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Next iteration reality check

ANALYSIS: Myth of the New Cold War, By Stephen Kotkin, Russia Profile 4/08, Ocnus.Net, Mar 27, 2008

Very nice piece. As Americans, we tend to be so unrealistic about what I like to call the "next iteration." Any change that occurs, we immediately telescope it into a "complete victory" for us, and when it turns out to be something short of that, we express betrayal, as though our own history happened in a heartbeat instead of dragging on for decades on end before approaching anything close to what we'd respect today as a "democracy."

I remain amazed at what a deal Gorby gave us, and completely un-disappointed by how it was altered by Yeltsin and Putin.

(Thanks: C6H5X)

Give a dictator enough rope!

ARTICLE: Raul Castro: Cubans can have cell phones, By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press, Mar 29, 2008

(Thanks: Dan Hare)

Tom's speaking in Mass.

Monday night: Amherst

Tuesday 4:30 pm: Middlebury

And that's all the info I've got. If you look into it and get any more, pass it on to me, ok?

This week's column

China's capitalism isn't so foreign

Western powers today fear that China's stunning rise signals a real challenge to the notion that economic growth triggers democracy. While I understand such fears, let me tell you why they're unfounded: China's economy increasingly mirrors our own.

As business academics William Baumol, Robert Litan and Carl Schramm argue in their 2007 book, "Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism," there are basically four types of capitalism operating today.

Read on at Scripps Howard.
Read on at KnoxNews.

50 constant experiments

OP-ED: Pennsylvania is For Globalization Optimists, By David Ignatius, Real Clear Politics

Very nice, long-thinking piece by Ignatius. This is why we're so good: 50 experiments constantly running, seeing who can produce the best outcomes. The odds against most states are thus 50-to-1 in our favor.

That's why we're so competitive over the long haul, despite our constant tinkering--sometimes quite dangerously.

(Thanks: Jake in Austin)

Iraq is to moose hunting as...

Tom got this email from Jeff Hasselberger:

>Tom

In explaining the Leviathan/SysAdmin concept to a moose-hunting friend, I noticed that he immediately groked the concept. Using a moose-based analogy he said, 'Once you pull the trigger, the fun's over,' and compared the difficulty of hauling a 1,400-pound dead animal out of the deep woods to what we¬πve been up against in Iraq.

The analogy gave me a chuckle, so I pass it along.

Tom writes:

Nice analogy.

The dance with Pakistan

ARTICLE: U.S. Steps Up Unilateral Strikes in Pakistan, By Robin Wright and Joby Warrick, Washington Post, March 27, 2008; Page A01

Scary combination: we step up unilateral strikes inside another nation because we fear their new leadership will back away from such commitments. Does that sound sustainable to you?

Function in search of real force

ARTICLE: UK sets up force for failing states in wake of Iraq, By Katherine Baldwin, Reuters, Mar 19, 2008

The Brits ante up a SysAdmin force chip that--last time I heard--the EU had considered and rejected. Still, a nice gesture from the usual suspect.

The thing with all such proposals? By itself it's almost meaningless, but combined with a serious U.S. dedicated effort, it can really add up fast.

For now, it's a function in search of a real force.

(Thanks: Roverfixer)

The great man speaks!

POST: Neil Nyren Comes Back to Murderati!, March 21, 2008

Writing for a publishing legend is good work if you can get it. Intimidating because you realize that there's no good reason for you to fail.

Nice moves

ARTICLE: Corps Plans Humanitarian Task Forces, By Bryant Jordan, Military.com, March 21, 2008

More moves in the direction of the SysAdmin force/function, dovetailing the Marines nicely with the Navy.

(Thanks: Brad Lena)

Long War, soft power

ARTICLE: Study Calls for 'Soft Power' Tactics, Virginian-Pilot, March 19, 2008

When you have Chet Richards out in front of the study, arguing its logic, then that's pretty impressive.

I've been briefing the SysAmin and Dept. of Everything Else ideas for years, sometimes 4-5 times to the same audiences. In many stretches, I'd think to myself that it had gotten old and I should just give up, especially when you see people whine--with real righteousness--about the extreme costs associated with Iraq.

The smart ones say to themselves, "We've got to do better."

It's not the globalization of COIN to fight a global insurgency so much as it's making globalization truly global in a reasonably fair and sustainable manner. When you see the rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds, you realize, things have changed and so allies must change if we're going to ride with history's tides instead of insisting on swimming against them by planning a defense posture that tries to counter ALL threats--the very essence of non-strategic thought.

The Brits under Blair and now Brown give us big hints as to the look and feel of what we should be after. The "Beijing Consensus" tells us much about the cluster of positions we'll inevitably be forced to accommodate.

You can fight all these things and say, "it's the American way," or you can remember your own nation's history better and realize that the world is following the American way right now--just not today's version.

We can help that process along or we can obstruct it in the name of 20th-century definitions of threat.

(Thanks: Endre Lunde)

Send her victorious...

ARTICLE: Brown plans to send British civilian force to conflict zones, By Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, March 20 2008

The Brits seem to lead the way on sensibly mixing their old think on national security with new think on globalization.

(Thanks: Paul Hayes)

Tom around the web

More links resulting from the Esquire article on Fallon:

+ Daily Dreamtime, Snuffysmith's Blog and Juan Cole all reprinted a piece by William R. Polk
+ Michael Barone
+ Pajamas Media
+ Las Vegas Sun
+ GROUNDSWELL
+ Phillip Carter
+ Mary Ellen O'Connell
+ The Current (CBC Radio)
+ Rational Left
+ zenpundit
+ America: the National Catholic Weekly
+ Helen Thomas (famous White House Press Corps newswoman)
+ [My] State Failure Blog
+ Left in Alabama

+ OpEdNews linked the the Conversations with History video on Google.
+ WeckUpToThees! is worried about all the men in China (but mentions Tom as someone who says 'relax').
+ Kindred Winecoff linked Arguing from different worlds.
+ Asia Logistics Wrap wrote about Development-in-a-Box.
+ HG's WORLD linked last week's column.
+ Looks like ITE 130 is watching the TED video again.
+ Ryan Erwin linked the TED video.
+ Draconian Observations linked The Map and wrote about the Core and Gap.
+ Red Telephone linked And so it begins ...

Obama outlook

SPEECH: The World Beyond Iraq, By Barack Obama, March 19, 2008

Bit more forceful than McCain's call. Whether she's associated right now or not, I'd expect Power to appear high in any Obama White House.

(Thanks: Patrick O'Connor)

Imagine a beautiful relationship with Russia

POST: France, Russia and the EU, By Judah Grunstein, World Politics Review Blog, 13 Mar 2008

POST: Russia's European Courtship, By Judah Grunstein, World Politics Review Blog, 15 Mar 2008

Remember Trenin's piece: Moscow's view of global economy pretty much the same as ours and it's not afraid to use force in crises.

This should be a beautiful relationship on that basis alone.

Note also the fixed rotary: long pole in the SysAdmin tent.

(Thanks: Vadim Frenkel)

Want democracy in the ME? Embrace Shia

OP-ED: A new partner in the Mideast, By Stephen Kinzer, Boston Globe, March 14, 2008

A nice summation of how to get our way the fastest in the region. Key thing in general, Vali Nasr would argue, is that, if we want democracy to emerge on some level over time, we need to get a lot more comfortable with the reality of the Shia revival. They're half the population from Lebanon to Pakistan.

Fascinating to watch a military start-up

TRANSCRIPT: General Ward Testifies on U.S. Africa Command before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Mar 13, 2008

AFRICOM POSTURE STATEMENT: Ward Updates Congress on U.S. Africa Command, Mar 13, 2008

Horse's mouth stuff.

This week's column

Linking Africa's future to rising India and China

Based on a new World Bank study titled "Africa's Silk Road," I'm happy to report that recent economic developments in Africa are both real and indicative of tremendous opportunity. I know you've heard a lot about Africa's "resurgence" lately, but these developments are truly market-driven and not merely the result of outsiders' good intentions.

As economist Paul Collier likes to say, it's important to distinguish between the development "biz," or the world of official development aid, and development "buzz," or the periodic rush of celebrity interest. Both are worthy in their own ways but largely ineffectual over the long haul in that they treat symptoms more than disease. While it's crucial to respond to humanitarian crises, such resource flows tend to evaporate once the triggering events die down.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

No need to sway on global warming

People keep sending me stuff for and against to influence what I write in the book.

Here's the deal: in my mind the dynamic "for" or "against" is superseded by a number of elements in the future.

Meaning, I'm beyond caring about that data.