Yet another confession: I forgot to watch the debate!

Dateline: Portsmouth RI, 30 September 2004

Sad to say but true. Tonight is my only night home after two on the road and the next three off with son to the Midwest for some rollercoasters and a day at Lambeau, so spent the night helping Daughter #1 figure out her science fair project (guess who's the subject to be poked and prodded!), hug Daughter #2 a bunch, go over a lot of homework with Son #1 and play with plastic animals and read some Dr. Seuss (The King's Stilts--a real oldie) with Son #2. After a conversation with my wife, we both realized we completely forgot about the debate, we were so busy through the evening with the four kids!

Ah well . . . few better excuses than that.

Making amends with the Air Force

Dateline: SWA flight from BWI to PVD, 30 September 2004

I did a terribly thing a while back. I inadvertently slandered the Air Force, and that's pretty bad since that service, above all others, embraces me and my ideas most strongly.

Here's the storyline:

Way back when I was writing PNM, I made a point of going through all my footnotes with a fine-tooth comb. I did that during October of 2003 while Mark Warren was doing his initial stem-to-stern reads of the manuscript before we jumped into the final big edit in November.

Well, come January Mark and I were deep into our final edits of the manuscript, going over the our list of about 500 or so changes we were sending Putnam following the first big type-setting exercise, known as the First Pass. There was a section in Chapter 4 (The Core and the Gap) called "The Flow of Money, or Why We Won't Be Going to War with China," where I wanted to make a point about how so many Defense Department wargames since 1996 (Taiwan Straits crisis) focused on China threatening or invading the island. I did so obliquely, and so I didn't really need a footnote. Yet I wanted to toss one in if I could find the right sort of example.

Well, just as we were rushing this huge list of edits out the door, along comes this (seemingly) perfect Inside the Pentagon story that talked about an Air Force tabletop game in Alabama (Maxwell AFB, at Air University's gaming facility) where the employed scenario, as described in its unclassified version to the press by one of the designers, sounded like it fit the bill. I made a call to somebody I knew had been down there for the event, and we had a conversation about it. In retrospect, I heard only what I assumed to be true, and didn't actually ask him enough on the phone to verify my suspicion. I didn't ask outright, because the scenario was classified, so we talked in general terms about how the game approached the notion of loitering sensors, and it was in that general conversation that I thought I heard enough to confirm my "wild guess" as I later described it (sarcastically) in the final text that went into the footnote for page 242.

Now here's the real mistake: when asked by Fire and Movement to write a piece about gaming and the future of the Global War on Terrorism, I went back to that article, now firmly convinced that my original interpretation of its text was dead-on, when in fact it was dead-wrong. So when I skewered an unnamed Air Force tabletop game of January 2004 in the opening para of that article, I was not only inadvertently slandering this rather fine exercise, but I was dissing both the service that accepts and promotes my work most (the Air Force), plus the actual scenario employed fits extremely well with the main points and ethos of PNM!

So imagine the surprise when personnel in the long-range planning office of the Air Force, inside the Pentagon, read the article and then realized that the author of this book they liked so much had singled them out as prime examples of not moving ahead as he advises!

They were actually very nice about it. They sent me emails assuring me that whatever info I had received about that game, I had heard wrong. At first I thought that was what happened, until I reconstructed the events in my mind and realized that my "wild guess" was just that.

The fix? The editor of Fire and Movement will note in the next issue in his editor's column that I used the wrong example in my piece, and I've already rewritten the offending footnote for the paperback version of the book.

To make me feel like more of a hell (completely unintentionally on their part), it was this very same office that invited me down to sit with them yesterday in the Pentagon. They ran me through the materials of the January 2004 game (which was very good), and then asked my advice on things they might do with their planned event next year. It was actually a great discussion that made me realize that the Air Force, at least in this one game, had caught up to the many complaints I've long had about wargaming. So if that were the case, what would be my new complaints?

I don't say that just to be a contrarian. Once the client catches up, the futurist must immediately move on to the next "impossible demand" that he'd like to see employed sometime in the next five years, stating this demand with full knowledge that what he expects is almost impossible in the near term, but practically possible in the next 3 to 5 years, which is where I always want most of my advice to lieótime-wise.

In short, this conversation pushed my thinking ahead a good five years, and that's a pretty nice outcome from a screwed-up footnote (one of about 350 in the book, citing about 700 references, so my batting average is still pretty good).

Still, you walk away from the whole thing thinking . . . no last-minute footnotes!

Here's today's grab:

■More examples of why the "peaking of oil production" is a long way off

■Avian Flu: the System Perturbation in search of a pandemic

■Why I would welcome the return of a deal-making president

■Getting our heads straight on China

■Sys Admin Force: Have I got a deal for you!

■Outsourcing: Another bites the dust!

■The well-fed do as they want, the hungry do as they must . . . on energy

■Taking off the pinko-colored glasses and seeing Russia for what it is

More examples of why the "peaking of oil production" is a long way off

■"Conoco Wins Lukoil Bid, a Window on Iraq," by Erin E. Ardvedlund and Heather Timmons, New York Times, 30 September 2004, p. C1.

■"As Westerners Move Into Russia, Its Vast Oil Wealth Keeps Growing: BP, Others Boost Production With Basic Tools of Trade; Reserve Estimates Surge," by Gregory L. White, Wall Street Journal, 30 September 2004, p. A1.

Conoco wins a big chunk of Lukoil in a bid, and that opens up both Russia and Iraq to its efforts to find more oil and better develop existing fields. Why Iraq? Lukoil has rights there from Saddam's time.

See, I told you it wasn't going to be some zero-sum game for just American oil companies in Iraq!

Moreover, alread in the past few years, Russia's proven oil reserves have grown dramatically simply because Western firms came in with better technology and exploited existing and marginal fields with enormous success rates. Experts are now guessing that revamped statistics on Russia's reserves may rocket it from number 7 in the world rankings to number 2, or above Iraq and only behind Saudi Arabia.

Take that, Hubbert's Curve!

Why I would welcome the return of a deal-making president

■"Growing Pessimism on Iraq: Doubts Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies," by Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 29 September 2004, p. A1.

■"The Politics of Fear: Kerry Adopts Bush Strategy of Stressing Dangers," by Jim VandeHei and Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, 29 September 2004, p. A1.

■"Rivals' Foreign Policy Stances Show Few Clear Distinctions," by James Bennet, New York Times, 30 September 2004, p. A1.

■"Kerry Is Widely Favored Abroad: Hostility Toward Bush Revealed in Surveys and Interviews," by Keith B. Richburg, Washington Post, 29 September 2004, p. A14.

It is scary to read the strategic despair that's spreading out of Iraq and across the national defense establishment. But all it really represents is the military's realization that they do not possess a winning hand there. In short, the military solution isn't enough. Defeating the insurgency is not an end, but a means to enabling the reconstruction of Iraq and its reconnection to the global economy and the world outside. But we're not winning the latter battle, so no matter how well we temporize the former situation, it doesn't spell political victory in the end, and that's what's depressing.

How do we get beyond this stalemate? We internationalize this thing like crazy. A much bigger peacekeeping/counterinsurgency force that would feature not just an Old Core, paleface cast, is the first answer. When the terrorists look across the line and see not just Americans and Europeans, but Chinese, Russians and Indians (three "civilizations" which historically have shown plenty of willingness to kill Muslims when required), the strategic despair would leave our side and begin to infect theirs.

But how to achieve this "unbelievable" proposal? How to bribe Russia, and China, and India? Maybe no Star Wars pointed against China. Maybe no outsourcing backlash against India. Or declaring Pakistan a "major, non-NATO ally." Maybe we push Russia's desire to join the WTO, then NATO in a more full fashion, and then maybe the EU itself!

No, no. All these things are too fantastic.

No, going it largely alone in the Middle East and transforming it all by ourselves, somehow integrating those economies into the Core all by ourselves. No, that's not fantastic. Cutting hugely popular deals with the Russians, Chinese, and Indians would be far more fantastic. How do I know such deals would be popular? Just by seeing how strongly foreign nations want Kerry to beat Bush, and to end the perception of US unilateralism in this profoundly connected Core.

But Kerry has a hard time making this sell, since he believes in most of the same things Bush does on the key burning security issues of our day. But that's the funny thing: all these issues that piss off potential New Core powers from helping us in Iraq are not "burning security issues," but easy give-aways if we're really serious about winning a global war on terrorism. I mean, for Christ's sake! What's more important to you? Defeating transnational terrorism or the Kyoto Treaty?

Kerry runs real risks by sounding more Chicken Little-like than Bush already does. He needs to spell out his willingness to be a real dealmaker, something Bush has never mastered nor shown any inclination to even learn. Clinton was a deal-maker and Clinton got economic issues solved during his 8 years of working globalization. Kerry needs to present himself as a Clinton-like deal-maker on security issues in the age of globalization. He needs to show not just the downside of four more years of telling our allies we don't need them. Kerry needs to show he understands there's a huge upside to successfully internationalizing this war on terror. It's win-win for as far as the eye can see. It's the happy ending the American public is desperate to hear about.

Avian Flu: the System Perturbation in search of a pandemic

■"Experts Confront Major Obstacles In Containing Virulent Bird Flu," by Keith Bradsher and Lawrence K. Altman, New York Times, 30 September 2004, p. A1.

Just the preparations the world is making for the possibility of the avian flu becoming a pandemic killer of millions isóin and of itselfógenerating new rules across the system. Like the scheduled Y2K event in information technology, the much anticipated pandemic flu (and the avian version seems the best bet we've seen come along in a very long time) to rival the Spanish one of 1918 seems to be generating a precursor wake of sortsóI guess you could call it a bow wave that hits you long before the boat reaches you.

Drug companies love to cite all sorts of reasons why you can't do what the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Controls are trying to do with such an unknown flu as this one (like stockpiling vast amounts of vaccines that can't really be tested in advance)óbefore it really even appears as a pandemic. But guess what? The system of connectedness across the Core is so dense that almost no one is willing to wait, so new rules ensue on vaccine creation and testing, and genetic techniques to isolate the strain and map its essential building blocks. Those rules can't wait on 20 million dead to make it a comfortable profit margin.

And that means that the avian flu is already becoming a System Perturbation of sorts within the global medical community. Here's hoping it stays there and doesn't spill over into the economic, political and security realms.

Getting our heads straight on China

■"Interceptor System Set, But Doubts Remain: Network Hasn't Undergone Realistic Testing," by Bradley Graham, Washington Post, 29 September 2004, p. A1.

■"China Readies Riot Force For Peacekeeping in Haiti," by Edward Cody, Washington Post, 30 September 2004, p. A21.

■"An Irresolute Foreign Policy," op-ed by Albert R. Hunt, Wall Street Journal, 30 September 2004, p. A17.

■"I.M.F. Asks China to Free Its Currency from Dollar," by Elizabeth Becker, New York Times, 30 September 2004, p. C1.

Our approach on China in the U.S. government, but especially in the Pentagon, is just plain nutty in many ways. Here is a country joining the global economy, our economic rule set, and reforming itself as we advocate, and what do we offer in return?

How about the latest boondoggle version of Star Wars? Does it work any better than the last? No. What's the total bill up to now? Over $100 billion dollars, or roughly 1/2 of the entire sovereign debt owed by the Gap to the Core. Are we going to deploy it anyway? Oh yeah, to fulfill Bush's 2000 campaign pledge. Who's it designed to stop? North Korea, but ol' China's on the wrong side of the ledger as well. Is this the likely way America is going to suffer a nuclear attack? Not if the experts are at all correct. That scenario will most likely involve terrorists with a suitcase version, not something coming in on a missile. So why push this instead of something better, like a security alliance in Asia if North Korea is the big justification? Wouldn't that make things easier with China? Who wants to make things easier with China!

Ah, now we get closer.

Remember, those dastardly Chinese have their troops in our neck of the woods now: a whopping 125 cops trained for riot control in their first total-package (command, control, logistics) participation in a UN peacekeeping mission.

Wow! An entire contingent of 125 cops. We're talking bigger than . . . uh . . . maybe . . . most of the small-city police forces in America!

But then . . . we must keep on eyes on China, and the China hawks inside this administration, who want China back on the table in terms of global security fears.

Listen to Albert Hunt:

Donít forget China. Remember back to the spring and summer of 2001. Administration hardliners, with Mr. Bush's apparent concurrence, told us China was the greatest danger in the world, a threat to American hegemony. That's why building an expensive missile-defense system was more important than less sexy matters like combating terrorism.

Privately, the hardliners still make those arguments; some say in a second Bush term, China will have to be confronted. No one has the foggiest notion what the man who has been president for the past 44 months believes.

What should we be pushing with China? Ultimately making its currency convertible as soon as it is feasible.

But why bother with that sort of arcane stuff when we can spend billions on a Star Wars system that even the Pentagon doesn't trust one whit.

Sys Admin Force: Have I got a deal for you!

■"Is Halliburton's KBR a Hot Deal? Parent Says Plenty of Companies Want to Acquire Distressed Unit; A Partial Spinoff Is One Option," by Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal, 29 September 2004, p. C1.

"Iraqis Look With Hope to School Openings Twice Delayed by Violence," by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 30 September 2004, p. A8.

Why is Halliburton getting rid of Kellogg Brown & Root, the infamous military contractor? Frankly, that side of the business has gotten so complex and hard that Halliburton wants to lose the distraction, as this article points out.

Many of the current defense contractors specializing in on-the-ground security and other Sys Admin-like roles for the U.S. military naturally rose out of the ranks of the oilfield services industry. Why? That was an industry that needed a lot of Sys Admin-like security and admin work performed in rugged, dangerous locations around the worldói.e., where most of the oil is found.

But now that the Sys Admin role is getting so big and so complex and so political with the Iraq occupation, Halliburton wants out.

Why anyone buy KBR? Lotsa suitors say yes. Why? It's a big and growing field, so there's a lot of opportunity for someone to really give it a go. It just can't be a sideline business for large corporations anymore. It's just too hard to manage in that way.

When we do Sys Admin work, we won't just be doing facilities and VIP bodyguarding anymore, we'll be doing things like reconstituting entire national education systems that have suffered years of devastating repression and deprivation, like in Iraq. That's not something you can just hire some tough guys to do, but it's the sort of thing we'll be doing a whole lot more of in the future.

Calling the Sys Admin concept just "peacekeeping" misses the mark by a ways. It's a lot more complex and inter-agency than that. That's why the military's role in the Sys Admin force will be primarily one of bodyguarding and peace-enforcement, leaving the complex "humanitarian" and reconstruction stuff to civilians and international organizations. So when some in the Army say, "I don't want to be turned into your Sys Admin force and have to do all those things," my reply is, "Don't worry, you won't. You'll only make up a small share of the total force package!"

Of course, that reply scares them even more, because they correctly guess that it means their budget won't be going up, nor will their troop numbers, and that's the real lesson the Army wants to pull out of the Iraq occupation: How to save our force structure!

The well-fed do as they want, the hungry do as they must . . . on energy

■"Damned If They Do . . . Energy-Starved Asia Revisits Hydroelectric Options Despite Pitfalls," by Patrick Barta, Wall Street Journal, 30 September 2004, p. A15.

What will Developing Asia do in order to meet its ballooning energy demands?

The real question is, What won't it do?

Lacking industry but blessed with rivers, poverty-stricken Laos once dreamed of becoming the Kuwait of hydroelectric power. In the early 1990s, developers rolled out a list of planned projects for the Southeast Asian nation, topped by the largest infrastructure investment in its history: A $1.2 billion dam called Nam Theun 2.

Opposition by environmentalists slowed its progress. Then, the Asian economic crisis of 1997 killed the project. But now, Asia is thirsty for power againóand Nam Theun 2 is back in play.

Its resurrection encapsulates an emerging debate in Asia: Power demand is soaring, but the region also has some of the world's foulest air. So, governments are turning back to hydro, a relatively clear alternative to coal or fuel plantsóbut one that has environmental consequences of its own due to its potential to damage rivers and displace communities.

Nonetheless, hydro projects are in the works across the region, especially in China and Myanmar, which itself has 51 dams in various stages of development, by one estimate. Laos has 18.

All that activity also has reopened a debate over what role, if any, big lenders like the World Bank should play in promoting dams.

Watching Asia struggle with this is like watching a slice of America early in the 20th century, when we were throwing up dams all over the place, in large part for very similar reasons (need the energy, to hell with the environment, and lotsa cheap labor lying around). Today, Asia's electricity demands are about 3/4 that of the U.S., but by 2025, it will be 1/4 more than the U.S.'s. That's a lot of energyóa rough tripling. So expect Asia to try everything within its power. What the World Bank needs to do is fund such projects and let the locals figure out the environmental consequences on their own schedule. Otherwise we end up being guilty of telling Asia to find some historical path toward development that we ourselves were unable to manage in our past.

And yeah, that is awfully hypocritical.

Outsourcing: Another bites the dust!

■"Outsourcing Finds Vietnam: Loyalty (and Cheap Labor)," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 30 September 2004, p. W1.

■"Offshoring Forces Tech-Job Seekers To Shift Strategy," by Ellen McCarthy, Washington Post, 30 September 2004, p. E1.

When you see articles about Vietnam pushing itself as a target for outsourcing, you're watching globalization's version of the domino theory at work in Asia. Example is a very powerful thing.

Vietnam is poor and its infrastructure sucks, but it is good at educating. In the past, it's focused on math, but now it's focusing on computer skills. Good move, because when you combine $100 a month wages with skills, you get competitive really fast. Former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Pete Peterson believes Vietnam will be competing with India and others in outsourcing within five years. I think he's right. Trick will be replacing French with English, because the former is the colonial legacy.

But there's something in Vietnam's history since its reunification three decades ago: after fighting 20 years to break away from the capitalist global economy in the form of its colonial master France and becoming an outsider to the global economy following the war involving the U.S., Vietnam is still a very poor place. Disconnectedness was the price Ho Chi Minh and other leaders were willing to pay for independence, but it created a hugely negative legacyóone not shared by Asian Tigers who sought broadband connectivity.

It's a lesson worth remembering when you think about Chechnya and what real "independence" is likely to do for that society.

As for American tech workers, what is the answer? Some jobs won't go overseas, like those involved in security, technical troubleshooting, or anything with real fast turnaround times or the F2F work. So if you're not good at those things, you better become good as fast as possible.

Taking off the pinko-colored glasses and seeing Russia for what it is

■"Not Another Soviet Union," by Eugene B. Rumer, Washington Post, 24 September 2004, p. A25.

Here's the first excerpt that puts recent events in perspective:

The notion that Russian democracy is dying or dead because of Putin's reform is no more accurate than the idea that Russia was ever a democracy. The bloody confrontation between Boris Yeltsin and his parliament in 1993, the patently unfair reelection campaign Yeltsin waged against his Communist opponent in 1996, and the equally skewed parliamentary election campaign of 1999 are just a few examples of Russian democracy in action that do not pass the "you know it when you see it" test.

Yes, yes. Many thought we saw both the rise and fall of Russian democracy, but so far we've seen only the economic liberation tip Russia into such an unclear and murky political environment that the people have acquiesed to the return of a strong hand in the Kremlin. Surprise? Not really. Economics tends to lead politics in terms of generating new rule sets, and that's a worldwide reality.

. . . many Russians . . . Never mistook the political system of Yeltsin's Russia for democracy. To them it was chaos. Western endorsements of Yeltsin as the democratic leader of Russia were greeted with suspicion. Western endorsements of economic changes in Russia were viewed with disbelief as the nation teetered on the brink of insolvency, while a handful of fabulously wealthy oligarchs flaunted their wealth and influence. Then Russian finances finally crashed in 1998.

Since then, as the average Russian sees it, Russia has followed its own course. Foreign advisers have left. The state has reasserted its guiding hand in strategic sectors of the economy. And the state has consolidated its control of the media. The oligarchs have been reined in. Russia's international prestige has been restored, and the country has assumed its rightful place in the firmament of global powers. All that and the economy's 7 percent annual growth rate have led many in Russia to the conclusion that the country is back on track.

The tragedy of Beslan has shattered the image of Russian stability.

Have we seen this pattern in Russian history before? Yes. Have we seen the country slip back into authoritarism? Every time. What makes this time different? Really only the lack of a traditional great power threat to tip Russia back into paranoia and retreat into the schizophrenic mix of isolationism and expansionism that has marked its centuries of history.

So what is the real danger Russia faces?

Why, that would be a great power deciding it needed to define Russia as an enemy.

And so that's the danger voiced at the end of the piece: don't demonize Russia at this point in history. Think long-term and strategic and realize the commonality of strategic interests between Russia and the rest of what I call the Core

Pentagon's been bery bery good to me

Dateline: Same Holiday Inn as last night, outside BWI Airport, Baltimore MD, 29 Sept

Boy, that's a real old SNL reference!

Long day with much to tell, but too tired. Spent money with US Air Force strategic planners in Pentagon discussing their future wargame strategies for capturing the real tasks ahead not just for the Leviathan force, but for the Sys Admin one as well. The Air Force remains, as always, my most receptive audience. There is a good story to tell on this interaction, but it deserve some real time and effort to spell it out, so I'll do it tomorrow sometime. There's an admission of error involved on my part, so you want to do it right.

Spent afternoon giving the brief at a sort of a midcareer "university" for intelligence community officials, a workshop series that's run for them by a special private contractor somewhere in proverbial Northern Virginia. A very interesting audience with very good questions. I enjoyed the interaction immensely and felt recharged intellectually as I headed out the door.

In all, the day told me that I do my best learning when I get the chance to really vet my stuff with wide-ranging audiences. I took so much in during the past two days, I really need several quiet hours in my office to figure out what it all means. Based just on what I got yesterday from the J-5 people, or specifically from one very sharp Navy SEAL, I spent about 90 minutes this morning adding all sorts of new graphics to a number of existing slides, making points that I now realize remain unclear in both the brief and PNM.

I know I get a lot of interesting feedback by vetting stuff here, but there's nothing like F2F with serious practictioners to move the many piles of ideas in your head. Frankly, nothing replaces a live audience and the fear/thrill factor it generates deep within this inveterate performer. TV just doesn't compare, despite the richness.

That's a point my buddy Art Cebrowski always likes to make: there is a trade-off between reach and richness: you go for one and you tend to sacrifice the other. That's why I don't think I could live on either just briefs or just books. I need both. I need the richness to replenish, and the reach to feel the impact.

Nuf said. Lights out.

No stories to blog today, but see that I managed to post yesterday's blog and its accompanying host of articles.

The seat of power

Dateline: Holiday Inn at BWI Airport, MD, 28 September 2004

Flew to Baltimore-Washington International today for a couple of days of meetings/briefs. Today my schedule brought me to the Pentagon to sit with senior staff from the J-5 (Plans and Policy) of the Joint Staff. This is the same branch I briefed last spring in the off-site event covered by Wall Street Journal reporter Greg Jaffe in his profile of me.

As you might expect, these guys try to take the longest view of things like the war on terror (inside the Defense Department now it is called more and more the WOT, instead of the GWOT, a change I approve of, simply because I say it's a war only inside the Gap, whereas it's basically a law-enforcement ops inside the Core). It was a great session, held in the Secretary's Executive Conference Room in the National Military Command Center (I sat at the head of the V-shaped table, which was pretty weird, since I'm so used to always standing up the entire time in rooms like thatómade me wonder if I could catch "neoconservatism" from a chair). J-5 told me in advance they didn't want the brief, but simply to have me sit with them and discuss a series of questions they wanted to pose. So that's what we did for two hours. I got a lot of good feedback in the process, and plenty to think about. I feel myself close to an explosion of new slides. I just need a couple of days back in the office to settle it all out in my brain.

Meanwhile, here's a bunch of stories from various papers on various dates (reducing my backlog quite a bit):

■More Army adjustment as the Sys Admin role drags on

■If this be "Indian Country," then they be the Pony Express

■The middle is disappearing in Iraq

■China and India reshape the Core, each in their own way

■More scary news on the Bird Flu in Asia

■Why Pakistan may end up being China's mess to fix

■Yet another example of why it isn't Islam versus the West

■David Ignatius cracks the code on the Big Bang strategy

■A Core-Gap map that's all about the oil

■Cell phones lead the way in changing both Japan and Russia

More Army adjustment as the Sys Admin role drags on

■"Army May Reduce Length Of Tours in Combat Zones: Fear That Fall in Recruiting Could Clash With Needs in Iraq and Afghanistan," by Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 27 September 2004, p. A1.

■"U.S. Says More Iraqi Police Are Needed as Attacks Continue," by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, 28 September 2004, p. A23.

■"Taking On Sadr City in a Pickup Truck: Four Deaths Illustrate Vulnerability of Iraqi Forces," by Steve Fainaru, Washington Post, 28 September 2004, p. A1.

First piece is just another example of the pain the Army is feeling right now in terms of personnel. Recruitment is suffering because one-year stints in southwest Asia are not a big draw. Since Vietnam, the Army has sought to limit deployments in combat zones to six-month stretches, so both it and the Guard will see how close they can get back to that standard without screwing up the rotations too much. It won't be easy, but it's a good ideaóone I'm sure my godson will appreciate as he prepares to go over.

Obviously, it would be better to be able to backfill our troops with Iraqi police and security forces, but it hasn't been easy to get those numbers up, what with the terrorist attacks against recruitment and training centers. Adding to the difficulty, while our troops have most of what they need, the Iraqi security forces are trying to get by on the cheap. As the third story states, there's a huge disparity in the "sophisticated weaponry and armor" that the U.S. soldiers possess compared to the "vastly inferior equipment" of their Iraqi compatriots. Clearly, this does not look like a winning hand as the January elections approach, which will naturally make our efforts at internationalizing the effort all the more difficult.

We've gotten so good at employing overwhelming force (a key tenet of the Powell Doctrine) during warfare, but what we haven't mastered yet is the employment of overwhelming security during the occupation. The Sys Admin force, like the Military Operations Other Than War doctrine from which it stems, remains the stepchild inside the Pentagon. That will change and the Iraq occupation will make it so.

The middle is disappearing in Iraq

■"Iraq Sees Christian Exodus: As the Minority Religion Flees, a Cultural Shift Grabs Hold," by Yochii J. Dreazen, New York Times, 27 September 2004, p. A17.

The Christians, otherwise known as the moderate middle, are leaving Iraq in serious numbers. What was not too long ago a population of roughly one million is now down 15% and plummeting with the recent wave of bombings and other intimidations at their homes, places of business, and churches.

This is the biggest exodus since the Jews largely left in the 50s and 60s. As one Christian put it, "We have a proverb, 'After Saturday comes Sunday,'" meaning after the Jews are forced to leave a country you can expect the Christians will be driven out next.

The trifurcation of Iraq is looking more and more realistic, placing it squarely in my "Arab Yugoslavia" scenario pathway.

If this be "Indian Country," then they be the Pony Express

■"Truckers of Iraq's Pony Express Are Risking It All for a Paycheck," by James Glanz, New York Times, 27 September 2004, p. A1.

The wild west metaphors Robert Kaplan likes to employ are extended by this piece. Why do people engage in this dangerous sort of activity? Same reason why men take dangerous jobs all over the worldóit's the money. Shrinking the Gap will always be about the money, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what's settled the Bad Lands all over the Core; it will be the same in the Gap.

But the story also gives you a sense of the fragile connectivity that exists now between Iraq and the outside world: it takes truck drivers willing to be shot atóor far worse if they're captured alive.

China and India reshape the Core, each in their own way

■"Competition from China and India is changing the way businesses operate everywhere. Here's what companies areóand aren'tódoing to survive," by Neil King, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2004, p. R1.

This is a real beauty from a great analytical reporter:

The boom in China's world-wide exportsóup 125% in four yearsóhas left few sectors unscathed, be they garlic growers in California, jeans makers in Mexico or plastic-mold manufacturers in South Korea. India's punch has been far softer, but the impact has still altered how hundreds of service companies from Texas to Ireland compete for billions of dollars in contracts.

The causes and consequences of each nation's surge are somewhat different. China's exports have boomed largely thanks to foreign investment: Lured by low labor costs, big manufacturers have surged into China to expand their production base and push down prices globally . . .

India, too, is prompting a massive rush east by many U.S. and European service providers. But, unlike the manufacturers that headed into China, service companies didn't go to India until cheaper and increasingly sophisticated Indian enterprises invaded their territory.

Many talk of China's rising power, but it's not any less based on connectivity than India's is: over half of China's exports to the U.S. are now accounted for by foreign-owned corporations operating there. You take away the companies, their investments, and the willingness of foreign markets to buy China's goods, and you don't have a whole lot. So where is all this power actually accumulating? That would be in the rise of China's domestic demand over the long run. That creates the middle class you can tax, but it also creates a middle class that's rapidly aging and looking for a lot of social services from the state. China will get rich and it will get old, but how that translates into power independent from its growing dependency on the rest of the world for money, energy, markets, and raw materialsóthat is not so easy to see

Imagine a United States that's growing in wealth but still has to provide for all the poor living in Latin America, and you get closer to understanding the huge tasks China faces in development in the coming years.

More scary news on the Bird Flu in Asia

■"Thais Suspect Human Spread of Bird Flu: Fear Woman Got Virus From Family," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 28 September 2004, p. A3.

Now it looks like the emerging threat of the avian flu took a turn for the worse: it would appear that human-to-human transfer is possible.

Human-to-human transmission of a new strain of influenza has long ranked at or near the top of nightmares for public health experts, who warn that it could in theory cause a pandemic killing millions of people worldwide, and possibly hundreds of millions.

You want to talk about a System Perturbation that would rock the Core and possibly lead to some profound firewalling between itself and the Gapóthis would be it.

Yet another example of why it isn't Islam versus the West

■"Chechens' Terror Links Drawing Attention," by Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press via Yahoo News, 26 September 2004, http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040926/ap_on_re_eu/russia_terror_ties_1.

This story mirrors a recent Journal story on the Chechen leader Shamil Basayev. My basic take on that article was that it showed how radical Islam and al Qaeda were becoming an umbrella organization to which "adherents" flowed simply out of necessity, changing their spots along the way. Basayev, in that article, was described as a very recent "convert" to Islam. What struck me about that article was that it reminded me how, during the Cold War, many revolutionary leaders "found" Marxism. Why? Typically because they were first turned down by the West oróspecificallyóthe U.S. Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh wrote his declaration of independence from colonial master France, cribbing it whole-cloth from Thomas Jefferson's original. He saw himself as a natural George Washington, and couldn't understand why Washington could not. We didn't recognize him as such, because France was a big ally vis-‡-vis the Sovs, so guess what? Ho had to become communist and Vietnam suffers that choice to this day.

Am I suggesting we should have sided with Basayev? No way. I see that independence movement as just more fracturing of the Core, as well as historically irrelevant/counterproductive to the larger integration processes of globalization. All I'm saying is that when you can't join one side, you're left with the other, and the other right now is radical Islam. When this happens, you'll see that transnational movement absorb all sorts of cats and dogs, Basayev being one of them.

This article points to the opposite effect: not only are the Basayev's of the Gap switching their stripes to join the radical Islam camp, but the radical Islam camp is basically accepting all comers. Point is, this movement, which always had a tenuous grip on religion because of the way it twists the Koran to its own cruel ends, will become increasingly divorced from that larger meaning over time as it accepts all comers who share the same basic end: kill the Westerners and drive them from our lands. Now, in effect, both sides of this equation are actively recruiting the other side, just like it was with the ideologically-barren-but-entirely-opportunistic Soviet bloc for the latter half of the Cold War (or basically, after they made their peace with the West with dÈtente).

Did we create this phenomenon by invading Iraq? No, but we certainly accelerated it. Could we have prevented this phenomenon from emerging? Also no. Radical Islam is the best offer out there right now to those hoping to offer prolonged violent resistance to the expansion of the global economy and its "nefarious ways" of "perverting local cultures." Since the global economy (the Core) is impinging right now primarily upon those regions where Islamic faith is most in abundance, this us-versus-them breakdown was not only in the works, it was inevitable. The only question for the Core is how fast we seek to engage this struggle: do we hold off, accept the offer of civilizational apartheid, and wait them out? Or do we seek to actively transform the Middle East, bring it into the larger global economy in a broadband fashion andóby doing soóend its disconnectedness and defeat those committed to perpetuating and deepening that disconnectedness?

I say, embrace the tough tasks with zeal. They only grow worse from delayed action.

Why Pakistan may end up being China's mess to fix

■"City of Fisherman in Pakistan Becomes Strategic Port," by Amy Waldman, New York Times, 28 September 2004, p. W1.

The Chinese are moving into Pakistan in a serious way, primarily through economic investments designed to access energy and minerals there, but ultimately to buildóby landónew bridges to Central Asia and the even larger energy resources there. China fears relying on the Persian Gulf, and having all that energy floating through some of the most dangerous and contested waterways in the world. But it's also banking on success. China is looking for more ways to build connectivity to Western markets, andóby doing soóspeed up its own internal integration effort with its own internal Gapónamely, the western regions (particularly Xinjiang province). Just so happens there are Muslim separatists there, the Uighurs, whom Beijing has been relatively successfully targeting in its own Mini-Me version of the global war on terrorism.

The Chinese investment in the port of Gwadar works for the Pakistanis as well, because they're eager to reduce their alliance on the port of Karachi, which has been blockaded successfully by the Indian Navy in the past.

As I have told officials time and time again across the Defense Department: China is coming to the Middle East. It's not coming because it wants to. It's coming because it has to. The only question that remains is: does China come in a manner that complicates or compliments America's attempts to transform the region. Surprisingly to some, the choice is really ours to make. But to understand that choice, we need to start seeing China's emergence as being something truly global in stature, and not just a matter of dominating Asia's future economic development. The latter is already in the works, but the former can still be successfully steered to our advantage.

I guess the real question is, who in the U.S. Government is thinking along these lines, much less doing anything about it?

David Ignatius cracks the code on the Big Bang strategy

■"Are the Terrorists Failing? Rather than bringing Islamic regimes to power, the holy warriors are creating internal strife and discord, says a French Arabist," op-ed by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 28 September 2004, p. A27.

Ignatius' op-ed is mostly a recounting of a recent speech by a French Arabist, Gilles Kepel, in a book-promotion tour (for The War for Muslim Minds). Here's the key section:

Kepel believes that the United States has stumbled badly in Iraq, and he's sharply critical of U.S. policies there. But that doesn't mean the jihadists are winning. Quite the contrary, their movement has backfired. Rather than bringing Islamic regimes to power, the holy warriors are creating internal strife and discord. Their actions are killing far more Muslims than nonbelievers.

"The principal goal of terrorismóto seize power in Muslim countries through mobilization of populations galvanized by jihad's sheer audacityóhas not been realized," Kepel writes. In fact, bin Laden's followers are losing ground: The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been toppled; the fence-sitting semi-Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia has taken sides more strongly with the West; Islamists in Sudan and Libya are in retreat; and the plight of the Palestinians has never been more dire. And Baghdad, the traditional seat of Muslim caliphs, is under foreign occupation. Not what you would call a successful jihad.

Kepel argues that the insurgents' brutal tactics in Iraqóthe kidnappings and beheadings, and the car-bombing massacres of young Iraqi police recruitsóare increasingly alienating the Muslim masses. No sensible Muslim would want to live in Fallujah, which is now controlled by Taliban-style fanatics. Similarly, the Muslim masses can see that most of the dead from post-Sept. 11 al Qaeda bombings in Turkey and Morocco were fellow Muslims.

A perfect example of how the jihadists' efforts have backfired, argues Kepel, was last month's kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq. The kidnappers announced that they would release their hostages only if the French government reversed its new policy banning Muslim women from wearing headscarves in French public schools. "They imagined that they would mobilize Muslims with this demand, but French Muslims were aghast and denounced the kidnappers," Kepel explained to a Washington audience. He noted that French Muslims took to the streets to protest against the kidnappers and to proclaim their French citizenship.

I think this sort of analysis only underscores my point that radical Islam is not our enemy, but the enemy of moderate, modernizing Islam. Yes, we get associated with that process, and sometimes we get targeted as a result. But radical Islam's identifying the U.S. as the Great Devil only highlights the projection going on here. We need to be about growing broadband economic connectivity between the Middle East and the outside world, and letting this intra-Islamic struggle work itself out. Yes, we'll kill bad guys as they stick their heads out of holes, but this is not a war of ideas we can win. Because, in the end, it's not our ideas that threaten radical Islam so much as moderate Islam's willingness to accept them. If the civilization apartheid that Osama dreams of really did exist, there would be no issues between Islam and the West. His problem is that this dream remains just that, and it's disappearing by the day as globalization increasingly penetrates the still largely disconnected Middle East.