Gates in touch with the future but increasingly out of step with Pentagon's "big war" crowd

ARTICLE: "Pentagon Seeks Authority to Train and Equip Foreign Militaries," by Thom Shanker, New York Times, 16 April 2008, p. A8.

The task previously owned by State (til 2003), but let's get real: DoD should be in charge of training foreign militaries, so program rights extended and made permanent by Congress. The give was promised to shift some DoD bucks to pay for State Department-led joint program to build up civilian expertise for SysAdmin work. Watch State run that idea into the ground.

But I thought, in the vein of Army Chief of Staff General Casey, that the U.S. wasn't going to make future efforts to train foreign militaries like in Iraq? That's why we don't need a military advisory corps suggested by Nagl?

Hmmm.

Seems like the one-off crowd loses again. I just wish the Pentagon could get its story straight.

Big surprise: Russia renationalizes the oil industry and production slumps

ARTICLE: Russian Output Slumps As Oil Hits New Highs," by Guy Chazan and Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 15 April 2008, p. A1.

As always, I'm shocked—SHOCKED!

Not what we were going for in Afghanistan

INTERNATIONAL: "The Opium Brides of Afghanistan: In the country's poppy-growing provinces, farmers are being forced to sell their daughters to pay loans," by Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau, Newsweek, 7 April 2008, p. 38.

The story quotes one local saying that his five-year-old is worth $500-600. Sad indeed.

Tom around the web

+ Andrew Sullivan linked Speaking of growing food dependency …
+ And linked Remember the bit in Esquire about "if your grad degree involved a lot of memorization"?

+ The Politics of Scrabble linked Rock and a hard place.
+ And linked last week's column.

+ Indistinct Union linked Our leadership is needed now more than ever.
+ And linked McCain could easily destroy globalization.

+ zenpundit recommended What I think I learn at the company retreat.
+ SWJ Blog linked Great article on unflat world.
+ The Charleston (WV) Gazette cites Tom's article on Fallon.
+ Fear and Loathing in the Blogosphere calls Zakaria's new book as much of a must-read as PNM.
+ Exploded Clown wonders what Matthew Yglesias thinks of Tom's ideas.
+ Cyberhillbilly also linked Rock and a hard place.
+ Growth Matters linked Throw Momma under the surge.
+ The Duck of Minerva ties Core/Gap to Firefly/Serenity.
+ SWJ Blog linked Alarmist on Iran, except...
+ So did Quality Leadership Weblog.
+ Left Flank linked PNM.
+ Dean Barnett (no relation) wonders (I think) if Obama is advocating Tom's idea to add more states to the Union.
+ Catherine Lionheart recommended BFA.
+ Advisory Bored added this weblog to his blogroll.
+ Epistemic Games also linked Remember the bit in Esquire about "if your grad degree involved a lot of memorization"?

+ Rainbow Boys (there's some weird stuff going on over there ;-) embedded the TED talk.
+ So did DailyDigital.
+ Brian Smith linked it.
+ MarifasaLupina dugg it.

+ World Messenger says Tom's one of the Illuminati. Yes!
+ Filing among those who confuse tactics with strategy, we find this please-take-my-blog-seriously entry from Registan.net who took great exception with Connectors v. Disconnectors.

Welcome to the blogroll

Did you notice I expanded Tom's website recommendations? The lucky devils:

Andrew Sullivan
China Law Blog
Outside the Beltway
Danger Room
Phil Windley
Gunnar Peterson

(Phil and Gunnar: if you want a different name/title, drop me a line or comment here.)

Bush administration accepts "reality"—NEWSFLASH!

ARTICLE: "U.S. Accepts International Criminal Court," by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, 26-27 April 2008, p. A5A.

Hold your horses!

State's chief lawyer now says the U.S. "must acknowledge that the ICC enjoys a large body of international support."

Well, duh!

Same guy gave the usual bitch list to boot, so don't hold your breath on hearing Bush or Cheney make any different noises on the subject.

Bush-Cheney "unsigned" the Rome Statute setting up the ICC in 2002, and Bush then signed legislation "authorizing military action, should the court arrest an American."

Nice, but par for the neocon course.

But I suppose years of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo stories do soften the administration up a bit.

All the prez candidates make similar noises while offering similar bitch lists--wah wah wah!

The only reason why we can't "submit" to the ICC is because we don't want anyone telling us when we can employ our military might.

If you want that kind of freedom, you better expect balancing.

And when you can't afford your military, expect others to "vote" down your implied global service by making it harder for you to float public debt. Other powers will simply stop paying for the service—unless they see it offered according to some mutually agreed-upon rule set.

The ICC is one such rule set. We ignore it at our strategic risk.

China's version of open market activities—for now

ARTICLE: "China Moves To Prop Up Stock Market By Paring Tax," by James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal, 24 April 2008, p. C1.

Still crude, but better than hanging some executives in a stadium.

Two steps forward, one step back

ARTICLE: "850,000 lawsuits in the making: Chinese firms and lawyers warm to intellectual property," The Economist, 12 April 2008, p. 74.

ARTICLE: "U.S. Says China, Russia Lag On Intellectual-Property Crime," by Corey Boles, Wall Street Journal, 26-27 April 2008, p. A5A.

In 2003, Chinese trademark applications grow by 60%, resulting in twice as many patents granted (850,000). Meanwhile, court cases jump from 7-8,000 in 2003 to about 18,000 in 2007. China recently open 50 courts just to deal with IP cases.

Who cleans up the most? Chinese lawyers, naturally.

Still, the U.S. can and should continue to complain. Naturally, the "priority watch list" put out by our trade rep office features New Core (China, Russia, Argentina, Chile, India) and Seam States (Pakistan, Thailand, Venezuela) and that way too entrepreneurial island of Coredom deep inside the Gap—Israel.

Bush will go to Beijing Olympics; that deal was made last fall

ARTICLE: "Bush Silent, but Others Speak Out on Tibet Crackdown," by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 22 March 2008, p. A3.

When the U.S. gave the Dalai Lama the gold medal last fall, part of Bush's give to the Chinese was to promise to come to the Olympics no matter what—a secret side deal. Not publicized but known in diplomatic circles.

That's why Bush is remaining so cool on the whole Tibet deal, which was a sensible response anyway.

This week's column

Buying wings but operating rotors

If I told you that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were the leading cause of U.S. casualties in Iraq, you'd expect the Pentagon would have mounted a major R&D effort to defeat this threat. And you'd be right.

If I told you that helicopter crashes and shoot-downs were the leading cause of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, you'd expect the Pentagon would have mounted a major R&D to defeat that threat as well. But you'd be wrong.

Read on at KnoxNews.

Can't find it at Scripps Howard, but here's a version picked up by the Abilene Reporter-News. I liked my title better ;-)

Right out of Seinfeld

After 3 days with Enterra staff at retreat, I head to Dulles and check in for my 1645 United flight to Indy.

I check in, entering my FF#, whose absence I found strange.

The machine asks me if I checked luggage from my "incoming flight"--also puzzling. I said no.

Then I ask for receipt and it listed me flying in from Vienna. It also said my flight cost 2100 Euros.

I question the United checker. She can't figure it out. I call Jenn, and she said UA kept telling her I was already scheduled on the flight. But United charged us $550 on my AMEX, and the receipt I held listed a VISA.

Hmmm.

Lady then checks to make sure there's not 2 Thomas Barnetts. No, she says, you're the only one.

So I check the bag, go through Clear Traveler (very nice at Dulles because you go through a separate crew security gate), and then head to Terminal A.

I resist the Five Guys temptation (burgers) and start blogging. Flight is called and I step up. Ticket taker gets weird alert, but checks again and it's okay, so I head to plane.

Then we're turned back and told mechanical delay, so back into terminal.

Then we're called again and I show stub and board.

Get to 13F and see middle-aged (roughly same age) white guy who's maybe 5'11" (I'm 6'2"), slightly balding, neatly dressed business casual in my seat. So I figure he can have window and I'll take aisle.

Then burly guy shows up with crewcut and says politely that I must be in his seat. I tell guy in my seat and he shows us his 13F. Burly guy seems to know him, even defer, and so I point out that I have 13F too.

Then I notice "Thomas Barnett," plus "premier executive," plus my FF#.

Burly guy, apparently junior to my namesake, volunteers to go up and report problem. I watch and see that steward seats him up front.

All these voices start commenting from behind in a manner I instantly recognize as military, and I realize this guy is the crew's senior officer.

Steward comes back, collects tickets, demands ID, and then just laughs, saying this is first time in his many years that two people with the same names are boarded to occupy the same seat.

They let us both stay on, to my amazement, because the flight seemed full.

Thomas Barnett turns out to be an Army National Guard officer coming back from a year in Kosovo with his comrades, heading home ultimately to Kansas. He had been under the overall command of Admiral Harry Ulrich until Harry retired at the end of 2007 and joined Enterra.

Weird, huh?

And some top-notch security all around, I'd have to say.

Great article on unflat world

ARTICLE: "Global Ties Under Stress As Nations Grab Power: Trade, Environment Face New Threats; Balkanized Internet," by Bob Davis, Wall Street Journal, 28 April 2008, p. A1.

Forget the goofy title and subtitle. "Global ties" are not "under stress," and nations aren't "grabbing power" ("Look, there's some! Let's go grab it!"). Talk of "new threats" is bullshit, and the "Balkanized" Internet is just one that isn't an American garden.

The Murdoch influence, apparently.

The actual article is very sensible and well written. All it really says is that states that are embracing globalization are stepping up their controls over content and connectivity, that they're just not lying back and saying, "Do what you must with me, globalization, for you are the master and I am the slave."

So yeah, not as simple as the "flat" metaphor, but hardly overturning its utility as a descriptor. Just a bit of yang to go with the yin. The stepping up by states is a sign of how much globalization remakes them, not a sign of how much they remake globalization. Confusing friction with force is a constant mistake in this business.

Yergin puts it well, "The era of easy globalization is over." Now that we have so much more connectivity, now comes the effort to tame it and manage it better. This is much like America after its radical expansion following the Civil War. We already had the land in hand, but the settlement is what exploded after the war. At first, all that connectivity begat a nasty, predatory capitalism that ruined the environment, polluted the society and corrupted politics. So clean-up was the next phase: the Progressive Era.

You need a strong state to regulate and tame a raw capitalism of the sort that's spread so rapidly around the planet in recent years. That's all we're talking about here.

Once control is reasonably established, further openness comes in response to the desire for improved competitiveness, so we shift from extensive connectivity to intensive connectivity, and—again—you need strong and efficient and "good" governments to manage that transition.

So spare me the "grab the power" hyperbole. Expect to spot many "Theodore the Sudden" types in rising New Core powers. It's a natural development, so don't freak out.

Some reality on controlling CO2 emissions

OP-ED: "The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change," by Steven F. Hayward, Wall Street Journal, 28 April 2008, p. A19.

Reality of some of these emission cut targets is that they ask America to go back to early 20th-century levels of emissions with a population that, in 2050, will be roughly four times what we had in T.R.'s time.

None of this is to say we don't try, but reality will be that we seek efficiencies largely for economic competitive reasons than for pollution control.

As always, trust greed and not altruism, even that directed toward future generations.

What I think I learn at the company retreat

Everyone in company together in northern VA for ground truth/common operational picture/intellectual group grope for three days.

Need?

We're exploding in growth and need to make sure we're all on the same page as we traject forward (is that a word?).

I sit through brief on ontologies and I come up with this on my own:

1) Religion is mankind's first attempt at an ontology (hierarchical taxonomy like Wikipedia) of a "complex" world.

2) As complexity increases, the need for better ontologies increase.

3) Thus, as globalization spreads and deepens, the need for religion increases.

Take that Hitchens!

Ahmadinejad continues to lose power in the parliament

WORLD NEWS: "Conservatives Dominate Vote; President's Opponents Gain," wire reports, Wall Street Journal, 28 April 2008, p. A10.

The "hard-line leader is growing increasingly vulnerable ahead of a bid for re-election next year."

Conservatives dominate the parliament, but there are the technocratic/normalizers (those who want more normal relations with the world) and the ideological agitators of Ahmadinejad's stripe. The president's supports control 117 of the 290 seats, with the rest spread among the technocratic conservatives, moderates and reformists.

SysAdmin, Iranian-style

ARTICLE: Iranian outmaneuvers U.S. in Iraq, By Hannah Allam, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers, April 28, 2008

Cheap, persistent and clever.

A manned drone.

(Thanks: Nancy Stefanik)

McCain could easily destroy globalization

OP-ED: McCain's Radical Foreign Policy, PostGlobal, April 28, 2008

Very good piece by Zakaria, whose book I just finished.

You see all the us-v-them thinking in Kagan's: all he sees in the 21st century is the return of the 19th. My God, the neocons' complete lack of understanding of globalization and economics is just stunning.

That's what makes them so dangerous. McCain has no soul WRT economics: no business or real-world understanding whatsoever. So the neocons like Kagan fill that empty vessel.

Zakaria's calm reasonableness on globalization is completely missing on the GOP side right now. It is a sad state of affairs to see the party so dominated by economic Know-Nothings.

Worse, the GOP has virtually no young talent in the wings. Sad indeed.

We get McCain and we get far worse than Bush III. Bush was sensible if unambitious on globalization. McCain's worldview could easily destroy globalization unless he becomes more realistic and informed on global economics.

Otherwise it'll be just a bevy of advisers who see the world strictly in pol-mil terms blundering about far worse than Bush, who clearly knew his ass from his elbow on Russia and China.

(Thanks: Terence Dodge)

Connectors v. Disconnectors

ARTICLE: In Afghanistan, insurgents attacking cellphone network, By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2008

About as emblematic as you can get in this war of Connectors v. Disconnectors.

(Thank: Jeff Jennings)

Clearly, I need to work more food metaphors into my bits

At 3-day retreat for entire Enterra staff to get us synched up on common understanding of who we are, what we're building, etc.

A favorite metaphor of mine is that our resilience technology is like a cherry sitting atop a big sundae: Steve and I have to sell clients (e.g., Port of Philadelphia, Kurdish Regional Government) first with thought leadership (you need this entire package) and then come up with the alliance of players to build the net (e.g., sensors, infrastructure), and then we get to pin our fab technology on top (the resilient architecture, etc.)

So no sundae (thought leadership consulting, deal-making, alliance building), then nowhere to place the "cherry.'

So after lunch today our chief counsel, the former head of Air Force JAG, Gen. Nolan Sklute, has a giant sundae sent to me as gag during meeting.

A better form of strategic comms...

ARTICLE: U.S., Allies See Progress in Selling Al-Qaeda As an Enemy to the Muslim World, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, April 28, 2008; Page A13

than feeding self-congratulatory soundbites to retired flags on our efforts in Iraq.

But Pillar is right: this only works over the long haul and I say, over the long haul this is negligible compared to local Mideast regimes creating real economic opportunity.

So our trade policy remains far more crucial.