Cheney is right: we were asking for 9/11

■"Weak Responses Led to 9/11, Cheney Asserts: Inadequate Retaliation Seen in 7 Cases," by Sam Coates, Washington Post, 4 October 2005, p. A17.

I don't typically agree with the Vice Prez, but he has a point here: our pinprick retaliations to terrorist strikes over the 1980s and 1990s DID get us 9/11. I mean, they bomb one of our naval ships in the Middle East and we send over FBI agents to investigate, like that scene in Monty Python's "Holy Grail" where the history professor is attacked onscreen by a knight, leading to a bunch of bobbies later stopping a battle royal by arresting several of King Arthur's men. It's just weird and asymmetrical, like throwing a yellow flag in a combat zone ("Clipping, 15 yards!").

But that's what we did for many years. They waged war, we did CSI.

The nasty seven? Marine barracks bombing in 1983, the killing of U.S. soldiers in Somalia 1993, WTC in 93, Saudi military training center bombing in 95, Khobar Towers in 96 (also in Saudi Arabia), the two U.S. embassy bombings in Africa (1998), and the USS Cole attack in 2000.

When oil prices go up, citizens freak and governments scramble

■"High Oil Prices Met With Anger Worldwide: Both Rich and Poor Countries Make Moves To Appease Citizens," by Paul Blustein and Craig Timberg, Washington Post, 3 October 2005, p. A1.

■"High gas prices put a big dent in truck sales: Detroit makers hit by switch to cars," by Sharon Silke Carty, USA Today, 4 October 2005, p. B1.

The countries that take the hardest hits? In the Gap, of course, because per capita incomes are so much lower.

As for Americans griping, most countries look at our SUVs and large trucks and say, "Serves you right."

But again, let's never confuse cause and effect: big American cars aren't the cause of this sustained price rise, the rise of China and other emerging markets are leading all this demand that's stressing current production capacity.

And yeah, the longer the prices stay up, the fewer big vehicles you'll see on the roads. No mystery there. But also no mystery that, just as China drives demand, it'll drive the changes in automotive technology as well. Remember, the New Core sets the new rules.

The rewiring of the American brain

■"Turn On, Tune Out, Get Well? Researchers Test Video Games' Potential to Speed Kids' Healing," by Alicia Ault, Washington Post, 4 October 2005, p. F1.

Fascinating article that starts with:

How do video games affect child health? By fueling violence, shrinking attention, promoting obesity and dulling interest in academic pursuits, if their critics are to be believed. But some physicians, psychiatrists and public health experts see a more positive side: They're betting electronic games can be adapted as tools to ease medical treatments, improve patient outcomes and boost fitness and knowledge for users young and old.

Who's looking? Various research bodies within the Defense Department.

What are we talking about? Basically isometrics and bio-feedback and distraction from pain through mental immersion.

Makes sense to me, and probably to any parent of young kids who've played video games. Watching my five-year-old Jerry go full-body on his games convinces me that you simply wire the brain differently with this sort of simulation.

And as the next generation of games allows for body-motion control, games will go from obesity triggers to hard-core calisthenics. Jerry already puts so much English into his playing that within five minutes of starting, all the blankets, pillows, sheets AND mattress pad are off his bed! It's amazing to watch.

But anything that immersive can clearly be used for pain management. When daughter Emily would get ready for her chemo way back when (she fought cancer successfully as a toddler), I would settle her by face-painting a complete mask. The focus and stillness centered her, gave her an outward persona behind which to hide, and became her signature shield at Lombardi in DC. It also gave me a charity skill set I still regularly employ to this day (I have painted several thousand faces for thousands of bucks over the years).

Not surprisingly, a lot of these experiments focus on pediatric oncology patients, but the military is also interested in helping soldiers deal with post-traumatic stress disorders.

As I said, fascinating stuff.

With all apologies to Ted Turner, more errata in BFA

Oy vey! (hope I spelled that right . . .)

Good friend and transformation guru Shane Deichman of Joint Forces Command caught two more errata in PNM.

First one hurts, given how many times I've watched "Gettsburg" the movie.

Page 19: ". . .so operations like Colonel Picket's charge at Gettyburg were tantamount to suicide runs."

That would be "Major General Pickett" with two t's.

That one hurts, and it's totally my fault. That's less than 30 seconds to check on Google, but for some reason I didn't get that done. Okay, I know why I didn't get it done: I didn't think it was wrong. For whatever reason, "Col. Picket" just sticks in my head as correct. And when you think you're right, you don't feel the need to check. It's my modern bias. Thinking about a three-star leading men personally into battle just strikes me as incongruous, so I just assumed the logical rank of someone like that would be a colonel. Duh! I know.

Another one Shane finds falls on . . .

Page 68: "It all starts with the Pentagon's recognizing its role . . ."

It should read ". . . with the Pentagon . . ."

That's just my weird vernacular, I will confess. To me, that possessive makes perfect sense, although grammatically it's wrong

I also heard from my blog proofer Sean Meade that the mistake on Page 6 ("Office of New Assessment") that I already confessed in the blog was indeed already there in the Uncorrected Proof. That means Mark and I submitted it in that way, and THEN failed to catch it when we edited the Proof. I blame myself on that one. That should have just jumped out at me given all these years of interacting with ONA.

I know, I know. These are nits and typos. The points and analysis remain valid. It just gnaws at the perfectionist in me. Frankly, I should have spent the summer pouring over the text repeatedly like I did with PNM, but the move killed that possibility, and I'm glad we made the move, so this was the price to be paid.

I might have still tried to make such an effort ALONG with the move, but I don't think I could have stay married, so I will suffer all such slings and arrows knowing that the woman is worth it.

Newsletter for Monday, October 3, 2005

[Freely pass to people you know. Thanks.]

The Newsletter from Thomas P.M. Barnett - Monday, October 3, 2005

Feature: Review: Ralph Peters' New Glory: Expanding America's Glocal Supremacy

Download The Newsletter from Thomas P.M. Barnett - 3 October 2005 in PDF or Word document.

Previous issues of The Newsletter from Thomas P.M. Barnett can be downloaded from the Archives.

Scary good review of Kaplan's Imperial Grunts in TNR

Here is the reference:

THE FALSE FRIENDS OF THE AMERICAN MILITARY.
The Cowboy Culture
by David Rieff
Post date 10.01.05†|†Issue date 10.10.05

Here is a reference that both delights and demeans (I was long gone from the college when I wrote my criticism), but no bother, all will be reminded in the November issue of Esquire:

Kaplan's many books have won him a wide following within the United States military: Imperial Grunts comes festooned with praise from retired senior officers such as Anthony Zinni and Barry McCaffrey, and an acknowledgements section in which the military theorist and pundit, retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters, is credited with the idea for the book. One of Kaplan's critics, Thomas P. M. Barnett, a professor at the Naval War College, once accused him of accepting without question the views of the Pacific Command about China in an article that Kaplan wrote in The Atlantic Monthly about the coming confrontation between the United States and China.†

See the whole thing: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20051010&s=rieff101005

Rieff, I like, as a rule. Smart guy.

But it would have been cooler if the blog and the blogger had been referenced.

Pretty cool huh? Blog writing now becoming a mainstream source for big-time mags.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

Dateline: United flight from Denver to Washington Dulles, 3 Occtober 2005

After doing what I could on Sunday to get the family in order despite the spreading stomach virus (to include an appearance at a parish meal for new families [we fielded four out of six] and one last swim in our apartment complex's pool [nasty cold, but those years of ocean swimming in R.I. made us hardy]), I hop a Frontier jet to Denver in the evening. Two Air Force officers await me with a van, and we make a winding, two hour drive up into the mountains to a resort community called Keystone. By the time we're done climbing, we're a solid 9k-plus above sea level, which immediately had me feeling like an asthmatic.

Nice resort, and cognizant enough of the altitude to provide lots of free water bottles in my room. So I drank and drank and finally took an Ambien to get to sleep, so spooked was I by that weird feeling of not getting enough air as I drowsed off.

This morning I give a 75-minute brief to a conference of USAF JAGs, or military lawyers (judge advocate general is the acronym).

Then boom, I sign a few books and I'm back in a van making my way back down to Denver. By the time I arrive at the airport, I feel quite normal, making me realize how much lower Denver must be from Keystone.

Now on to Dulles and a brief tomorrow in West Virginia: Navy, if you can believe it, at this landlocked location. All due to the great senatorial skills of one Robert Byrd.

I will admit, I was flabbergasted when I got an email today from a reader (currently in State) who's perusing the advance copy of BFA (finding that typo on Andy Marshall's Office of New Assessment). But I cooled down later in the day, when I realized that was just the price to be paid for the ambitious production schedule we took up with BFA.

In the end, all the typos will be worth it, because the book's timing is very good. According to the Library Journal's fall (Sept-Oct) "pre-pub alert," the only real competition in October is another book on how we're losing the global war on terrorism by that dynamic duo of Dan Benjamin and Steve Simon (if I remember the names correctly), and while I'm sure their book will be a good one (remember that I used their Age of Sacred Terror in PNM), it won't be the sort of head-to-head combat that I faced the first time around with Richard Clarke and Anonymous (the former now moves to fiction, which I think is more fitting, and the latter is . . . no longer Anonymous). No Scottish historian this time waxing poetic on empires. Just an America growing ever more desperate for answers to the questions posed by our difficulties in Iraq: Where are we going with this global war on terrorism? When are we going to finally get good at doing these sorts of interventions (if we can't do New Orleans, what made us think we could do Baghdad)? What's the finishing line to all this effort? What is the future worth creating?

Yes, that last big question is still the one we need most to answer. It ain't just about terrorists, nor failed states, nor finding Bin Laden or getting out of Iraq or being more ready for the next Katrina. It's the whole enchilada. It's about how we deal with this amazing and disorienting historical phenomenon called globalization and all the pain and violence it will cause along with all the integration and development and hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty. It's figuring out where war really fits within the context of everything else, not just prevailing in the current intervention.

I think BFA will strike many of the right chords, extending the message of PNM in a big, big way. It will be worth all the effort, all the travel, all the time away from home and family, and all the tumult of walking away from one career and beginning another, far less certain one as a writer.

Do I feel a whole lot more pressure than the first time around? You bet. Expectations were low for a NYT-bestseller.

But I'm more confident in the material this time, in the vision as a whole, and in the traction already gained in numerous venues throughout the Defense Department, the U.S. Government, and abroad in foreign capitals.

Higher stakes, heightened expectations, bigger confidence, larger effort. October can't get any bigger for me.

Here's the daily catch as I've managed it:

■ Our enemies' hopes for the Sunni Triangle

■ The predictable response of governors to the SysAdmin notion

■Uncle Sam, can you spare some body armor?

■ Kosovo: almost ready to age out of UN foster care

■ Austria: always the class of Europe (this time on Turkey's admission to the EU)

■ China's in vogue right now, no really! In Vogue!

Our enemies' hopes for the Sunni Triangle

■"U.S. chipping away at al-Qaeda's leadership, but attacks climbing: Up to more than 500 a week, military says," by Steven Komarow, USA Today, 3 October 2005, p. 12A.

We can't expect the insurgents to lighten up. Instead, the closer we get to giving security control of Iraq back to Iraqis (okay, mostly just the Shiites and Kurds), the more we can expect the terrorists to ratchet up their efforts.

This is an old pattern, displayed many times. The ratcheting up isn't about preventing the outcome (American troops retreating behind walls and letting the Kurds and Shiites defend themselves more and more), but gearing up for the conflict that naturally follows.

You think America faces some angry local population that will fight us to the end of time to preserve its freedom? Well look again. There are two populations in Iraq trying to do exactly that, but they don't fight against the specter of the Americans staying forever, because they know we won't. No, they fight against the specter of the Sunnis returning to their oppressive rule over their peoples. And yeah, we can expect them to fight for as long as it takes to keep that scenario from unfolding--again.

This ramping up of terrorism is not about us. It's about the "civil war" to come. We'll call it that, but in reality it'll just be the death throes of a pretend state that came apart the minute the strongman was removed from power--just like Yugoslavia after Tito's passing (where it took far longer, and didn't involve a foreign intervention as the trigger, and yet, look at how similar the outcome ends up being).

Uncle Sam, can you spare some body armor?

■"Reimbursement Program for Troops Stalls: Rules for repaying soldiers for equipment remain unfinished after a year," by John Files, New York Times, 3 October 2005, p. A14.

Anybody's who's worked for the Fed knows what a joy it is to get reimbursed for equipment you buy yourself to make your job go better (cell phones are just the latest in a long line).

Well, that incompetency extends to our troops in the field. Not only have we not gotten them enough of the right gear, we can't seem to reimburse them for what they end up buying (often crucial stuff like GPS units).

Here Rummy and company have been rather shameful in their slow response. Congress asked for a plan to reimburse soldiers up to $1,100 a person for needed gear, and asked for it by February 2005. No plan exists, apparently, or at least not one that Congress has ever heard of.

Pentagon spokespeople promise it will appear any day now.

Meanwhile, military-related charity organizations (what else to call them) do their best to provide gear to soldiers, especially the more underfunded units, which naturally come from the most SysAdmin of venues: the Guard and Reserves.

Yes, yes, the Army has its own special program for just this sort of thing, but frankly, if it were doing its job, these stories would never be written.

The continuing Defense Department bias against funding the SysAdmin function, and the troops who are performing it, is a big reason why our peace-waging effort in Iraq too often looks like major combat ops. When you lowball the SysAdmin, you buy yourself more Leviathan work.

The predictable response of governors to the SysAdmin notion

■"Govs to Bush: Relief our job; Few support military taking charge in disaster response," by Bill Nichols and Richard Benedetto, USA Today, 3 October 2005, p. 1A.

We predicted this in our Y2K scenario work: watch governors opt for worse disaster responses than risk being shown up by the Fed. In short, their political reputations are worth more than the lives of the people they serve. And, oh boy, just listen to them wax poetic about states' rights on subjects like these.

Just when you think national politicians can't get more stupid, the locals show them up in force.

I know, I know, slippery slope toward a police state and all that nonsense. Live free and die buddy! Better to let people croak for lack of disaster relief than show up some local politician. No kidding, that's actually what Bush feared on Katrina.

I'm with Bush on this one: make our military like almost every other military in the world--namely, the first responder when serious disaster strikes.

Kosovo: almost ready to age out of UN foster care

■"Ambitious Experiment Leads Kosovo to a Crossroads: U.N. May Resolve Prrovince's Future," by Nicholas Wood, New York Times, 3 October 2005, p. A3.

The ambitious UN-led effort on Kosovo is not easily dismissed. After all, its strong focus on creating ground-floor security and political institutions fits most experts' definitions of what is need in any post-conflict nation-building effort. And isn't is amazing that no one seems to care anymore that our Balkans interventions of the 1990s essentially dismembered what used to be called Yugoslavia? I mean, we "fail" in Iraq if the Shiites and Kurds do well but the Sunni Triangle still burns, but somehow we succeed so much more in Yugoslavia while willfully breaking up the "republic"?

Still, there is plenty of sad stories to go around on Kosovo, where the UN is likewise guilty of acting like the social worker from hell, meaning the type who, once the claws are in you, the professional do-gooder refuses to leave, retarding the client's (or is it "victim"?) growth in the direction of caring for him- or herself. Fukuyama wrote on this in his excellent book, "State Building," a volume I use in BFA.

Well, despite such criticisms the UN is actually moving purposefully to aging Kosovo out of its long-term foster care, and in this process it may well set in motion even further dismemberment of what remains of the rump union headed by Serbia.

But here's where the UN went wrong in Kosovo much like we went wrong in Iraq (especially the Sunni portions), the developmental aid was largely wasted on showy institutional building that did little to put food in bellies or money in pockets--again, keeping the population somewhat retarded in its recovery curve.

Still, Kosovo was a decent attempt, in many ways the most ambitious nation-building attempt by foreign powers yet (not in size, but in reach, because we're talking only about $1.3 billion a year!). I mean, any success with that little money and that many peacekeeping boots on the ground has to serve as a stunning example of the opportunities missed in Iraq.

So we learn. We get better and smarter. We keep trying because we have no choice. Failed states are just bad for the business called globalization. Dealing with them is recognizing the military-market nexus in all its developmental complexity.

So we keep getting better because they keep getting worse.

China's in vogue right now, no really! In Vogue!

■"Fashion Magazines Rush to Mold China's Sense of Style: Cultural controls seem to stop short of leggy models, rippling abs and lots of brand advertising," by Howard W. French, New York Times, 3 October 2005, p. C10.

Great piece that buttresses my recent posts on China getting more normal by the minute. Granted we're not talking the great unwashed masses (and there are so many in China, roughly 1 out of every 7 people on the planet!), but China's "nascent" middle class is only about . . . oh . . . the size of America!

Listen to the lady who heads up the Chinese edition of Vogue: "Just a few years ago, China definitely wasn't ready and didn't have consumers at the level of Vogue. Two years from now, though, would have definitely been too late. That's the way China is, moving incredibly fast."

Vogue ain't the only mag plying its wares. There are a host of female-focused fashion pubs setting up shop.

And a few men's mags are infiltrating as well. Esquire, I will note, already has a Chinese edition. I know, because it has picked up reprint rights to my stuff in the past.

What about all those strict content controls that have bedeviled the Murdochs of the foreign media in the past? Well, apparently a couple of years ago the Party decided that all those young people needed some tutoring on consumerism.

Yeah baby! That's some hard-core communism!

Austria: always the class of Europe (this time on Turkey's admission to the EU)

■"European Talks Stall on Turkey As Austria Holds Out Resistance," by Graham Bowley, New York Times, 3 October 2005, p. A8.

I spent two weeks once in Austria on a CIA-sponsored (okay, through Voice of America) conference that brought together future leaders from about 40 states (all over Europe, Mideast, Latin America, Asia, and a few Africans) for two weeks of getting to know one another and think about the future of the world. It was pretty cool, because it was held at the same estate where they shot "The Sound of Music" way back when (yeah, the very same cool lake in the back where Julie and the kids fall in).

Anyway, there was a decent contingent of Austrians there, including one of the most anti-American Europeans I have ever met (Her question to me: "Being an American, what are you most ashamed about regarding your country?" My reply, "That we let you Nazi collaborators off with "The Sound of Music").

I remember my time in Austria quite vividly, because almost right next door in the (now) former Republic of Yugoslavia there was all sorts of genocidal "ethnic cleansing" going on (this was 1993), and yet, no one in Austria seemed to feel any need to do anything about it. It was a weird sort of, out of sight, not my problem mindset that I found kind of stunning, like the place and the people had no sense of time or history or responsibility. It was "Twilight Zone"-like. I felt like the "Prisoner" from that old Brit series: you could raise all the questions you wanted on the subject, but it was clear that America really was "number 1" and there wasn't any "number 2" to be found. No, that would be telling Ö

So no surprise here on which EU state seems the most vehement about keeping those "guest worker" types out of the Christian club.

Right on the eve of the historic direct talks on membership, Austria is the lone holdout on starting them, insisting that Turkey be offered nothing more than second-tier membership. Twenty-four other EU countries say otherwise, but Austria holds firm, consistent to a history of racism that is stunning. Austria is the Rhode Island of Europe: insular like you can't believe until you actually spend some time there.

Naturally, one is tempted to cite the usual domestic politics, and indeed, an election looms in Austria. Some expert this showy resistance to go away once it is complete, but ask yourself, what does that still say about Austrian society that this is such an obvious play for attention?

First bonehead BFA typo

Either someone or some program, in his/her/its infinite wisdom, changed "Office of Net Assessment" on page 6 (referencing Andy Marshall) to "Office of New Assessment."

Boy, there's a nice way to establish your expertise in the opening pages.

I don't have the Uncorrected Proof ini front of me right now, but I'm guessing this screw-up happened after that, because I think I would have caught it there. What I really fear happened is some grammar/spelling program thought "new" made more sense than "net" and made the correction for us.

Alas, in a book this big and with this tight a production schedule, this won't be the last one we find.

Critt, create an errata page on the BFA page and start linking to any entries like this. Might as well compile them for subsequent editions.

Good blog on Petraeus speech at Princeton

Petraeus is the general just back from Iraq whom many identify as the sharpest ground-floor commander we've had there. He apparently gave a great talk at his alma mater (masters and PhD). Blogged nicely here at: http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2005/10/lt-gen-david-petraeus-speaks-at.html..

Michael Lotus made me aware of this. Worth reading. Kind of stuff the average person does not get access to.

Signposts - Sunday, October 2, 2005

Signposts is a weekly digest of major op-ed and feature analyses from the blog of Thomas P.M. Barnett -- www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog -- and is distributed via email in html format.

Chile and Argentina go professional SysAdmin

Interesting story on Strategy Page: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htun/articles/20051001.aspx.

Sent to me by reader Bill Millan. Describes how Chile and Argentina are combining their efforts to create a standing peacekeepingg force. underscoring that the SysAdmin function is one that most militaries are capable of--and all they're really capable of--in terms of operations away from home.

The desire is there. Their perceptions of utility andneed are there. What's missing is the U.S. providing the larger, global rule set to put all these resources, including our own forces, to better and more efficient use.

Addressing this rule-set gap is a major goal of Blueprint for Action. In fact, it's the entire first chapter.

The cramped weekend

Dateline: in the Shire, Indy, 2 October 2005

Home four days in a row and it goes by in a flash. We just never seem to get our s-t together living in this tight environ, and making sure all four kids make all their different schedules happen is just plain hard as we are constantly working the house thing and putting together all the new networks that we lost when we moved. Established connectivity is incredibly valuable. You move, you lose.

Going through this move makes me even more desirous of pushing for more reform of military personnel systems that put military families through this sort of discombobulation so regularly. I don't know how officers can stand it through a 20-year career.

Spend this weekend trying to cram in as many family activities as possible, to include some vigorous go-karting yesterday at a local track and a church social today. Trying to work all such personal connectivity right now, because next week will be a bear of travel, with five speeches in four days, spread over 4 states.

Here's the some catch-up:

■ The sacred cow of "national assets" is finally on the SysAdmin chopping block

■ The caboose discovered in America, readily recognized in China

■ Murdoch: kingmaker of connectivity in Asia

■ Putin reaches for more in Russian energy

■ Domestic B.O. is K.O.'d by Overseas

■ China: acting more normal by the minute

■ The dumbest team in the NFL!

The sacred cow of "national assets" is finally on the SysAdmin chopping block

■"Review Leads to Upheaval in Spy Satellite Programs," by Douglas Jehl, New York Times, 30 September 2005, pulled from web.

For the longest time, "national assets," or satellites and related high-end infrastructure, was considered an off-limits resource of the Leviathan-"off limits" in the sense that it was untouchable budget-wise and largely hidden from oversight in "black programs" (like way too much of the intelligence budget in general).

New Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte sends a shot across the Leviathan's bow by overhauling a huge $15 billion program that is to "provide the next generation of reconnaissance satellites, known as the Future Imagery Architecture."

Expect more such moves, because both Dems and Repubs in Congress want less money to be funneled into these super-expensive systems and more effort put into ground-floor spying by humans. There is only so much you can figure out about the Gap from miles above.

This shift reflects the growing understanding that, yes, the Leviathan and its war requirements need a lot of classified information of this sort, but the SysAdmin and its peace requirements need a lot of locally derived information, almost none of which is classified, nor does it take a satellite to gather it, the vast majority of the time.

This is yet another good example of the trend we'll see more and more: the Leviathan giving up its few-and-the-absurdly-expensive to the SysAdmin's ever increasing need for the many-and-the-cheap.

Murdoch: kingmaker of connectivity in Asia

■"Murdoch's Star TV Invests in Indonesian Network," by Donald Greenlees (IHT), New York Times, 30 September 2005, pulled from web.

Murdoch is the great bringer of outside media connectivity to Asia. Doesn't do it out of the goodness of his heart: he wants profits and monopoly-like domination wherever he can get it.

And yes, he'll cut any deal to make it happen, indulging in the local penchant for content control. The man excels in this politically-charged sort of dealmaking, and this is a standard deal for him: promising company that can use his storehouse of content and technical expertise for a rising market. Murdoch comes in first as quiet partner, then expands his network and extends his tentacles.

The region gets connectivity, with content controls being profound at first. But the connectivity is achieved.

A lot of people hate Murdoch for his kingmaking ways, but his profound influence in globalization is undeniable.