best I’ve enjoyed, but that’s just the quality of the staff and Harry’s leadership (everyone there said they loved working under such an innovative guy).

Afterwards I retreat to the comms room and gently surf the net, catching up on some email and filling up on liquids. By the time the conference ends (I sit in on the last couple of hours), I am feeling weak and wobbly but ambulatory.

We’re driven to the airport and I’m back on the admiral’s jet for the ride back. I have a glass of red wine and eat a plate of cheese and fruit and crackers. I’m almost feeling human again.

Once down in Naples I’m driven to a hotel near the airport but still on base. Once checked in, I’m back in another car for a drive to a famous local restaurant, the kind where they bring you plate after plate of whatever they’re cooking that night (no menu). It’s a big, grand meal with Harry, his spouse, and about six other command couples. I skip the shellfish and the owner is kind enough to bring me a steak instead of the main fish entree. It’s cooked on the seared-rare side, but it’s truly delicious, so I, in my new-found hunger, devour it.

Great conversations into the night. Lots of those sea stories officers love to swap. Harry’s a great storyteller, so we duel til about 2300.

Back to the hotel I’m lights out at 0030 and up at 0530 on Saturday to catch my Alitalia flight to Milan.

Once I get there, I get the bad news about the big winter storm on the east coast. My USAirways to Philly is canceled and all the future flights to the U.S. have been completely sold-out for Sunday and Monday and Tuesday. The last flights that day to the U.S. are leaving just as I realized how screwed I am. I’m feeling sick enough still that I have a hard time standing up for too long. No audience, no will power apparently.

Still, I wander around trying to figure out what to do. I end up credit-card calling Jenn a couple of times. She can’t do anything from the U.S. At one point she’s on hold with USAirways for three hours! Locally, USAirways offers me a flight Wednesday morning. That’s it. They’ll give me something four days from now and meanwhile I’m advised--at my own cost, of course--to find myself a place to stay in Milan for four nights!

I am stunned. But apparently this is the reality of being caught in Europe while trying to get home and a big storm hits in the eastern U.S. Planes don’t come over so none can go back. And if the subsequent flights are already full (as they were), they you get in line for remaining seats on the days ahead. Milan’s airport was crammed with Americans trying to figure out what to do. The luckiest ones, already in line before I landed, got flights on Tuesday. Some were settling for Thursday, five days ahead, by the time I figured out my escape plan.

The decision was easy enough for me when I got my head cleared enough to think it through: there was just no way I could hang out in a Milan hotel for four days, alone and sick. I already had an appointment with my doc back in Indy for Monday morning and by God, I was going to make it.

I heard one American woman (I was pulling aside anyone vaguely American-looking to hear what they had settled for) say there were supposedly still a couple of seats on a KLM flight out of Amsterdam late Saturday night. I had, by this time, already tried Delta. They too were offering Wednesday at the earliest. Forget about British Airways. They just waved me off, shaking their heads.

So I rushed to KLM and found the last seat out of Europe apparently until Thursday, by all accounts since. It was a business class on Sunday afternoon, which meant it ran 3,000 Euros (about $4,100). I didn’t care at that point. I felt pretty bad, awfully tired, and simply wanted to be moving in some direction that got me closer to home. So I bought it. I’ll let Jenn try to get it out of one of the several masters I served on this trip. That’s a great advantage of this sort of career: every trip is multi-purpose and multi-client, so you can spread the travel pain if necessary. Since I discounted the command about 95% on this trip, I’m hoping they’ll pick up the tab, but I have other options.

Still, even if I eat it for a tax deduction, it was worth it. I have dates scheduled that I simply cannot abandon, much less blowing off my family that long. Plus, in the end, four days and nights in Milan wouldn’t have been cheap. Indeed, I was already being warned by fellow travelers that only the most expensive hotels had any rooms left due to the crush of stranded Americans.

I guess that’s the harsh truth of the situation. I mean, it’s not like carriers are going to send an extra plane all the way across the Atlantic to get you. You’re just shit out of luck.

I hop the first Alitalia flight (partner with KLM) to Amsterdam, getting in around 5pm. I grab my luggage and find a close hotel for only 59 Euros. I ride the bus there, checking out the countryside near Amsterdam. Already I feel a bit safer. The Netherlands looks a lot like parts of Wisconsin, as do the people--naturally. Italy seemed crowded and weird in comparison. But this? This felt instinctively like home.

I collapse in my room and sleep for about 15 hours. It improves me quite a bit. My face is starting to look normal, although it still hurts in this weird way. Now it just looks like a weird sunburn.

After conferring with Jenn and Vonne by email, I decide to make the planned flight to Minneapolis Sunday (over nine hours) and then stay at my sister Cathie’s home for the night. I change what was my connecting to Detroit Sunday night (I had a fantasy of getting in at midnight and driving til dawn to Indy in a rental, but Vonne and Jenn talk me out of that; I’m just feeling very guilty because I miss hosting my younger son’s birthday party outing with his best friends on Sunday) when I get to the Amsterdam airport late Sunday morning to an early Monday Minneapolis-to-Indy direct flight.

The Amsterdam airport is one of the coolest I’ve ever been to: super neat and modern and efficient and . . . just so niftily Nederlander. I retreat to the KLM elite lounge and write my column for next weekend, eating the offered fare a bit and drinking lotsa juice and good coffee. I celebrate the first draft with a draft Heineken. I am almost feeling normal at this point, like I’ve been through a bad flu that swept through my system, leaving all of the damage on my face.

The flight to Minneapolis was nice enough. Surprisingly smooth given all the turbulence of westward flights this month (this is my--if you can believe it!--18th flight of March! I will likely make it over 30 for the entire month, when all is said and done, and that’s definitely a record for me). I have an interesting seat partner in a 65-year-old engineering professor from U Minn. He’s just coming back from the UAE.

After the nice sojourn at my sister’s place, I get back to Indy just before 10am on my early flight. I get to the doctor appointment late, but get a good going-over from my physician. We talk through the whole episode and my man says it was probably an MSG-triggered allergic shock, which tends to be face oriented.

Whatever.

I am home. Eight nations and six states in the first 19 days of the month. Another six states and 12 flights to go.

Blackwater would be better than nothing in Sudan

ARTICLE: Bush's Shadow Army, Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, March 15, 2007

It's a sign of desperation, but the right sign and the right instinct. Blackwater can help, but it would be a stopgap measure. Does it beat not doing anything? Yes. But if the outcome is bad, does it scare us off from any logical U.S. military action, either direct or through locals? Maybe.

So a risky notion reflecting the desperate situation and people's frustration with it.

Thanks to Patrick Squire for sending this.

Another reason for optimism on Iran

POST: Russia to Iran: Pay Up

You can argue that Iran's dangerous trajectory is self-correcting, largely for economic reasons. You can also argue that the Bush administration is cleverly giving them a push.

Assuming Sy Hersh is wrong, there are great reasons for optimism in the question, "Can we flip Iran?"

Assuming no one in power screws up this logical pathway of reintegration-under-duress. China and India and Russia all want it. Secretly, we do too, under certain conditions.

Israel and Saudi Arabia both fear it intensely, and may well go out of their way to sabotage it.

But I see this as another sign for optimism.

The TED experience

ARTICLE: “Where Artists and Inventors Plot to Save the World,” by Saul Hansell, New York Times, 5 March 2007, p. C1.

I guess I’ve made the rounds of the hoity-toity types super-conferences in the U.S., having done TED, Pop!Tech (twice) and FiRE. There are, of course, others, but those are the classic pick-up games, the wide smorgasbords that wander about subject matter.

This article’s mostly on Chris Anderson, the guru-in-chief who took over from the legendary founder of TED back in 2000. If I remember, I appeared there in the spring of 2004, or hell, maybe it was 2003. I simply can’t remember. I can’t even remember blogging it or not. All the appearances simply blur into one another after you pass the first thousand (I love it when people come up to me and say, “I saw you speak!” and I say, “Really, where?” and they come back with, “It was a big ballroom!”).

But I do remember the performance vividly, describing it at the time as the best 20 minutes I’ve ever done. I also remember the standing ovation. I also remember meeting Charles Fleischer and having him tell me I was one of the best stand-up comedians he’s ever seen on stage (it was a funny show).

Those things you don’t forget.

It did seem a shame to blow in and blow out so fast on that one, because the ambiance was awfully cool, but I feel like I was still at the War College and couldn’t justify the time.

Funny, but freed from that now and given Steve’s forbearance on such things, I’m even less likely to stay at such things for any length of time now than before.

Home . . . is where I want to be, in my beautiful house, with my beautiful wife, because I know exactly how I got there, and the price of constant motion has been high.

Good article on TED and Anderson, who’s had an interesting career. I do envy people who go to conferences like that. The article says next year’s session is already sold out, if you can believe it.

Somalia: this won’t be pretty for the AU

ARTICLE: “Peace Force Is Attached on Arrival in Somalia: The latest violence in Mogadishu recalls the chaos that met earlier peacekeepers,” by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 7 March 2007, p. A11.

I think we had something like 20k troops in Somalia way back when, and they weren’t enough. The African Union hopes to send 8k but has only half committed. Brave Uganda--400 strong--is sending in the first peacekeepers.

They got a nasty welcome and it will likely only go downhill from that.

Africa policing itself is a nice dream, but it’s a long ways off. I’m not saying these guys are up to the challenge on a individual basis (I was very impressed by the East African officers I recently engaged during my travels, as they all seem to understand Somalia quite well), it’s just that it’ll take some serious outside help and more bodies than the locals can generate (Kenya, for example, is the blue-chip military of the region and it’s total air-sea-land forces number around 30k).

In the beginning, capacity building won’t be enough. A critical mass will have to be built from a larger pool.

Pot calling the kettle black

ARTICLE: “U.S. Releases Rights Report, with an Acknowledgment,” by Helene Cooper, New York Times, 7 March 2007, p. A6.

The NYT editorial board recently put out a huge editorial that listed all the steps we need to take to fix how we’re handling suspects and guilty parties in this long war on extremism. The list was unremarkable. We all know what needs to get done, because we all know that international case law must be built if we want our new rules to have any reach, much less staying power.

So yeah, it gets awfully hypocritical when we issue our human rights report, just another way in which the Bush Administration’s actions over the past six years have severely damaged our global reputation as the good guy, the look-up-to power.

Voting with guns, voting with their feet: Baghdad sub-divides even as the surge looks promising

ARTICLE: “In Baghdad, Sectarian Lines Too Deadly to Cross,” by Damien Cave, New York Times 4 March 2007, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Is the surge beginning to work?” The Economist, 3 March 2007, p. 51.

The ISG said it would be too hard. Critics of Joe Biden said his thinking was unrealistic.

But this outcome is inevitable, because none of the three players (Kurd, Sunni, Shiite) are willing to give the central government sufficient power to prevent it.

As smart as Petraeus is, he’s trying to keep a three-way marriage intact when none of the parties want to stay married--at least until each feels like they’ve exhausted their chances for something better (for Kurds and Shiaa, it’s called relative independence; for the Sunnis, it’s called trying to get it all back).

Tell me this doesn’t sound exactly like the Balkans:

After centuries full of vibrant interaction, of marrying, sharing and selling across sects and classes, Baghdad has become a capital of corrosive and violent borderlines. Streets never crossed. Conversations never started. Doors never entered.

The essence of Gapdom. You can say we did it to them and you’d be right. You can also say they do it to themselves and you’d also be right.

There’s all sorts of ethnic enclaving in America. You simply can’t tell people where to live or with whom they should consort.

What you can do, however, is give them all the economic incentives to play with one another nicely, primarily out of the greedy desire to do better, get more, and share it with loved ones.

We’ve let the ethnic enclaving occur. Big deal.

But we’ve also let the economy withdraw from normal life, and that’s our huge mistake.

If you don’t give them the chance for the Lexus (buy it, sell it, build it--whatever), they fight over the olive trees. They fight over identity.

It’s pathetic all right, like watching dogs fight over bones.

Over time, the talent leaves and the concentration of losers and incapables grows ever more dense.

We are responsible for this vicious cycle, but the behavior within belongs to those who engage in it.

Still, the separation process isn’t necessarily all bad. I have a slide near the end of my brief now where I talk about the journey from fake states to real (I gave three models of jumping the Bremmer J-curve in a recent column), noting that the disaggregation of political power, despite creating chaos and violence typically, can also pave the wave for a sort of corporatist economy to emerge, with the corporations in this instance being ethnic tribes.

Both the good and the bad about Baghdad right now might be very much the same: this divorce must happen, but a good after-marriage is completely possible once everyone comes to the realization that they can live in separate political houses, so to speak, but still engage in the logic of economic interaction (the great black hope of the still murky oil revenue-sharing legislation).

As I have argued in the past, success in these interventions won’t look much like a classic military victory (“Are we winning?” “Are we losing?”), in large part because we’re an enabler to these processes (both the killing and the rebuilding) but we’re in charge of neither, except in tactical, episodic moments.

What China will do with its money is what all people do with their money: use it to make them richer

ARTICLE: “A British Classic In the Chinese Stable: The MG Roadster Becomes a Trophy Of a Restless Economy,” by Craig S. Smith, New York Times, 13 March 2007, p. C1.

The title of this piece is rather goofy.

How come whenever our companies buy something overseas, we call it an “investment,” but when rising economies buy something that once belonged to us, we dub it a “trophy”?

Bit egotistical, don’t ya think!

There’s no way China can sit on a trillion USD in reserves when something like 800 million of their people are barely scraping up an existence. It’s only natural that they’d diversify their holdings from super-safe T bills. They’ve got serious needs that they can fund themselves, without our development aid. Shouldn’t we be happy with that, especially when we’re talking something like one out of every eight people on the planet?

As for the buying up of foreign companies, that’s just what rising powers do. They can’t buy anything we don’t want to sell, and in the vast majority of these instances, the Chinese will pick up companies they desperately need in terms of development (like those in energy and infrastructure in general) plus the bargains like MG (is it better for MG to die or be reborn with a scrappy new boss?).

China’s government is now encouraging outbound FDI, which only increases the economy’s dense financial connectivity with the outside world, subjecting Beijing to more and more rules. It’s a totally natural progression, threatening only poorly run companies, who, quite frankly, should be devoured by somebody rather than linger and bring our economy down--however tangentially.

China’s playing up. We can look down in fear, or we can look up ourselves and get on with it.

Fear is always the choice of the lazy.

Jobs aren’t eternal. Talent is.

This week's column

Takes village to raise this child

Last week in Africa, I learned I had two wives, and I have to admit the news shocked me. No, this isn't an argument for polygamy. Like my Kenyan friend who offered this provocative assertion, I feel that one mother-in-law is enough.

Still, my friend's teasing got me thinking that globalization has done less to change the essential nature of human interactions than simply recast their scale and reach. In short, the global village is real, defined less by technology than by people's super-empowered desire to connect to others.

First, let me give you the genealogy of my Kenyan friend, Ngewa.

Read on at KnoxNews
Read on at Scripps Howard

A hopeful sign on sanctions

OP-ED: “U.S. Sanctions With Teeth,” by David Ignatius, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 5-11 March 2007, p. 26.

Ohio State U. prof John Mueller has argued that sanctions have killed far more people in the 20th century than WMD ever did. Most of these deaths are never counted (or, if they are, they are quickly discounted as meaningless) because most involve the elderly or young children (no surprise, when you stress a society those who are weakness succumb first).

The Treasury’s new brand of “financial measures,” however, do seem like a breakthrough. They play upon globalization’s financial webs of connectivity, threatening disbarment to those institutions who do business with bad actors.

As Ignatius argues:

These new sanctions are toxic because they effectively limit a country’s access to the global ATM.

Also:

The new measures work thanks to the hidden power of globalization: Because all the circuits of the global financial system are inter-wired, the U.S. quarantine effectively extends to all major banks around the world.

Connectivity drives codes. Simple as that.

Good stuff to read. Nice piece by Ignatius.

DoEE will come when the pain quotient gets high enough

ARTICLE: “The Civilian Shortage: Rebuilding Iraq has been hindered by federal agency turf wars and a tight purse,” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 5-11 March 2007, p. 9.

The lack of real experts is killing us in Iraq and Afghanistan. This stuff isn’t rocket science, but it isn’t send-whoever’s-available either.

Almost four years after the United States set about trying to rebuild Iraq, the job remains overwhelmingly unfinished. The provincial reconstruction teams like those in Diyala are often understaffed and underqualified--and almost unable to work outside the military outposts where they are hunkered down for security reasons. Today, there are just 10 of the 30-person teams operating in all of Iraq.

Bush asked to double the PRT effort. Turf wars among agencies have thwarted that call.

You want to end that? Carve out some turf.

And no, Lugar’s plan for generating the bodies in some program won’t be enough, just as the State Department Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization wasn’t enough. Making this effort some bastard child of an existing agency that’s forced to beg for bodies from all the rest is not going to work. Creating a real bureaucratic center of gravity is required, and if we’re smart, we’ll take advantage of what I hope the HELP Commission will recommend and start building that cabinet-level Department of Everything Else around a USAID freed from the stifling and completely useless grip of the State Department.

With its own department, at least we could suck Congress into the responsibility of funding the peace in addition to the war. Instead of blaming all the postwar incompetence on DoD, a department neither designed nor given to such tasks, our political system would collectively and transparently deal with this enduring and enlarging challenge (failed states).

Jihad versus McWorld? The fight has always remained within Arab Islam

MECCA JOURNAL: “The Price of Progress: Transforming Islam’s Holiest Site,” by Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, 8 March 2007, p. A4.

This is not our culture versus theirs, but the desire for modernity and connectivity versus the desire for tradition and the status quo (ante, if you’re a radical Salafist).

Simply put, America is not in charge of this transformation world process called globalization.

No one from outside is telling the House of Saud to plop one of the world’s largest malls and condo developments looming over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. I mean, it’s a big country. Certainly they can plop it elsewhere.

But Saudi Arabia wants to both facilitate and take advantage of all the Muslims who visit this place, so the Disneyfication is self-inflicted for all the same reasons why we like Disney.

I mean, when you make your pilgrimage, why not hit the neighboring fast food joints, amusement park rides and lingerie shop?

Because don’t be under the impression that somehow this development crassly commercializes the uncommercial. No, the real crime here is the displacement of Mecca’s ancient and famed night market.

Mecca has long been a commercial as well as a religious center, but increasingly global brands dominate here.

Better get a move on, Osama. Time is rapidly running out.

One of the weirder military sales jobs of this administration

EDITORIAL: “Missile Fantasies,” Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 5-11 March 2007, p. 24.

I gotta admit: I’m with Putin on this one.

The notion that we need to install missile defense systems in Central Europe is just plain queer--if your sales job is Iran.

I mean, come on! Does anyone expect Tehran to pop a couple off toward Poland?

I get the notion of spreading out the costs of a system that’s never worked; why not share the pain? But it seems like we’re doing all the spending.

The real target here is Moscow, which is now threatening to deploy intermediate-range missiles previously banned from Europe. I may be stupid, but this strikes me as a missile defense system in search of a threat. To the extent we trigger Moscow’s equally idiotic response, I guess we can call it a success, except we know Russia’s missiles work and we know our missile defense system does not, so the one-upmanship here borders on the Orwellian.

It’s all part of this queer pattern with Bush-Cheney: simultaneously picking stupid fights with rising powers we’re simultaneously trying to engage for their help with rogue nations elsewhere.

The only logical assumption you can make is that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing in this administration.

China tracking nicely on BFA prediction

ARTICLE: "Religious Surge in Once-Atheist China Surprises Leaders," by Howard W. French, New York Times, 4 March 2007, p. A3.

I like French's work a lot.

Near the end of BFA, I think in "Headlines from the future," I talk about how surprisingly religious China will end up being.

This was a gut call on my part (what Art Cebrowski liked to call "data free research"), based on conversations I had with younger Chinese professionals during our adoption trip in 04. Everyone said they were raised godless and now pretty much worshiped success, and stated rather confidently that China would remain that way. My response was, wait until you get a kid and that kid grows up a bit and starts asking questions you can't answer, like the always favorite "why?" At that point, I said, "you'll be surprised how much you start turning to religion."

This story starts with a mother converting to Buddhism and then steering her daughter in that direction.

Not a particularly visionary prediction on my part, just noticing the dynamic unfolding.

This process just begins. It's why the Vatican wants in so bad.

Everyone likes an emerging market.

Price and technology AND the level of state involvement

ARTICLE: "Exxon Plans to Lift Output A Million Barrels a Day: $20 Billion a Year in Investments Are Set," by Jad Mouawad, New York Times, 8 March 2007, p. C6.

ARTICLE: "Output Falling in Oil-Rich Mexico, and Politics Gets the Blame," by Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, 9 March 2007, p. C1.

Exxon, considered the most disciplined capital spender in the biz, announces more than 20 major oil and gas projects will be started in the next three years.

Price goes up, so investment eventually follows, unleashing new technologies in the process, creating new efficiencies as a result. Basic economics.

At least when governments aren't involved. Pemex in Mexico is a slow preview to what Chavez is more rapidly accomplishing in Venezuela and highly analogous to how Iran, another classic NOC-head, has squandered it's own reserves.

Can such declines be reversed? Sure. But you have to let the connectivity in. Pemex doesn't allow any outside investment, and since Mexico gets roughly 40 percent of its fed budget from its revenue, guess how well Pemex is run?

Mexico is still so proud of nationalizing its own industry way back when, that its energy policy continues to close off "the option that most cash-starved national oil companies have used--opening up some production to joint ventures with foreign company."

As a result, Mexico will be importing oil in coming years. For now, three-quarters of all Mexicans oppose any FDI going into Pemex. We'll see what they say when the imports start.