Wolf on how this era’s globalization handle oil shocks better than previous ones

OP-ED: “The blessed borrower helps the world survive an oil shock,” by Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 17 May 2006, p. 13.

ARTICLE: “Profit makes Japan ‘America’s No. 1 cash cow in Asia,’” by Paul Wiseman, USA Today, 17 May 2006, p. 1B.

ARTICLE: “Next Wave of Camera-Wielding Tourists Is From China: As tens of millions of Chinese travel, the world starts to notice,” by Howard D. French, New York Times, 17 May 2006, p. A3.

Wolf is simply the best columnist out there today writing on globalization. You want serious understanding of complex trends and processes, then he’s your man.

This is a stellar piece that shows his analysis at its best.

He starts by asking whether or not we should be fearful of this oil shock, then tells us why the answer is no: this time around, unlike the 1970s, the main absorber of the influx of additional capital caused by higher energy prices is the U.S., not fragile Third World economies.

This shock, he admits, is size-wise as big as the 1970s version. But the difference in the global economy today is that (quoting an IMF report), because of “improved monetary frameworks and credibility, the impact on short-term interest rates, growth and inflation has been smaller than before, while deeper financial integration may facilitate the persistence of deficits.”

Deficits here refers to current account deficits among oil importers, and here is where you see how the expansion of the global economy with the New Core changes things a lot.

In the 1970s, rich countries were not big borrowers, despite the deficits on oil. So the oil surplus capital was shunted in the direction of less-developed countries in the “recycling” process that subsequently triggered the debt crises of the 1980s.

This time, Old Core countries other than the U.S. are “running a substantial aggregate current account surplus” which more than offsets the rise in oil prices. Meanwhile, Gap states are, on average, running far smaller deficits in aggregate, so “they are far less likely to fall into big difficulties over indebtedness” (hence the IMF looking for new sources of budgetary revenue).

Then to turn to New Core giant China, and its current account surplus is twice the rise in energy deficit it’s had to absorb, so no problem there.

That leaves heavy borrower America, security provider to the world, to absorb the excess capital, and that keeps things pretty safe economically.

So Wolf concludes:

Bless is the borrower, for it keeps the world humming. When oil-exporting countries are trying to accumulate claims on the rest of the world, as they are now, it is good that the dominant supplier of the desired claims are not uncreditworthy oil-importing developing countries borrowing in foreign currencies, but the US borrowing in its own. This is a big improvement over the 1970s. Moreover, because high oil prices must generate higher deficits in oil-importing countries, the sustainable size of US current account deficits and liability accumulations has risen. The assumption that US deficits need to fall drastically makes less sense in our post-oil shock world.

Yet, if oil exporters, advanced countries (excluding the US) in aggregate and China, the world’s most dynamic country, run large current account surpluses over a long period, the accumulation of liabilities by the US will be massive. The US is the world’s most creditworthy--and so most satisfactory--issuer of claims. For this reason, its role as borrower of last resort has helped explain the absence of any economic downturn this time. But, as the recent market turmoil suggest, even its back is not infinitely broad. Other creditworthy countries should share the load.

Brilliant stuff, making clear that integrating the New Core deeper into the ranks of “made economies” with middle classes that consume like crazy is an essential task of America’s globalization strategy in years to come.

And as the two other articles cited above suggest, that’s moving along nicely with Japan and China, whose current boom in tourism suggests a pathway repeat of Japan’s emergence in the 1970s and 1980s.

Checking in after a long week

DATELINE: Delta flights from Little Rock to Cincy and Cincy to Indy, 19 May 2006

Had a great day yesterday at Clinton Presidential Center. Arrive around 10 at airport, with my heavy allergy suffering seguing (I think) into a cold, but I'm armed with some Alka Seltzer so I'm muscling my way through the day's events, which are non-stop.

A Clinton school official picks me up at the airport and we drive to the complex, which includes the Clinton School of Public Service (housed in an old railroad building set next to a similarly aged 19th-century bridge), the sleek new archives building, and the even more futuristic (with it's implied "bridge to the 21st century") library museum (to which the archives is connected).

First off I spend some time touring the school with dean Tom Bruce, who gives me an interesting primer on the differences and similarities of the 7 presidential schools (Wilson, Truman, JFK, Johnson, Ford, Bush, and Clinton--with only the Wilson not attached to a library museum) and how the Clinton school is focused on "public service" vice policy or administration.

Then a great lunch at Cafe 42 under the "bridge to the 21st century." Had great catfish and sweet potato fries, which is part of the school's recent push to promote sweet potato agriculture in the delta region nearby (actually, they beat regular fries by a ways in both taste and nutrition, so I think they're onto something).

Then the private tour of the museum, where they let me past the ropes repeatedly, with the highlights being my extended walk around the replica Oval Office and a preview of the "cowboys in movies" exhibit they're building.

Then a quick on-camera with local reporter and then some down time at the Peabody hotel in downtown Little Rock (very nice).

After an hour off, back to the library where I discover the room where I'll be speaking is extremely tough for my planned PowerPoint: totally glass and on the sunset side, minimal shades, and I'm supposed to speak to over 100 people using two smallish plasma (maybe 35 inches at best). I get a bit freaked and try to figure what to do. Fortunately the screens are solid, so I have the AV guys move them up in front of the audience as close as possible. Once I see the pictures, I relax a bit, but the sunset is stunningly bright and sends a blinding shaft of light sideways across the audience, so I'm pretty nervous about making this work.

To settle myself a bit, I submit to a quick radio taped interview in the hall just before the proceedings start. That warms me up a bit.

Once into the gig, I'm looking at all these people straining to see the screens and holding papers against the sides of their heads, trying to block the light. Easy to get frustrated, but instead I chose to highlight in my mind just how much effort these people (many older) were making to stay with me.

I brief my way through Development-in-a-Box in about 45 minutes, and my talk was supposed to be only 45 minutes, but at that point, the sun went down as far as the room was concerned, people were feeling much better and seeing the screens okay, so I decided to proceed with another half-hour of the regional/functional arguments (Mideast, China, GWOT, North Korea, New Core), joking that, "Hey, if there's anywhere a speaker is allowed to talk way past his time limit, it ought to be the Clinton Library!"

That got a big laugh, and I relaxed a lot at that point, sensing the audience was truly along for the ride.

After a short break, it was about 45 more minutes of good Q&A, and then signing books for about 20 minutes, which was nice.

Day ended with a nice meal downtown with the dean, a faculty member Bruce Bennett and his spouse. A very nice time had by all.

I hit the bed around midnight, got up at 7am, and was back at it by 0800.

First I do a breakfast with the Little Rock foreign affairs council. That was nice. Then a 30-minute taped show with its chairman for local broadcast. Then whisked to the airport and I finally begin the long trip home, feeling--quite frankly--really bad physically.

So while my ear drums pop repeatedly, let me try to whisk through some articles I've captured. Short and sweet. Gotta get it done by time I get home, cause I've been gone since Monday night and we have a family trip this weekend to Ohio.

Tom on Sina.com?

Couldn't find any reference to the Washington Observer's Chinese interview with Tom on the English part of Sina.com.

So, I'll give you this link, instead, that fits nicely with the message:

U.S. Coast Guard cutter to make first-ever port call to China

Robb's weak day

A reader writes in to ask Tom about about John Robb's latest post: JOURNAL: Primary Loyalties in Basra, where he critiques Tom. Tom replies:

Robb straw-mans opposing views too often, reducing them to absurdity. I write disconnectedness defines danger. I don't pretend there's some grossly simplistic causality traceable through all human interaction. Robb's being silly and mechanistic to argue like this, like I should see a 10 percent drop in conflict with a 10 percent rise in connectedness.

Iraq was a disconnected country suffering dictatorship before we invaded. Then we screwed the postwar and now there is a load of civil strife that keeps any meaningful economic connectedness from emerging. What does this prove on some grand scale? It proves we screwed up the postwar.

Robb is being rhetorically obtuse, a common sin among bloggers, because it's just so damn convenient in this sloppy, free-for-all environment (sorry, but I bow not to the blogosphere in all its self-delusional glory). Today Robb prefers to fight straw-men. It's a free net--but a serious competition of ideas. Everyone approaches that promise and peril differently, and does better on some days than others.

This is very weak Robb today. He usually performs better.

I find a lot of it has to do with your daily confidence level.

Globalized China

More searching for mentions of Tom in English on the websites that carried the Washington Observer's Chinese interview.

No luck on the People's Daily Online, but I did find evidence of globalization: A picture of Zhang Ziyi (Chinese actress), who most recently starred in Memoirs of a Geisha (American film from a book about Japan) in Cannes (France).

As I click through, I see pictures of Wong Kar Wai and Michelle Yeoh, too.

Does that (R) after Wai's name mean he's from the Republic (Taiwan)?

PNM review in 'China Daily'

In going back and searching for possible mentions of Tom (in the the English versions) of the websites that Dejin Su wrote had picked up the Washington Observer's interview of Tom, I came across this review of The Pentagon's New Map. The close:

Ultimately, however, the most impressive aspects of the book is not its revolutionary ideas but its overwhelming optimism. Barnett wants the U.S. to pursue the dream of global peace with the same zeal that was applied to preventing global nuclear war with the former Soviet Union. High-level civilian policy makers and top military leaders are already familiar with his vision of the future-this book is a briefing for the rest of us and it cannot be ignored.

Tom at the Clinton School

The Clinton School of Public Service

Looking at the web site, I see I somehow missed the press release yesterday on Tom's visit.

The archives are connected to...

the library.

The bridge to the 21st century, under which you find a nice restaurant named Café 42.

View from cafe where they serve some mean catfish and sweet potato fries.

Inside the replica.

Yes they let me past the rope.

The command coin collection up close (beats mine).

Replica of JFK desk he borrowed.

The museum. Bbest exhibit was on spread of globalization during terms.

Anybody else think Tom's harboring a secret desire to be a photo-journalist ;-)

Tom carries on in Chinese

Washington Observer reporter Dejin Su writes in to inform us of the popularity of their BFA review/interview with Tom:

Dear Dr. Barnett,

The BFA book review/interview story has been well received by the Chinese media. It has been reprinted by the Global Times， the wildly popular tabloid of the People's Daily; China Daily; Sina.com, the major portal of Chinese internet website; Beijing Youth Daily; as well as other major main stream media outlets, such as Xinhua.net, China.com.cn, News.net.cn, Tom.com, not to mention many other bbs and blogger websites.

Again, thank you for sharing your insights with us.

Best,

Dejin Su

Panelling to shrink the Gap

Great time on panel with former USAID mission director in Iraq (also with Bosnia experience). Very reinforcing to find so much agreement on both diagnosis and solutions--right up to the need for a DoEE.

Great observation from DAI contractor with huge experience in southern Iraq: first wave of civil affairs officers were highly technical, second wave reservists (very grounded in real world stuff), but 3rd and subsequent cohorts typically were out-of-the-box newbies, sporting five weeks of training and little else.

Low density/high demand (LD/HD) personified.

Oh say can you see? [updated]

The 9/11 Pentagon Flag

The Economist sounding awfully reasonable on negotiations with Iran ...

EDITORIAL: "Unstoppable? Be tough now, to prevent military conflict later," The Economist, 6 May 2006, p. 13.

ARTICLE: "A government that thrives on defiance: Anmd a people who may not be quite so keen," The Economist, 6 May 2006, p. 25.

If you don't read The Economist, you're starving your strategic mind. Seriously. You bag the rest of the news weeklies up and together they still don't equal this beauty. It's just that worthwhile.

I read the magazine as a sanity check--you know, to get my strategic bearings. It typically takes a while to get its arms around a subject, often knee-jerking it at first glance--in that British WSJ-kind of way. But after a bit, it usually settles into such unarguable common sense that it's hard to ignore.

So this editorial runs through all the "on the one hand's" and "on the other hand's" about Iran definitely getting the bomb within a decade or so (and by that, we both mean, an arsenal that would actually matter and not just wave some vials around like some pathetic old Soviet attempt at PR: "Yes, Comrade, our socialist triumph is just around the corner--dance Olga, dance!"), until deep in column two we get to the real heart of the current matter [my asides are noted throughout]:

But if all options are indeed on the table [brushing aside Jack Straw's "nuts" comment WRT talk of military pre-emption] as America suggests, then it is time for the Americans to take a fresh look at the diplomatic one too. It may be that nothing can induce Iran to give up its nuclear plans--it has already brushed away European offers of trade, improved ties and help with other nuclear technologies [then again, Europe can't invade Iran, so maybe that scratch doesn't get at Tehran's itch?]. But between America and Iran there is at least a meeting of motives, if not of minds: Iran's regime points to America's threatening talk as reason to defend itself; to America, Iran's nuclear work makes it a potential target [when all you have is the hammer, the world starts to look like a bunch of nails...]. If Iran agreed to halt its uranium and plutonium activities, and America agreed not to attack, might that open the way to direct talks that could help finess the nuclear problem for good? [As my buddy Hank Gaffney likes to opine: "Mebbe, mebbe not."]

As the later article notes, "Ahmadinejad does not decide Iran's nuclear foreign policies. These are in the hands of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his lieutenant at the top of the National Security Council, Ali Larijani, a political rival of the president's... Having struggled to fend off his domestic critics after coming to power last summer, Mr Ahmadinejad has learned to silence them by beating a nationalist drum. Hence his decision to talk up the nuclear issue at every possible turn ...."

Further on in the article:

In general, Iranians approve of the nuclear programme, though not all believe official assertions that it is peaceful. As long as the programme threatens neither their wallets not their security, their enthusiasm for it as an expression of national self-assertion, and their irritation at what they see as the duplicity of Western nuclear powers, are likely to endure.

Well, high oil prices and growing economic alliance with rising New Core powers India and China make sure that wallets will not be harmed, and the U.S. tie-down in Iraq assures that security is not seriously threatened. Sure, we can bomb some sites, but that won't prove anything, or stop much of anything.

Still, some in the highest reaches of the political regime worry openly about how the nuclear programme is threatening Iran's economy by denying it connectivity to the larger global economy on some level beyond just oil. Akbar Rafsanjani "has long let it be known that he favours direct--though not necessarily declared--talks with America, aimed at settling all bilateral differences."

And Khamenei himself has recently declared Iran's "readiness for agreement and accomodation."

So what prospects exist? The Economist opines that:

A history of Iranian overtures suggests that Iran would dangle concessions on its nuclear programme, its support for Arab groups that reject Israel's right to exist, and common interests such as Iraq, in return for an end to American efforts to destabilize the Islamic republic and a plan to establish full economic relations.

Where have I read such a bold proposal as that before?

Hmm. More than a year ago in the pages of that fluffy magazine Esquire!

Damn! Maybe that's how Warren and company won the National Magazine Award for general excellence, submitting the March ("Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term ...") and September (drew a blank there, probably some seriously sexy babe on that cover) and November issues ("The Chinese Are Our Friends") for prize consideration.

I got yer Best American Political Writing--I got it right here!

And now The Economist seems to have reached the same common sense regarding the same common weal.

Yeah baby! Yeah!

If you can make money at it, then banks are interested

ARTICLE: "Entrepreneur Gets Big Banks to Back Very Small Loans: Microlending-for-Profit Effort In India Draws Business From Citigroup, HSBC; Ms. Dobbala's Baby Buffalo," by Eric Bellman, Wall Street Journal, 15 May 2006, p. A1.

Boy, this is an article I've been waiting to blog for a long time. Like most people concerned with development in emerging and less-developed economies, I've long liked reading the various success stories associated with microlending, especially the high involvement of women. But so long as it remained a boutique sort of aid-ish thing or limited to just local banks, I felt like it could only go so far. Access to OUTSIDE capital is what makes the world go around, not just making do with local capital markets. You build a better mousetrap or whatever and--yeah--you do want the entire world to beat a path to your door.

So you think about all the ways that banks in the Core are constantly trying to pinch you for this or that piddling fee, and you say to yourself: "If they're that grubby about sweating every little nickle and dime outta me, why don't big banks get interested in microlending in developing economies? Certainly they can squeeze nickles and dimes or rupees or whatever out of them just as effectively?"

Because South Asia has always been sort of ground zero on microlending, thanks to pioneer Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which started doing this in the 1970s (that's what I mean by disconnected: see how long it took for the news to reach Citigroup?!), you figured the first signs of such interest would occur there (and especially India more than Bangladesh because so many banks have grown smart on that market thanks to outsourcing service stuff over the years).

So you see a nice article like this and it makes your capitalist heart sing!

I mean, it's just so Prahalad-ish and all bottom-of-the-pyramidy.

Plus, when things succeed in globalization-in-a-microcosm India, it makes you truly optimistic. Like I said in PNM: when globalization fails or falters in Russia or China, we fall back to all sorts of excuses why it couldn't work. But in India, most of those excuses just don't hold, so failure to launch there is real failure, casting far more in doubt than similar failures elsewhere.

Conversely, success in such endeavors in India is really great, signaling a lot of potential elsewhere.

So... you think about a Citigroup and you say to yourself: give these guys some time and I bet they have a best practices model, largely cribbed from Grameen, on how to swoop into an impoverished situation and set up all sorts of microlending stuff fairly fast--you know, just to justify the initial outlay.

So why not sign them up for Development-in-a-Box? Why not intrigue them with the possibility of all those tiny loans in some postconflict Backwardistan or some postdisaster Costa Whereverica?

I mean, the conceived leap from ATM-saturated America to microlending India has got to be wider than the one from microlending India to one of these situations.

Hell, why not just preload hardy ATMs you can just plop into recovery situations that run on solar power and have sat-uplinks and are all preconfigured to loan money in tiny amounts, assuming some bio-identity check that just so happens to double as a... well, you get my drift. Money goes into people's pockets for immediate and legitimate uses. You make it all auditable in real-time records. Sure, you'd get some abuse, but think about how you might widen the pool of potential, highly-needy and highly-motivated borrowers.

You read the story about the pioneering banker in India and you see that he modeled his approach on McDonald's--yes, McDonald's and their ability to use "technology and standardized systems to wring enough efficiency out of each tiny transaction to lower costs." Great story, right down to the start-up funds for this pilot from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. But again, way cooler when you see Citigroup and HSBC getting interested.

The article says Citigroup won't reveal it's numbers, but that local microlending pioneers estimate that the bank has--on its own--triggered a new flow of over $100 million to microlenders in developing markets, or a rough tripling of that number from just last year. Lots of this growth has been in Latin America and India.

This Mr. Vikram Akula, 37-year-old founder of the SKS Microfinance, who is the star of the article, already has plans to (gasp!) start peddling health and crop insurance similarly, plus "use Visa's card technology to make microloans as simple and inexpensive as getting cash from an ATM."

This is all we're talking about--Steve and I--with Development-in-a-Box: cherry-picking the best stuff that's already out there, marrying it up with the soft and hardware that's readily available, and preloading it into templates that DiB simply hands over to the locals, along with the training.

Yes, yes, it'll never be as easy as we make it sound, but it also will never be as hard as your preconceptions of the Gap make it seem. One thing is sure: we make it hard now by the approaches we use, and there's so much more we can do to improve our efforts.

And yeah, this is exactly God's work.

Trip down memory lane

Hanging out, waiting on Steve

So parked car on Potomac and making way to WWII Memorial

Ran into this guy on way. Very nostalgic. Visited here with Vonne, then 2 kids, and my parents when it opened way back when.

The controversial statue added later, highlighting FDR's disability.

Where to fit in the blogging?

DATELINE: Hotel in McLean VA, 16 May 2006

Running my ass off, as usual. Weekend was a blur of getting rest of house in some sort of final order, finishing with ground zero, aka the kitchen. Then off to mother-in-law's for the holiday Sunday. Monday I got my office furniture in place and emptied the rest of the boxes, which puts me about 10 hours from having my business ground-zero up and running.

Problem is, the minute I achieve even just that breakthrough I'm on a plane to DC Monday night. This trip is multi-leg and has me speaking three times at a counter-drug symposium (USG heavy) in northern VA, at a developmental aid seminar being held at the Smithsonian, and finally "teaching" a module of Bill Clinton's quasi-course at his library/foundation in Little Rock. Sure, it'd be great to have a nice big fat corporate gig in there somewhere, but there's paying your bills and there's paying your dues too. And if you take the vision thing seriously, it's a balance between what the world owes you and what you owe the world.

Interspersed with all this gabbing is a raft of quickly arranged Enterra meetings with government officials, major firms like Accenture, and the usual recruitment-focused dinner. With that much going on, it's almost weird to go more than a couple of hours without a call from or to Steve DeAngelis, the only man I know whose schedule puts mine to shame.

Meanwhile, I'm counting the days left before I go into seclusion with my eldest son following a long-scheduled surgery he's having in June: so much to get done between here and then, and the days fill up rapidly.

I will confess, it gets hard to summon the energy to blog at times. Last night I chose to exercise at 10:15 (thank God for "Family Guy" on TBS), and that just about knocked me senseless with the tree pollen raging now (the first two weeks in May are my "dazed and confused" period--funny how that means different things when you're middle-aged).

But all this will pass. Kevin's surgery will slow things down a bit. Having the house all put together (we continue to work the outside because of the blasted regular downpours of rain) will slow things down a lot. Summer will slow stuff down (except for two overseas trips to Europe and Asia). And yes, Kevin and I will start golfing for real once he's recovered.

So I will work to blog when I can, balancing demands where I can, and telling myself throughout that I'm doing the best I can to serve a lot of different masters and goals at the same time.

Finished column for Knoxville News Sentinel this morning. Went with Baker byline because this one is more political. Subject won't be surprise to blog readers, since this is theme that I've been working for a while: the Bush post-presidency is already here. To me, the weird announcement of National Guard troops on the border with Mexico sealed that judgment. How's that for our next military intervention?

Esquire excellence

Esquire, at which Tom is a Contributing Editor, recently won two National Magazine Awards, including the award for General Excellence for magazines with circulation between 500,000 and a million.

Mark Warren, Executive Editor of Esquire and editor of Tom's two books, writes to Tom:

Pretty cool, as Esquire has never in its history won that award. I forward it to you because you are well represented in the magazine's Gen Ex entry for that coveted prize. You've done amazing work for us. So congratulations. Incidentally, we were nominated for 2 this year, and we won 2.

Congratulations to Tom and Mark and everyone at Esquire.

Tom's comment:

I am especially happy and proud, because 05 was the first (and possibly only, given my sked now) year in which I put three pieces into the magazine. Esquire submitted three issues for consideration featuring two of my articles: The first one in March ("Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term") was included in the "Best American Political Writing" volume for 2005. The second one in November ("The Chinese Are Our Friends") made the 2006 volume of "Best American Political Writing". (The other article on Rumsfeld ("Old Man in a Hurry") was in the June issue and, thus, not submitted.) So a pretty good year for me, and thus nice to see it reflected in Esquire's win. Winning the main award in your circulation category is a very big deal in the industry, so very cool to be associated with it.

Bill Roy's at it again

Tom wrote about Bill Roy back in January. Dr Roy is a retired physician and former member of Congress. He writes opinion columns periodically for the Topeka Capital-Journal. My Google Alerts brought him up tonight. He has a new column called Preemption may not be best option with Iran.

Last week, I wrote about Thomas P.M. Barnett's unusual concession that Iran is going to get a nuclear bomb regardless of what the rest of the world does, and that we, the United States should be thinking primarily about what we can get from them in return.

Of course, that lead sent me scrambling for last week's column, too: A nuclear Iran might not be the worst thing. Boy, do I love the lead on this one:

The crisis for 2006, unless a better one unexpectedly comes along, is Iran's efforts to have a nuclear bomb in one to 10 years. Everyone seems to think this is a very bad thing and that anything and everything, including bombing Iranian nuclear sites, perhaps with tactical nuclear weapons, must be done to stop this from happening.

This near-universal alarm sent me scrambling to find Thomas P. M. Barnett's 2005 book, "Blueprint for Action, a Future Worth Creating."

Thanks, Bill, for getting out the word. We hope for better results than your close to today's column:

I like Barnett's analysis best, but know George W. Bush is "the decider." And that the American people, 99 percent of whom have not been asked for a darned thing to support the Iraq War, will go along.

So prepare for more multicolor ribbons supporting our troops, standing in line to buy $5 gas, and beyond trivia, possibly an Armageddon arranged by two men who seem to be getting conflicting messages from God.

Tom around the Web this week

+ Chirol adds to his Mapping the Gap series with part 5: Italy, Netherlands, France.

+ ZenPundit engages the debate between Max Borders and Tom: Building institutions vs. nations or states

+ Chirol compares Tom's thought to early US involvement in the Caribbean based on Chirol's reading of Max Boot's 'The Savage Wars of Peace'.

+ Brian Hertzer has posted excerpts from his paper The Great Enlistment: Missions and Ministry in the 21st Century, which he writes is greatly influenced by Tom's thinking.

+ A big thanks to Sun Bin for his mini reviews of the Washington Observer's coverage of Tom.

+ And, finally, this nice quote from Penguin Monkey (in reference to the Putin post):

I really like Tom Barnett. It's like if Hemingway was a policy wonk. It really is that level of greatness.

Putin’s backtalking is just another sign that the Bush administration is a spent force

ARTICLE: “Putin Hits Back, Criticizing U.S. In Yearly Address: Russian Leader Call for Stronger Military,” by Judith Ingram, Washington Post, 11 May 2006, p. A1.

Nice line: “We are aware of what is going on in the world. Comrade wolf knows whom to eat, he eats without listening, and he’s clearly not going to listen to anyone.”

Translation: “The Bush Administration does what it wants with its military and energy policies. It decides to invade and conquer one of the world’s largest oil reserves, and does so with little care for allies’ opinions. Even now, though, this regime lectures the world on democracy while consorting with whatever dictators it cares to, so long as their access to energy is assured.”

Cheney warns that Putin is threatening to reverse the gains of the last decade in Russia. Guess what? Plenty of our allies belief Bush and Cheney have already reversed the gains made by globalization over the past decade!

Yes, yes, the Clinton years are looking better by the minute.

So Putin calls for more military spending, which right now in Russia sits at less than one-twentieth of the U.S. military budget--so please, no freaking out just yet!

Sick Man Russia is rapidly turning into Old Man Russia, and Putin is trying to build up a bit of a trust fund, in addition to restoring Russia’s rightful place in the roster of great powers (I’ve seen periods of weak Russia in history, and they’ve never gone well, so yeah, I approve of the strategy).

But instead of understanding those needs and that strategy, this administration seems intent of making sure we reduce our partnership with Russia as much as possible. Why? Apparently right now we need allies less than ever.

Putin’s backtalking, along with Ahmadinejad’s and all the rest around the world, just signals the growing awareness internationally that the Bush Administration is a spent force. This crew is not inclined to change their spots now, and the world knows it.

So, quite frankly, our debates should focus most on who and what comes next for America. The conversation is basically over with the Bush Administration. So it’s time to focus on the new ideas, the new leaders, and the lifers within the bureaucracy who will both rule--for all practical purposes--in the meantime and be there when the new crew arrives.

Monitoring and transparency are two sides of the same coin called security through expanding networks

ARTICLE: “NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls: 3 telecoms help government collect billions of domestic records,” by Leslie Cauley, USA Today, 11 May 2006, p. 1A.

Connectivity requires code. Networks create rules. Every convenience results in a trade-off on privacy.

These are essential truths of our age.

But every time we bump into these emerging realities, the media usually treats them from some industrial-age perspective, applying Orwellian logic (consistently proven wrong by history; otherwise, how would terrorists "rule the world" as we're constantly told?) to every development.

Those call databases exist. The telecoms have them, and use them for their own ends (commercial). We live in a world where all this connectivity affords bad actors new ways to harm us, and so we ask our government to devise new ways to keep us safe. But then we get very unrealistic about how that’s supposed to happen.

The question isn’t, Should the government have access to such databases? I think they should. The question is, What can they do with them? Those questions will be decided ultimately in our courts. We should remain quite vigilant on the subject, and push our press to keep us informed.

But our press needs to watch the tone of its coverage. Knee-jerking back and forth isn’t the answer, because it puts the bin Ladens of the world in the driver’s seat.

We need to focus on what’s made us strong in the past and will keep us strong in the future: our horizontal networking, our resiliency in response to shocks and threats and perturbations, and our faith in a judicial system that has slowly but surely worked wonders throughout our nation’s history.

Now we get to the real progress in Iraq’s security

ARTICLE: “Iraq Set To Unify Security Forces To Battle Chaos: Smaller U.S. Role Is Seen; A Single Commander and Uniform Are Planned for Baghdad Patrol,” by Dexter Filkins, New York Times, 11 May 2006, p. A1.

“Chaos” has to be the single most overused and overhyped word in the U.S. news media. Everything seems to be in chaos all the time.

Chaos is the absence of all authority. That isn't the case anywhere in Iraq. What we have are competing authorities, which of course is quite dangerous and often deadly.

What is clear in Iraq is that the political patchwork shouldn’t be mirrored by military/security patchwork, and that Iraqis themselves need to drive that centralizing project. American government grew up and out in times of war, and our military kept pace. Absent such a development, the market will provide in the form of militias and mafias.

In normal development and recovery, the growing accumulation of wealth by average people creates a stakeholder mentality where people pay more and more and demand more and more in terms of security. But Iraq is lacking that recovery, so this process is being driven by pain, death and fear, and in most societies that gets you the Man on the Horse who brings stability at a cost most are willing to pay.

Progress yes, but along the worst possible pathway because we screwed up the postwar.