The Water Gap

POST: Water, Water Everywhere

Nice Steve blog that shows--yet again--how the defense sector naturally gins out techologies applicable to America's future SysAdmin/Development-in-a-Box scenarios.

The Failed State index matches up nicely with states currently suffering or likely to suffer water problems in the future. Naturally, the correlation with the Gap is very high.

Matrix: internal, external, closed, open

ARTICLE: Debating The J Curve: The Best Case for India, from: Fareed Zakaria, to: Bill Emmott, Slate, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006

Worth reading. Two smart guys in a great discussion. I especially like Emmott's distinctions on China (externally open and until quite recently extremely internally closed) and India (internally open and until recently externally closed).

Thanks to Tom Mull for sending this in.

Great signs abound on North Korea

ARTICLE: China may back coup against Kim, by Michael Sheridan, The Australian, October 16, 2006

Our diplomats heading to China speaking openly of the need for an East Asian NATO (WSJ today) and Chinese officials and policymakers are openly debating the utility of their own potentially leading role in toppling Kim from within.

Kim's rashness may be the best gift this administration receives in its time left. If China steps up, then the question becomes how fast and how well we reward them. Because what we do not give, when deserved, will be ultimately taken without further compensation. We want a start to a beautiful relationship here.

Once achieved, then we speak more openly of how our joint dialogue with Iran begins to tame that regime as well.

Then the real work begins...

Mr. President, you're getting some real opportunity here to end your time on something other than failure in Iraq, thanks to Chris Hill's determined effort, Bob Zoellick laying the groundwork, and China starting to punch at its weight. Don't look this gift horse in the mouth.

Ride it into your sunset.

Thanks to TM Lutas and Lexington Green for sending this to me and Brandon Winters for sending it to Sean.

A thousand flowers will bloom on 5GW, and countless more weeds

John Robb has chosen to interpret my post of yesterday as an attempt to claim "global guerillas" as my own concept, folding it (apparently) into my attempt to argue where I think my ideas can fit within an emerging definition of Fifth Generation Warfare.

I will confess to be somewhat flabbergasted by the charge. But I respect John's work enough that I believe I should address it.

I didn't employ 5GW in either of my books, although I did briefly explore 4GW in Blueprint, essentially naming (as most do) William Lind as the major initial influence for the concept. As I've written my stuff, I haven't attempted to fit my vision within any definition of generations because I--quite frankly--haven't seen any way to do so and I couldn't see any utility in doing so for the general reader because I've typically found such discussion too esoteric for my writing style.

But thanks to the very interesting ideas rising up from this brew of bloggers currently exploring the concept of 5GW (especially Dan Abbott's brilliant bit of laying the generations on top of Boyd's OODA loop--perhaps simplistic and yet I find it way cool), often placing my proposed solutions sets within that framework, I've recently become interested in making such arguments on my own. I don't find this evolution particularly amazing. When they called it the Global War on Terrorism, so did I (I chose not to fight the reigning buzz phrases), and when Long War supplanted that notion, I'm more than cool to shift to that one.

To me, the shifting of the conversation from 4GW to 5GW that this universe of bloggers is pursuing seems natural enough: since 4GW is viewed as an asymmetrical response to our "overmatch" in 3GW capabilities, it's only natural that our attempted response to 4GW be cast as some further iteration.

Having said that, I can readily understand John's trepidation at that development, since he offers his own, particularly striking definition of 5GW, and naturally, he feels quite proprietary about that because he's got a book coming out where he's laying claim to serious ownership of those ideas. So when I write a post entitled "My personal 5GW dream," it's easy for me to see why John can get riled up and nervous that somebody is trying to steal his concepts. I'm sure that in John's view, there's a bit of a race right now to be the guy who makes the definitive definition of 5GW stick in the blogosphere, and John's certainly entitled to make both his own case and defend it vigorously, but he's got to be careful not to try and take on all-comers everytime they explore 5GW, because my sense is that would be both a herculean and pointless task. Frankly, if bloggers weren't referencing my ideas in this context, I wouldn't have waded in, because I've found it better in my career to simply coin or kluge together my own lingo, rather than lay claim to some additional iteration of an already established canon, like either the generations stuff or the -centric stuff. I just find such efforts too hard because of all the zealots you run into. John's apparently a braver man than I on this score, but again, I would caution him not to try and defeat all competing definitions as they emerge.

I like John's writing within the concept he calls "global guerillas," specifically some of his descriptions of the dynamics we'll meet from nonstate actors in coming years. I do not, however, subscribe to his overarching description that this constitutes a new form of war or that nonstate actors represent anywhere near the threat level he proposes. I see them primarily as friction in globalization's advance, just the latest (and most cynical and self-serving) iteration of individual-level resistance to the global economy's advance. This is not me seeing the glass half-full and John half-empty. John sees the glass all empty and I just don't buy it.

Let me go on the record saying I have no intention nor desire to claim the concept of "global guerrillas." If I've ever used the phrase or the concept and not credited John, somebody please point it out.

In fairness to John, he's got a book coming out soon where he's laying claim to his own vision of future warfare, and as an author who's been through that process three times now, I understand the tension involved. So I'm just going to assume that John read something in the post that set him off, because, for the life of me, in rereading the post, I simply don't get the charge. If anything, I would interpret the post as arguing against John's definition of global guerillas, making the case that states still dominate the conduct of the Long War (my notion that Bush's strategy of Big Banging the Middle East is essentially an invitation to the global jihadist movement to focus their attention there more conventionally, using the lure of all those American troops).

Now, judging by the comments on John's blog, that argument comes off as callous, because it suggests to some that America is needlessly wasting lives in southwest Asia. That's a fair enough charge, one that's been leveled every time America has ever opened up a front (think back to our choices in WWII, or our decisions on where and when to engage the perceived Soviet/socialist threat across the Cold War), so it's only natural that it's used on Bush's decision to throw down the gauntlet in Iraq. I'm sure it will be leveled against future such decisions in this Long War, even as our numbers lost in this conflict pale in comparison to previous wars, both long and "short" (with that, of course, being a good thing signaling progress in global security). Then again, who would argue against the goodness of Americans becoming agitated over even these small-by-historical-comparison losses, because that shows that our perceived pain thresholds are dropping commensurately with the rise in global order, and that's only as it should be.

But make no mistake, there will be future decisions to open fronts in this Long War--many of them over time. I believe all will be located within the Gap. I also recognize that all will be considered hopeless diversions to some, and God knows that some will be, as we're unlikely to make wise choices throughout a decades-long struggle.

But I don't believe this Long War will become the defining reality of globalization, because I don't see nonstate actors, nor their networks, becoming stronger over time, much less dominant. John sees these "networked tribes" as being already dominant, a view I often run into in this business, but one that I find pointlessly hyperbolic--hence my complete lack of desire to claim any of it for my own definitions of future warfare.

So relax John. I'm sure your book will be well received. I personally look forward to reading it. Trust me, no one is ever going to confuse our world visions, much less buy any perceived attempt on my part to claim your ideas as my own.

One thing I've struggled mightily to get better at is not getting all bent out of shape when people attack my ideas. That's the price you pay when you put them out there in books. And for a long-term thinker like myself, the usual charge will always be that current events totally shit-can your projections of change and adaptation. That rush to judgment is just something you have to get used to.

The other price you pay is that once you publish, you no longer get to drive the bus alone if your ideas find purchase among other thinkers. People start running with them, doing all sorts of stuff you never imagined. This is both very cool and somewhat frightening, requiring any even steadier hand than with the handling of pure criticism--much less the hate mail and the personal accusations.

Within any successful trajectory, and I believe John is definitely on one, there is the temptation to fire on larger targets (I would be one to John only in the sense that I've got books already out that have done reasonably well). I have done this to a sad degree, far too often goiing nuclear on more famous writers (Friedman, Kaplan, Peters, and not too long ago Steyn). It's a very bad habit I'm trying to shake, because it always makes me look small and insecure in comparison, but truth be told, a huge amount of ego is required to lay out your own vision, so such prickliness is an occupational hazard.

What I often find when I behave badly in this manner, is that I get a lot of plaintive and well-meaning lectures from readers who like both me and the target in question, with each begging me to--in effect--grow up and stop acting so threatened by their desire to horizontally connect my work to that of other writers they also admire. In reality, of course, these readers are doing exactly what I constantly preach: they're thinking horizontally and connecting across seemingly opposing or competing world views. Funny how I'm able to do that in my own work and then get so reflexively defensive when readers do the same to my stuff!

But this is all good, and I've come to appreciate the patience of my readers, many of whom have pushed me on the maturity issue with great skill and generosity. I would encourage John to do the same, except he's typically displayed that capacity for incorporating opposing views into this thinking quite well, by my standards. And that's perhaps why I find his lashing out today so unexpected.

But again, no desire on my part to offend John or make him feel like he doesn't own his own ideas. As I said in the post, I think a lot of people are doing some really spectacular things with the notion of Fifth Generation Warfare, the definition of which is clearly going to be contested for quite some time. John's got his, I would offer mine, and then there's everybody else with just as strong an opinion. I wouldn't expect that debate to end conclusively any time soon, even as I understand any author's reflexive sense of ownership as his or her book hits the stand.

Tom at Steve's

Steve has a post today entitled China -- Future Shock -- But not too shocking where he talks about Chinese censorship and links one of Tom's posts about it: Nervous is good. Check them out.

My own personal 5GW dream

Here's the post that drives my comeback, which I was going to post there, on Weeks' site, but then I started to feel proprietary about it, meaning I was beginning to like the point enough to want it on my own site so I could find it months from now when writing Vol. III, which will definitely include an exploration of 5GW from my own peculiar perspective, as fueled by all this excellent stuff coming out of ZenPundit, Dreaming 5GW, Robb's Global Guerillas (which I admit I tend to read second-hand through translators who strip out the darkness and move it close enough to my own thinking that I can locate the hand grips), Coming Anarchy (who painstakingly endeavor to connect me to Kaplan) and others. I have no ambition to lay out some theory of 5GW beyond the one I've already essentially laid out in both books (and which Weeks logically grabs ahold of in his very interesting interpretations of my work)--namely, the use of System Perturbations to alter existing rule sets or to replace them entirely with new ones. "Socializing your problem," as I put it in a recent post, is a tactic. The systematic alteration, or replacement of, an existing rule set is your strategic goal. You're not happy with things the way they are, so you make those around you unhappy enough that they too, are unhappy with the ways things are. Shock them hard enough, and you can trigger their own movement toward new rule sets that move the pile for you. Most of the time, what you trigger with an SP will look pretty negative in the short term, meaning objectively bad for all and subjectively bad for you--the instigator. In reality, though, my idea of the aggressive 5GW warrior is that he's uncommonly cool with that sort of ambiguity, a stance that can only be justified by the long-term perspective. In short, sometimes you'll take beatings in order to give better beatings later on. Nietszchean, I know, but to me, 5GW is more about shaping (and yes, manipulating isn't a bad word either) your own population's morale than it is disabling your enemy's population (whom you seek to reduce through the best sort of seduction).

So I don't disagree that the more you employ a 5GWish grand strategy to shrink the Gap by buying it off pre-emptively, the more 5GWish resistance you will engender (Weeks' great point). Entering the battlespace always activates the battlespace, and first responses are typically symmetrical (i.e., our enemy realizes we're trying to win his "date" from him, so he naturally does whatever it takes to keep her cowed and afraid and in his corner). To me, it's just about getting there first. The bribers will come into that space, selling all sorts of hope in a better future. Most will be liars, seeking power for themselves ultimately. We'll be the true revolutionaries, empowering the masses (and, of course, "enslaving" them to the market, according to our foes). But we should openly subvert our targets with the truth: in our path, they end up with more stuff and more freedom in how to use it; in our enemies' path, they end up with less stuff and less freedom in how to use it. Granted, not everyone wants empowerment, as plenty find it extremely disorienting. But better we go 5GWish on their asses than have our enemies beat down those who naturally thrive under such conditions, usually driving them away. When we lose those people in a society, we lose the society to enduring Gap status. Sure, we win the best & brightest from their populations in the meantime, but that's like the liberal Catholics going Episcopalian and the conservative Episcopalians going Catholic: the end result is that the Episcoplians only get more liberal and the Catholics only get more conservative. That's not the outcome we seek in the Gap, because that does not drain the swamp but merely deepens it.

There are many who would focus their attention primarily on those who exit the Gap individually and enter the Core, fearing their potential as fifth columnists (the Sageman obsession that reflects his spy-versus-spy paradigm), but to me, that's a defensiveness that keeps us trapped in a 4GW mindset here at home, when we should be all about acting offensively 5GWish inside the Gap (Steve DeAngelis' real point with Development-in-a-Box): altering the observed reality as rapidly as possible to liberate those who will thrive in that "chaos" and keeping as disoriented as possible the right-wing authoritarian types (and the personalities that naturally follow them, seeking submission) so that they spend all their time and attention trying to turn back the clock at home rather than speed up the clock here in the Core (pushing us down authoritarian pathways out of fear).

In truth, that's what really pissed me off most about the NIC's NIE: it basically ceded the away game to the opposition, feeding the mindset that we should play 4GWish at home and eschew the dangers of the 5GW offensive strategy inside the Gap (in effect, protect your own rule sets at home rather than have the ambition of altering those abroad).

To me, then, 9/11 was Osama's reach for 5GW-level strategy: yes, it scored on 4GW levels by striking fear deep in the heart of the homeland, but it's meta-goal was to trigger the U.S. engagement inside the Middle East (taking a beating to give a better beating and put the board in play that you could not otherwise manipulate). In short, Osama was counting on our tendency to play revolutionary power--he wanted that response.

I wanted to give Osama that response, and so I supported the invasion of Iraq. I was willing to accept the likely beating in order to give a better one down the road (the necessary changes within the U.S. military). That's not a cavalier decision. That's simply understanding that, under the current rule set, if you continue to play as before, you'll lose because your enemy's gone onto the next generation of warfare to turn your strengths into your weaknesses. Osama wins when he keeps America in this loop: we try classic 3GW, find it only gets us 4GW in response, and so we retreat, eschewing the 4GW battlespace and thus surrendering it to him.

In that path, we don't defend globalization, letting the enemy rally his troops around the friction naturally triggered by the global economy's spread, when what we should be doing is speeding globalization up as much as possible, accepting both the 4GW burden of countering resistance both within the Core and throughout the Gap and the meta-strategies implied by an offensive 5GW approach (releasing the "dogs of 4GW" war only bonds us further with fellow Core powers, by: 1) moving us collectively away from the temptations of classic 3GW scenarios (like Taiwan) and 2) replacing those temptations with new fears of collective exposure to 4GW dangers, thus pushing us toward aggressively building out the Core).

I know this may all come off as slightly rambling and inchoate, but I'm in that reaching mode toward Vol. III more and more. To me, PNM was all about moving off 3GW and recognizing the realities of 4GW, while BFA suggested the institutional changes and strategic alliance choices necessary to move us beyond 4GW engagement (the Long War, as we call it now) and into what I would call 5GW shaping of the future battlespace (by locking down Asia and gaining its strategic aid in shrinking the Gap in all those places where our enemies are--to date--not yet strong, such as the entire Gap outside of the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan/Pakistan).

Along those lines, I am willing to take the beating in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to give the ultimate "beating" (as in, beating them to the punch) elsewhere throughout the Gap, but I need New Core pillars to make that effort with me, because I know that Old Core Japan and Europe simply aren't up to it. The quickest way to do that, in my mind, is to leap-frog toward strategic alliance with China (and yes, I won't even wait on the solution set on North Korea to emerge before pursuing that). The longer we wait on that, the better the chance that Osama and Co. can create enough doubts about our strengths to convince China that the safer path is hunkering down and building-out their own version of globalization there. Osama wants that because a three-bloc world (Old Core, China-centric New Core, Gap) keeps his strategic goals in play in the Middle East. I want China locked in ASAP because a two-bloc world (strong Core working to shrink the Gap versus a global jihadist movement fighting to keep Islam off-line) basically preordains the outcome.

So giving the jihadists their "cause celebre" in Iraq is just fine and dandy to me, as cynical as that may sound, because that tie-down of their resources and strategic attention gives globalization more time to work the rest of the Gap during this unprecedented global expansion triggered by the rising East and those three billion new capitalists. By tainting anti-globalization through association with the grotesquely frightening masks of the Zarqawis and bin Ladens, I push China toward the self-realization of strategic alliance with the United States in a number of ways: 1) letting their "infiltration" of the rest of the Gap go unchecked (Oh, how lax of me!) and 2) by moving them closer to the identification as the new "face" of globalization (the "Chinese model" as flytrap to the Egypts of the world, thus depressing the old reflexive reach for the notion that globalization = westernization = americanization so good anti-globalization = good anti-americanism).

The great danger, of course, is that by "staying the course" too long on Iraq and Afghanistan, we drive up anti-Americanism among our enemies and their targeted population pools that we reflexively pull away from the Long War (Americans want to be liked, even when waging war), but there again, that danger only speaks to the speed to which we need to lock in Asia's strategic affection.

Our failsafe in all of this? Bush and Co. must go by Jan '09, which is why it's so crucial that we get somebody in who can see the whole board here and not just the need for an exit strategy in southwest Asia. Historically speaking, I'm more than willing to accept the "loss" in the Middle East if that loss suitably triggers the new strategic relationships I need to win the rest of the planet, and to me, the quickest route to that desired end is locking in China to lock-down Asia and set up the combination of our Leviathan and their SysAdmin for closing down future potential pathways for the global jihadist movement to move out of its current center of gravity in southwest Asia into places we should jointly lock-down pre-emptively with China, India, Russia and Brazil--such as Central Asia, southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Doing this right, in a 5GW sense, will make it seem as those our New Core pillars are "laughing all the way to the bank," to use Chris Lydon's phrase. This was the cracking-the-code moment for me in the New Map Game: we set the table (Leviathan) and China eats the meal (SysAdmin). We seem to "lose" and China seems to "win," first in East Asia on the East Asian NATO/North Korea solution set, and then in Latin America (where the Chinese-Brazilian "axis" dominates) and Africa (where the Chinese model gets most of the credit).

Throughout this years-in-the-waging 5GW strategy, America will "lose" much global power to China, allowing them to shrink muck of the Gap for us (along with fellow rising India and Brazil and to a lesser extent, demographically moribund Russia). Meanwhile, the Middle East/Islam (to most people) will remain unsolved and screwed up, our "addiction" to oil will go seemingly unaddressed, Europe will be lost to the invasive species known as Muslims, and the West will be in near collapse... (so you see, I do find types like Steyn wonderfully useful...).

Except great power war will be a distant memory, the global economy will have successfully migrated through its greatest expansion ever, the Gap will be effectively shrunk everywhere save the permanently f--ked-up Middle East (which we ceded to Iranian domination), China will be our permanent strategic ally, and life will be very good.

Of course, in that 5GW victory (that will suspiciously seem like a defeat throughout its making), we'll only be setting ourselves up for future domination by the Chinese, much like the Japanese currently subvert us with sushi, Pokemon, anime, etc. Blade Runner's sloppy mix of Asian-American global culture will have been achieved, radical Islam will have been hopelessly marginalized, and Europe will achieve the permament third-tier status it so richly deserves for setting up this huge task called shrinking the Gap, which China and America (two former European colonies) so kindly got together on and finally solved.

There you have it, my personal 5GW dream...

But again, the key dynamic here: the more we "lose" and are perceived to "lose" in the Middle East, the more we are forced to seek (hat in hand) strategic alliance with China (where Kim serves his only useful purpose in life). The more China sees itself as rescuing itself, globalization, and the world from American recklessness, the more self-confidence we build in an ally that will be perceived to eclipse us just as we were perceived to eclipse Great Britain across the 20th century while nonetheless basically doing its strategic bidding throughout the planet for decades on end (the lap dog's tail is wagging its "master"), saving them in two World Wars and a Cold War. Now, if we play our cards right, we suffer similiar such "indignities" at the hands of the Chinese throughout the Gap.

I know, I know. I'm selling America down the river in order to build a stable world order that keeps us fat, rich, and safe for the long haul, getting others to do the heavy lifting for the Gap's pursuit of happiness. It'll never happen because it's too devious and duplicitous to unfold, and all this talk of winning-while-appearing-to-lose simply won't wash. You simply can't manipulate people and countries like that.

All good points. And the more strongly people make them, the better.

Remember when our defeat in Vietnam forced us to make peace with the Sovs and Chinese in the early 1970s, setting up their rapid ideological expansion around the planet? Yeah, we got totally screwed on that one (I mean, look where we are now). What were those 5GW geniuses Nixon and Kissinger doing there?

Apparently giving the world away to the Commies. Worked like a charm, didn't it?

The Navy: back to the past in the future

ARTICLE: The New NOC, by Matt Hilburn, Seapower, October 2006

A good sign to see these sorts of Phase 0 references in the NOC (Naval Operational Concept), with associated force structure implications. Not sexy, but truer--on average--to U.S. naval tradition than Big War-centric scenarios.

Thanks to Andrew Surprise for sending this in.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum...

With the Robin Williams comedy coming out that posits a comedian running for the White House, I feel we've entered the true wonderland that is testament to the Bush administration's capacity to warp politics in our nation: comedy has basically replaced political discourse. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher and that SNL guy considering the Senate from Minnesota... these are serious examples of the best political analyses out there today.

The last time comedians dominated the public discourse like this in my life was under Nixon--again, testament to Bush's ability to divide and enrage like no other since Dick.

Hilarious to some, but sad to me, because when the comedians and showbiz types reign, it pretty much signals a public retreat from political life. This is not engagement. This is withdrawal, and that's Bush's real legacy.

Here's the even sadder bit: all of these showbiz types who now so craftily take apart Bush and the GOP every night on TV and throughout the MSM are actually overshadowing the official Democrat response to all this poor leadership, which pretty much makes the comedians and showbiz types the best out there right now.

And on that note, let me say we should finally amend the Constitution and let Arnold run. I mean, he's as showbiz as they come, and built an action career on humor more than anything else, so why the hell not? Give George Clooney a run for his hunkdom.

The sign of the continuing elite corruption in Iran

ARTICLE: "A Feared Force Roils Business in Iran: As hard-liners rise, shadowy Revolutionary Guard muscles in on airport and nabs energy deals," by Andrew Higgins, Wall Street Journal, 14 October 2006, p. A1.

One of the surest signs of a fatally corrupt regime is when the security forces start going into business for themselves. Cynicism has no higher calling.

The Chinese realized this years ago with the PLA, forcing them to get out of the vast majority of the businesses they had wormed their way into over the years, when funding was light from the central authorities.

Seeing such stuff pile up even faster than before makes less impressive all those arguments about the revolutionary fervor of the Ahmadinejad crowd. I mean, if they were gearing up for national suicide, why would they continue to be so busy making bucks?

None of this is new with the Guard. It's just gotten so much more brazen under Ahmadinejad thanks to our increasingly hard-line that's designed--of course--to weaken the very parts of the Iranian elite that we instead bolster:

The struggle for the leases and drilling rigs [where Iranian Guard-sponsored businesses are crowding out others] reveals an unintended consequence of U.S. foreign policy. In this case, instead of weakening Iran, America's efforts to squeeze the country ended up boosting the very hard-line forces there that the U.S. wants to curb.

Unintended? Yes. Unforeseen? Not if you've tracked other countries where we've tried the route of sanctions--like Cuba.

Sad to say, the piece included arguments from Bush officials to the effect that although the RG benefits now from the unintended integration of Iranian energy sectors created by our sanctions and economic isolation tactics, "they are also in the best position to persuade the regime that its current track will undermine the future of the Iranian people"... once the "real" pain of all this isolation takes effect.

Oy vey! Tell it to the Chinese and Russians and Indians.

The naivete of that mindset is stunning, and from Treasury to boot. Let the Guard consolidate their power and get richer in the meantime, and when the big pinch comes, they'll do our arguing for us.

I ask for empowering the masses from below with economic connectivity and let them do the talking regarding reform. But for that perspective, I am considered naive.

Meanwhile, our "realists" put their faith in the Revolutionary Guard to do the same?

Can our strategic thinking on Iran get any more bankrupt?

Yes, yes. Letting the RG get richer will curb the regime's support for terrorism in the region. Buy that and I've got an undamaged oil rig to sell you off the coast of Louisiana.

Our strategy of keeping Iran disconnected gets us what? Further concentration of the economic and political power in the hands of the hard-liners--and a bomb we cannot prevent.

But of course, stay the course. What else can be done in the final two years of this post-presidency?

Female, Islamic Luthers?

ARTICLE: Looking for Islam’s Luthers, by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, October 15, 2006

This article from filmmaker Dan Hare, as I spent the weekend in Ohio playing golf with sons and other relatives.

Great piece by Kristof highlighting that women-leading-the-reformation thing that I like to harp on WRT Islam in North America.

Tom around the web: 5GW edition

+ Pride of place goes to the new Dreaming 5GW weblog. Lots of references to Tom over there. Just go read the whole thing if you're into this topic. Curtis Gale Weeks has been a pure machine, especially in cross-posting relevant, previous Phatic Communion posts. I think the innaugural post is Dreaming 5GW: In Surround Sound, in which CGW links The sandwich generations-of-war strategy and says Tom may himself be a 5GW warrior.

+ Next came Mark with the best title in this series, A strategic dagwood.

Mark, and Curtis linked Fifth Generation (political) warfare.

Tom around the web

+ After Tom was on his show the other night, Larry Kudlow mentioned Tom on his weblog.

+ The Jewish Blog linked Tom's A “responsible” China is a self-interested China. Also, I haven't seen anyone call the doctor 'Tommy' before...

+ Gongol.com linked China just not ready to go all the way on North Korea.

+ ZenPundit linked Jim Ellsworth's USPEACECOM proposal in his Our diplomats will need to become expeditionary.

+ RevG also linked Jim Ellsworth's USPEACECOM proposal.

+ Colby File linked It wouldn't really have been better if we had done nothing.

+ So did The Gold Standard. Matt also linked Two sides of the same coin and linked Iraq videos on YouTube are not the morale threat they seem.

+ Blunt Object linked North Korea's calculated escalation helps us educate China toward the ultimate solution set.

+ So did New Yorker in DC, along with Dear Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term, Secure Your Legacy, and, oh yeah, Create a Future Worth Living.

+ Outside the Beltway linked Fifth Generation (political) warfare.

Tom's latest column at KnoxNews

Epidemiology meets Dr. No

As Iran and North Korea capture headlines, "loose nukes" dominate our definition of catastrophic threat for the foreseeable future, with the presumed holy grail of international terrorism being the suitcase bomb.

While stipulating that here-and-now danger, let me help you look beyond "foreseeable."

Security experts classify weapons of mass destruction in three major baskets: nuclear, biological and chemical. That's the NBC trio you hear so much about today, even though, in historical sequencing, it's more like C-N-B. [read more]

The real suicide watch

OP-ED: "Kim Jong-Il's Suicide Watch: To understand North Korea, think hard about fascist Japan," by B.R. Myers, New York Times, 12 October 2006, p. A27.

Interesting analysis of long-time North Korea watcher who says the Kim family's ideology is far closer to fascism, with its emphasis on racial purity, than to Stalinism (which it more obviously resembles, to include the severe disconnectedness with the outside world).

Consider that ideology and the lack of alternative power centers in North Korea (unlike Iran), and Ahmadinejad's clumsy bluster scares less than Kim's spooky silence.

Iraqi parliament votes to stop pretending it's going to be a unitary state

ARTICLE: "In Victory for Shiite Leader, Iraqi Parliament Approves Creating Autonomous Regions," by Kirk Semple, New York Times, 12 October 2006, p. A12.

Joe Biden's not looking so stupid all of a sudden. James Baker may say it's too hard to split up big cities, but the Shiites are getting their way in Iraq, and they deserve to, say I--along with the Kurds.

With the insurgency largely based in Sunni lands, the Shiites and Kurds are voting to leave any attempt at a unitary state behind.

That's not saying there can't be an Iraq in the meantime. It'll just be made up of three mini-states with a lot of hatred and mistrust between them. When that goes away, Iraq can be something more coherent again--but not before.

The sooner this process proceeds, the sooner the violence can be segregated and the serious reconstruction begin. Yes, it will go most slowly in the Sunni provinces, but the power of precedence elsewhere is the best weapon we've got--including against Iran and Syria.

Gunnar worth reading here as well

Continuing in his effort: Decentralization and "Good Enough" security Part 3

UK's military votes for political change in the U.S.

Just watching CNN and seeing that the Brit army chief of staff, General Dannatt, calling for a pull-out of UK troops and declaring the decision to try and bring democracy to Iraq "naive."

The story can be found at CNN.com.

This is a stunning bit from the Brits, but I think it's the equivalent of American generals turning on Rumsfeld: they're tired of fighting this war under the worst conditions possible and to see some changes.

So why come out now?

Why the hell not influence a shift to the Dems in the U.S. on the eve of the election?

Especially when you have James Baker speaking openly of proposing direct dialogue with both Syria and Iran to close those borders and get their help on settling Iraq?

When I was in CENTCOM last year, you could really touch a nerve whenever you mentioned dialogue with Iran. Officers wouldn't say as much, but you could tell that it really bugged them that the local player making it hardest for them to succeed (Iran) was off-limits in terms of any direct interactions. That's what I mean by operating under the worst possible circumstances.

We learned in Vietnam: one thing to do counter-insurgency inside the South, but another thing to seal the country off. If you can't do the latter, the former is really hard.

To me, this is the Brit Army voting with their mouthpiece, and it's telling.

I really liked Peter Beinart's bit on Kudlow a couple nights back, saying that the perceived GOP-v-Dems split on Iraq would dissolve right after the election, with many conservatives joining Dems to get Bush to change policy. The only way that can work--namely, a significant drawdown of U.S. forces (don't kid yourselves, we won't leave fully, as we never leave anywhere fully)--is for us to enlist a lot of local help, to include first and foremost Iran.

You can't access the intra-mural politics in Iran until you start the conversation

ARTICLE: "In Iran, Two Power Centers Vie Amid Standoff Over Nuclear Fuel," by Bill Spindle, Wall Street Journal, 13 October 2006, p. A6.

Great piece by Spindle. Our education on Iran grows by the day.

... unlike Kim Jong Il's North Korea, Iran isn't a one-man dictatorship. Contrary to a common view of an Iran as being firmly in the hands of its fiery president, Mahmoud Adhadinejad, Iran is torn by competing power centers that wage a daily battle for supremacy.

On one side is a mostly youthful group of fundamentalist hard-liners, typified by Mr. Ahmadinejad, who are determined to keep the revolutionary spirit vibrant. On the other side is Iran's elite class of clerics, aging former revolutionaries and businessmen--also deeply conservative and wary of reform, but far less interested in confronting the world and risking the isolation of their country.

Typifying this less-recognized power center is Iran's tough but suave chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani. He is a fluent English speaker whose appointment to the critical negotiating role was seen inside Iran as a way to counterbalance the mercurial president.

Mr. Ahmadinejad tries to shake things up and sometimes succeeds, says Nassar Hadian, a political-science professor at Tehran University, "but the entire establishment of Iran is opposed to him."

Ever see any academic quotes like that from a North Korean poli sci prof? That's what I mean by differentiating between authoritarianism (a regime that wants to control politics) and totalitarianism (a regime that wants to control everything).

And this article really speaks to that difference on a political basis: two opposed camps within the conservative ranks, both of whom want a bigger role for Iran in world affairs but "have quite different ideas about how to achieve it and about just what kind of role Iran should play in the world."

Ahmadinejad's group wants confrontation with the West, knowing it has New Core pillars China and Russia on its side.

But Larijani's group puts emphasis on "maintaining economic and political ties to the West, and perhaps even opening some sort of dialogue with the U.S."

Wouldn't you like to put Ahadinejad on the spot by actually giving him a dialogue the establishment conservatives force him to engage?

Confrontation with the West works wonders for Ahmadinejad in this struggle with the establishment. As another Iranian political analyst puts it, "He's tried to provoke a crisis in order to achieve better control."

Of course, the conservative-in-chief is Ayatollah Khamenei himself, who appointed Larijani to run Iran's nuclear negotiations in his capacity as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

Remember, Khamenei backed protege Larijani in the 2005 prez election--against Ahmadinejad. Why? Larijani is the consummate insider blue-blood. Ahmadinejad is more of a Gingrich.

Most interesting to me: while Ahmadinejad talks up Chavez as a model, Larijani talks up India.

India is often lost in any discussion on Iran, when it shouldn't be. To the elite, India is the big brother, not Russia or China. India is the Persian Gulf power (yes, I wrote that) for whom Iran feels the most identification.

Yes, Ahmadinejad seems in the driver's seat right now, but...

... the struggle for power over Iran's policy has hardly ended. And as always, it's taking place in the larger context of the establishment's attempts to keep Mr. Ahmadinejad in check.

The story then ends with a bit of insider intrigue recently engineered by Rafsanjani, which again indicates how and why Iran is so different from Kim's North Korea.

Unlike North Korea, which should go away, Iran is here to stay.

Proletariat of China... uh... unionize!

ARTICLE: "China to Press More Firms to Unionize," by Mei Fong, Wall Street Journal, 13 October 2006, p. A4.

I love citing Mei Fong articles. I dream of Mei Barnett writing for the WSJ someday.

Title of piece should really read "foreign firms."

China's always had trade unions, but they are basically tools of the state and represent the workers' true interests nada.

But with so many foreign firms, they actually take on a more legitimate role. So when Beijing gets notoriously anti-union Wal-Mart to agree to such unionization inside China, it gets a bit more confident, seeing this as another venue within which to tame the effects of foreign companies inside China.

This is a good thing. Good for the government. Good for workers. Good for the global economy. It's a much more legit application of workers' rights in China (not a huge step, mind you, but in the right direction). Plus, it will drive up the price of Chinese labor. An American labor leader is quoted in the piece as saying as much.

I recently got an email from a reader on this subject, asking whether it would be a good thing for China if such unions got more powerful. This is a nice, confirming bit of current evidence of movement in that direction.

Grameen winning the Nobel Peace Prize speaks to possibilities of Gap shrinking

ARTICLE: "Microloan Pioneer and His Bank Win Nobel Peace Prize," Associated Press, found at NYT

Nice to see. So very bottom-of-the-pyramid. And so very female focused:

Today the bank claims to have 6.6 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women, and provides services in more than 70,000 villages in Bangladesh. Its model of micro-financing has inspired similar efforts around the world.

Another good example of the phenomenon by which non-Westerners are giving the biggest and most fruitful hints about how shrinking the Gap developmentally will actually occur, meaning not at American prices.