Mystery Scene mag story on Mom's reference works

 

Just wanted to capture it for my records.  From Winter issue of mag.

Spoke at bankers professional training seminar in ATL

Actually termed an "economic and strategy seminar" for bankers in the fixed income capital markets.  Morgan Keegan puts on a number of these events around the country each year - all part of the professional training required by the various industries they service.  I spoke last summer at the MK event in upstate NY for pension managers, so this was my second go-around with them.

Over a hundred in the audience, and I got the tough slot:  4pm and I'm the only thing standing between a group that's been going from early in the morning and the end-of-training mixer.

This time I went with the Mac suggestion of creating a separate, cootie-free user account on the laptop and running the brief off the shared hard drive as a way of isolating the program and seeing if that made a difference on latency and/or the crash I suffered in Johnstown (first ever during a talk).

It worked beautifully.  No latency whatsoever and I got through the entire brief for the second time.

With nothing to occupy my mind WRT the slides, I was able to give the best performance yet of the new brief. Probably not all that different, as far as the audience is concerned, from the prior three.  It just was more mentally relaxing because I got in that unconscious groove when the humor starts spontaneously appearing.

Nice dinner at "Bones" later that night in Atlanta.

The brief now seems set:

• Opening with "map";
• Flow of people, ending with Middle East projection;
• Flow of money, ending with Asia projection;
• Flow of energy, ending with Africa projection;
• Flow of food, ending with Western Hemisphere projection; and
• Flow of security, ending with tripolar projection (US, China, India).

Each flow has me presenting, in yin-yang combination, something we must accept and something we will fight/struggle with.  The regionals are presented as evolutions that reflect the interplay. Full-up, it runs 75 mins, which is what I did at MK. Q&A happened in the mixer, which is always nice because then you really have time to get to know people and their concerns.  Plus, a martini is really nice after the energy output!

The brief is now loaded so that, no matter how much time I have, I cover things in the order I want, so more important/topical up front, degrading as you go back.   If I don't finish, I still feel like I gave everything I could/should in the time allotted.  Naturally, I could easily break out additional slides to make them a full-day teaching seminar - and any length in between, which is how I like it.  It's also easily updated for topicality. Sad to cut some favorite slides, as so little remains of the original "Great Powers" brief now, but time marches on and one needs to stay abreast with the audience.  What I have now is arguably the most easily accessible brief yet for none-Pol/Mil types.

My speeches this May have constituted a Packer victory lap:  IL with the cops and firemen (NFC championship v. Bears), Johnstown PA (right next to the Steelers) and now Atlanta (NFC divisional).  

Great off-season!

Wikistrat Competition Featured in Reuters

As our wiki grows, with the competitors reading and debating grand strategy, Wikistrat was featured in Reuters's piece by Peter Apps titled: "As China Rises, 'Grand Strategy' talk back in style".

Some relevant excerpts:

When Israeli-based political risk consultancy Wikistrat launched a month-long online grand strategy competition between universities, military colleges and similar institutions around the world, it was taken aback by the level of interest.

The contest, which begins this month, will cover the next two decades of global history with teams representing roughly a dozen countries needing to form alliances and adapt to shocks such as revolutions and conflicts.

"I really think it's caught the spirit of the moment," says Wikistrat CEO Joel Zamel. "There is much more interest in a kind of 'grand strategy' approach.

"We've had much more interest from around the world than we expected -- Indian universities will be representing India, Israeli universities Israel, Singaporean Singapore, Japanese Japan, U.S. schools the U.S.. We've had to keep adding countries."

...

"The war on terror really pushed grand strategy to one side, but as that seems to be winding down there is much more focus on it," said Robert Farley, professor of international relations at the University of Kentucky.

"Students know they will need it in their careers, whether in public service or the private sector. We've recently failed students for failing to be able to answer questions on the rise of China, for example."

Read the full piece here

Just how scared Beijing is becoming over inflation

FT story on the big fine the Chinese gov levied on consumer products company Unilever for publicly announcing that it planned to lift prices.  Apparently some consumers rushed into stores and bought up stuff in anticipation of the price hike, spooking the authorities.  So they slapped a $300,000 fine on the company.

FT:  "The move by the National Development and Reform Commission, China's economic planning agency, will heighten concern among foreign and domestic companies that they may not be able to pass rising costs on to consumers."

Nervous in government service.

CoreGap 11.12 Released - At the Time of his Demise, OBL was OBE

Wikistrat has released edition 11.12 of the CoreGap Bulletin.

This CoreGap edition features, among others:

• Terra Incognita 11.12 - At the Time of his Demise, OBL was OBE
• Bin Laden Killing Comes at Pivotal Moment in US Operations in Afghanistan
• Pakistan’s Longtime Duplicity Comes to Fore with Bin Laden Operation
• Latest Census in China Triggers Fears of Demographic Decline
• African Development Bank Group Details Rise of Middle Class There

And much more...

The entire bulletin is available for subscribers. Over the upcoming week we will release analysis from the bulletin to our free Geopolitical Analysis section of the Wikistrat website, first being "Terra Incognita - At the Time of his Demise, OBL was OBE"

It would seem that reports of Osama Bin Laden’s leadership of al-Qaeda these past few years were greatly exaggerated.  By the time the equally shadowy SEAL Team 6 put that bullet through his brain, the great man was living in a million-dollar “cave” whose primary purpose was to keep him decidedly off grid – out of reach and out of touch.  But Osama Bin Laden was overtaken by events a long time ago.

Globalization was more concept than reality a decade ago. “Rising” China? The muffled sound of a train gaining speed in the distance.  One could imagine globalization’s easy reversal thanks to the right bomb exploded in the right place at the right time. Vladimir Lenin, the most pragmatic of revolutionaries, referred to such wishful thinking as “left-wing deviationism – an infantile disorder.” Bin Laden had it bad. 

Pulling off one of the greatest lucky shots in history (both barrels, mind you), Bin Laden sent the West spinning into an orgy of new rules, wild spending, and poorly thought-out postwars (the initial takedowns were works of real artistry). Proving beyond all doubt that we live in a world in which super-empowered individuals can engineer vertical shocks of the highest order, he nonetheless succumbed to the most prosaic of horizontal scenarios – the methodical manhunt that only a vast national security bureaucracy can mount. “Operation Geronimo” was aptly named:  the mythical warrior reduced to a legend’s lonely death.

Read the full piece here

More about Wikistrat's Subscription can be found here

To say that President Barack Obama’s foreign policy plate is full right now is a vast understatement, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for a leader who needs to revive his own economy before trying to resuscitate others (e.g., Tunisia, Egypt, South Sudan, Ivory Coast – eventually Libya?). Faced with the reality that America’s huge debt overhang condemns it to sub-par growth for many years, Washington enters a lengthy period of “intervention fatigue” that – like everything else, according to the Democrats – can still be blamed on George W. Bush.

Referenced from Wikistrat: http://www.wikistrat.com/geopolitical-analysis/obamas-chinese-menu-of-past-presidential-doctrines/#ixzz1Gs4QTx6a

Time's Battleland: "Pakistan: indispensable to US security?"

I am amazed at how quickly the Obama administration is going out of its way to assure everyone that we're sticking with Pakistan for the long haul no matter what. No discussion and little explanation, it's just assumed that Pakistan becomes the new indispensable partner that anchors US national security, even as every day reveals some new aspect where we clearly don't trust the government, military or secret police whatsoever.

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.

Local press coverage of Johnstown talk

The story from the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat:

China’s economy faces hurdles, author says

By Bernie Hornick

China’s expected rise to pre-eminence this century should be short-lived, one geostrategist and futurist told a Johnstown business audience Tuesday.

That’s because many of the seeds of China’s descent already have been sown, argued Thomas P.M. Barnett, a New York Times bestselling author.

Barnett ticked off a list of problems the Chinese face, everything from air and water pollution to over-reliance on foreign oil and an aging population.

All of these factors will serve as brakes to the Chinese economic engine, he said.

“China’s going to hit the wall,” Barnett said.

He foresees a triumvirate of world powers in the decades ahead: The U.S., China and India.

Barnett was optimistic about America in the 21st century.

“We tend to revive ourselves on a regular basis,” he said, adding there’s no telling what will serve as the spark.

In what best can be described as a two-hour master’s class lecture, Barnett whizzed through a PowerPoint presentation outlining his views on “flows” worldwide. Those flows include immigration, water and food resources, oil supplies, population and military conflict.

The U.S. errs, Barnett told members of the National Contract Management Association, when it plans militarily for a confrontation with China – what he calls “the big war market.”

Rather than building big-platform merchandise, such as aircraft carriers, Barnett argues that the defense apparatus would be better served by building the “many and cheap and disposable,” such as drone aircraft.

On the business side, Barnett said the growth of the middle class worldwide will be a continuing trend.

The pyramid-shape of income distribution in the Third World will yield to a diamond shape.

That burgeoning middle class will create nations that not only are more economically stable but also more supportive of democracy.

American companies must enter U.S.-Sino business partnerships to be successful on the mainland.

“You’re going to see this pattern replicated time and again,” he said. U.S. companies are going to have to cut the Chinese in on the business action in their backyard.

About 75 people attended Tuesday’s breakfast at the Holiday Inn-downtown.

Barnett’s books include “The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century” and “Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.”

Chart of the day: A global middle class drinks coffee

FT story on how producing countries (mostly Gap) and emerging markets (mostly New Core) are driving an expansion in coffee consumption globally.  

Coffee demand globally is described by one expert as being at a "turning point":

Demand in western Europe and the US is nearing a plateau, while consumption in emerging markets is rising strongly, particularly in coffee-producing countries.

Brazil is considered the exemplar of the trend, and as readers of this blog will note, I've posted in the past about its rapidly expanding middle class and the stunning growth in food consumption there (both more volume and moving up the caloric chain).

Tea is kind of weird:  both high- and low-brow, meaning the rich love their tea and the poor depend on it in much of the world. But the middle class likes its coffee - its stimulus package every ayem.

Good news for producers.

NAED conference highlights

I get a brief mention and some video:

World Have Your Say podcast (BBC World Service)

Find it here.  It will be available for seven days.

On with Elizabeth Economy and Joel Kotkin, two superb thinkers.

Coverage of my Johnstown talk: "National Security Expert Tells Defense Contractors Changes Must Be Made"

Some snippet video of the new brief's opening.

Video and story side-by-side found here at wjactv.

On BBC's "World Have Your Say" 1300 EST today re: China

Hillary letting the Chinese have it in The Atlantic.

It's perfectly fine for the history books, but I suspect it makes her unworkable in her remaining time as far as the Chinese are concerned. Hence, they will concentrate on Geithner.

Bit of a cashing-out tactic, in my mind, that tells me she is really headed toward the door.

Show goes 1-2.  Not sure when I'm on exactly.

POSTSCRIPT:  I did only okay.  Storming on the CoreGap Bulletin in my short stint at home before I head out for another speech tonight.  Guests were uneven:  some nutty anti-American former Bush official (Treasury), some good Chinese, Elizabeth Economy (fabulous expert on China's economy and environment) and Joel Kotkin, the demographer who wrote the "Next 100 Million" book.  

I will post URL to podcast later.  You can hear my home phone and iPhone go off simultaneously when I'm talking.  "Brilliant!" as the Brits say (sarcastically here).

Time's Battleland: "Counter-terrorism beats nation-building? Are we going to bury COIN all over again?"

My old classmate Fareed Zakaria recently made the argument that counterterrorism beats nation-building when it comes to winning the war on terror. Taking Osama Bin Laden's killing as a point of American pride, he says that sort of military/intelligence operation is what we're good at, and so we should stick with it versus pursue the larger counterinsurgency (COIN) effort that General David Petraeus has now led in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a broad point to be making off the Bin Laden operation, especially as Petraeus heads to CIA. While I may agree with Fareed WRT Af-Pak, let me express a larger concern.

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland.

Mapping the Future

Students From Top Ranked Universities Will Use Wikistrat's Platform to Map the Future

35 Teams Will Compete in First Wiki-Based Grand Strategy Competition

Wikistrat is excited to announce the complete list of competitors participating in the upcoming International Grand Strategy Competition. Teams comprising of PHD and masters students from elite international schools, as well as emerging experts from internationally renowned think tanks, will compete this June in the online wiki-based International Grand Strategy Competition, managed by former Pentagon strategist, and Wikistrat Chief Analyst, Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett.

Students from elite institutions including: 

• Oxford University
• University of Cambridge
• King’s College of London
• Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Yale University
• Columbia University
• Georgetown University
• NATO’s Atlantic Treaty Association
• Johns Hopkins University
• University of Pennsylvania
• US Air Force
• New York University and 
• Tel Aviv University.

These international universities, which educate tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, politicians, military leaders and innovators, will all compete for the $10,000 grand prize. 

They’ll be joined by teams from:

• UK Defense Forum
• Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
• Institute for World Politics
• University College of London
• Aberystwyth University
• Indian Institute of Technology
• Ohio State University
• Ohio University
• Texas A&M University
• University of Texas at Austin
• American Military University
• Mercyhurst University
• Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at Kentucky University
• Claremont Graduate University
• Finance University of Russia
• School of Oriental and African Studies
• Osaka University and 
• Nanyang Technological University. 

“As the world finds itself in a time of unprecedented change, from the geopolitical turbulence shaking the Middle East with the Arab 2.0 revolutions and the death of Bin-Laden, to the continued growth of emerging economic pillars in the East despite global economic challenges, 2011 presents a fitting time for a revolution in global strategic thinking,” said CEO Joel Zamel. “Utilizing a uniquely interactive Web 2.0 approach that allows for collaboration among experts, Wikistrat is leading the way in revolutionizing the way we conduct geopolitical analysis. We are very excited about the opportunity to expose hundreds of strategic analysts from around the world to Wikistrat’s unique methodology.”

Using Wikistrat’s innovative and interactive model, the teams- each representing a country- will formulate strategies on five issues: global energy security; global economic rebalancing; international terrorism; the Sino-American relationship; and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Teams will create pages of content on the wiki and scores will be tallied each week based on each team’s depth of analysis.

The high caliber of the participants has attracted the attention of corporate sponsors and Wikistrat is currently finalizing sponsorships agreements with firms who realize the recruiting potential of the Competition. Corporations looking to identify the brightest emerging analytic talent will observe the Competition as it unfolds, watching the next generation of geopolitical strategists in action.

Zamel is eager to see how the participants will adapt to Wikistrat’s model and use it to their advantage: “Wikistrat is giving tomorrow's leaders a unique opportunity and I’m excited to see how these elite competitors will utilize our innovative model to map the future and provide fresh perspectives on the world's biggest challenges.”

Complete details of the competition are available at http://about.wikistrat.com/competition-media/.

The Chinese in Africa: welcome is wearing off

Nice Economist piece on the Chinese in Africa.  Echoes of the "ugly American":

Once feted as saviours in much of Africa, Chinese have come to be viewed with mixed feelings—especially in smaller countries where China’s weight is felt all the more. To blame, in part, are poor business practices imported alongside goods and services. Chinese construction work can be slapdash and buildings erected by mainland firms have on occasion fallen apart. A hospital in Luanda, the capital of Angola, was opened with great fanfare but cracks appeared in the walls within a few months and it soon closed. The Chinese-built road from Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, to Chirundu, 130km (81 miles) to the south-east, was quickly swept away by rains.

Business, Chinese style

Chinese expatriates in Africa come from a rough-and-tumble, anything-goes business culture that cares little about rules and regulations. Local sensitivities are routinely ignored at home, and so abroad. 

But here's the essential dynamic to take into account when making snap judgments:

 In the South African town of Newcastle, Chinese-run textile factories pay salaries of about $200 per month, much more than they would pay in China but less than the local minimum wage. Unions have tried to shut the factories down. The Chinese owners ignore the unions or pretend to speak no English.

They point out that many South African firms also undercut the minimum wage, which is too high to make production pay. Without the Chinese, unemployment in Newcastle would be even higher than the current 60%. Workers say a poorly paid job is better than none. Some of them recently stopped police closing their factory after a union won an injunction.

Good piece that explores a variety of theories as to why the Chinese are wearing out their welcome despite the money flow.

My sense:  The Chinese, like anybody else, try to see what they can get away with.  If Africa wants better from China, it needs to demand it but likewise provide it.  This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the continent, which can shape it for the better or squander it like other opportunities in the past that - in many ways - were far less kind.

Street legal now at Time's Battleland blog

Nice group of contributors.

My blurb there:

Thomas P.M. Barnett has worked in US national security circles since the end of the Cold War, starting first with the Department of Navy's premier think tank, the Center for Naval Analyses. From there he moved to serve as a senior researcher and professor at the Naval War College in Newport RI, where he became a top assistant to Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowksi - the father of "network-centric warfare." After 9/11, Barnett served in Cebrowski's Office of Force Transformation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the Assistant for Strategic Futures. He developed a famous PowerPoint brief on the subject of globalization and international security, which later morphed into a New York Times-bestseling book, "The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century" (2004). Since leaving government service in 2005, Dr. Barnett has amassed a number of duties in the private sector: running his own consultancy, Barnett Consulting LLP; serving as senior managing director to the technology firm, Enterra Solutions LLC; acting as chief analyst for the online strategic community, Wikistrat Ltd. (and editing their biweekly globalization report, the "CoreGap Bulletin"); writing as contributing editor for Esquire magazine and posting to its The Politics Blog; writing his own blog ("Thomas P.M. Barnett's Globlogization") and a weekly column for World Politics Review ("The New Rules"); working as senior consultant to the political-risk firm, Eurasia Group; and serving as Executive Vice President of the New York- and Beijing-based Center for America-China Partnership. Barnett completed his "Pentagon's New Map" trilogy with the volumes, "Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating" (2005), and "Great Powers: America and the World After Bush" (2009). Dr. Barnett holds a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He is based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and travels the world giving speeches and conducting his strategy work with both private- and public-sector enterprises.

WPR's The New Rules: For U.S., Abandoning the Middle East not a Solution

America's successful assassination of Osama bin Laden, long overdue, naturally renews talk across the country about ending the nation's military involvement in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Coupled with the ongoing tumult unleashed by the Arab Spring, Washington is once again being encouraged to reconsider its strategic relationship with the troubled Middle East. The underlying current to this debate has always been the widely held perception that America's "oil addiction" tethers it to the unstable region. Achieve "energy independence," we are told, and America would free itself of this terrible burden.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Time's Battleland: "Right out of John Boyd's strategy: disconnect, isolate & disempower your enemy"

Osama Desmond:  I am big!  It's the jihad that got small.

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland.

Chart of the day: Declining # of siloviki in Russian government

From FT story on Russian politics.

If Medvedev gets to stay, this would indicate a sea change.  But if Putin reinserts himself - mostly out of ego, then it may not mean all that much.

Putin needs to brush up on his Lee Kuan Yew.

Still, you see a chart like this and you realize that Kremlinology is alive and well.  I did this sort of data gathering in the 1980s.

Reminder: Speaking Tuesday morning (0800) at Johnstown PA

Yes, I plan to level the place with the brief!

People always asking about open talks.  This is a rare-enough one.

Local coverage of the event from the Tribune Democrat:

National security expert to speak

National security expert and New York Times bestselling author Thomas P.M. Barnett will speak at a breakfast meeting in  Johnstown.

Barnett will attend the May 10 meeting of the Greater Johnstown Chapter of the National Contract Management Association at the Holiday Inn-Downtown. He will discuss the “Strategy of the 21st Century in Transition.”

Barnett is a nationally known public speaker. His areas of expertise include being a forecaster of global conflict and an expert on military transformation. He also is a management consultant on issues of international security and economic globalization.

His newest book, released in 2009, is “Great Powers: America and the World after Bush.”

Registration and breakfast will begin at 7:30 a.m. Barnett will speak from 8 until 9, followed by a Q&A session, meet and greet, and book signing.

Guests and nonmembers of the association are welcome.  

The cost, including breakfast, is $25. For details, call Melinda Schreyer at 262-2338.

Other notices:

See you there.