Nice letter on PNM from West Point grad who has lived its narrative

In his original email, this retired military officer stated (and this was my favorite part) that he didn't read anyting in PNM that he didn't already know, in the sense that it read like his career and lessons he'd learned along the way.

I love this sort of compliment and asked Brandon if I could post his letter. He edited it down a bit and consented. It's a good read, and I thank him for making this post happen.

Professor Barnett, 18 NOV, 2005

I just finished reading ìThe Pentagon's New Mapî and I want to share with you how your book directly relates to my background and experiences.

I graduated from WestPoint in 1997 and have served the last 8+ years as an Armor officer in the US Army. I led troops in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq and took an active interest in studying the local and global politics of the regions where I have been deployed. The concepts you put forward are very familiar and gaining wide acceptance, at least among the lieutenants, captains and majors who have been my peers. I have never before been motivated to write to an author, but I feel a need to thank you for giving me something solid to point to when I share my vision of a future worth creating. I hope every decision maker in the world reads it.

In 2000 I attended the Armor Officer's Advanced Course at Ft. Knox. There, we memorized Soviet armored formations and doctrine and war-gamed ways to defeat divisional armored threats in open terrain. The Soviet Army had disappeared 10 years previously, but the assumption was that we would fight a similar doctrinal enemy at some time in the future. We did not know who that would be so we studied the Red Army for practice, with the assumption that we would develop the mental tools needed to defeat a new doctrinal enemy when ever one might come along. On September 11, 2001 we added the word ìasymmetricalî to our vocabulary and put those doctrine books in a cardboard box.

As the only heavyweight doctrinal fighter in the world, nobody was willing to step into the ring with our military. America's enemies learned that they would have to come up with new and creative ways to jab at us while avoiding our right hook. They exploited weaknesses that we did not even know we had. Terrorism made the revolutionary leap from criminal nuisance to strategic threat.

I recently left the Army and I am now working for a defense contractor. I have a personal interest in seeing big budgets for net-centric warfare, leap-ahead technology, and futuristic weapons. I strongly believe that those things are in America's best interest too. It is the Defense Department's obligation to prepare now for any possible future contingency. It is true that many of the weapons being developed today will have little application in the Global War On Terror (GWOT) but we must maintain our Leviathan status through leadership in the quality, quantity, and technology of our weapons and intelligence. That is the shield that makes prosperity possible and the big stick to make it Global. We can never afford to risk losing that advantage. The world is full of irrational leaders, and we will always need our Big Stick to keep them from derailing progress.

What is missing is the ìSys Adminî force. Right now, we expect one Army to fill both roles with one set of equipment. We can see how well that is working in Iraq. I have discussed this very issue with my peers since I was a cadet at West Point. Soldiers are less than ideally suited for Operations Other Than War (OOTW) but right now there is nobody else better suited to do it. American soldiers are intelligent and flexible and will do their best at anything we ask of them, but it is costly and wasteful to expect soldiers to be proficient at two very distinct jobs. My soldiers, trained as a tank crewman to identify and kill enemy armor at a distance, had go through significant re-training before being qualified to walk through villages and build relationships with tribal leaders. Once that mission was completed, their skills as armored crewman were so diminished that they had to go through significant re-training before being certified again to perform their primary duties.

The Sys Admin force is desperately needed. As an armor officer I was primarily trained to defeat enemy armor. Yet, in Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo, my soldiers and I had responsibility or oversight for such varied areas as: commercial farming and irrigation, water purification, road and bridge repair, infrastructure assessments, opinion polls, public opinion shaping, educational assessments, electrical power distribution, organizing elections, advising local governments, refugee relocation, riot control, traffic control, training police, providing medical care, restoring essential services. . . the list goes on, but the point I want to make is that in order to succeed, we had to do all of those things while simultaneously fighting an insurgency. ìSimultaneityî is a major buzz-word for commanders in Iraq and the first time I heard it the meaning was clear - something is missing - the Sys Admin force. Some have argued that the Army has always gone back and forth between Big Stick and Sys Admin (civil war reconstruction, frontier outposts, WWII constabulary, etc). That doesn't make it right.

One of the biggest things saving us right now in Iraq is the institutional level of ìSys Adminî skills developed accidentally as a result of mission creep in the Balkans. Frustrated and saddled with open ended peacekeeping commitments in the Balkans that were distracting us from the ìrealî business of training for the next major war, Army leaders took on additional responsibilities to move things along faster. Once the fighting ended, there was nobody really pushing for economic progress, democratic institutions, reconstruction, and the list of other things which must take place in order to set the conditions for military withdrawal. Sure, there was the UN and OSCE and other NGOs but they just were not organized enough to be able to find their way to work every morning. To the benefit of all, the Army took a broader view of our mission and applied our surplus organizational skills and manpower to ensuring the success of many of the NGOs. We were not trained for such tasks but Americans see a need and pitch in. That experience is paying off in Iraq, where there are no NGO's and the Army is going it alone.

The Sys Admin half needs to be run by the State Department or some future successor to it. It needs some MP-type foot soldiers and a lot of military advisors and trainers, but most of all it needs expertise in the systems and functions of government to train and develop indigenous populations. It needs cultural and language experts; electrical, civil, and agricultural engineers; natural resource developers; communications experts Ö basically, everything we lack right now in Iraq. Much of this can not be contracted as we learned in Iraq.

The necessary split in the force will not be easy to accomplish. Your idea of first making all flag officers Joint will go a long way toward eliminating resistance to such a change. I would then take it a step farther and eliminate the separation of the services and make it one DOD. Same uniforms, weapons, vehicles, radios, networks, information systems, shared databases, personnel systems, promotion systems, everything. Tradition is great but not when it affects our ability to talk to each other and work together for what should be the same national security goals. Eliminating redundancy and waste would cut huge pieces out of the budget for other more necessary things.

I just want to list some of the other things in your book that were particularly meaningful to me:

Your description of Bush doing the right thing but not being able to articulate (sell) it is exactly right. WMD, 911, oil and vilifying Saddam are all distractions and secondary to the true value of our intervention in Iraq. As I often explained to the soldiers under my command, the best reason for us to be in Iraq is simply the hope of a future without conflict when Iraq would stand as a shining example of democracy and freedom and have a domino effect of stabilization and freedom in the neighboring countries.

It seems a lot farther away now than it did when the statues of Saddam were falling. Like the president and much of America, I bought into the idea that we would topple Saddam and let the Iraqis' natural thirst for democracy take over. After that, an Army of contractors would arrive to reconstruct the country, fully funded by Iraq's own oil revenues. Of course the Iraqi desire for democracy turned out to be a false premise and the unforseen foreign backed insurgency has prevented reconstruction and suppressed the oil production that could provide the income to make the Iraqi government self sufficient. The road to success is now longer and harder than we had bargained for. However, that does not change the fact that shrinking the Gap is the only effective means of ending terrorism. Everything else is just treating the symptoms. Success in Iraq will be costlier than we imagined but failure would be far costlier in the long run.

The description of Navy Captain ìPhilî on p. 273 precisely describes the dilemma of every foot soldier in Iraq today: Do I shoot first and risk killing an innocent person, or do I risk my life and try to understand what is really going on? It is a question every soldier must answer for himself. It takes a long time to learn what is normal and what is out of place. By the time you figure it out you have inevitably made some mistakes but you learn and adapt and in the end do more good than harm.

I had been aware of ìGlobalizationî for several years before I truly understood what it was and its impact on the world. Although there are the professional protestors who consider it as some global conspiracy, it is nothing more than a manifestation of free choice. I am sorry if Coca-Cola and blue jeans are destroying your traditional culture (361), but we are not forcing anyone to buy our pop cultural icons. We export only what foreign markets demand. If you don't think it is better than what you already have, then don't buy it. Societies that fail to modify their ìtraditionalî ways once exposed to something better get left behind to die. American culture redefines itself every day is it grows to become more inclusive, more educated and more technologically advanced. I think you should have spent more time on this idea because it goes right to the heart of what we are facing in the GWOT. The Middle Eastern Islamic way of life will not survive globalization. It will be forced to make such fundamental changes that it will no longer be recognizable from the Islam practiced today. The Middle East will become more like Turkey and Turkey will become more like Europe. Those behind the terrorism know this and that is why they are fighting so fiercely. It's not about protecting their traditional way of life, it is about protecting their traditional basis of power. The leaders in the Middle East today are tribal sheiks, imams, ayatollahs, kings, emirs, mullahs, and others who exert a traditional form of influence. They enslave their women, run private militias, extort money from contractors and sell their influence to their constituencies. While their practices are widely seen as corrupt to the West, they are accepted and respected in the Middle East. Those leaders are not elected; they are born into power and keep it through nepotism. By joining the Core they stand to lose everything. The stakes are much higher for them than they are for us so they will risk more to win. Their true failure is in not recognizing that the outcome is inevitable. The terrorists can temporarily isolate sections of the globe from progress by limiting access to information but, as China proves, they can not keep their people indefinitely ignorant. Even if the US troops withdraw today, Globalization is still an irresistible force. Our soldiers only marginally speed up what would happen naturally in 50 years time. Perhaps these things should not be rushed.

Freedom can not be imposed, only offered (356). Freedom came too fast for Iraq. Iraqis told me that they prayed for someone strong to take control and bring back order and stability to the wild land, with just a bit less repression. Some asked me to be that person. I was hurt, how could someone return such a beautiful gift? Unlike Americans, they were willing to trade freedom for security.

Refugee flows from the Gap (313) are a major concern. In the Balkans I assisted in the preparation for the forced return of refugees from Core European countries. Europe sat and watched the war and was content as long as it stayed isolated. It was not until the refugees threatened to break the bank in the social welfare states of Western Europe that they decided they had a responsibility to do something about it.

The lack of interoperability with other militaries is increasingly a problem that we deal with (314). On various occasions I have had the opportunity to participate in Joint operations where the difficulty of integrating our partners nearly negated the benefit. The value of joint partners is often political and not in most instances militarily advantageous. At a seminar in 2001, I learned that the US defense budget was then ten times greater than the sum of all of the other NATO partners combined! If that is true (I did not fact check) then it makes unilateral action seem most appropriate. The ability to act unilaterally is a tremendous advantage that makes the US unique in its ability to pursue its interests. If we fail to attract allied troops, it is a political issue, not a military one. Contrast that with the formerly sovereign countries of Europe which are in the process of subordinating their ability to act unilaterally to the EU's EUROCORPS. To deploy, EUROCORPS needs French infantry, Norwegian fuel trucks, Dutch medics, German helicopters, etc. If one partner backs out then the others won't be able to go it alone.

Thanks for putting war where it belongs - ìwithin the context of everything else.î I can't wait to read your second book and catch up on the dialog on your website. How strange that I had not heard of your book until Amazon said, ìPeople who bought Calvin and Hobbes also bought . . .î

Brandon K. Trevino

Chet Richards on Blueprint for Action

Chet, whom I write about in BFA, is an intense fellow who lives and breathes national security like few people you'll meet. He's also more systematic in his thinking on the subject of military strategy than anyone I've ever heard speak, and I've heard a lot.

Most interestingly, Chet's opinions change, and he's awfully transparent about that, which is why he should probably blog (unless he's doing it already) because that sort of sharing is invaluable (you want your kids to read, then read in front of them [modeled behavior] and if you want readers who strategize, then display your strategizing [warts and all] in front of them).

Here's Chet's (first?) review of BFA. As is his way, Chet has many likes and plenty of dislikes, delivered in his usual, systematic way. Not surprisingly, he likewise guesses what a Vol III is naturally about.

I will review this review, along with others, in the coming weeks. For now I just provide the link: http://www.d-n-i.net/dni_reviews/blueprint_for_action.htm

Appeared briefly on Diane Rehm's show today

First, I had a great time with my kids last weekend, watching the three younger ones while Mom and eldest daughter escaped to New England. We saw Harry Potter on Saturday (really good) and then went to the Lord of the Rings exhibit (costumes, props, models) at the Indiana State Museum on Sunday (to include a hilarious forced perspective shot we had made whereby our two youngest were made to seem roughly the same size as me!).

Sunday night drove my mother-in-law home to Terre Haute (she had gone to Boston with my ladies) and then father-in-law and I drove to brother-in-law's place in Chicago for the night. Next morning the three of us, plus another brother-in-law, drove up to Green Bay, getting there just after noon. We toured Lambeau, ate lunch there, visited the Hall of Fame, then shopped at the Pro Shop, then did a tailgating party (very nice at the Resch Center) and then hit the game.

Instead of my usual seats in the South End Zone, I had trade within my family for the four pack of seats in the North End Zone (four front-to-back on the end of rows 14-17, smack dab in the middle of the goal post). I had never sat that close before, the the long perspective took a bit of getting used to (feast or famine). Brett three two TDs (#393 ande #394, leaving him 26 behind all-time leader Dan Marino) and the second one came right to us, which was very exciting. Game, however, was lost on last-second FG by Vikes into our goal post (bit sad). Still, the four of us had a great time together at the game, so a special shared time with relatives that's priceless, including a brief chat with brother Andy and sister Maggie (they took my usual seats in the trade).

Yesterday as we're hopping around Lambeau, I get an email on my Treo from Diane Rehm's show producer, asking if I can appear tomorrow (meaning today). I say yes, but that it will have to be over my cell phone and I'll just pull over from the drive back to Indiana.

To my shock, they say yes.

I will admit to much beer over the night, so getting up early today for the long drive back was no picnic. We make it past Milwaukee to a Cracker Barrel off I94 just above the Wisconsin state line by 1020 EST. So I get my relatives set at a table, order the "sunrise sampler," and then go sit in the car for the brief 5-minute bit on Rehm's show right after the 40-min break mark. I hadn't been listening to the show (doing a bunch of phone calls), so I stuck to big-picture stuff from BFA vice trying to get really specific on the subject (the desire for troop withdrawals from Iraq, as triggered by the Murtha controversy).

Not sure how well it fit. Rehm intro'd me as Naval War College and didn't mention BFA (my fault for not alerting my PR people at Putnam to work the issue for me, but hey! I was on vacation, so to speak). I didn't correct her at the start (always a no-no), but instead waited until I was on my way out to plug Esquire, Enterra and . . . even I managed to forget BFA, it seemed!).

Ah well, I have enough people whose opinions I really care about describing BFA as superior to PNM, and enough connectivity ensuing with senior policy types and military leaders as a result of BFA, that I simply refuse to get too jacked about how well BFA does in this crowded book season seguing into the holidays. It's a great book and I'm immensely happy I wrote it. It is one that should stand the test of time quite nicely, and I like to write for that long haul.

Go here to listen to the Diane Rehm show

Great article on Fox Fallon trying to build mil-mil ties with China, despite opposition of Pentagon neocons, Rumsfeld continued ...

Found here: http://www.d-n-i.net/grossman/riling_hawks.htm.

Thanks to Roland Dobbins.

Disappearing ...

Start the trek to Green Bay later today for the game tomorrow. Losing myself in that process with two brother-in-laws and father-in-law (all my guests).

Back late Tuesday. . .

Yes, yes, the SysAdmin notion is impractical, so sayeth the academics

Too bad no one told the Pentagon . . .

Great story that gives one great hope, with England as DEPSECDEF and Giambastiani as Vice Chairman. These two are both brilliant guys who will go a long way to helping Rumsfeld and Pace make the SysAdmin force come into being.

Here beginnith the Department of Everything Else . . .

November 20, 2005

Pentagon to Raise Importance of 'Stability' Efforts in War

By THOM SHANKER and DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - The Pentagon's leadership, recognizing that it was caught off guard by difficulties in pacifying Iraq after the invasion, is poised to approve a sweeping directive that will elevate what it calls "stability operations" to a core military mission comparable to full-scale combat.

The new order could significantly influence how the military is structured, as well as the specialties it emphasizes and the equipment it buys.

The directive has been the subject of intense negotiations in the Pentagon policy office and throughout the military; the deliberations included the State Department and other civilian agencies, as the order aims to push the entire government to work in greater unison to plan and carry out postcombat operations.

The directive also envisions sending abroad more civilian officials, including State Department personnel, to help the military establish the peace and rebuild after combat.

The newest draft of the document, delivered in recent days to the acting deputy secretary of defense, Gordon R. England, for final approval, states, "Stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support."

The stability operations carried out by the Department of Defense "shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all D.O.D. activities," the draft says.

Although the American military is now virtually in a class of its own when it comes to conventional combat, the wars in Afghanistan and in particular Iraq prove that winning the peace is just as important - and sometimes more difficult.

Congress has criticized the Bush administration, and the Pentagon, for not devising effective plans to stabilize and rebuild Iraq after the swift capture of Baghdad. Many lawmakers have accused the administration of utterly failing to coordinate its postcombat efforts across the executive branch.

Even in Afghanistan, where reconstruction and democratization is progressing more successfully, the effort is stymied by the lack of government personnel from departments other than the Pentagon to work in developing the economy, building public service infrastructure, battling the narcotics trade and developing democratic political institutions. Although the military is stretched by its current missions, the number of Americans in uniform is vastly larger than the civilian force in the State Department and other agencies assigned to reconstruction tasks.

Beyond that, military personnel can be ordered to yearlong tours in war zones, unlike civil and foreign service personnel, who have greater choice over the location and length of their assignments.

"Many stability operations tasks are best performed by indigenous, foreign, or U.S. civilian professionals," the order says in arguing that the military alone cannot shoulder the mission, and should not. "Nonetheless, U.S. military forces shall be prepared to perform all tasks necessary to establish or maintain order when civilians cannot do so" . . .

In recent days, a significant change in the order was made by the military's Joint Staff just before it was sent to Mr. England. Earlier drafts were limited to "stability operations," but the current draft was specifically rewritten to require a much broader range of "military support for stability, security, transition and reconstruction operations."

That shift, three civilian and military officials said, was advocated by Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who pushed for an integrated response to the stability operations challenge in his previous assignment as commander of the military's Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va.

The previous military term for stability operations - Phase IV, because it follows combat, known as Phase III - is not in the directive, an acknowledgment that in Iraq and Afghanistan combat is occurring simultaneously with reconstruction and aid work and that stabilization requires much more than security . . .

I briefed Giambastiani and his senior staff in 2003.

That last para is pure SysAdmin in vision: the military-market nexus made real.

Go here for the full story

Perfect NYT Trifecta Today on China

First one (major lead, of course) is about Bush trip to China: Bush, in Beijing, Faces a Partner Now on the Rise.

Then the two better counterarguments:

1) Budding alliances with other New Core members (here Brazil): Brazil Weighs Costs and Benefits of Alliance With China;

and

2) China's economic and diplomatic movement into Africa (the Gap): China Wages Classroom Struggle to Win Friends in Africa.

My point: China is playing a horizontal, asymmetric, nonzero sum game across the entire playing board, seeing all aspects of national power.

Meanwhile, the Bush neocons play a vertical ("We can surround China!"), symmetric ("It's America versus China!"), zero sum ("They rise and therefore we must be falling!") gamae that relies overwhelmingly on military power as the be-all and end-all of influence in the world.

And the world is watching this, and when combined with our sloppy peace-waging effort in Iraq, it signals to them that America is without rudder, without strategic vision, and without a sense of how the world works in the age of globalization.

And we have three more years of this . . .

NYT Magazine tech writer on my appearance in Second Life

Found here: collisiondetection.net.

No longer a one-sided fight to demonize China

■"To Win Friends, China Takes Its Message on a U.S. Road Trip: Nation Steps Up Diplomacy, Hire Big Lobbying Firm; An Offer to Cut Red Tape," by Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2005, p. A1.

■"Bush's Weakness May Benefit China Talks," by Jason Dean and Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2005, p. A4.

Used to be that both sides worked to demonize China: our red-baiters and China's over-the-top leader Mao competed to see who could make China seem nuttier (no contest, as Mao goes down as the century's biggest mass murderer by far, easily outpacing both Hitler and Stalin).

Old pro Joe Prueher, former commander of Pacific Command and former U.S. ambassador to China, notes that "China's diplomats have gotten a lot more confident and a lot more sophisticated."

Buddy, you ain't seen nothing yet.

We're witnessing the stay-at-home Fourth Generation leadership work us via lobbyists, media and PR people. Just think what happens when the Fifth and Sixth Generation leaderships come on line in 2012 and beyond. Unlike the 4ths, who were trapped in China during the Cultural Revolution, the following two crews traveled abroad after Nixon went to China, with many of them coming here for their college educations.

I have met more than a few of these guys, and they are more than sophisticated. They're just plain smart--about us, the world, and economics and power.

Bush's neocons might think they'll be containing China in coming years, but their days are numbered, as measured by the growing isolationism expressed in public polls.

No, I don't make too much of that. Bush and the neocons leave and a new foreign policy emerges, and that "isolationism" will evaporate as quickly as it arose.

Meanwhile, China's leaders increasingly realize their power, and will use it far more cleverly than the neocons with their bluster and myopic focus on military means of expressing national will.

Locking in at today's prices, my friends--today's prices.

In the end, you pay the piper. All Bush does in these last three years with this "big hat, no cattle" approach is raise the price of the final sale.

Oh yes, the CEO presidency all right.

Funny, because Bush supports small business better than most, and yet he seems to distrust the capitalism staring him in the face from China.

My favorite bit in the first piece?

When Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick warns China in a tough-love speech that they better learn how to become a "stakeholder" in the global community.

The Chinese were apopletic, searching English dictionaries. They knew of "hegemon" and "competitors" and "peers," but what did "stakeholder" mean (I'm lifting completely from Neil King's very clever end to this article; he's truly a masterful reporter).

Rest assured, the Chinese read and learned. And the reason why they freaked was not the term so much as that Zoellick was the man using it. They know him to be both smart and fair--and non-ideological. Rumsfeld blows hard and that's to be expected, but if Bob says something, by God they check it out!

Waiting on God-not

■"U.N. Envoys See Loss of Steam for Expanding Security Council," by Warren Hoge, New York Times, 18 November 2005, pulled off web.

■"Zimbabwe Said to Permit U.N. to Build New Homes," by Michael Wines, New York Times, 18 November 2005, pulled off web.

Wasn't going to blog today, cause spouse and eldest daughter have abandoned ship, leaving me stranded with the three youngest (I see Harry Potter looming . . .) for the weeked.

Good news: Pack v. Vikes in Lambeau on MNF awaits on the far side.

But this pair too good to pass up.

One of the complaints I get on BFA and the A-to-Z rule set on processing politically bankrupt states: Why can't the UN be in charge from start to finish?

Well, it can't because the UN Security Council was built for another era: the winning coalition from WWII as permanent members only.

Another good reason: the UN respects sovereignty when it shouldn't. Robert Mugabe makes 700,000 people homeless one afternoon in a show of might designed to scare his opponents after his recent sham election. The UN presses it case and gets . .. the right to construct 2,500 houses to deal with the aftermath.

So long as they can fit about 300 people in each house, I think we're there all right.

Tough nut, that UN. Make almost three quarters of a million people homeless and they'll threaten to build a Potemkin village to make it better.

Two interviews banked

Went back on Tracy McCray's show outta Minnesota again today. Last time we tried to tackle as much of BFA as possible. Today's show was just about China.

Of the five times I've been on the show, I feel like we covered ground best on this one, in part because I tried to cut down on the length of my answers and let Tracy and partner Andy steer me more.

That was 11-12 EST.

No archiving online there, unfortunately.

Then 1-2pm EST I taped an hour with Phil Windley of IT Converations. He and Doug Kaye said my recorded presentation at Pop!Tech last year was downloaded about 65,000 times from their site, so both were excited to have me back at their plate. Windley's questions were great: simple, direct, and with good steering. It was the kind of skillful interview that lets you walk away feeling better about your work.

When it's posted, they will let me know.

As America seeks to contain China, we'll end up being shut out of Asia's economic integration

■"U.S. Increasingly Pursues Two-Track China Policy: Economic, Security Goals Yield Approach Combining Engagement, Containment," by Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, 17 November 2005, p. A1.

■"The FTA Fetish," op-ed by Bernard Gordon, Wall Street Journal, 17 November 2005, p. A16.

■"Old Age Tsunami: Asia's graying population could roil the global economy," by , Wall Street Journal, 15 November 2005, p. A22.

The Bush neocons in the Pentagon believe their job is to contain China's rise, deluding themselves into thinking that strengthened mil-mil ties with countries surrounding China will somehow "manage" its growing strength that is overwhelmingly based on its economic power.

I'm with Larry Wilkerson on this one: Not only are the Indians laughing at our stupidity, everyone we court in Asia is. If anyone thinks these countries, even Japan, are choosing us militarily over China economically over the long haul, then they're working to cut off America's nose to spite its face.

Such is the state of grand stategy iin the Bush Administration: fighting the past while trying to shape the future, and effectively hamstringing itself in the process better than Osama bin Laden or AMZ ever could.

This focus allows the Big War crowd to continue to argue for Big War platforms and weapons systems, and this continued focus in acquisition will not only cost American lives in the warfare and peace-waging that the Army and Marines will inevitably be drawn into inside the Gap over coming years, it will prevent and delay our ability to shift assets from East Asia to the Middle East and deny our ability to better tap China's vast human potential for SysAdmin work in the Middle East, Africa and South America, where diplomatically the Chinese continue to kick our asses--slow but steady.

Meanwhile, the Big War clientele that want to make their money off China's rise by casting it as inevitable enemy will continue to get their programs of record approved in budget battles, so many purposes are served--just none that lend themselves to the real strategic tasks we face in the decades ahead, or what I call shrinking the Gap. Just watch net-centric operations' potential for recasting the SysAdmin force's capabilities get lost in the shuffle, because China's just too good a big, bad, Cold War-like enemy to pass up.

Meanwhile, China will deftly shut America out of East Asia's growing push for economic integration, as the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) process becomes the ASEAN + Three process, with Japan, India, and China joining that economic package in the first steps toward creating the Asian Union that will inevitably appear in coming years with China as the anchor.

Yes, yes, we are told by the neocons that the Chinese only get rich so they can threaten us later.

But which happens first, as I ask in my BFA brief and in the book: Will China get old? Before it gets rich? Before it gets threatening?

Which one seems inevitable to you?

And so stands America's grand strategy in the hands of the neocons, whose understanding of globalization's continued unfolding is just this side of dumbass, it's so unbelievably ignorant of economics.

You want to know why necons are so routinely described, as Doug Feith was repeatedly, as the "dumbest f--cking so-and-so on the planet"?

It's because they are.

And the sad state of State is why it happens. The talent pool there is so shallow, that the neocons win by default.

Yet again: this is why I wanted Kerry in 2004. We are at the end of imagination and intelligence with this crowd on foreign policy strategy. They have nowhere to go but down. These will be three wasted years unless somebody over in Foggy Bottom pulls their skulls out of that familar, warm, wet space and seriously looks ahead to this country's strategic interests beyond January 2009.

Bob Zoellick, the world needs you now more than ever.

"No more Iraq's is everyone's goal

■"American attitude on Iraq similar to thosein Vietnam: more than half in poll want troopshome within year," by Susan Page, USA Today, 16 November 2005, p. 1A.

More than half of Americans would like the troops home within a year, but 40 percent don't want them home earlier than they should be--however that is defined.

Two points: Iraq can be described as our 6th (Kurds), 7th (Shiia) and 8th (Sunnis) nation-building efforts since the end of the Cold War. Bush the Elder started the first one (Somalia), and Clinton triggered three (Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo). Bush started four (the Iraq trio plus the earlier Afghanistan).

Make no mistake: there will be more nation-building efforts: following civil wars and strife, following disasters, following coups and state collapses, and following regime change engineered by Core powers (but hopefully never so "unilaterally" as Iraq was perceived to be).

No more Iraqs? Definitely. I don't want to see that peace-waging effort made again. But remember this: America loved the war that saw three weeks of combat and less than 150 combat dead. What America hates is the peace that has yet to be won comprehensively (i.e., the Sunni effort), and the almost 2k lost in that difficult effort.

The Army and Marines adjust from here on out by working on making that 2k of casualties not happen again the next time, because they know--deep down--there will be next times. The Gap isn't going away on its own. We'll go in, for one reason or another.

The only question is, Do you want America and the Core as a whole to get good at this? Or for American to remain far too incompetent at this second-half, peace-waging effort?

Rest assured: somebody will be going into Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) in coming months/years to make that outcome work. The odds of the locals pulling that off on their own is rather fantastic.

And then think about Syria down the road as well.

Somebody will be going in to make that post-whatever situation work better. If we don't get good at it, and I mean all the way through to sustainable economic development (not dependency on aid, mind you, but serious local private entrepreneurship), then we will not see peace nor stability in the region, and we'll end up pulling out the Leviathan again.

The SysAdmin officer knows his surroundings--inside out

■"In Iraq, One Officer Uses Cultural Skills To Fight Insurgents: While Talking Like a Bedouin He Sees Smuggling Routes; Spotting a Phony Kurd," by Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 15 November 2005, p. A1.

Another great piece by Jaffe.

The Ranger who wears civvies, sports the beard, and works with just a 9mm pistol . He speaks Arabic with a Yemeni accent.

No young kid. The classic SysAdmin officer is closer to 40 than 20. Our man David is 37.

His commander is the legend-in-the-making Col. H.R. McMaster. Say his name around Central Command in Tampa or the Qatar, and you will hear stories.

David is part of a "small cadre of cultural experts in the Army known as foreign-area officers." The acronym is FAOs.

These are the cultural scouts, the negotiators, the dances-with-wolves types who nonetheless are the most important of team players.

Jaffe quotes his colleagues as describing David as invaluable: "We ought to have one of these guys assigned to every [regional] commander in Iraq," says one senior officer, "I'd love to say 'assign me 100 of these guys.'"

How many of these guys can you buy is you go short on one of those $3b Cold War platforms?

Lots and lots.

Guess how many lives these guys save?

Lots and lots.

Is it really that simple? Yeah, when the same choices are made year after year and we keep going to both war and peace with the force that we have, instead of the one we need.

But David is being sent back to Yemen, out of Iraq, his unit disbanded.

Why?

The Army is debating how far they will go in adapting themselves to the unconventional warfare that will define the SysAdmin force. As Jaffe writes, these approaches "don't lend themselves to the Army's traditional reliance on firepower and technology."

Traditional?

For the 20th century, perhaps, but not for the calvary that settled the West in the latter decades of the 19th century.

Some in the Defense Department, Jaffe writes, are convinced that FAOs are the future.

An Army colonel who oversees the FAOs in the region says the "Cold War mindset in which we are still fighting the hordes in Eastern Europe" is to blame.

Cold War mindset all right, but that vision shifted east, my friend, to China.

But the colonel's right. Of the 1,000 or so FAOs, only about 150 focus on the Middle East. Most are still trained for Europe--if you can believe it!

Buy one military,operate another. The condemnation still stands.

Rest assured, the McMaster's of the Army will push for change.

We can do or we can teach, now which is it going to be?

Dateline: SWA flight from BWI to Louisville KY, 16 November 2005

Drove to Louisville on Monday afternoon, after some house decision stuff in southern Indiana, because the SWA flight out got me direct to BWI in time to drive all the way to Warrenton VA to catch Art Cebrowski's wake.

Had a nice talk with his older brother John (spitting image, especially in sound) and his spouse, a very wonderful lady named Cathy. Hadn't seen her since Bethesda Naval Hospital when I stopped in for a last time with Art on 3 November. I had hoped to see him again, but did not expect to when I left his room that day, so we both said all we needed to say. And I'm glad we did that.

Stayed overnight in Warrenton, then attended his funeral mass the next day, lighting candles for him and my Dad on the way out. Saw a bunch of old friends and colleagues, a couple of which said they were so glad I noted Art's passing on my blog, otherwise they would have missed the mass.

Much like my posts about my Dad's passing brought me a bunch of emails from long-lost acquaintances, so too have I received emails from guys who flew with Art back in the 1960s and 1970s. People just want to reach and connect at moments like these

John Cebrowski's eulogy for Art was simply stunning. Beautiful beyond words. If Art had been delivering it for John, it would have been the same eulogy. That's how close they were. I told John that afterwards, and thanked him for the personal courage it took to deliver it. For a minute there, we had Art back, and it was worth every second of John's amazing effort to witness it.

Then I tried to drive on back roads from Warrenton to Quantico. Bad idea. Got lost several times, and landed in Quantico 15 mins late for my speech to a full auditorium of Marines. Then they couldn't figure out how to hook up my laptop. Then I gave them my brief on a stick and they couldn't get that PC to come up on the projector. Finally they did and I rushed to the stage, only to discover that they PC in question had an old copy of MS Office, so my animations appeared but did not disappear as required, making several of my early slides (all PNMers) a bit incomprehensible visually.

The Marines were very patient with me, and once I made it to Bradd Hayes' BFA slides, I was okay, because Bradd eschews layering.

By the end of the talk, it was a rocking-and-rolling audience, full of Iraq and Afghan vets. More questions afterwards (we went a half hour late in their school day, but no one walked), according to their head prof, than he's ever seen before with this class with all of its previous guest speakers. That made me feel good, along with the cool coffee mug that Marine Corps U gave me.

Disappointed that the journalist who promised to show up and cover the event in order to complete a profile of me for a major pub didn't bother to make it. Apparently he couldn't convince his editors that my stuff was being taken seriously by the Pentagon and/or the government.

Hmmm.

Last night I had dinner with someone that people have been telling me for months that I "just have to meet!" No one any of you have heard of. Not a celebrity, but a real guy. There were a couple of close calls in the past, and then the right intermediary makes it happen last night, followed up by an even better F2F in an office setting. I now know why so many people said we needed to get together (egomaniac that I am, imagine how often I meet people I immediately recognize are easily as smart as I am and a whole lot wiser), and I hope it's the start of something big, because, in the end, we're all looking for the same thing: me, this guy, Bono, Jeffrey Sachs, and a host of other people. We're looking for the ultimate push package, or what I've taken to calling "development in a box."

It will be built . . . eventually, because failure isn't an option . . . ad infinitum.

This guy's story is one I would love to tell some day, but for now we seek to do, not teach.

As Robert Duvall's character "Fish" said near the end of "Deep Impact" as he was beginning his crew's suicide run to blow up the asteroid hurtling toward earth: "We can either do or we can teach, now which is it going to be?"

I'm deciding I'm going to focus on doing more than teaching in coming months. I'm going to focus on the amazing array of "doing" opportunities that Steve DeAngelis and I are lining up for Enterra Solutions with the Pentagon, various commands and intelligence community members, and other key institutional players in the national security realm (like Oak Ridge National Lab).

To focus on that doing, I will need to cut down a bit on the "teaching." The speeching will remain, because it pays bills and I love "the the-ah-ter!" of live performance. Plus it creates amazing professional connectivity (along with business opportunities) that's important to me. There are simply too many good opportunities coming up to make the vision real for me to devote the same amount of time and effort to describing things from my blog perch.

Doesn't mean I won't continue to blog, but there will be a serious retooling.

First, I'm parting ways with my longtime webmaster Critt Jarvis, by mutual consent. Critt and I have been together since the beginning of the blog, but recently, my needs for personal assistance have simply gone through the roof, and Critt's not willing to pursue that sort of full-service situation with me. There are certain things he likes to do with his schedule and his substantial presence on the web, and I respect that.

But I desperately need that sort of personal help, and if I can't arrange it, there will be no blog, pure and simple. The stress of trying to do-it-all and be-it-all for everybody (especially all these readers who send me lengthy reading assignments every day!) simply doesn't work for me in a family sense. I only have so many years with these kids, and there are limits to the sacrifices I'm willing to make: yes to changing the U.S. national security establishment and, through that, the world, but no to trying to play teacher full time through this venue. Again, I need to focus more on the doing, simply because the historical opportunities being afforded to me right now are too important to piss away.

I also need that personal assistance to be all inclusive, as in an all-in-one person. Why? Because my travel, my blogging, and my schedule and recordkeeping are so highly intertwined. I already have PR people (via Putnam and Esquire), an editor (Mark Warren), a publisher (Neil Nyren), a literary agent (Jennifer Gates) and a speaking agent (Jenn Posda), and negotiating all those relationships, as much as I personally enjoy them singularly and in aggregate, is hard enough. I need someone who can do a lot of coordinating among all those entities, plus keep track of all my Enterra commitments (my logistical help from that direction remains fantastic), AND be able to keep the site up and running in all its forms (in response to a neverending stream of commands and demands from me).

Now, clearly I want the site to remain in all its archival glory, and I want the blog to remain, because it's my brain and my memory. Questions arise about the weekly pubs that gather up all my story blogs and present a mix of Q&A and essays (the newsletter).

For now, I think both of those weekly pubs go into hiatus until I figure out how important they are to me. As for what Critt does to the ancillary sites he's set up (e.g., the readers' forum "Blogging the Future"), that's up to him WRT however his future worklife unfolds. We both need to take care of our families, so we both need to make some choices on balance in our lives.

I'm enormously grateful to Critt for what he helped me start via the blog and this site, and it saddens me somewhat that our collaboration is sacrificed to the sheer trajectory of my career right now, but I remain committed to the vision, as I know Critt does (no less fiercely), so sacrifices are made out of a sense of the larger good to be generated and preserved. Critt will remain an important friend of mine, like few others I have known in my life. But like a lot of colleagues whose paths I've crossed over the years, our professional collaboration ends up reaching a tipping point that is inescapable.

I'm on my fourth career in adulthood (academic from 84-90 at Harvard, think tanker from 90-98 in DC, Defense Department employee from 98-05 at the Naval War College and commuting to the Pentagon, and now full-time writer and "thought leader" via the blog, Esquire, the books, and, most crucially in the "doing" as Senior Managing Director of Enterra Solutions) and I don't expect it will be my last (I dream of concert pianist still Ö), so there's no telling where Critt and I will meet up again.

And I look forward, instinctively, to that possibility.

But the key thing right now is to get life better with my family, and for that, I need to reorganize my work situation a bit. Yes, this is somewhat in response to what I'm hearing from my spouse and kids, but mostly it's just my sense of what matters to me most. Enterra's gotta have some priority, because it packs so much potential in the "doing" category, and the book writing is my bread and butter. Esquire fuels the writing process via Mark, so that ranks (and I simply treasure him so). Speaking pays the bills. The website . . . comes behind all of those.

And all of those come behind my family, because none of you are going to be around my deathbed, only (I hope) Vonne and my kids (and their spouses and all my grandkids).

So the reorganization begins, with the biggest question now being, Whom do I take on in this all-important position?

Rest assured, that process began long ago in my mind, and it's begun for real in the personage of my former NewRuleSets.Project business manager, Steff Hedenkamp. With her help, I'll make that call in coming weeks and the revamped me/website/sked/life balance will make it's appearance sometime after the beginning of the new year.

I know I'm making this decision under duress. As I've said many times before: planning for failure is easy, but planning for success is hard. The reality for me, personally, is: the less seriously my thinking/vision is received by academia and experts, the more seriously it is taken by real-world political, military, and business players the world over.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

I gotta show some respect for that serious treatment, because I know far too well what's on the line for individuals, countries, and this entire world.

So be patient while I find that balance Ö

FYI: today I testify to a small panel of House Armed Services Committee members on future nuclear postures/issues/questions, offering alternative viewpoints to the usual conventional wisdom (two other panel members for that: "Pakistan, China, Iran . . . oh my!). Event set up by Geoff Davis, first-termer from Kentucky with the Ranger/SOF background. Davis continues to impress me: conservative in good ways, moderate and flexible in others (one can never call a Republican the "l" word, even in compliment), but mostly just a hugely sensible guy. So many who come out of the military are either all war (can't get enough) or all peace (like one huge mea culpa for their careers), and then there are the balanced ones, like Davis: head on straight, able to deal in either venue without fear.

One good upshot of the GWOT: the return of vets to Congress. It needs them badly.

Here's my weak-ass attempt at catching-up:

■ The essence of a bad sign in Iraq's economic recovery

■ Snow birds will help grow America southward



■ Duh! It's all Kim's delaying tactic!

■ The $100 laptop: shrink that price, shrink the Gap

■ Another reason why Ayatollah Ali Sistani wuz robbed on the Nobel Peace Prize

The essence of a bad sign in Iraq's economic recovery

■"In Iraq, Tradesmen Shift to Bleaker Jobs: Violence Creates a Boom in the Business of Death; Carving a Friend's Coffin," by Philip Shiskin, Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2005, p. A20.

Depressing story that speaks to our failure to restart the Iraqi economy: tradesman are trading down on their skills. Instead of making furniture they make coffins.

The need for coffins and their inability to find work is highly related. If there is economic activity and connectivity to the outside world that brings in investment, then's there's a virtous circle of jobs, money in your pockets, and playing up with your skills.

But when there's not, there are idle hands, pissed-off young men, and skilled workers playing down.

The problem isn't that we're not giving Iraq enough aid, it's that the money isn't reaching the pockets of the average Iraqi. Don't build stuff for them, given them money to start economic activity and let the building come on its own.

It's a cute phrase from that baseball movie: build it and they will come. But it's all wrong. We should be thinking "great depression," as in, when nobody had any money. That's the real problem in Iraq: no one has any money. In that situation, they don't need huge sewage treatment plants. They need money.

You wanna build a nation? Build up its people first. Their desire and need drives the infrastructure requirements.

We did this backasswards, and we should learn better, because we're going to be doing this again and again and again to shrink the Gap.

Snow birds will help grow America southward

■"Developing Nations Lure Retirees, Raiding Idea of 'Outsourcing' Boomers' Golden Years," by Joel Millman, Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2005, p. A2.

■"Will H'Wood Act Its Age? Pic, TV exex confront cultural shift as younger auds drift away," by Brian Lowry, Variety, 7-13 November 2005, p. 1.

The Caribbean states send us medical workers to help us with our rising elder population, and guess what? Now we're seeing that rising elder population increasing move to the Carribean for their retirement years.

Locate the job where the labor is, I say.

Costa Rica, most Core-like of all states there, pioneers the incentive package to lure retirees with money and no kids.

30 million Americans retire each year now, and that number only goes up. Costa Rica grabs just a few thousand and watch the ripple effect.

Same thing happens in Europe, with northerners retiring around Med. Malaysia tries to do the same with Hong Kong.

My larger point is this: think of 25 years from now, when Hispanics are like 30% of our voters and lotsa retired Americans live in Caribbean states.

Then tell me it's crazy to consider the U.S. adding more member states from the south.

Our aging population is remaking everything in its path. Once Hollywood catches on, just watch TV and movies follow that money.

The $100 laptop: shrink that price, shrink the Gap

■"The $100 Laptop Moves Closer to Reality," by Steve Stecklow, Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2005, p. B1.

Nicholas Negroponte's idea continues to attract big industry funding and interest from national and international organizations.

Naturally, one of the biggest state supporters of the effort is Brazil, which is leading its own open-source movement to spread technology throughout its society and to other emerging economies.

What do these computers have to do? Not much. Just open children's minds to the possibilities and then see what they can do.

They'll be surprised. We'll be surprised. The world will be a better place.

Duh! It's all Kim's delaying tactic!

■"Pyongyang Delay May Reflect Fear Of Rapid Change," by Gordon Fairclough, Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2005, p. A21.

Weird sort of piece where analysis is that North Korea fears any sort of settlement because if a "big-bang" of foreign aid and development ensued, then Kim would be marginalized politically and his rule would be challenged.

Do ya think so?

So naturally, Kim's not serious about giving up nukes for economic aid. Aid doesn't keep him in power. The disconnectedness he maintains over his people keep him in power. They connect to the world, he loses power. Simple as that.

So Kim keeps playing us like a violin at these talks, and the Chinese and South Koreans pay now in aid (just enough to keep the economy from complete collapse but not enough to change anything, in a move so cynical it's morally repugnant) in the hopes of avoiding paying later.

And we let them.

And the amazing suffering continues.

And we're all guilty for it.

Another reason why Ayatollah Ali Sistani wuz robbed on the Nobel Peace Prize

■"A Political Wild Card: How will Iraq's radical street cleric play his hand?" by Bay Fang, U.S. News & World Report, 14 November 2005, p. 46.

Remember when Moqtada al-Sadr seemed like the sun and the moon of the Iraqi insurgency? As a Shiite no less? Long before Abu Musab al-Zarqawi grabbed center stage, despite foreign fighters constituting only about 10% of the now largely Sunni-based insurgency?

Well, he's resurfaced on a slate of Shiite parties that will appear on the ballots of the 15 December parliamentary elections.

This young cleric sought to make his bones early in the insurgency, hoping it would catapult him to Shiia leadership. It did not, but Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who by all right could have had the pesky "youngster" taken out in reprisal, somehow talked him in from the cold.

Yes, too many of his guys still fight, but now the guy's standing for election, and the much-feared civil war between Sunnis and Shiia continues to be prevented.

That's why Ali Sistani should have received the Nobel Peace Prize this year.