China reaching the environmental tipping point

■"China's Blurred Horizon: Spreading sands. Thickening smog. Toxic groundwater. Welcome to China, an economic success and an environmental disaster,"," by Joshua Kurlantzick, Washington Post, 19 September 2004, p. B1.

■"Bad Air and Water, and a Bully Pulpit in China,"," by Jim Yardley, New York Times, 25 September 2004, p. A4.

■"California Backs Plan For Big Cut In Car Emissions: 11 Years To Take Effect; Toughest Rules in Nation--Challenge Expected From Automakers,"," by Danny Hakim, New York Times, 25 September 2004, p. A1.

China's not on the verge of conquering the world economically, as some fear. But neither is on the verge of total collapse from overgrowth, as others fear. It is rapidly approaching a tipping point on environmental issues.

The time we spent in China was like stepping back and forward in history simultaneously: it was like visiting Victorian England when the industrial revolution was laying waste to the environment and the political rule sets simply couldn't keep pace, but it was also like looking at the future of much of the Gap as it plays catch up. Both images inform. To catch up is to get dirty, but to get dirty is to accelerate the move to clean.

We can't stop countries from wanting to catch up economically, and they will dirty their countries in the process. We can just help to get them there as quickly as possible and then be ready with the advice and tried-but-true rule sets that help them deal with the damage and get over that hump. The SOx and NOx cap-and-trade regime that we put in place in the early 1990s is a great example. That's a rule set that many in the U.S. seek to export to China and other emerging markets. We know it works, and we know that when you really need it, you need it bad.

China is reaching that really bad moment, and it will force a host of new rules. Already, the voices are appearing inside China. The Ralph Naders and Greenpeaces of that society are beginning to find their voices.

It used to be that watching California was like watching the future of the world, because what started there typically spread elsewhere. Increasingly, and espeically on environmental issues, China will become the California for the New Core and most of the Gap. Its experiences in the years ahead will inform the world on what it means to get rich and then get clean.

Can it be done? Did the U.S. do it?

When I was in China it was very nostalgic to smell cars burning that much lead. It was like stepping into my childhood.

But everyone needs to grow up someday. China will, have no doubt. They won't do it because it's good or peace-loving or because we tell them to. They'll do it because that have no choice.

David Brooks would like his Sys Admin force now for Sudan

■"Another Triumph For the U.N.: Debating the fate of Darfur as the innocent suffer," op-ed by David Brooks, New York Times, 25 September 2004, p. A27.

Brooks is really pissed, and when he's really pissed, he's quite eloquent:

And so we went the multilateral route.

Confronted with the murder of 50,000 in Sudan, we eschewed all that nasty old unilateralism, all that hegemonic, imperialist, go-it-alone, neocon, empire, coalition-of-the-coerced stuff. Our response to this crisis would be so exquisitely multilateral, meticulously consultative, collegially cooperative and ally-friendly that it would make John Kerry swoon and a million editorialists nod in sage approval.

And so we Americans mustered our outrage at the massacres in Darfur and went to the United Nations. And calls were issued and exhortations were made and platitudes spread like bÈarnaise. The great hum of diplomacy signaled that the global community was whirring into action.

Meanwhile helicopter gunships were strafing children in Darfur.

We did everything basically right. The president was involved, the secretary of state was bold and clearheaded, the U.N. ambassador was eloquent, and the Congress was united. And, following the strictures of international law, we had the debate that, of course, is going to be the top priority while planes are bombing villages . . .

But the multilateral process moved along in its dignified way. The U.N. general secretary was making preparations to set up a commission. Preliminary U.N. resolutions were passed, and the mass murderers were told they should stop - often in frosty tones. The world community - well skilled in the art of expressing disapproval, having expressed fusillades of disapproval over Rwanda, the Congo, the Balkans, Iraq, etc. - expressed its disapproval.

And, meanwhile, 1.2 million were driven from their homes in Darfur.

There was even some talk of sending U.S. troops to stop the violence, which, of course, would have been a brutal act of oil-greedy unilateralist empire-building, and would have been protested by a million lovers of peace in the streets. Instead, the U.S. proposed a resolution threatening sanctions on Sudan, which began another round of communiquÈ-issuing . . .

The resolution passed, and it was a good day for alliance-nurturing and burden-sharing - for the burden of doing nothing was shared equally by all. And we are by now used to the pattern. Every time there is an ongoing atrocity, we watch the world community go through the same series of stages: (1) shock and concern (2) gathering resolve (3) fruitless negotiation (4) pathetic inaction (5) shame and humiliation (6) steadfast vows to never let this happen again.

The "never again" always comes.

As I have said many times, the UNSC is a grand jury, nothing more, nothing less. It can start a process that goes nowhere until we build the A-to-Z Core-wide rule-set on how to process politically-bankrupt states in the Gap. Until we do, keep this piece for handy reference. It will be rewritten and republished many, many times in the years ahead.

Calling all Sys Admins!

■"Panel Calls U.S. Troop Size Insufficient for Demands," by Thom Shanker, New York Times, 24 September 2004, p. A12.

Pentagon appoints a panel of outside experts. They review the commitments around the world. They look at the troops. They see the effects of the asymptotic rise in crisis/conflict response days that stretches back to the end of the Cold War even as our personnel resource base has declined (early 90s) or remained flat (since).

Guess what they decided?

We're short of troops.

Aha! The draft is coming!

Fat chance.

What's coming is a new rule set. We spent the 90s pretending we could technologize the problem away, or deny it's existence (Powell Doctrine), but now the feces are hitting the air-circulation device and the only choices that remain involve dramatically new rules.

We are going to civilianize and internationalize the peacekeepingn function. That is why the Sys Admin begins in the Defense Department but ultimately migrates across the Potomac to something/somebody else. This force will ultimately become something part of the US government and yet not. Run by the U.S. and yet not.

We won't do it because we want to in the Pentagon. We won't do it for some conspiracy toward one-world government or UN-rule. We'll do it because we have no choice. We'll do it because the evolution of the strategic environment demands that we do.

We'll do it because there's a Gap and it must be shrunk.

I don't predict, I reveal. You can hate the revelation, or you can get busy.

Good news, bad news

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 24 September 2004

Good news is that I spent the pre-job morning hours banging out a first draft of my Son of PNM book proposal. It now sits with my agent and personal editor!

Bad news is that I plan on hanging out with my kids now that my day job is done, so no blog of current events because I'll read the papers late tonight.

Expect a flow over the weekend though: big review in Asia Times Online, an interesting off-hand mention in the Seattle Times, some feedback from Mark Anderson's newsletter audience, and interesting exchange with a "missiologist" regarding the "10/40 Window" (Google that one!), and a number of great stories sent to me by devoted readers.

But tonight, it's just me and my four.

The reproducible strategic concept

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 23 September 2004

Surfacing carefullyÖ looking left and right before crossing the street . . .

And I'm off!

First, a technical announcement: Hope you like the black font. Now all you older types can stop sending me those emails about taxing your eyes.

Second, a legal announcement: I don't conduct book-signings in my office at the college. I very carefully avoid such "appearances." I am, however, willing to verify my identity as author of PNM through the free provision of handwriting samples to anyone who shows up unannounced. Any paper will do, though I have a preference for acid-free.

Got an email today from a Penn State student-journalist who wanted to share his reference to a core concept (actually, the Core concept) from PNM. He claims to be the first collegiate journalist to employ such an off-hand reference, and he may be right.

Here's the piece posted today in the Collegian:

My Opinion

Olympics keeps tabs on world economic progress

This past August I really enjoyed tuning in to the Summer Olympics in Athens. Aside from watching the United States clean house in just about every competition (except, of course, men's basketball), there were certainly some memorable scenes.

The Iraqi soccer team reaching the tournament's semifinal match and Robina Muqimyar and Friba Razayee becoming the first women from Afghanistan to compete in the Games gave their war-torn countries an enormous emotional uplift and restored pride to their homelands that had sorely suffered under their now-deposed dictatorial regimes.

The Olympics have always provided the perfect stage for such unforgettable stories and seemingly bring the world a little closer together in that warm, fuzzy, kumbaya kind of way. That's certainly all well and good.

But there's also another perspective from which you can look at the Olympics, which I think is probably not really noticed by your average Joe or Boris or Khalil.

Every morning during the Olympic fortnight, I'd go online to check the medal count. The usual top guns were always leading the pack: the U.S., the Russians, the Chinese and the Aussies. When the Games ended, the aforementioned countries made up the top four medal winners, respectively, followed by Germany, Japan, France, Italy, South Korea and Great Britain to round out the top ten.

I thought about those countries for a moment, put on my geo-political and political economy thinking caps, and began to realize why these particular countries were racking up all the medals. First of all, look at where these countries are located - or should I say not located. None of them are found in unstable regions where economies and means of communications are isolated from the rest of the world. They are part of, as U.S. Naval War College senior strategist Thomas Barnett terms it, the "functioning core" of globalized, interdependent states.

In other words, these countries' economies make the world go 'round. You cannot pick up the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times Business Day section without reading about the explosion of the Chinese and Russian economies. Despite China's recent dabbles in protectionist trade policy, China's GDP blazed ahead at annual rate of 9.1 percent last year. And in the face of creeping authoritarian rule from the Kremlin, the Russian economy was firing on all cylinders at 7.3 percent in 2003.

Not to be left out, the American economy, despite the ruminations of what Arnold Schwarzenegger would call "economic girlie-men," is also humming along quite nicely.

But what really drives the world economy is these countries' interdependence with one another.

Put the paper down for a moment and look at your Nike Airs or Adidas for a second. I'll betcha a large crab bisque at the Allen Street Grille that the shoe size label on the underside of your shoes' tongue reads "MADE IN CHINA." It is no surprise that the United States makes up China's biggest export market. And it certainly says a lot about the world's attitude toward China when the International Olympic Committee approved the Chinese capital of Beijing for the host for the 2008 Summer Games.

Russia has also joined this vast web of global economic interdependence in a radically short period of time. The financial news channel, CNBC, is airing from Russia this week.

This is certainly a tell-tale sign of the economic progress Russia has made over the last decade (the political side is another, unsettling story). I don't know if anyone could have imagined 20 years ago, during the height of Ronald Reagan's standoff with the Evil Empire, that Russia would be hosting America's premier financial news outlet attempting to attract new business and investment from Western CEOs. Not to be outdone in their contributions to the world economy are the Asian tigers of Japan and South Korea and the European heavy-hitters of Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy.

So is it any wonder why the top ten medal winners make up the majority of the movers and shakers of the global economy? For the good majority of cases, where you find globalization entrenched in a country's everyday life is where you'll find the most gold, silver and bronze medal winners. You can't argue with the numbers.

In Athens, Robina Muqimyar, one of two women who competed for Afghanistan, ran the 100 meter dash in 14.14 seconds. American Lauryn Williams clocked in at 10.96 seconds to win the silver medal. That difference is a gaping 3.18 seconds. That difference is symbolic of how far countries like Afghanistan have to go to catch up with everyone else.

But Muqimyar isn't worried. "I'm going to train harder and I hope to have the facilities in Afghanistan," she told the Associated Press. "I will really get ready for the 2008 Olympic Games. I hope I can win a medal, at least a bronze medal."

I hope she does, and that her country is as optimistic as she is.

Matthew Valkovic is a junior majoring in history and international politics and is a Collegian columnist.

It's an interesting point Mr. Valkovic makes.

Doing well at an Olympics points to a country on the rise, but hosting an Olympics isóI would argue todayóreally a sign of integration into the Core. Check out the hosts listed below for the Summer Games (not fair to include Winter Games, since the requirement for snow pretty much keeps you out of the Gap). No city that has ever hosted the modern games currently lies inside my Gap. Doesnít mean they were all secure inside the Core at the time (e.g., Moscow, Mexico City), nor that some didn't later lapse into war with one another (something great powers could still do before nukes), but it's an interesting correlation:

Athens (1896), Paris (1900), St. Louis (1904), London (1908), Stockholm (1912), Antwerp (1920), Paris (1924), Amsterdam (1928), Los Angeles (1932), Berlin (1936), London (1948), Helsinki (1952), Melbourne (1956), Rome (1960), Tokyo (1964), Mexico City (1968), Munich (1972), Montreal (1976), Moscow (1980), Los Angeles (1984), Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000), Athens (2004).

Hereís todayís catch:

■The good and the better on China

■The good and the better on India

■Network-centric warfare meets a truly networked opponent

■Why I hope to brief at Leavenworth

■The Big Bang's latest reverberations

The good and the better on China

■"China Sets Its First Fuel-Economy Rules," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 23 September 2004, p. W1.

■"Guess Who's Invited to Dinner: Group of 7 Nations to Meet With China," by Elizabeth Becker, New York Times, 23 September 2004, p. C1.

The article says Beijing pushed the new rules in place (approved already, but not officially announced yet) out of fear for its soaring oil imports. True enough, but frankly the fear of rising pollution has something to do with these rules as well. How tough? Tougher than U.S. standards but a bit easier than the ones self-imposed by the auto industry in Europe to stave off regulation. Because the first phase is similar to our current standards, U.S. automakers aren't scared. And the most popular car in China, VW's Santana, will make the first-phase cut as well.

But everybody watch out for the second phase, beginning in 2008, because those tougher standards will have a ripple effect globally since China is becoming such a huge car market. Since the calculations are by weight, owning a minivan or SUV in China will be expensive, and that's just what the Chinese are hoping to discourage: big vehicles.

If that's today's good news, then the even better news is that China will meet with the Group of 7 for the first time next week, and everyone expects this historic event will kick start more serious talks about the country ultimately expanding the ranks of this very elite club. This is only a ministers' meeting, done on the side from the annual World Bank/IMF meetings, but it's a real tipping point in China's integration into the Core. The speed of entry will depend largely on how long it takes China to make the yuan convertible, signaling its clear willingness to share a deeper economic fate with the rest of the G-7 heavyweights. Does China rank among them yet? Yes, it's GDP is roughly similar to that of both Canada and Italy, G-7 stalwarts.

Interesting to note that Iraq and debt relief for Gap states dominate the rest of the agenda, showing yet again how naturally the G-7 has come to dominate as the main Old Core negotiating venue for not only Gap issues, but especially those with a security angle. Once that Old Core club expands to include New Core pillars, it's logical role as the system's functioning executive will be in place.

[As a weird sidenote, I was shocked to see that the Times' main title on the second story did not include a question mark at the end. Really!]

The good and the better on India

■"Indians Answer Cellphones' Call: Economic Liberalization Spurs Rush to Serve Vast, Untapped Market," by Eric Bellman, Wall Street Journal, 23 September 2004, p. A13.

■"India Sets Focus On Better Life In Rural Regions: Singh Believes His Nation May Show Path to Coping With Islamic Aspirations," by Murray Hiebert and Marcus W. Brauchli, Wall Street Journal, 23 September 2004, p. A13.

The good is the booming growth of cellphones throughout India, thanks to deregulation. As always, it's not about the amount of rules you have, but how good they are, which typically means how simple they are. For many years, the cellphone industry in India was getting nowhere thanks to a plethora of fights over who could do what where. Then, 10 months ago, rule sets were clarified enough for the price wars to begin. That's all it took, just enough rule-set certainty for the big players to risk the large investments. So now people all over India are connecting up like never before.

The better: new PM Manmohan Singh's continuing commitment to focus on the rural poor, believing that if done right, India could serve as a model for how a state deals with the economic aspirations of Muslims without triggering a clash of civilizations. His key point, though, is not economic in nature, but focused on security: you can't sacrifice key civil liberties to stave off extremist violence. As he says, "This is not an easy path."

I say, count your stars we have Singh in power because this guy is very sharp. And yes, he is an economist by training. His ability to locate the military-market nexus drives his subtle understanding of how economic development must become the biggest weapon we wield in this global war on terror, which will only end when we successfully shrink the Gap.

Network-centric warfare meets a truly networked opponent

■"Online and Even Near Home, New Front in the Terror Fight," by Eric Lipton and Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, 23 September 2004, p. A1.

Good piece about the real "fifth column" in this global war on terrorism: networks. Story starts by describing an Internet company nestled in bucolic Clifton NJ that unwittingly played host to an Arabic-language web site "where postings in recent weeks urged attacks against American and Israeli targets." Not only that, you could download instructions on kidnapping and how to use a cellphone to remotely detonate bombs.

The Revolution-in-Military-Affairs cum Transformation crowd in the Pentagon has long dreamed of a networked opponent against which we'd wage wars of great complexity. Well, that enemy has arrived, but it won't do us much good to put a cruise missile through the window of this building.

Why I hope to brief at Leavenworth

■"On Ground in Iraq, Capt. Ayers Writes His Own Playbook: Thrust Into New Kind of War, Junior Officers Become Army's Leading Experts," by Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 22 September 2004, p. A1.

Another impressive Greg Jaffe story: this time on how the return of junior officers with recent field experience in Gap counterinsurgency is shaking up that citadel of Army new thinking: the elite Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It's to the point where Lt. Gen. William Wallace "has told superiors that officers returning from Iraq who attend [the school] know more about counterinsurgency than their instructors." Out go the usual lectures and in come discussion groups. As one major puts it, "This is entirely a bottom-up war."

I would make the following distinction: it was a top-down first half (warfighting against a military), but it's a bottom-up second half (peacewaging against an insurgency). Big platforms raining down death worked just fine in the former, but it takes very innovative boots on the ground to win the latter.

The war in Iraq taught the U.S. military almost nothing, because we overmatched our opponent so effectively. The transformation of the Leviathan force is going along just fine. Where we're learning plenty is in the Sys Admin work that's followed the end of "major hostilities." Army Chief of Staff (and former commander of Special Operations Command) Gen. Peter Schoomaker says [in Jaffe's paraphrase] "the Army is in the midst of the most wide-ranging changes since World War II."

Hmmm . . . "since World War II." Interesting how we keep hearing that phrase so much in security affairs since 9/11. New era, new rule sets, and so new strategy, new structure.

I say it again, the Iraq War changes nothing, but the Iraq Occupation transforms transformation from its long-time focus on the front-half force to the back-half force. Get the back-half force down right, and it's a permanent off-season for the front-half crew. That's global peace in our time, there for the creating.

I have a tentative invite from Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Leavenworth to come and brief in late November. College-willing, I will make that trip.

The Big Bang's latest reverberations

■"Time to Squeeze Syria," op-ed by Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, 16 September 2004, p. A31.

■"Saudis Take a Small Dose of Democracy: Results of Local Ballots May Determine Whether Electoral Experiment Is Widened," by Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 16 September 2004, p. A18.

Strong words from Jim Hoagland on the need to finally start pushing Syria over its "decades-long control over Lebanon," calling it "an urgent new task" in transforming the region. Recently, he notes, the UN passed a Security Council resolution that called on Syria to withdraw its troops from the country by a 159-0 vote. Why? Assad the Younger is strong-arming the Lebanese Parliament to extend the presidential term of his preferred lackey, and promising to double the number of troops in the country by year's end. Meanwhile, Beirut continues to re-establish itself as a regional vacation spot, despite all those years of civil strife, so you'd have to think that if Syria ever got out, Lebanon would be able to reconnect itself to the outside world as it once was.

In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia continues to try and head off Osama bin Laden's appeal at the "pass." Besides passing out jobs to young male Saudis that previously went to guest workers, now the House of Saud is passing out ballots in local elections that will pick half of the seats on municipal council boards around the country. This is a first in more than four decades and the first done on a national scale in over seven decades. Why did it take so long? I guess because America didn't decide to invade one of its neighbors and seek to install a democracy until last year.

Here's the silent kicker: a new by-law says everyone over 21 can vote, unless they're in the military/security forces. Did it say women could vote? No. But it didn't say they couldn't either . . ..

Perspective counts . . .

Dateline: still above my garage, Portsmouth RI, 22 September 2004

So I lied, sort of . . .

Got in late last night from San Diego, so took off a little early from work today to catch Em run a race up in Portsmouth--Catholic schools mini-cross country race at RI School for Deaf. Tough enough little course at almost two miles.

Anyway, she runs hard, not spectacular, but hard. On one stretch where they're on the far side of the school and out of sight, she stops and walks for a bit. She seems to be having a bit of an allergic reaction to the pollen and working her lungs so much (something we fear a bit due to the radiation way back when). So she's a bit pink in face (almost 80 today here) and a slight wheeze (meaning we should probably do some Albuterol preemptively before races in the afternoon like that).

Em seems a bit panicked when I try to urge her on as she's coming around this school. So I tell her to do what she can and not to worry, she looks good running (she's really a natural mid-distance runner--like 400 or 800). So as Em's rounds the second-to-last curve and feels the edge pick up a bit as runners sense the last leg unfolding, she plusses up her speed about four fold, passes a good dozen runners, fades a bit, gets passed by a much larger girl who has all her friends yelling her on, and then passes her back just before the finish line (those friends were really pissing her off with their comments, Em said later).

And all I could think was how amazingly happy I was that she was still alive, ten years after diagnosis, finishing an almost two-mile race.

That child gives me a lot of strength.

New Era, New Rules

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 22 September 2004

My situation at the college is undergoing a transition. There is the way things were, and I have been told that formula is now unsustainable because of my heightened visibility (meaning the book).

I need some time to figure out exactly what this new regime means for me and my family, and where to go from here.

So a break from the blog for now. Back in a while, after I've figured out what the new rules mean for the new me.

Til then, send me emails about great jobs in great places to raise your kids.

The danger of declaring partial victories in the promotion of visionary change

Dateline: SWA Flight from San Diego to Providence, 21 September 2004

I get a lot of emails on a daily basis, and it seems that I've settled into a sort of permanent groove of a hundred or so each day from people who want to talk about the book. About a third at any one time are repeat offenders/complimenters, with two-thirds newbies. It's a big time commitment on my part to answer all those emails in one way or another (I don't pretend to give them all my all, nor should anyone expect me to unless I want to visit my kids every other weekend), but I learn so much in the process, that a continuous stream of thank-you's (with the occasional "dial down the meds/caffeine/sheer hatred" offered without regret) only makes sense.

What I get more and more from a certain select bunch of people, typically within the defense community, is that, while they love PNM and agree overall with its vision, I am guilty of underestimating the tremendous amount of reform progress that's occurred on their watch within their respective office/command/agency/service. In short, it's "I'm-changing-as-fast-as-I-can-here-so-when-we-you-declare-me-certified?"

Here's the answer I offer everyone: I'd love to bless every bit of reform, but I choseófor now and for the foreseeable futureóto rely extensively on specific encouragement to individual entities combined with a heaping dose of damning criticism of the system as a whole. By declaring partial victories all over the dial, all I would end up doing is reassuring a lot of reformers that they've done enough on their watch, when in reality the Defense Department as a whole has a very long way to go. So I prefer to remain the firebrand with an exceedingly high standard for acceptable change rather than lower my sights and declare the victory already won. Why? To me, whenever that happens, and I've seen it plenty of times in large government bureaucracies, all the stubborn status-quo types whose main strategy has been to wait out the agents of change ("They get tired/bored/depressed/self-satisfied and quit!") simply resurface in a vengeance and it's back to the same-old, same-old quicker than you can say "SECDEF cried uncle."

Does that mean I don't like hearing these stories of reform and change?

Absolutely not, I love to hear about them. I just keep my eyes on serious tipping points across the system as a whole. I live naturally at 30,000 feet (actually, 34,000 feet right now), so I prefer that perspective. Plus, as a strategist versus a warfighter, I prefer to focus on what I know and leave the ground floor experts to argue what they know.

But yes, eventually we all must land in the real world. I make a point of visiting it regularly. I know my critics love to describe me as trapped inside the old stone buildings of detached Newport, but the real problem I have with my bosses is that I never seem to be in my office! Instead, I seem to traipse non-stop around the planet, visiting various military commands and luxury hotelsóand yes, you have to do both if you want both sides of the military market nexus. That's what limits both Tom Friedman (he, of many nice hotels) and Robert Kaplan (he, or many smelly, sandbagged HQs) in the way they try to describe both globalization and the global war on terrorism, respectively (see more below).

Here a bunch of stories from Times and and Journal:

■Kaplan on how the Gap will never be won

■IMF warns on U.S. debt, World Bank sympathizes with Putin's moves

■ The best plans are revised plans

■Kerry drives deep into Bush's territory on Iraq, but settles for field goal

■The "cautious reformer" wins in Indonesia

■Doomsayers correct on end of oil like Marx was right on end of capitalism

■Some "Asian values" are just fine (sort of)

Kaplan on how the Gap will never be won

■"Indian Country: Our military has the most thankless task of any military in the history of warfare," by Robert D. Kaplan, Wall Street Journal, 21 September 2004, p. A22.

■"Iraqis Warn That U.S. Plan to Divert Billions to Security Could Cut Off Crucial Services," by James Glanz, New York Times, 21 September 2004, p. A10.

There is no mystery why Robert Kaplan is a favorite of the military: he gets what they do incredibly well, he respects what they do and how much they sacrifice to get it done, and he pulls no punches in how he describes the reality of warfare. The problem with Kaplan is that he is such a myopic thinker, seeing war solely within the context of war, never recognizing the larger forces at work for both good and ill. As such, his diagnoses tend to be dead-on, and his prescriptions dead-on-arrival. The man's strategic horizon is the next skirmish, and as such, he's not surprising in his relentless pessimism regarding warfare without end throughout the Gap.

It's too bad, because he's the Ernie Pyle of his generation. The problem is, too many in the military see him as a serious strategic thinker, when he's a good reporter and nothing more. I don't mean that as a criticism. I think good reporters are rare and he's one of the very best. It just disturbs me that his analysis passes for strategic thought for far too many officers within the U.S. military. Kaplan offers no vision, no strategy, nothing beyond accurate descriptions of the current state of warfare inside the Gap. He is the global war on terror's best sideline reporter, but he's the wrong source to cite on how to run the entire the entire franchise.

Kaplan's piece in the Journal reflects his usual brilliance in observation and description, and his usual myopia on strategy. Yes, it's great to speak about the role of the U.S. military inside the Gap being very similar to that of the U.S. cavalry in settling the Wild Westógreat analogy. But Kaplan sees only the Indians, believing there to be no settlers worth mentioning. His analysis about keeping small footprints (size of forces on the ground) throughout most of the Gap's tumultuous war zones also makes great sense, but as usual, he misses the larger picture regarding the permanent fix over time. Kaplan's "taming the Gap" strategy is just non-stop whacking of bad guys with no end in sight. It's a war of calculated perversity that he wants us to own up to as an end in itselfónamely, just keeping those savages far outside the gate. He believes that by stating this truth baldly, he's toughening up America for the nasty, never-ending war ahead. His golden rule seems to be: do unto to others before they do you. In effect, he's taken the "security dilemma" concept long used to describe why states go to war, and he's downshifted it to his view of non-stop warfare against individuals throughout the Gap. To not recognize the "truth" of his description is to delude yourself, in his mind.

It disturbs me to no end that many in the military see Kaplan as a serious thinker about the future, because I believe he has absolutely nothing to say about it, other than it will look almost exactly like today (so get used to it). His non-vision is disheartening in the extreme, and it speaks to a Robert Heinlein-like "Starship Troopers" future dystopia where we should all adopt a warrior spirit in order to survive. And as usual, his hyperbole masks his lack of strategic thinking ("the most thankless task of any military in the history of warfare").

Kaplan consistently misses the forest for the trees. Here's a good example:

In Indian Country, as one general officer told me, "you want to whack bad guys quietly and cover your tracks with humanitarian aid projects."

Yes, you want to whack bad guys and yes, you want to do it quietly. But humanitarian aid projects aren't just about covering tracks. Our goal in the Gap isn't merely seeing how many killings we can get away with, but seeing how we get away from having to kill in the first place. Kaplan seems to get this, but his answer is typically to militarize the "everything else" (my term) involved with waging peace instead of asking the military to understand it needs to reach out far more in the direction of that everything else andóin effectólearn to demilitarize much of that package.

At the end of the article, Kaplan seems to argue for something very similar to what I describe as the Sys Admin force, or something between the Defense Department's myopic focus on war and the State Department's myopic focus on peace:

Because of the need for simultaneous military, relief and diplomatic operations, our greatest enemy is the size, rigidity and artificial boundaries of the Washington bureaucracy. Thus, the next administration, be it Republican or Democrat, will have to advance the merging of the departments of State and Defense as never before; or risk failure. A strong secretary of state who rides roughshod over a less dynamic defense secretaryóas a Democratic administration appears to promiseówill only compound the problems created by the Bush administration, in which the opposite has occurred. The two secretaries must work in unison, planting significant numbers of State Department personnel inside the military's war fighting commands, and defense personnel inside a modernized Agency for International Development.

The Plains Indians were ultimately vanquished not because the U.S. Army adapted to the challenge of an unconventional enemy. It never did. In fact, the Army never learned the lesson that small units of food soldiers were more effective against the Indians than large mounted regiments burdened by the need to carry forage for horses: whose contemporary equivalent are convoys of humvees bristling with weaponry that are easily immobilized by an improvised bicycle bomb planed by a lone insurgent. Had it not been for a deluge of settlers aided by the railroad, security would never have been brought to the Old West.

Now there are no new settlers to help us, nor their equivalent in any form. To help secure a more liberal global environment, American ground troops are going to have to learn to be more like Apaches.

Spooky huh? The guy sees no railroads coming, no settlers anywhere to be found, so our only choice is militarize State and turn everyone in the military into Special Operations-type Apaches who kill silently and without remorse. Where is the spread of globalization in this vision? The spread of the Internet, telecommunications, and all the other forms of connectivity? Why are no railroads in Kaplan's future, no settlers? Is everyone inside the Gap just a savage who can't be tamed, just killed?

Again, I don't argue against the man's brilliance as a reporter, but he only sees the first half of the gameónever the second. And that's just plain wrong. That sort of "realism" is truly the little mind killer, the sapper of morale, the death of hope. Settlers? Hell, they exist all throughout the Gap. They're just called the locals who actually do want their homes, villages, and societies connected up to the larger world outside. They're not all blood-thirsty savages, no matter how many Westerners the terrorists manage to behead. Kaplan's future is not worth creating because it's not a future whatsoeverójust a continuation of the killing present.

As the Times article makes clear, it should be an either-or choice on security versus infrastructure, or war versus peace, or Leviathan versus Sys Admin. You have to do both. Kaplan knows that and even argues for it, but seemingly only in order to temporize a hopeless situation becauseórememberóthere's no railroad nor any settlers coming to his vast wastelands of death.

There is a profound military-market nexus that undergirds the Core; shrinking the Gap means we need to build one there as wellónot just cover our blood tracks. When the military listens to journalists and op-ed writers and treats them as source of strategic thought, they create a dangerous feedback loop. Journalists only know what you tell them, so if it's a self-licking ice-cream cone you're looking for, Kaplan is your man. But if you want to build a future worth creating, or if you want today's sacrifices by our service men and women to actually matter over time, then you need to avoid his soul-poisoning "realism."

Because when there's no "railroads," you're basically on a road to nowhere.

I don't want to sound too harsh on Kaplan, cause I think he's a brilliant journalist, much like I admire Thomas Friedman. In fact, if you combine Kaplan's realism with Friedman's naÔve optimism, you basically have me. That's not my none-too-subtle hint that I possess the combined talents of each; just my argument for finding a middle space between the two. No, markets won't do everything for you in taming the Olive Tree world, but also no to the notion that the Gap will always been a non-stop killing zone. There has to be a pathway between these two extremes. Kaplan searches for it with his merging-of-State-and-Defense idea, asóI imagineóFriedman will in his upcoming book on geopolitics. I'm not saying my vision is the total answer, just that I got there first by looking at both the military and the market, and recognizing the nexus between the two.

IMF warns on U.S. debt, World Bank sympathizes with Putin's moves

■"I.M.F. Chiefs Sees Potential Hazard in U.S. Fiscal Policies," by Elizabeth Becker, New York Times, 21 September 2004, p. W1.

■"World Bank Chief Backs Putin Moves: Wolfensohn Links Proposal To Tighten Kremlin's Grip With Recent Terror Attacks," by Alan Friedman, Wall Street Journal, 21 September 2004, p. W1.

The IMF worries over the combo of our rising public deficit and our ballooning trade deficit, saying that the combo "could set off a sudden fall in the dollar and reverse the global economy." That means we're playing with fire when we dramatically plus up our deficit to wage a global war on terrorism and pretend that development doesn't somehow put globalization's advance at riskóagain, my accusation that this administration has a tendency to wage war strictly within the context of war, without considering the everything else.

Meanwhile, I do applaud the World Bank's Wolfensohn when he cautions global markets to avoid rushing to negative judgments about Putin's recent moves in Russia to recentralize political control. The World Bank has loaned Russia a lot of money, and doesn't want to see all those efforts at energy and infrastructure development go down the drain. Modernizing Russia's economy comes before liberalizing its political system, and if hardening the latter is the price for firewalling the former from the destructive grip of anarchic terrorism, then so be it. Political freedom is useless without economic development.

The best plans are recently revised plans

■"Second Thoughts for a Designer of Software That Aids Conservation: Simpler rules may be more effective than computer models," by Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 21 September 2004, p. D2.

Great article on environmental planning that has proceeded with the aid of pioneering computer models and simulations. The program in question, Marxan, was designed by an Aussie grad student with help with a math professor. The program is considered quite good, and as such is having a revolutionary effect on environmental planning around the world.

Now that math professor is raising some caveats about relying too much on the program, saying thatóin effectóno program should override a consistent effort to revise environmental plans along the way on the basis of observed changes stemming from the original remediation steps undertaken. Sounds reasonable, yes?

It's one of the oldest debates and I run into it all the time in government planning: the "perfect plan up front" versus "ad hocism along the way." Guess what? Neither side makes any sense. When you wait on the perfect plan, you often never even get started. Or, if you actually write it up and start implementing it, the sticking-to-the-plan mentality typically becomes the biggest threat to long-term success.

I first bumped into this sort of thinking when I did reengineering work with Africa Bureau in the U.S. Agency for International Development in the mid-1990s (part of Al Gore's reinventing government program, which was really quite visionary in many ways). We're seeing the same dynamics at work now in the debate over the 9/11 Commission's laundry list of changes for the Intelligence Community ("Do it all or be doomed!" we are warned).

The analogy I ginned up for USAID used the model of planning originally developed by Bill Walsh in his legendary coaching stint at San Francisco, otherwise known as the West Coast Offense. The basic description is this: you plot out the first twenty plays of the offense, and you stick to that plan no matter how much success or failure you experience. Twenty plays are typically no more than one-third to one-fourth of the total plays you'll run, so it's like have a firm plan for the first year of a four-year plan, knowing you'll recalibrate at the start of year 2 based on the intell you've gathered in year 1. That's basically what the Walsh method was all about: testing the environment while doing your best to achieve initial success. But once those first 20 scripted plays were done, then it's all about adaptive planning. That's not learning on the fly so much as learning as you go, with appropriate breaks for rethinking and recalibration. That's why West Coast teams tend to score a lot in the second and third quarters, even as they often fall behind early in the game. Because it's all about where you finish, not where you start.

Makes you kind of wish Central Command had Bill Walsh helping them out, doesn't it? Don't worry, they're getting there.

Kerry drives deep into Bush's territory on Iraq, but settles for field goal

■"In Harshest Critique Yet, Kerry Attacks Bush Over War in Iraq: President Answers With Quick and Sharp Rebuke," by Jodi Wilgoren and Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, 21 September 2004, p. A1.

Kerry lands all the right body blows in his critique. What America needs to do immediately is repair its alliances, train Iraqi security forces, make a huge and concerted effort to reconstruct Iraq's infrastructure, and make sure the elections there happen on time in January.

Problem is, Bush's counter is that he's doing exactly all those things, and that it took Kerry until just 43 days before the election to come to the same conclusion.

Kerry's problem is that he's right, but Bush is right too, so Kerry is left with the only argument he has: I'll do a better job. Doing that better job is seeing the connection between those four points: We need to cut the deals with other Core pillars in order to get them to join our peacekeeping efforts in Iraq big-time, plus get them to pony up a lot more reconstruction money. A firm commitment not just from Europe on these two points, but from eastern, New Core pillars like Russia, India and China would go a long way to demonstrating resolve, de-Occidentalizing the coalition's skin tone, and seeding strategic despair among the forces of disconnectedness currently operating within Iraq.

What Kerry is not mentioning yet, and he should, is what those deals would necessarily be, noting that most of these states wouldóin effectócharge his administration less than they're going to charge a re-elected Bush administration. If he did mention those deals, he probably sound a lot of positive notes with an electorate that's awfully nervous about America's plummeting standing in the global community.

Most of these deals would cost Kerry special interest votes, but they would show a vision he currently lacks, as does Bush. So America would need to reverse itself on a lot of treaty stances the Bush administration undertook in its first term, and it would have to scale back things like planning for a regional missile defense system in Asia, or God forbid, making Pakistan a "major, non-NATO ally" over India's protests. We'd have to support Russia's bid to join the WTO, get more say in NATO, and ultimately join the EU. We'd have to find a way to describe a Kyoto Treaty we could sign, as well as a Doha Development Round treaty we could support in the WTOóone that would drastically slash our ag protectionism.

Yes, America would suffer economic adjustments across the dial, but ask yourself, wouldn't those changes be worth it in the end, if we could get Core-wide support for an effort to transform the Middle East and connect those societies up far more broadly to the global economy? Or do you think transnational terrorism and hatred of America inside the Gap is going to go away if we kill enough terrorists and put up enough walls between our good life and all the pain and suffering trapped inside there?

So you tell what the hard choices are.

The "cautious reformer" wins in Indonesia

■"Ex-General Appears to Win By Big Margin in Indonesia," by Jane Perlez, New York Times, 21 September 2004, p. A6.

The key phrase in that headline is "ex-general." When you're Musharraf in Pakistan and you refuse to stop wearing the uniform, that's bad, but taking off that uniform and winning the presidency is fine, so long as it's clear that civilians rule over the uniforms.

Why did General Yudhoyono win? Simple:

The results indicate that Indonesians are yearning for change after three years of lackluster leadership from Mrs. Megawati, who presided over an anemic economy and during whose term a homegrown radical Islamic group carried out three terrorist attacks.

General Yudhoyono presented himself as a man of competence who could set things right, though he gave few details of precisely what he would do. He pledged to continue the civilian rule that was established after General Suharto's ouster, and was viewed as more of a reformer than Mrs. Megawati, who largely practiced status quo politics.

As one expert dubbed him, "He's a cautious reformer."

Doomsayers correct on end of oil like Marx was right on end of capitalism

■"As Prices Soar, Doomsayers Provoke Debate on Oil's Future: In a 1970s Echo, Dr. Campbell Warns Supply Is Drying Up, But Industry Isn't Worried; Charges of 'Malthusian Bias,'" by Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, 21 September 2004, p. A1.

A great and very balanced article on the subject. I recommend it word for word.

Campbell says oil production has peaked, and his "scary scenario" is that it will end up costly more and more to produce oil over time. This would mean that the world would be forced to switch off of oil and onto something else. How long would it take. Campbell predicts the world will use oil for the next century or so, but that it will have to switch progressively to more efficient sources of energy or risk lower productivity. He assumes this switching over will go badly, thus the oil age will end with a dramatic thud.

The oil industry says Campbell completely ignores the role of technology in not only finding more oil, but in redefining the very concept of oil, to wit the new discoveries of huge amounts of reserves in oil shale rock and tar sands. Is it harder to extract oil from these substances? Yes. Will technology provide answers? Yes, say most experts, who blow off Campbell as a myopic doomsayer.

Frankly, I buy both arguments and find them completely complimentary and rather banal. We will progressively run out of easily accessed oil. That will raise prices over time, pushing us to new technologies that allow us to extract oil from shale and sands. But as those new sources cost somewhat more, and as the world progressively works to decarbonizes its transportation energy usage (not to mention it's use of coal to generate electricity) due to environmental concerns (like clean air and global warming), technologies also arise in the automotive industry to push us toward hybrids and ultimately to hydrogen-fueled vehicles.

All of this occurs over the next two to three decades, as fast as it makes sense to unfold. Who will decide? Largely the markets, but politics will play a key role, primarily in the form of environmental activism. Will energy companies stand in the way? Judging by their lack of investment in oil infrastructure and processing capacity, no. How about car companies? Do you think they'd like to swap out the entire fleet of automobiles in the world a couple of times over the next two to three decades? Hmmm, let me think about the profit potential there and then answer YES!.

So, in my mind, all this debate about a catastrophically abrupt change from one era to the next is pure BS. I think the most logical tracks will be located in China, where the plussing up of the car population is so rapid, that, along with all the other development there, it's generating a huge uptick in air pollution that the Chinese will soon reach a tipping point on. As they reach and surmount that tipping point, watch for Honda and Toyota, as well as local producers, to push the progressive toward hybrids and hydrogen cars. That push will only sweeten the global sales opportunities for the entire automotive industry, which is already running from the latest bit of California's clean-air mandates in the direction of more plans for hybrids and hydrogen-fueled cars. My guess is that China's explosive growth will be a faster spur, and I say that as someone who was deeply impressedófirst handóby the amount of smog currently choking China's bigger cities.

Can a System Perturbation rock this otherwise fairly gentle pathway? Sure, but it's likely to be environmental in nature, with China in the lead, rather than supply-side in nature, with America totally freaking out and dissolving within a global economic meltdown (not that I wouldn't mind consulting on that thrilling movie script).

Some "Asian values" are just fine (sort of)

■"Irreconciliable Differences: Foreign Partnerships in Thailand Dissolve as Economy Gains," by Shawn W. Crispin, Wall Street Journal, 21 September 2004, p. A20.

When the Asian Flu hit back in 97-98, a lot of foreign companies swept in and bought into partnerships with ailing local firms. The hope was that these European and U.S. firms would bring along with their ownership better accounting and management practices that would clean up the cozy-but-more-than-slightly-corrupt "Asian values" that dominated a lot of financial deals there. Did this occur? To a certain extent, yes, and I've cited plenty of articles along those lines. Does this mean that every marriage of convenience made sense? No, mergers and acquisitions fall all the time in the West, often at a rate much like real marriages, so it's not a bad sign that many of these partnerships ended up dissolved as Asian economies revived.

What's the number one reason cited? Western companies focus more on short-term profits, whereas Asian companies prefer a longer perspective emphasizing re-investment and enlarging market shares slowly over time. Is either view automatically better? No. It all depends on the local circumstances and the prospects for global markets. No all "Asians values" were bad, just the ones about cozy loan practices and a lack of transparency in markets. Asia has plenty to teach the Old Core about how to thin strategically across time and not just space. So integrating Developing Asia will ultimately change usóthe Old Coreóas much or more than it will change the New Core.

And that's just fine.