Oooh! The U.S. has filed charges on Kim!

■"U.S. Files Charges In North Korean Counterfeit Probe," by Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, 12 October 2005, p. A3.

North Korea's been exporting counterfeit American bills for years, in very large quantities. A lot of it ends up in China (passed through Taiwan), which is why my wife and I carried large sums of uncirculated big American bills hidden in our shorts when we went to China last year to adopt baby Vonne Mei Ling Barnett.

Well, the U.S. has finally decided to do something formal about this:

In the latest move to break up North Korea's global criminal activities, the Justice Department indicted a leading member of an Irish Republican Army splinter group on charges of conspiring with Pyongyang to put millions of dollars of counterfeit U.S. currency into circulation in Eastern Europe and the United Kingdom.

Buddy, you can't bring that Gap trash into the Old Core! Maybe New Core China, where the rule sets are still embryonic on such things, but man! In the UK you're going to get busted if you start working with the IRA leftovers.

Now if we can start nabbing them on the bogus cigarettes and heroin, we'd be making some real progress.

One U.S. official put it well: "A country can't negotiate with you while also counterfeiting your currency."

Duh!

China plan to make sure the caboose doesn't fall too far behind

■"China Hopes Economy Plan Will Bridge Income Gap: Wages in cities are now three times the levels of rural areas," by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 12 October 2005, p. A5.

■"Chinese Leaders Set Out Priorities, Citing Challenges: Communist Party Produces Ambitious List to Address Social, Economic Inequities," by Kathy Chen and Cui Rong, Wall Street Journal, 12 October 2005, p. A14.

The highest ranks of the Chinese Communist Party have taken the unusual step of describing the next five years as the key transition period during which the country must "grasp opportunities to . . . seriously solve outstanding conflicts and problems on the road ahead."



As I said to the Chinese last summer, the train's engine cannot travel faster than its caboose, and when the Party talks about "harmonious and sustainable development," that's what it's referring to: the rural poor, or the caboose in danger of being left behind by the country's rapid embrace of globalization.

This is caboose braking--big time.

Expect a war with China any time soon? Sounds like the Fourth Generation of Leadership has enough on its plate right now, huh? It wants to double per capita GDP from its 2000 level by 2010, and decrease energy consumption per dollar of GDP by 20% in the next five years. America wants to reform its social security, but China wants to create a basic social security system.

As the NYT piece put it, "China's market-oriented economy has partly outgrown the traditional five-year planning documents that used to control nearly all allocations of money, resources and talent." That basically means that most local authorities do what they damn well please, no matter what Beijing says.

Still, if China is no longer really on the five-year plan, then that really leaves only the Pentagon as a centrally-planned economy.

Brazil keeps waging the good fight on AIDS

■"Brazil and Abbott Reach Price Deal On AIDS Drug," by Reuters, Wall Street Journal, 12 October 2005, p. B3.

Brazil works a deal with Abbott Labs "that almost halves the price it pays for an important AIDS drug, meaning it won't follow through on its threat to break the U.S. company's patent."

Good move by Abbott. Tough but defensible stance by Brazil, which becomes a key champion of the Gap and its pressing healthcare needs.

Earth to Germany: hyphens are good!

■"No Hyphens, Please: Germany Tells Parents To Keep Names Simple; Young Leonhard's Parents Fight One of Many Rules; No Lenins and Schnuckis," by Mary Jacoby, Wall Street Journal, 12 October 2005, p. A1.

Germany won't allow hyphenated last names for kids.

Why? What if a woman marries a man and hyphenates her last name, then wants her kids to share her hyphenated name? And then those kids marry other kids from similar hyphenated last-name families? I mean, do their kids end up with four last names all in a row? And what of their kids? And so on and so on?

You want to know why the Germans lost two world wars. This is a big clue!

A one-sided clash within a civilization

■"Leaders In Iraq Agree To Change In Constitution: Breakthrough In Talks; In Exchange for Support in Vote, Sunnis Could Help Revise Charter," by Robert F. Worth, New York Times, 12 October 2005, p. A1.

■"Silence and Suicide: Anti-Shiite murders wound Sunnis, too," op-ed by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 12 October 2005, p. A27.

■"Ramadan Ritual: Fast Daily, Pray, Head to the Mall," by Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, 12 October 2005, p. A1.

Tell me the Shiites and Kurds aren't bending over backwards to make this constitution work for the Sunnis, who largely sat out its drafting but are now being offered a special panel in the first Parliament to revise the constitution--basically a mini-constitutional congress just for Sunnis, or a make-over, politically speaking.

In exchange for this, prominent Sunnis leaders promise to get out the vote on Saturday's referendum election.

Meanwhile, despite orders from the Al Qaeda central leadership to cease and desist on attaching Iraqi Shiites, the Sunni-based insurgency continue to target them, going so far as bombing mosques at the start of Ramadan.

Friedman wonders out loud why no one in the Sunni world condemns this, then takes the Bush Administration to task thusly:

"Inexplicably to me, the Bush team, which has finally settled on the right rationale for the war in Iraq--to help Arabs carve out a space in the heart of their world where they can create a decent, progressive future, instead of drifting aimlessly under autocrats and worshiping a glorious past--is equally silent. Instead of going to the U.N. and seeking a resolution declaring the Sunni terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his ilk war criminals, it sends Karen Hughes around the Arab world to get flagellated by Sunni Muslim women for how awful we are.

The Bush team calls that "public diplomacy." I call is losing a public relations war to mass murderers.

Friedman then goes on to self-flagellate on Abu Ghraib, etc. What he's really saying is that we need to be using these despicable acts to help build the global rule set in this Global War on Terrorism, but that takes a U.S. that can deal openly with an International Criminal Court and accepts some serious transparency on its own rendition program and overall treatment of prisoners. These are two big themes of Blueprint for Action: grow the rule set or suffer isolation. A rule set population of one is called unilateralism, a rule set population that encompasses the Core is called global leadership.

But don't worry, cause time is on our side and this administration, which is becoming more lame-duck by the day on foreign affairs, is out the door in just over three years. Meanwhile, the Middle East in general joins the Core bit by bit, suggesting the Zarqawi's strategic window is closing more rapidly than he realizes. In a dozen years or so, for example, Ramadan will be so close to the holiday season in the West that it will be unrecognizable to the hard-core Zarqawi types as anything except full-blown Westoxification.

Yes, yes, I know. Muslims are so different than Westerners: they fast and shop, we gorge and shop.

The mature IT industry: Enterra's been a real lesson

■"Silicon Valley grows up: Technology industry seems to be stabilizing, maturing," by Michelle Kessler, USA Today, 12 October 2005, p. 1B.

You know all the stories of the crazy, hazy days of the dot.com boom, when companies spent money like water on all sorts of nonsense. Well, I missed all that by joining Enterra way too late.

Actually, it was always too late for any Enterra employee, born as it was in the aftermath of 9/11 and reflecting CEO Steve DeAngelis' belief that the private sector had it within its power to help not just itself but the government get better at connecting dots and creating a common management space that unites compliance requirements, security standards, information integration and performance metrics. With sector-defining goals like that, you don't waste money, so I've managed to join the most cost-conscious info tech start-up company in history.

I'm 0 for 2 in this regard: I got to the defense industry right after the go-go years of the Reagan buildup came to a halt and I join the IT industry way too late for the dot.com boom, seemingly joining a corporate culture that believes in making amends, karma-like, for past sins in other lives. I mean, Enterra is full of people with lots of past IT industry experience, and like my Center for Naval Analyses colleagues back in the 1990s, these guys can provide plenty of stories of industry excess (they talk about it like people remembering their sordid youthful exploits, wistfully shaking their heads). Now, it's like we're all doing penance. Sure, we pay for talent, but don't ever expect to fly first class or get to see what the inside of a mini-bar looks like. And if I listen to DeAngelis give his speech about being good stewards of our investors money one more time, I've going to interrupt him and finish it myself, because I have that one memorized.

Once, just once, I'd like to hit an industry during its completely foolish phase!

It's just the Catholic in me: I wanna sin before I do penance Ö

Then again, it's more fun to work for a real company in a real industry. Watching Enterra's CTO Doug Todd run us new employees through a live demo of our signature technologies yesterday is a lot more exciting than breathing in the vapors of some make-believe software. No sir, no vaporware for me--or apparently for an industry that's grown up big-time.

Too much time spent with real warfighters to be peddling anything that I don't deeply believe in. Life is too short, reputation is too precious, and the responsibility is too great to expect anything less.

Checking in with the grunt, heading to the boss man's office

Dateline: SWA flight from Philly to Tampa, 11 October 2005

Second day of strategizing with Enterra seniors, capped off with the preview of a new PowerPoint pitch that was recently spruced up considerably by Enterra's newest employee and the man I had the pleasure of stealing away from the Naval War College, my old (and older) alter ego Bradd Hayes.

Okay, so we'll let him continue to consult with the college because it's the smart thing to do and it works all around. Bradd is just that talented.

But man, what Bradd did with this brief was supercool. His animation techniques have simply gone far beyond my own, and not that many years ago I was the master and he the apprentice. Watching this brief I felt like Obi Wan staring at Darth at the end of Episode IV. Ouch!

Then I suddenly remembered: Bradd put together almost 200 slides on BFA for me to choose from and bend to my will and I thought, "Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!"

It was almost enough for me to pull out my RF clicker and press the laser button . . .

Waiting for SWA flight tonight in Philly, had long phonecon with godson Jon, now a 2nd Lt. in WI National Guard unit finishing up his training in MS before heading over soon enough. It was a great talk that lasted about an hour. I could hear the chopper blades in the background and how his chuckle is nearly identical to my older brother's, his dad.

Jon will do well as a platoon leader. His younger brother Mike is over there now, pulling a more hazardous duty than Jon is likely to encounter, and we keep both very much in our family's prayers.

Jon was the first baby I ever held in my arms. You don't forget that.

Nice email from Mark Warren today, saying the China piece looks great and it hits newsstands any minute. I look forward to meeting up with Mark and his wife during my upcoming book tour stop in NYC.

I am flying down to Central Command's headquarters in Tampa tonight (MacDill Air Force Base). Tomorrow I give two briefs: one to the reps of the coalition militaries (something I had promised to do about a year ago when I was down in CENTCOM's J-5 divison (plans and policy) to wrap up an informal advising role I had undertaken on their long-range plans (a story I recount in BFA), and that promise finally came due.

Second brief will be a closed-circuit affair to forward-deployed senior officers. Last time I did a brief like that was also in Tampa, when I briefed special ops commands around the world for then Special Operations Command commander Gen. Schoomaker, now Army Chief of Staff (and someone I interviewed for the Rumsfeld piece). That one was on Y2K.

Frankly, I had low expectation of my promise ever being fulfilled. These guys are so busy in the here and now, what do they need with the visionary? Then I remember David Ignatius' piece on CENTCOM last December in the Washington Post, so you realize that sometimes it does matter, even to the busiest warriors, this vision thing.

Anyway, they called, I answered, and the concept of compensation was never raised. I expect these guys to do their best to take care of my nephews.

Yet another night away from home seems like a small price for me to pay, and yet I am growing more worried about my kids.

Here's the daily catch:

■ Gamers take the dismal prize

■ Farms subsidies again on the table?

■ For all the tea in China!

■ Northcom makes the inevitable proposal: standing domestic-capable SysAdmin force

■ March of the new polar rule sets

■ Islamist and female sits the new Afghan parliament

■ Bush recognizes a System Perturbation in Pakistan when he sees one--now

■ The Hillary swell begins--virtually on TV!

■ Bush's Africa policy underrated?

Farms subsidies again on the table?

■"Europe Entertains an American Offer to Cut Farm Aid," by Alexei Barrionuevo and Tom Wright, New York Times, 11 October 2005, p. C1.

Bush Administration is promising huge cuts in domestic ag subsidies (like two-thirds) if the Europeans and Japanese get off the snide on this hot-button subject.

The Doha "development round" of the WTO was so named because it was hoped that Old Core Europe, America and Japan would finally do what's right and give poorer Gap nations some real access to their food markets. For that to happen, we have to stop this insane practice of subsidizing our ag sector so heavily.

Critics say we ask too much of Europe, in effect promising to cuts our subs from $20b to $15b in one category, but asking Europe to come down to a similar level from a height of roughly $80b. Europe's talking more like $60b as the new floor.

I will hand it to Bush on this subject. As touchy as it is, he keeps trying.

And it's the right thing to do.

Gamers take the dismal prize

■"American and Israeli Share Nobel Prize in Economics," by Louis Uchitelle, New York Times, 11 October 2005, p. C2.

Thomas Schelling, the perceived father of American game theory, wins the quasi-Nobel (it wasn't part of Alfred's will, but a special "memorial prize" tacked on later).

Dr. Strangelove finally triumphs in the dismay science!

Okay, so that character was based on Herman Kahn, but Schelling consulted with Kubrick on the film, so that's pretty cool. His big insight: the doomsday weapon can't deter if your enemy ain't aware of it.

So game theory's big breakthrough notion is that actors in any situation are affected by what others do, or what they perceive other players are doing, like the "ratting out your accomplice" decision in Prisoners' Dilemma (the cops are interrogating you and your accomplice on your crime, and if you both keep your mouths shut you walk, but since you don't trust your partner and he doesn't trust you, you both squeal and thus lose-lose).

Fine and dandy to acknowledge the giant Schelling and whoever the Israeli guy is, but frankly, how this ties into economics in a big way is beyond me. Monte Carlo simulations, yeah. John Nash's stuff, yeah. But the Schelling insights leave me with a big, "huh?" I mean, the big real-world example of the theory cited in the article is the Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestine. Hell, those didn't even work!

And if anyone believes that strategic arms control, allegedly deeply influenced by game theory, "ended" or "won" or even mattered in the Cold War, you're kidding yourself. Mutual-assured destruction did that.

I mean, between the IAEA winning the peace prize and this choice, it's like they're really low on serious candidates this year. Me, I was totally impressed with the ulcer guys and the medicine award. Now that made a difference!

Northcom makes the inevitable proposal: standing domestic-capable SysAdmin force

■"Military May Propose an Active-Duty Force for Relief Efforts," by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 11 October 2005, p. A15.

Adm. Tim Keating is considered by most to be one smart flag. We're lucky to have the quality we've got right now in Northcom, Pacom (Adm. Fox Fallon), Centcom (Gen. John Abizaid), and Eucom (Gen. Jim Jones). Then you're talking Gen. Pete Pace as Chairman and Adm. Ed Giambastiani as the Vice, and that's one helluva package of talent, really.

Well, Keating's not afraid to say controversial things if he feels they need to be said, and a recent study of the military's role in Katrina and Rita is something he's obviously getting ready to act on by proposing "to organize a specially trained and equipped active-duty force that could respond quickly to assist relief efforts in the event of overwhelming natural disaster, like major hurricanes, foods or earthquakes.

Trust me, the domestic SysAdmin force is coming, because the military knows it's coming and if it's gonna come, they might as well get started now on trying to get it right, because these things don't spring into being one afternoon.

For now we're just talking in the hundreds, but these on-call types would be pure SysAdmin: "military communications technicians, logistics specialists, doctors and nurses, engineers and even infantry."

Notice that military police are mentioned. That's to get-around the need to revamp the Posse Comitatus law, ancient and out of date as it is, because the slippery-slope types would start screeching about one-world government, UN command and control and black helicopters flooding the sky.

God I miss the "X Files."

So this force would be everything but the police, leaving that role to the Guard.

Fine and dandy, but then consider this: huge natural disaster hits key ally like . .. I dunno . . . Pakistan?

We have these special units sitting here in States, doing nothing at the time (just speculating, mind you). Do they sit it out or does America do the right thing?

So then ask yourself: what's the key "home" versus "away" game distinction here? Or does that concept remain possibly the dumbest strategic idea anyone has ever dreamed up?

The SysAdmin force is coming, my friends, by Congressional hook or to catch some Gap crook. It's coming.

For all the tea in China!

■"Read the Tea Leaves; China Will Be Top Exporter," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 11 October 2005, p. A1.

Those Chinese are so different! They think differently, eat differently, have sex differently, drink differently . . .

Wait a tick on that last one!

Turns out the new generations are Pepsi generations, and Coke ones, and Sprite and coffee and Gatorade and Budweiser and so on and so on.

So China's huge tea industry has to look abroad, much like our tobacco industry had to turn to Asia a couple of decades ago.

Hmmm. Seems like we got the better deal on that one: cancer sticks versus cancer-preventing green and black teas.

So China will soon become the biggest tea exporter in the world, and guess who loses out? Gap states like Sri Lanka and Kenya.

This is a dynamic we've seen before and will see many times: New Core pillars emerging economically and crushing previous Gap incumbents in various sectors. The textile quota system ended last year and China cleaned up. Same brusing dynamic will be generated here for very different reasons, but with the same basic outcome: the China price wins.

Actually, this article reminds me of one of my favorite Chinese trip stories from last year: after my talk at the Central Committee building, Vonne and I are having this big banquet lunch with all these reformist academics and wonks and political advisers. One of them, my translator for the talk, proposed this notion over a course: "Dr. Barnett," he said, "we propose that American culture is based on sex, while Chinese culture," he paused to wave his arm over the fabulously arrayed food, "is based on food."

"Really!" I retorted, "then how come we're so overweight and there's a billion Chinese?"

I mean, they were laughing so hard most of them accidentally dropped their cigs from their lips onto their plates of food . . .

Actually, I found his notion very funny, because everywhere I travel in this world I find cultures that claim they're based on food while the "yours" is based on sex! I mean, it's like some Erma Bombeck rule of globalization: everyone believe that everyone else is getting laid more and they comfort themselves with the notion that at least they eat better.

It's hilarious when you think about it.

Islamist and female sits the new Afghan parliament

■"Commanders, and Women Too, Are Strong in Afghan Elections: A Parliament with conservative and religious overtones," by ,Carlotta Gall New York Times, 10 October 2005, p. A9.

No surprise in that the former mujahedeen leaders will form, in their collective opposition to the U.S.-installed (by and large) reformist Karzai government, the biggest bloc in the new Parliament. The Commies and Taliban did poorly, and women candidates did well enough to justify the preordained (nice call by the Americans) allotment of no less than 25% of the seats. With most of those women professionals, they should hold their own as well in that body's deliberations.

Quietly but surely, the nation-creating (that Friedman term) goes pretty darn well in Afghanistan.

In several months, we'll be making similar observations, I believe, about both Kurdistan and the Shiite-led Iraqi quasi rump-state (yes, the Triangle will still be burning here and there around the clock; too many outlaw Josie Jihadists to hunt down).

March of the new polar rule sets

■"The Big Melt: As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound," by Clifford Krauss, Steven Lee Myers, Andrew C. Revkin and Simon Romero, New York Times, 10 October 2005, p. A1.

This will be one of the truly weird global rule-set resets in coming years: as the polar ice cap melts in the Arctic, sea lanes previously inconceivable will inevitably become routine.

Anyone who did strategic nuclear planning during the Cold War (I caught the tail end in the most oblique sense) knows that the northern route is the quickest way to get from most Core nations' A's to other Core nations' B's. It's just the shortest straight lines on the globe. That's why our sensors basically all pointed north.

So guess where the hot new future of container shipping lines will be found?

Now, with the cap melting and visions of all sorts of natural treasures in their heads, entrepreneurs of all types are competing in a strange sort of "water rush."

Scientists believe at least one quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves will eventually be found in the Arctic, so please hold off--yet again--on predicting the coming oil crash that will torpedo the global economy. Instead, gentelemen, start your oil rigs!

Then there's new fishing grounds.

Put it all together and all of a sudden the old ways of who-really-cares-where-we-draw-national-boundaries-in-this-frozen-wastewater is superceded by a passionate new debate about exactly where those boundaries should lie. I mean, you have your Danes trying to argue that an underwater mountain chain at the Pole is linked geologically to one that surfaces in Greenland, which Denmark sort of "owns" as a semi-autonomous region. On that basis, the Danish say the Arctic is basically all theirs.

Kind of piggy, if you ask me.

Of course America wants a big chunk, as do Canada, Russia and Norway.

Me, I just want to take an ice-breaker up there some summer for a family cruise.

Clearly, there will be a lot of money to be made up there, along with stunning new degrees of intra-Core connectivity of all sorts.

It will be fascinating to watch.

The Hillary swell begins--virtually on TV!

■"Call her Madame President: It works on TV, but are Americans ready to elect one?" by Susan Page, USA Today, 11 October 2005, p. A1.

Oh yeah, this is totally a stalking horse for Hillary. You just know it is.

My favorite bit here is that usually wacky USA Today poll (they have some of the most meaningless ever made) that accompanies the piece: turns out 86 percent of Americans are ready to vote for a woman but only 61% of them think their neighbors are similarly enlightened!

"Yeah baby! I think it'd be shagedelic to have a chick in the White House, maaan! It's just my uptight neighbors who'd have a fit."

Bush recognizes a System Perturbation in Pakistan when he sees one--now

■"Pakistan Appeals for Help as Rescuers Dig By Hand: Amid New Jolts, Grim Searches in the Rain," by Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 10 October 2005, p. A1.

■"Showing Speed And Loyalty, Bush Mobilizes Aid to Pakistan," by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 10 October 2005, p. A12.

■"Enemy nations put fight aside after quake: Pakistan says it will accept India's help," by Zafar M. Sheikh, USA Today, 11 October 2005, p. 10A.

That Pakistani death total racing toward (past?) 50,000 certainly puts the "unprecedented human tragedy" of Katrina in perspective, doesn't it?

Back to my point that some readers mocked during the high point of that real disaster: name a country in the world where you'd rather live through a natural disaster? We fuss, we fight, some of us loot, but at the end of the day you're overwhelmingly likely to be alive in America. That simply isn't the care in the vast majority of the rest of the world.

So Osama gets a breather but Bush the compassionate conservative does not. Aiding Pakistan is a perfect expression of compassionate (the aid) and conservative (giving it to a tough-guy ally in the Global War on Terrorism): real but sensitive.

So the White House is eager to show that three times makes it more charming after the Tsunamis and Katrina, and America's overworked SysAdmin forces get worked over again.

But tell me what choice the U.S has? It's the worst disaster in Pakistan's history. You either show you care or you don't show your face.

And frankly, we'd put in the effort even if OBL was hiding somewhere else. We are a generous people when connectivity between cause and effect is made clear to us.

Rest assured, the $50 million promised early on is just the opening bid. Indonesia scored much higher for a disaster that probably weighs in at far less on the catastrophe scale, when all is said and done, so you know the Islamic world will be watching to see if we short Islamabad.

No, no, Islamawaygood on this one.

The regime has been trying, and our debt on the military side of the nexus has never truly been met by our quid pro quos on the market side. Yes, we have a free trade agreement with Pakistan, but it has little impact. So far, the military-dominated regime has very little to show for doing our dirty work against the Sovs all those years and now being forced to clean up the very same mess;.

Bush better follow through big time on this one. Pay now with money, save troops lives later.

In the end, though, the real strategic winner should be India. It will seek to play a big role in disaster relief, and in its desperation, Pakistan will let it happen. This will propel the recent rapprochement to new heights. Yes, yes, for now Pakistan turns down offers of helos and joint rescue ops, but these nuts will crack soon enough.

Bush's Africa policy underrated?

■"Bush's Africa policy is being driven by the right women," op-ed by DeWayne Wickham, USA Today, 11 October 2005, p. 13A.

Wickham is always solid and interesting. This op-ed sort of profiles a trio of African-American women in key decision-making positions in State and the National Security Council and the Agency for International Development.

One points out that, "on the education front, more money has been put into Africa that ever before. That's not a political statement. It's just a fact."

This same USAID senior, Sarah Moten, is quoted further as saying, "Forty percent of school-age children in Africa don't attend school. Sixty percent of them are girls. Forty-six million African children have never set foot in a classroom. Education is the engine of development."

What has Bush done? Doubled the amount of educational aid budgeted for Africa.

Read Blueprint for Action, chapter 4, section 3. If you really want to shrink the Gap, you educate young girls. It is #1. Nothing else even comes close.

Arbitraging on resilience concepts

Recently got AskTom on how you push new rule sets on a local level.

First thought: System Perturbations, or shocks to the system, are great catalyst. Right demonstrative one, like 9/11 or Katrina, pushes people to reset rule sets locally in a big way.

in this process of change, security always leads,as in fear. Resilience is just civilian for robustness (an old military term for the same thing).

So you get the System Perturbation, and the locals come together to protect themselves, gathering whatever constitutes the "pitchforks" of their age. If they reach for serious resilience, then what they end up building is so much more than a disaster response plan, it's a profound understanding of their environemnt in all its complexity and a networking of capabilities and mechanisms that creates a lasting good, easily translated into economic competitive advantage (e.g., I want a wireless communication network in my city, and what I create for that is a city-wide Wi-Fi that makes my city hugely competitive across a range of economic sectors). Point being, that's just a microcosmic version of what DoD did with the Internet (secure comms in nuclear war was original goal of DARPAnet).

This logic train triggered by the question referenced above and the following email from TM Lutas (Flit the blogger).

Me, I'm just arbitraging the concepts in the question-answer dynamic.

Here's Lutas' email:

A thought on resilience:

PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) has something called the Obje framework. This is something that is currently focused on resilient technology capability sharing. There is no reason that the same principles couldn't be extended to resilient capability sharing in disaster situations. All you're really doing is widening out the number of capabilities that are defined in the framework . . .

Taking notes from happy warriors

Dateline: The ETS Chauncy Conference Center, Princeton NJ, 10 October

Damn if DeAngelis didn't manage to get me all re-fired up about Enterra Solutions again (it had been . . . oh . . . at least 96 hours since the last time, which is a long stretch of neglect for Steve). The man is simply so persistent in the sale. I mean, I thought I never gave up with an audience (typical 8-of-9 behavior, I should explore Steve's birth order with him some day), but this guy is simply tireless! He's the Bill Clinton of start-up CEOs; he just won't give up until you're clinched as an employee, client, partner, fan, voter--whatever. He is a walking lesson in closing the deal, and for that reason he is fun to be around, and learn from.

I like to watch Joel Osteen, the smiling pastor, on TV, simply to take notes on how he works a room (plus he's just plain intriguing in his message). Watching DeAngelis go non-stop from 0900 to 2000 today was a real lesson in being the happy warrior. Osteen wants to save souls, Steve just wants to build useful companies. Both make this world go round, and watching either makes me realize that, as much as I admire his conceptual skills, Marx was simply so wrong on both religion and capitalism. The leadership ranks of each simply feature too many happy warriors, or guys and gals who do it joyfully simply because they don't know any other way to approach it.

And thank God for them.

Lesson: better enjoy it, my friends, whatever it is, or move on to something else.

I did today, and it beat me. No stories to blog. Tomorrow's flight south will have to suffice as next opportunity.

Got almost 200 PPT slides from right-hand alter ego Bradd Hayes recently. Just looked them over last night. It was the closest feeling to being a kid on Christmas morning that I've enountered in many a year.

Now if I can only find the time to work them over. Reality is, I'll probably just use them as is and discover what I like best/least in trial by fire with audiences, shaping the material as I move forward.

Now that has me thinking like a happy warrior!

I bury the hatchet with Friedman

He writes me a gracious short email today, noting that I recently seemed to suggest that "this old guy has not totally lost his fastball!"

Ahem!

Given my rather churlish review of his last book (and no, I don't want any more emails chiding me on this . . .), this note was clearly a devious attempt to show me up on the maturity index.

Damn if he didn't succeed . . .

So I replied as politely as a Wisconsin native can to somebody with a Minnesota pedigree, keeping my promise to my mom that I be sure and tell him that she's "his biggest fan" (and yes, I HAVE considered how her starry-eyed exuberance for the man perhaps fuels my criticism) and I thanked him for writing "Lexus and the Olive Tree," because that truly was a life-altering book for me, and one needs to thank people for that kind of thing whenever possible.

And no, I have no similar words for Kaplan. I want to hold onto that one-sided feud for as long as possible--just on principle!

The "invasion" begins--earnestly

Dateline: somewhere outside Princeton NJ, 10 October 2005

If you had described to me last week the big scenario in which thousands of U.S. troops would be streaming into Pakistan on short notice, I would have figured some sort of terrorist strike in the United States triggering a knee-jerk intervention to roust out Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda in NW Pakistan as a sign of "will."

Instead, Pakistan suffers a huge earthquake and guess which country will probably end up sending in the most stuff and people? Of course, the Americans, as always.

And so this earthquake perhaps becomes a turning point for far more positive security relations between our two countries (already rather strong and yet also rather tense too, as evidenced by my assumed scenario above--I mean, who else would you consider invading if OBL pulled off something big in the U.S. tomorrow?), just like it did between the U.S. and Indonesia following the Tsunamis.

Then again, we could be surpassed in this effort, and perhaps in the altering of bilateral relations, by India. India showed up big time in private-sector giving and military response on the Tsunamis. New Delhi could end up being the biggest player out of sheer proximity and India's growing ability and willingness to act like an advanced power in times like this.

And then, what of China? Pakistan's longtime military patron of sorts. Do the Chinese show up?

This will be one to watch, as I said a couple of days ago, perhaps a serious System Perturbation for good in the Global War on Terrorism.