On connecting the Islamic world to the global economy, the long fight is the good fight

■"Generals Offer Sober Outlook On Iraqi War: Slow Progress Cited in Training Local Force," by John F. Burns and Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 19 May 2005, p. A1.

■"Blowing Up an Assumption: The weak link between religion and suicide attacks," op-ed by Robert A. Pape, New York Times, 18 May 2005, p. A29.

■"Kuwait Grants Political Rights To Its Women," by Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, 17 May 2005, p. A6.

■"Bush Ties Trade Pact With Egypt to More Freedom," by Elizabeth Becker, New York Times, 19 May 2005, p. A4.

■"Uzbek Crackdown Fuels Instability In Central Asia," by ,Wall Street Journal, 19 May 2005, p. A1.

Iraq won't be "cured" any time soon. Insurgencies aren't solved in the short run, only the long term. The average "victory" takes about 10 to 12 years, as history teaches. So there's only one sort of progress, and it's called "slow."

It's not a war of ideas, meaning our political concepts versus their religious fanaticism, so if any of you want to embrace the straw-man logic that religion drives suicide bombers, be my guest.

But, frankly, Pape's research proves nothing of importance, other than to perhaps disabuse people of the role of religion in anyone's lifeómuch less death. Religion is never the reason, only the rationale.

On a happier note, Kuwait reverses itself rapidly on the question of letting women vote. Just a couple of weeks ago, I blog the parliament's apparent decision to put off the question of women's suffrage.

Oh me of little faith!

I should have stuck to my usual optimism.

Incentivize the good, penalize the bad. The Bush administration is wonderfully utilitarian in its approach on foreign aid, and nowhere should this new rule set be applied more ruthlessly than in the Big Banged Middle East. Give me your poor and hungry? Don't bother. Give me your new and improved rule sets and I'll show you the money.

Can we go too fast in the Middle East? Ask yourself, can we go too slow there if it delays our attention to Central Asia?

China-U.S.: it ain't about Taiwan, it's about the money

■"U.S. Warns China About Currency: Cites Impact on Trade and Hints at Retaliation," by Edmund L. Andrews, New York Times, 18 May 2005, p. A1.

■"U.S., China Press Yuan Row: New Shanghai Trading System May Open Door to a Compromise," by Andrew Browne, Wall Street Journal, 19 May 2005, p. A2.

■"China's Growth Ebbs, a Deterrent To Revaluation," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 19 May 2005, p. A1.

■"China Rejects Calls for Currency Changes and Limits on Textile Exports: Beijing says the U.S. and Europe are using double standards," by Chris Buckley, New York Times, 19 May 2005, p. C4.

■"China's Trade Edge: Less Than It Seems," letter to the editor by Albert Keidel, Washington Post, 19 May 2005, p. A26.

The conversation gets tougher between America and China on the yuan being artificially pegged to the dollar. Both sides will ratchet up the rhetoric while simultaneously working the short- and medium-term workarounds, like the new Shanghai electronic trading system that will provide still more bricks for the technical architecture that China needs to have in place to deal with a floating yuan. In short, China knows the days of the pegged yuan are numbered, but it's naturally going to hold onto that advantage as long as it can, especially as it economy cools.

But push will never come to shove on this issue, because that outcome serves neither side and only creates pathway dependencies that no one wants to navigate.

The business communities on both sides of the Pacific realize how our two economies are becoming mutually dependent. Does this mean war between us is impossible? No, silly rabbit. Nukes take care of that. What the economies do is make clear that all the brinksmanship BS short of war is also stupid and a waste of time, that's all.

In short, such tricks are for kids . . . and geostrategic "realists" who have their heads up their asses on global economics.

Are the Chinese right to complain about double standards? Yes, in many ways they are.

Here I simply quote the true reality well described in a thoughtful letter to the editor in today's Post

Instead of its trade surplus with the United States, economists agree, China's global surplus is a better test of its exchange-rate fairness. An unfairly cheap currency would result in a large global surplus. China's surplus with America is a quarter of the U.S. trade deficit, but the most widely accepted statistics show that China's global surplus accounts for only 8 percent of that deficit. Global surpluses from Japan, Germany and indeed the whole euro currency area account for more than 40 percent of the U.S. deficit. Including oil-exporting nations and the rest of Asia except China raises the combined global surplus to more than 75 percent of the U.S. deficit.

China can have a surplus with the United States while its global surplus is so small because of its large deficit with its neighbors. In recent years these neighbors have rerouted their exports to the United States through China for final assembly. Exports from the rest of Asia to the United States declined from 2000 to 2004 as reexports through China grew. China's much smaller global surplus indicates its exchange rate does not provide unfair advantage in trade.

A shift in China's exchange rate also is unlikely to alter the export-led growth strategies of the rest of Asia, which reflect not competition with China but their failure to stimulate domestic demand.

Neglecting to note these global and regional dimensions contributes to misguided protectionist threats against China.

How's that for getting the story right?

The so-so and wrong ways to let energy drive connectivity

■"India Takes On the World: State-Owned Oil Firm Joins Global Fight for Energy Security," by John Larkin, Wall Street Journal, 19 May 2005, p. A12.

■"Foreign Gas Companies in Bolivia Face Sharply Higher Taxes," by Juan Forero, New York Times, 18 May 2005, p. A10.

India, like so many other emerging markets, has the tendency to rely on National Oil Companies, or NOCs, to secure it's energy "security." Too bad it doesn't have any significant amounts of oil at home.

Since that's the case, India takes the logical (but hardly mature) next step of having that NOC make direct investments in oil fields around the world. I say hardly mature because this emphasis on direct investment is driven by an old-fashioned belief that the country's NOC must own the "barrel in the ground" to feel truly secure about its access, something that made more sense decades ago when oil wasn't much of a global market but makes far less sense today because such efforts typically mean the NOC in search of oil is paying too damn much for this access. Why? They inevitably end up looking for oil in countries thatófor a variety of reasonsóhaven't received the same level of attention from Western multinationals. Those reasons usually include such things as poor investment climates, too much corruption, or marginal returns because the oil is hard to access or is of a less valued quality.

So where is India's NOC investing these days? Russia (tough investment climate), Sudan (nuff said), Vietnam (You remember the argument that American fought the war over oil there? Complete BS.), and Myanmar (oh so nice).

Still, at least it's driving FDI abroad and that's some connectivity and some connectivity is better than none. So we commend India for opening outwardly, even if its choice of vehicle is less than ideal.

Bolivia is taking the opposite track in the opposite situation: it has Latin America's second-largest natural gas deposits, but apparently is intent on scaring away foreign investors from Brazil (Petrobras), France (Total) and Spain (Repsol). The antiglobalizers there believe the foreign companies have and will continue to rip off the nation, so their answer is nationalization.

Brilliant huh? If the government they have in Bolivia isn't up to creating the right legal rule set to gain a fair return from allowing such outside investment to access the gas deposits in the first place, then why would anyone believe it's capable of running those gas fields in such a way as to garner a better yield? Unfortunately, this is the mental trap that Gap countries fall into time and time again across history, begetting the slowest paths to development possible: a governmental or rich, private-sector elite controlling all the benefits from natural resources and the public assuming that somehow, if those fixed sums of wealth were better distributed, the country would experience broadband economic development. This is zero-sum thinking at its worst, and it's what keeps the Gap the Gap.

To connect to globalization is to accept change

■"The New India," op-ed by Manmohan Singh, Wall Street Journal, 19 May 2005, p. A14.

■"Dispute Tears at Mumbai: House the Rich, or the Poor?: Plan for Wasteland Ends Up in Court" by Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 17 May 2005, p. A3.

■"A French Region Considers the Costs of a New Europe," by Craig S. Smith, New York Times, 18 May 2005, p. A3.

Great op-ed by India's PM, a brilliant economist in his own right. This guy understands that engaging the global economy is a complex transaction that demands more change from within than can possibly be hoped for from outsideómeaning, you change more than the world does. But if you're willing to make those changes, it's win-win. Singh basically understands that globalization is a challenge but also a choice: embrace it and adjust or stand back and fall behindóinevitably. As he puts it, "we recognize that our real challenges are at home"ónot abroad. What globalization does to you is always far less important than what you are willing to do to adjust to globalization. Trying to stay static or hold onto the past is certainly a choice, but one that involves a diminishment of freedom that's far more profound than that associated with the change necessary to deal with globalization's complex mix of up-sides and down-sides.

Will India be forced to make a load of difficult choices internally as it opens up? Sure. Just watch how Mumbai agonizes over the question of how to improve the city without making it hostile to ambitious people streaming in from the countryside looking for opportunity. India cannot "core" itself only in pockets; it needs to bring the poor along for the ride. Otherwise it cannot continue effectively as a democracy.

These choices are no less difficult in Old Core nations like France, where the "haves" want to keep what they've gotóas isóa whole lot more than face the challenge of moving up the production chain. So when a business wants to relocate to Eastern Europe in search of cheaper factory labor, does France go down the pathway of pricing itself out of the global economy or take up the challenge of moving those displaced factory workers onto some higher rung on the development ladder? Can France only hold onto aging definitions of the good life by denying Romania such opportunity? Is that the best its government and private sector can manage?

This is a huge theme in Blueprint for Action, or the notion that America will naturally gravitate toward the New Core's way of thinking on globalization's promise and peril rather than drift back to the Old Core's tendency to want to hold onto the "golden past."

Science and math as the fastest personal pathways toward connectivity

■"For Immigrants, Math Is a Way to Success: The high school population is 22% Asia; the math club is 94.4% Asian," by Michael Winerip, New York Times, 18 May 2005, p. A19.

In "Mean Girls" (great movie), Lindsey Lohan's character Cady explains that she loves math because numbers are the ultimate universal language. Perhaps not a very scholarly citation, but what can I say? I like redheads.

Tom Friedman raises a lot of legitimate concerns about education in the U.S. in his "World is Flat" book, but you have to wonder if that simple reasonóit's the universal language (math and science)óis what accounts for both the high concentration of immigrant and foreign students in these fields in the U.S. and the rising tide of such human capital in countries like India and China. In effect, it's the quickest and simplest route to success on an individual level in the global economy.

I mean, that's the sort of bias that Americans long held (professional industrial and research) but don't seem to display to the same degree anymore. Does that mean we're falling behind or just moving beyond? As others swamp the technical jobs where memorization is the key initial skill set, does it make sense for America to seek to hold that line or move on to the next thingóyou know, that argument about switching to the other side of the brain that emphasizes creativity and what not? When IBM sells its PC production to Lenovo, is it "falling behind" or moving ahead? And if that's the case (moving ahead), then why would it be so different with human capital?

You know, there is always that tendency to fight the last war andóby doing soóassuming you're protecting your future when you're really just trying to hold onto your past. That's not to say that all those Indian and Chinese engineers are going to be working existing or dated technology, because they're sure as hell not going to be doing just that. I'm just wonderingóin the manner of that Feb Wired article by Pinker, was it?ówhether or not the rather ritualistic cries of America is "falling dangerously behind" that we seem to get every time our economy slows down relative to the up-and-coming high-fliers are any more profound or correct than they were last time, or the time before that, or the one before even that one.

Or do we trust in the marketplace and individual ambition to sort things out absent the "crash programs," the "man-to-the-moon" efforts, and the "Manhattan projects"?

Not saying I know. Just saying I'm skeptical of the usual doomsaying.

Errata: No. It wasn't "Pinker, was it?"

Kim Jong Il is no shrinking violet, meanwhile his people simply shrink

■"What to Do About a Country That Has a Nuclear Threat and No Use for Rules," book review by William Grimes, New York Times, 18 May 2005, p. B8.

Yet another book out about Kim Jong Il's amazingly cruel rule, but one that's sloppily written according to this reviewer, who twice gave the "late 1980s" as the timeframe of the massive famine that killed so many in North Korea (actually, it was the late 1990s, so it's a case of the reviewer [kettle] calling the author [pot] black!). Book is called "Rogue Regime" and it's by journalist Jasper Becker.

Two interesting things from the review: First, the factoid that North Koreans are, on average, 8 inches shorter than their South Korean twins and roughly one-half their weight. Amazing huh? Considering they were simply separated "at birth" a mere half century or so ago.

Second point is the bit that ends the review: "Mr. Becker also argues for giving up on the United Nations as a means of bringing North Korea back within the international fold and instead creating, along lines proposed by Tony Blair, "a new framework in international law" to deal with rogue states and "a method to enforce these laws through the legitimate use of military force."

That's basically what I have called the "A to Z rule set for processing politically bankrupt states" in past writings, including the conclusion to PNM. This concept is a cornerstone of my second book, Blueprint for Action, constituting a big piece of the first chapter. I guess I should not be surprised to read that someone who worries about Kim and our inability to do anything about him with the current rule set describing something similar, nor that Tony Blair has argued for the same basic concept. I have long considered Blair to be, in many ways, the perfect political expression of leadership for the current ageóthe great debater and storyteller who can describe both the rationales for action in the short term and the happy ending that defines the long haul's positive outcome.

Yes, yes, I know. Blair is now "discredited" in the UK over the lack of WMD in Iraq, but that alleged ignominy only highlights the very need for what he describes. With the A-to-Z rule set, the Core's political leaders aren't forced into overselling the "imminent threat."

Staring at America's future in L.A.

■"Villaraigosa Wins Easily in L.A. Mayoral Runoff" by Amy Argetsinger and Kimberly Edds, Washington Post, 19 May 2005, p. A1.

■"In L.A., a Pol for a Polyglot City," op-ed by Harold Meyerson, Washington Post, 19 May 2005, p. A1.

Meyerson's op-ed on L.A.' s first Hispanic mayor in modern times is interesting, comparing Villaraigosa's rise to that of Fiorello La Guardia in 1933. In his reasoning, La Guardia's victory wasn't just some generalized New Deal push, nor simply a rejection of Tammany Hall-style politics of corruption, but rather a triumph of Italians and Jews against a political system they saw too heavily weighted in favor of the Irish.

Fast forward to this era's version of an immigration boom, and its Hispanics increasingly realize their growing voting power to step up to the gavel in cities seemingly fractured by an ever increasingly diverse mix of cultures.

Here's the rising tide: in the 2000 census, Hispanics accounted for 47 percent of L.A. residents but only 15% of the voters, because so many were noncitizens. By 2005, that percentage of voters rises to 25%! Still not enough to win on its own but enough to get their own up on the stump and fighting with a reasonable chance of stitching together a coalition.

Get used to this phenomenon. As usual, California shows the way.

Durham NC after tobacco? Fat chance!

■"Penny-Wise, Not Pound-Foolish: City Cashes In as Mecca for the Hefty (With Wallets to Match)," by Stephanie Saul, New York Times, 19 May 2005, p. B1.

Interesting story about how former tobacco-is-king Durham is becoming the "Lourdes for the obese," or the self-professed "Diet Capital of the World." Why go there? It's the combination of self-selection and determination (deciding to commit yourself to living there for a stretch of time) and the concentration of specialized docs, businesses that cater to their needs, andóof courseófellow dieters.

Durham apparently has been known for its dieting prowess going back to the 1930s, as the famous Rice Diet had its origins here.

What intrigued me about the piece is that there is always "life after . . . " whatever. People move on. Businesses adapt. Entrepreneurs spot a regional advantage or simply invent one.

It's a science called . . . the free market.

A man of property

Dateline: in the loft at Nona's, Terre Haute IN, 18 May 2005

The sellers of plot 16 accepted our offer today at 3pm. No counter. So now we own 4/5ths of an acre of old-growth woods in Indiana, already zoned and plotted and surveyed for residential housing.

Spent the afternoon with the builder in his nearby house going over plans, then looked at a few rentals (yuck!) that were 1,200-1,500 square feet usable and costing too much, plus there's this big yard to maintain and so on and so forth and I just said to myself: simplify. The six-months of construction will fly by, my wife will be hugely busy with all the decisions on the house, plus three kids in a new school, plus our youngest, plus me with my book coming out--so just forget the rental house. We store everything but the essentials and get a luxury 3 bedroom apartment, which in this part of Indiana goes for about a grand a month ("luxury" is less expensive here all right).

So for six months my new home office will consist of a small built in desk just inside the front door of the apartment--a whopping 4x5 space, but with high-speed connection, so I'll be fine. Brand new complex with heated pool, playground, etc. It'll be weird, like urban camping, but we just have beds and clothes and what we need for school and work and everything else will be stored.

I sign the lease tomorrow on my way out of town and rent a storage space as well. We break ground on the house in 30 days.

The deeds are all done.

I return home from my week with no business travel--finally.

Newsletter in PDF format

This week's Newsletter from Thomas P.M. Barnett is now available as a PDF.

I'll convert the other two later tonight.

David Ignatius on the rise of the SysAdmin force (Washington Post column)

Dateline: in the loft at Nona's, Terre Haute IN, 18 May 2005

You know why Ignatius writes these sorts of interesting op-eds? The man really puts in the miles and the hours, going to things like the Highlands Forum where he was exposed to that impressive brief on the Defense Science Board report, which is probably (and I'm not the only one who thinks this) the single most important and best-researched report the DSB has ever produced.

Absent guys like Ignatius pushing these things out into the public's eye, no one would ever hear of these things. So like Greg Jaffe of the Journal, Ignatius becomes someone I always read because he's a rare journalist who's that plugged into the defense community that he serves as an effective bellweather of when a concept hits the public's radar. Life in my world is so amazingly insular, we need guideposts like this.

Here's the opening snippets of the piece, found at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701327.html, along with his nice plug for PNM:

A Quiet Transformation
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, May 18, 2005; Page A17

As the United States was struggling with the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, the historian Niall Ferguson published a book arguing that America needed the modern equivalent of the old British Colonial Office to build political stability in far-flung places . . .

. . . behind the scenes, the administration is debating a range of major policy changes that would move in that direction -- transforming the military services, the State Department and other agencies in ways that would help the United States do better what it botched so badly in Iraq . . .

The most creative analysis is a study that Rumsfeld requested last year from the elite Defense Science Board . . .

The first recommendation by the Defense Science Board was that the military apply its genius for logistics and management to peacemaking as well as war-fighting . . . "The military services need to reshape and rebalance their forces to provide a stabilization and reconstruction capability" . . .

The Defense Science Board study tracks arguments made by the most influential defense intellectual writing these days, Thomas P.M. Barnett. He argued last year in "The Pentagon's New Map" that the U.S. military should be divided into two forces that reflect its differing missions: a "Leviathan" force, centered around the Air Force and Navy, that could apply overwhelming power quickly anywhere in the world; and what he called a "System Administrator" force, based in the Army and Marines, that could win the decisive battle to stabilize and rebuild nations in the aftermath of conflict.

These radical post-Iraq ideas are beginning to take root. At the State Department, there's a new Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization under director Carlos Pascual . . .

Pentagon's New Map Poster

Now available at Amazon.

To save you sending the emails ...

C-SPAN reran my "Booknotes" interview by Brian Lamb last weekend. This triggers a lot of emails on how to buy that DVD, as well as those of my two briefs broadcast on C-SPAN last year.

Here are the direct links:

1) for "Booknotes" DVD, go to www.c-spanstore.org/shop/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&cPath=18_24&products_id=182064-1&template=2&zenid=932ade78510dbdf6ffeb4fe07f1e40e4

2) For the maximum-version brief at National Defense U in June of 2004, broadcast first over Labor Day weekend of 2004, go to www.c-spanstore.org/shop/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=182105-1

3) For the shorter 90-minute brief at the Highlands Forum in December of 2004, plus the 20 December follow-on call-in show live in C-SPAN's studio with Steve Scully, go to www.c-spanstore.org/shop/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=184707-1

Support C-SPAN!

Unfortunately, they get all the proceeds. It's almost socialist but I owe Lamb too much to ever complain!

ZenPundit's historical take on Kaplan's piece on war with China

Brilliantly executed: http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2005/05/time-for-kaplan-to-come-in-from-cold.html

Plot lines established

Dateline: my realtor's office, Greenwood IN, 17 May 2005, 61 days til the move

Blogged a bit in the morning at my mother-in-law's, and then sped to Indy in her Audi A4 to meet our desired builder at the desired lot. It's a beautifully big pie "wedge" off the cul-de-sac that rings in at about 4/5ths of an acre, with trees covering the lot. The old growth forest here features trees that are easily 50-70 feet high, many of them oak. The plan would be to clear out everything less than about four inches in diameter, cutting just enough for our house's footprint. We should end up with a great tree-lined lot and shaded back yard that's perfect for a big playset and room to run around.

After talking to our builder and setting up an afternoon meeting at his place tomorrow, I shot a load of pictures of the lot, and ended up meeting the elderly woman whose property abuts what will be the back of our lot. Wilma has lived in her house since 1960, and like most of the older people with original houses on the country road just beyond the backside of the development where our lot is located, she says she likes the peace and quiet of the location. Of course, that changes slowly over time as sub-developments push southward from Indy, but unlike in the north, the growth down here seems measured and unfolding at a reasonable pace. Plus, Wilma wants to see children running around, so I think she's going to like the playset.

Then I did something to make me feel at home at the new homestead before leaving: I gave a phone interview over my cell. Yesterday I was contacted by a Paris-based correspondent of the Iranian News Agency (IRNA) for an interview about alleged American war plans for invading Iran. Was I willing to be interviewed? Sure, I said, call me on my cell.

So he called me while I was in the wooded lot and I spoke with him for about 30 minutes, trying to spot myself roughly where I figured my office might go. His English was bad, but better than either my Farsi or my decades-old French, so I forgave him. I kept asking him how he would identify me in the piece (fearing I'd be called US Government when I no longer am) and he kept replying that he found me on the Internet and that I shouldn't be so upset that I kept on asking him over and over again!

I finally gave up on that one and told him to simply fire away.

He asked expected questions and I gave my usual answers, basically saying that it's the support for terror groups that lands Iran in hot water on the nuclear issue. No support for terrorism, then reaching for nukes would still get Iran a lot of interest, but not threats of war or invasion. As for the ìsecret plansî to invade, I just said, ìCome on! It's called a global war on terrorism, you support terrorism, you want the bomb, and we put all that together and get nervous. When we get nervous we plan. How can that be a surprise to anyone?î I also said the mullahs were basically screwed: pursue the bomb to stay in power and you risk military interventions. Pursue economic connectivity with the outside world and you become politically marginalized. Either way, mullahs, your days are numbered as political heavyweights in Iran. So light 'em if you got 'em.

The journalist was very nice. He reminded me a lot of talking to Soviet journalists. They were always smart guys, otherwise they'd never get such good jobs overseas, but to keep those jobs they had to go through the motions. So the interaction always had/has a sense of fakeness or theatricality: you pretend to ask your tough questions, Mr. Journalist, and I'll pretend to give you answers you haven't heard before.

I ended by directing him to the Feb article in Esquire, saying it presented my ideas on Iran and the bomb most clearly.

I wrote up this post at my realtor's office later in the afternoon, penning the article posts below that I had left over from yesterday's catch. For some reason I neglected to grab my mother-in-law's NYT as I left this morning, otherwise I would have had enough to do to keep me busy while I waited on my realtor to return from a showing up north. I wanted to draw up an offer for the lot before heading back to Terre Haute for the night, otherwise I'd feel like I hadn't really accomplished anything by this day trip to Indy. With any luck we'll have a lot in hand before I fly back to RI on Thursday. Conceivably, our builder could be clearing the lot by the beginning of June. Exciting to think about.

Here's the daily catch:

■ The BRAC fight begins in earnest

■ Islam's many faces on display

The BRAC fight begins in earnest

■"Pentagon Urges Closing of Bases, Cutting 26,000 Jobs: 180 Sites Listed-Opposition Is Intense," by Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 14 May 2005, p. A1.

■"All-Navy, Groton Is Stunned At Plans to Close Its Sub Base: The Submarine Capital of the World faces a grim future," by Kirk Semple, New York Times, 16 May 2005, p. A21.

The Base Realignment and Closure list hit the streets last Friday, with 33 major bases listed. It's the first BRAC in roughly a decade. Because of the Global War on Terrorism, this BRAC won't represent a reduction in force so much as a rearranging from a Cold War footprint to one more suited for dealing with the Gap on a regular basis.

The list of proposed closures goes to a commission which will hold hearings and make inspection visits over coming months. In the previous four rounds, these commissions have approved between 80-90 percent of the proposed closures, so some backsliding expected but not too much.

The biggest single loser is no surprise: the U.S. naval submarine community loses the big base at Groton, CT, self-described "submarine capital of the world." Groton will fight this, of course, but I suspect this closure will go as planned. Still, you see why it is so crucial for that community to argue for a big focus on China as a rising threat. No near-peer, and the submarine community gets increasingly marginalized. That's why getting someone like Robert Kaplan to hawk their preferred future war vision with China is seen as crucial. You might think this is all about great power politics and rising powers and what not, but in the end it's more about the defense budget. If the submarine community were perceived to have a large role in the GWOT, then it wouldn't be so desperate to demonize China at all costs.

This is where Americans should be grateful that, in our system, neither the military nor celebrity journalists get to decide who our enemies are.

Islam's many faces on display

■"Bush Country: America's president bears the gift of Wilsonian redemption," op-ed by Fouad Ajami, Wall Street Journal, 16 May 2005, p. A16.

■"Tragicomedy of Life in Baghdad Is Brought Home in a TV Series," by Robert F. Worth, New York Times, 14 May 2005, p. A1.

■"Vroom-Vroom, She Said to the Doubters," by Otto Pohl, New York Times, 14 May 2005, p. A4.

■"Turks to Fight 'Honor Killings' of Women: A campaign against traditions now seen as brutal," by Sebnem Arsu, New York Times, 16 May 2005, p. A10.

■"'Martyrs' In Iraq Mostly Saudis: Web Sites Track Suicide Bombings," by Susan B. Glasser, Washington Post, 15 May 2005, p. A1.

Fouad Ajami writes the most sensible stuff on the Middle East that I've read since 9/11. Naturally, he writes for the Journal. This is another of his great op-eds. Here are the opening paras:

"George W. Bush has unleashed a tsunami on this region," a shrewd Kuwaiti merchant who knows the way of his world said to me. The man had no patience with the standard refrain that Arab reform had to come from within, that a foreign power cannot alter the age-old ways of the Arabs. "Everything here-the borders of these states, the oil explorations that remade the life of this world, the political outcomes that favored the elites now in the saddle-came from the outside. This moment of possibility for the Arabs is no exception." A Jordanian of deep political experience at the highest reaches of Arab political life had no doubt as to why history suddenly broke in Lebanon, and could conceivably change in Syria itself before long. "The people in the streets of Beirut knew that no second Hama is possible; they knew that the rulers were under the gaze of American power, and knew that Bush would not permit a massive crackdown by the men in Damascus."

Hama refers to a Syrian city where an anti-Baathist revolt was brutally suppressed in the early 1980s, resulting in-it is believed-roughly 25,000 deaths.

So Ajami is an historian who gives Bush plenty of credit for making this Big Bang work in the Middle East. Ajami has, in the past, wavered a bit on the question, but he believes in seeing reality for what it is, and so he credits Bush specifically, knowing full well that none of what's happened in the Middle East over the past year was predicted, except by those who believed that laying a Big Bang on the region by toppling Saddam sure as hell beat anything we had attempted in the past, as well as the option of doing nothing whatsoever (the Bush administration's plan prior to 9/11).

Iraq has, as Ajami notes, over 250 daily and weekly newspapers now, dozens of private TV channels and radio stations and a press that's as free and as spunky as any in the world. Tough work? Yes. But give a society real freedom and it's not hard to find people willing to take such risks.

Ajami ends the piece by suggesting that what's going on right now in the region is akin to Europe's wave of revolutions starting in France in 1848. If he's right, then history will indeed judge the American people wise in sticking with George Bush another four years, despite what it may cost us in other areas Ö

All that freedom of the press is being put to interesting use in Iraq, as a public under the intense pressure of an insurgency and all the violence it begets at least gets to vent some of it through mass media entertainment, which is flourishing like never before. The biggest show right now is "Love and War," a TV drama that follows the lives of its main characters amidst the insurgency. In the series' season end to be broadcast this June, two characters are killed by a suicide bombing at their own wedding. Part black comedy and part brutally realistic, the show is beyond huge in Iraq and is likewise a must-see for Iraqis living abroad thanks to satellite TV.

What does it say about a society under stress? It says that real freedom can get you through the worst of times. As long as people can express their fears and frustrations and anger, society muddles through Ö

Another interesting capture: the 28-year-old female Iranian car racer (what a shot of her wearing a veil and holding her helmet under one arm!). She is often called the "little Schumacher" because her idol is Formula One racer Michael Schumacher, and she's working on her PhD in industrial management at Tehran U on the side. Laleh Seddigh is described in the article as "a lively, energetic symbol of a whole generation of young Iranians who are increasingly testing social boundaries." Seventy percent of the population is under 35-70 percent! Women were allowed to watch men's sports in Iran only a few years ago, so you can imagine the excitement Seddigh causes at the race track.

It's this sort of story that reinforces my sense that Iran is an authoritarian regime that's ripe for being dismembered by connectivity, not one to be isolated by sanctions. Talking to Iranians right now is like talking to Soviets in 1984: you just pick up that sense that the end is near and they can't wait to be friends. We shoot ourselves in the foot with our obsession on the mullahs getting the bomb; we put the mullahs in the drivers' seat by doing this when in reality we should be putting Seddigh's restive generation in the driver's seat Ö

Turkey's government is leading a social education campaign designed to end the social practice of "honor killings," or when a family kills one of its female relatives for bringing "dishonor" to the family, typically for out-of-wedlock sex. It's a sign of why Turkey gets close to entering the Core but still has a way to go Ö

One regime that has even farther to go is the House of Saud, but at least its home-grown terrorists don't have to travel so far in their quest now for jihadist martyrdom. With the insurgency still going fairly strong in neighboring Iraq, it's just a hop, skip and a jump in terms of jihadist commutes.

Of course, if they decide to bring their work home with them, so much the better . . .

Praktike: Barnett v. Kaplan

Posted at Liberals Against Terrorism (emphasis mine)

Context:

Pacific muddies Atlantic; Kaplan Spanked!!!

Burning Bridges

Burning bridges

Dateline: in the loft at Nona's, Terre Haute IN, 17 May 2005

Yes, I will confess to being rude in the newsletter article on Kaplan. It's a skill set I mastered in DC years ago and I do it well. I try not to engage in such attack writing unless I feel compelled, and I felt compelled with Kaplan's piece on China.

What Newsweek recently did in its story on interrogations was the journalistic equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowed theater. People died as a result, and they should answer for this professionally.

What Kaplan does in the Atlantic Monthly piece is, in my opinion, basically the same thing--only in slow motion, so to speak. Fear-mongering and war-mongering is reprehensible and morally wrong. If you believe a legitimate case for war exists, like enforcing the global community's emerging rule sets against certain forms of very bad behavior (e.g., Saddam, Kim, Mugabe, etc.), that's one thing. But there's no such argument with China along these lines, and Kaplan does not even seek to make such arguments. Instead, he's just pushing the inevitability argument and trying to plant that seed in the minds of Americans: Get used to thinking about war with China!

Again, I think that position is both terribly wrong in a strategic sense (Kaplan seems to have no understanding of global economics whatsoever, and seems very untroubled by that lack of understanding) and VERY indefensible in a moral sense. Some so-callled strategists simply revel in the notions of war and conflict and chaos and suffering, and I think Kaplan is one of them. I personally find that mindset perverse and its application in professional endeavors like high-prrofile articles of this sort to be morally wrong.

And I don't mind being incredibly rude in pointing that out. In fact, I think it's the only way to go until these types are shouted off the stage.

Good counter on biotech argument

Dateline: in the loft at Nona's, Terre Haute IN, 17 May 2005

Yesterday I wrote about America moving on to the next big thing in economics: biotech revolution and what not.

Good counter in email from Manuel Sandoval:

In that same article you quote "*Inventing Our Evolution: We're almost
able to build better human beings. But are we ready?"* Ray Kurzweil
notes that most of this innovation is being pursued outside the U.S. not
in it.

"All the political energy that has gone into this issue -- it is not

even slowing down the most narrow approach." It is simply being pursued

outside the United States -- in China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,

Scandinavia and Great Britain, where scientists will probably achieve

success first, he notes."

This is what I think Friedman is talking about when he says we are

loosing the race, that is, we are letting others do the innovation the

world has come to expect from the U.S. even when it comes to inventing

our evolution.

Points well taken on the article, the industry and Friedman (and yes, I'm trying to be less critical of him).

My counter is to cite the following logical dynamic: Yes: New Core countries like China and India will take more risks in this sort of thing and as they achieve successes first in certain instances, that will blow away a lot of reservations in the U.S. on this sort of thing. Why? We'll fear the competition and we'll want to make the money.

Then there's the larger point of where's the market for this sort of stuff? Here America is clearly the prize because we worship technology and want to be yound and good-looking for as long as possible. We're the ultimate individualists and the economy with the most disposable income in the system, so even if China and India were to pioneer (and they will, as I write in Blueprint for Action, perform this role time and again), watch the commoditization of the technology proceed first and foremost in the U.S.

This is yet another example of why I argue at length in BFA that the U.S. will have to come to grips with the emerging reality that we're more like the New Core than the Old Core.

But I thank Mr. Sandoval for pushing me on this. I met Kurzweil very briefly at the TED conference in Monterey in February. You can hear his brain humming at idle from a distance of about 10 yards.