How Chechnya joined the GWOTóon the wrong side

■"How Russia's Chechen Quagmire Became Front for Radical Islam: Aligning With Arab Militants Gained Money, Fighters For Rebel Leader Basayev; Swapping 'Che' for Allah," by Andrew Higgins, Guy Chazan and Gregory L. White, Wall Street Journal, 16 September 2004, p. A1.

A well-written article that shows how necessity make bedfellows of the most surprising sort. Shamil Basayev, a currently high-profile Chechen warlord waging "jihad" against the Russian actually began his career as a rebel separatist worshipping Che Guevera. Ten years later, the guy who never prayed is now "Allah's slave." You get the feeling that if Bill Gates had supplied a few million, Basayev would be a Microserf instead, but perhaps that's rather petty on my part.

Here's some more sensible analysis:

Mr. Basayev's journey from romantic rebellion to Islamist terror mirrors the evolution of the Chechen cause: It began as a nationalist struggle professing democracy and freedom as its goals, but is now soaked in the rhetoric and blood of global jihad.

Gee, guess I'm not the only one who has trouble remembering which side of the global conspiracy he's on. More to the larger point:

Beneath the changing slogans is a broader shift set in motion by the end of the Cold War. Radical Islam has mutated into something akin to communism in the pastóa convenient, off-the-shelf ideology that can clothe complex local conflicts that few would care about otherwise. These include separatist struggles in Aceh in Indonesia, Indian-controlled Kashmir and Russian-ruled Chechnya. In a host of other countries from Morocco to Malaysia, Islamists have replaced communists as the principal source of opposition to established ruling orders.

By donning Islamist garb, leaders of these widely different causes can open the door to foreign funds, particularly from wealthy Gulf states, and also to manpower from a pool of footloose militants looking for work. Many who have know Mr. Basayev over the years question his newfound religious zeal but acknowledge his skill at tapping the opportunities offered by global jihad.

This is exactly why I argue that Osama and company are just the latest version of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and that any attempt to dress up this conflict as historically unique to Islam, and thus requiring our "sensitivity" to their "unique" cultural norms is complete bullshit. All we're seeing here is the latest wave of resistance to the cultural, economic, and political changes forced upon traditional societies by the expansion of the global economy. You tell me Lenin was all about ideology and Osama is all about religion, and I'll tell you youíre the one being idealistic. Basayev is all about power: getting it, concentrating it, and preserving it. And to accomplish his goals, plenty will need to die and countless more will ultimately need to be disconnected from "evil" outside influences.

So let's get it straight here once and for all: I am a cog in the global CAPITALIST conspiracy, not the socialist-communist-fascist-fetishist-sadist-feminist-homosexualist-one-world-governmentalist-am-I-leaving-anyone-out-ist conspiracy. I do want to see globalization become global, and people everywhere enjoy the freedom of markets.

So sue me . . . if you live in a country with the appropriate legal rule set.

Iraq's new map

■"Mission Still Not Accomplished: With U.S. control imperiled in Iraq, the military vows to oust the insurgents from their havens. Here's what it will take," by Johanna McGeary, Time, 20 September 2004, p. 36.

This site is simply for the map supplied in the story[here's a version I pulled off Time's site--not the exact same one in the mag, but very similar], because it's a good one that pretty much lays out the three Iraqs we'll end up with if the current scenario of conflict (Sunnis)/compromise (Shiites)/stability (Kurds) continues to play itself out.

You may see a lot of failure in this picture, but I see a lot of realism and pragmatismónot to mention some serious opportunity for more stirring of the pot in the region. For remember, this was never just about Saddam. It was always about transforming the region as a whole andóby doing soólaying a serious System Perturbation on the breeding grounds of transnational terrorism.

The Gap is not a Muslim world (half-true)

■"Struggle For the Soul of Islam," by Bill Powell, Time, 13 September 2004, p. 53.

■"Shaking Up Islam in America," by Asra W. Nomani, Time, 13 September 2004, p. 66.

The first article also caught my eye primarily in terms of a map, a global one that delineates the worldwide distro of Muslims as a percent of national populations.

Yes, a good chunk of the Gap (the center North) is defined by predominately Muslim-centric states in Southwest Asia and North Africa, but that only accounts for about 40 (max, 50) percent of the Gap's total population. The rest is largely Christian (Catholics and Protestants, with evangelicals and Mormoms gaining fast), whose version of those religions is likewise far more fundamentalist than their counterparts in the Core.

Thinking about that Core-Gap delta in religious fundamentalism brings us to the issue of what happens when the Core integrates Gap regions. The answer is that both sides are changed: the Core gets re-fundamentalized somewhat, while the Gap gets reformed.

Impossible you say? Wait til the U.S. Catholic church imports enough young firebrand priests from Africa and Latin America. But also check out the women-led reform elements within the U.S. Muslim community. This civil war within Islam has more than one front. As the activist-author of the secondTime article boasts (with some real conviction )"The rest of the Muslim world is watching how reform takes hold in America."

Russia's 9/11 (part 1) was just as ugly as ours

■"Russians Cite Porous Security In Jet Bombings," by C.J. Chivers, New York Times, 16 September 2004, p. A1.

See if this sounds familiar:

First through police bungling, then in part through a petty bribe, the two Chechen women who killed themselves and 88 others in the bombings of two Russian passenger jets last month were able to pass uninspected through layers of airport security and checks, even after being identified as possible terrorists, Russia's senior prosecutor said Wednesday.

Yes, yes, I know, the conspiracy types will see the master plan at work on this one too, but it's really just the global principal of low-paying jobs yields sloppy work and a susceptibility to corruption.

Putin doesn't so much need to beef up his security services and police, but clean them up. He needs to pay people better. That means better collection of taxes. That means more economic rule sets, which in turn attracts investment, and so on and so on.

See, you can do the military-market nexus with just about any news story!

When FDI comes a knockin' in the Gap

■"Investing in Basics in Europe's War Zone: Srebrenica Fruit Warehouse Represents a Sign of Hope Amid Bosnian War Ravages," by Beth Kampschror, Wall Street Journal, 16 September 2004, p. A15.

■"Laos Is Looking Like a Gold Mine to Foreigners: Boom in Commodity Prices Draws Investments by Mining Companies Straining to Find New Deposits," by Patrick Barta, Wall Street Journal, 16 September 2004, p. C1.

It doesn't sound like much, just a fruit produce warehousing and shipping facility, but it's the only Foreign Direct Investment to date in scary old Srebrenica (as a rep from the Swedish company admitted, "Just the name Srebrenica gives you the chills."). Why wouldn't it? "More than 1,000 of the estimated 8,000 men and boys massacred by Serb forces in 1995 are buried in a stark graveyard not 300 feet from the warehouse."

But let me tell you this: when you can't produce goods in factories because they're all blown up, you go back to growing stuff on the land for export. Bosnian GDP was only 9% ag back in 1989, but it's almost 20% now. So you sell whatever the hell you can raise, and you raise whatever FDI facilitates that connectivity to the outside world.

Does it work? My wife buys Bosnian raspberries in our local chain grocery story. There's now enough connectivity for raspberries to make it all the way from war-devastated Bosnia to our little island in New England.

That's the good FDI can do. But you have to grab it when you can. Laos right now is attracting all sorts of FDI and attention from mining companies. Surprising? It is when you realize that:

This little, landlocked country has never been a gold mine for foreign investors.

It has fewer than seven million consumers, no railroads and only a few paved highways. Its economy is managed by aging Communists. Worst of all, it is honeycombed with unexploded bombs from the Vietnam War.

But thanks to a global boom in commodity prices, Laos is starting to look good to the world's mining companies.

Who is driving that boom? China. China is helping to bring capitalism and FDI to Laos.

How about that for a domino theory?

How would my new favorite nutcase Alex Jones explain that one away as part of the "globalist/communist conspiracy"?

Let me beat him to the punch: "Our side is winning! Our side is winning! Our side is winning!"

Which side, you ask?

Hmmmmm. Damn! Those old labels just don't work anymore.

What's a ditto-head to do?

Regime change in Japan: send in the lawyers!

■"Japan Lawyers See Seismic Shift: Influx of British, U.S. Firms Jockey for Position Ahead of New Rules," by Martin Fackler and Ichiko Fuyuno, Wall Street Journal, 16 September 2004, p. A15.

This is a beautiful example of rule sets being altered by new entrants to the market:

Foreign lawyers suddenly are flocking to Japan, and the influx is forcing change in Japan's cozily insulated ways of doing business.

Dozens of U.S. and British law firms have opened or expanded operations here in recent years, drawn by market-opening changes, rising demand for legal services and a rebound by Japan's long-dormant $5 trillion economy.

Anyone want to tell me again about how unchanging the "Asian way" is?

Saying no to fear-mongering

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 15 September 2004

Monday I get a call from someone who says she produces/books for the "Alex Jones Show" out of Texas, and will I go on for an hour to discuss the book? I say yes, without any forethought, figuring I'll check the guy out online before the hour approaches.

Then I head off to DC to brief at National Defense University and get back this morning in office. In my in-box I have a warning from the Public Affairs Office at the college: I better check this guy's site out before I go on. My PAO doesn't say I shouldn't appear, just that I need to understand what I'm getting into.

So I check out www.infowars.com and it's some pretty bizarre stuff. Some of the loopiest bits include: the CIA kills Nick Berg and stages the whole video, the Bush Admin secretly engineered 9/11 to institute a reign of tyranny, Israel secretly runs Hamas to its own ends, the ACLU is secretly a communist front organization, IMF seeks to rule the world, and so on. I'm talking some of the most high-end dumb-ass, conspiracy nonsense you can find on the planet. Everyone in this paranoid universe is either a "patriot" American holding off the one-world-government or part of the "globalist/communist" conspiracy. The material is so badly put together, full of some of the most self-contradictory analysis I have ever seen, that it almost comes off like a parody. You don't know whether to laugh or cry, it's just so amazingly stupid.

The Bush Administrationís almost Nixonian quest for secrecy has fueled far too much of this stuff, which is ironic in the extreme, since weíre talking the Republicans hereónot exactly the party of expansive government. But where this White House has failed to explain a foreign policy that I largely agree with, fools have clearly rushed in (and cashed in as well).

Yes, I realize this need for all-encompassing conspiracies also reflects a lot of fear out there about the complexity of the modern world, and that people reflexively reach for simple answers in desperation. But geez! You're sinking awfully low if youíre listening to shock jocks like Alex Jones on a regular basis. Then again, if you want more than anything to live in constant fear about current events, much less future ones, and you happen to live in the vicinity of one of his radio affiliates, then he's your man, because every bit of news that comes down the pike CONFIRMS to Mr. Jonesóyet again!óthe amazing "globalist/communist plot to create one-world government."

No, Jones is not even a serious star in the fear business. Just a bit player peddling his stuff across a local radio stations, but as any true fear-monger, he's firmly convinced he's at the center of the universal struggle between good and evil, so his confidence in marketing insecurity is marked. Judging by some of the emails he fans have sent me, he works a pretty sorry crowd of very scared people. I don't sense the same fear in him, but more the perverse joy of manipulating fear in others. It is intoxicating no doubt, but it's a pathetic way to earn a living. One imagines Jones was either terribly bullied or a terrible bully as a child. You don't just develop that skill set overnight; it takes years of twisting a normal personality just so.

Of course, you don't rule out that it's all just an act with people like Jones. But you'd like believe he's got at least some excuse better than his wallet.

Anyway, after checking out the site and feeling my stomach turn at the notion that I would legitimize this guy's crap by appearing on his show, I called the number listed on his site for press inquires, heard a voice message from the same woman I had spoken with, and left a message saying I was not going to be able to appear on a show that went out of its way to sow fear and loathing (especially toward the U.S. Government) in the way that this guy apparently has been doing for quite some time.

The Alex Jones Show doesn't check its messages when it's on the air, so when 1pm rolls around, a tech rings me up expecting me to go on. I say no, and give the same reasons. They about five minutes later I hear from the great man himself by phone. I do indeedóas he later recounts on his showódescribe his act as "despicable" and ask "How do you sleep at night?" He replies that "our side is winning" and that "true American patriots" will stop my book's scheme to "enslave the world through globalism."

You get the drift: some real dialogue that I'm sure would have delighted his listeners (whose emails are some of the most poorly written hate letters I've ever receivedóalthough I must admit it's some mean trick on my part to be both a "communist" and a "slave to Wall Street," cause you know how well those two concepts mesh together), but alas, I wasn't interested. I try to tell him as much, but Mr. Jones is one of these types who, when confronted by opposing views, simply starts yelling his slogans non-stop no matter what you say. The funny thing, a guy like that makes for a wonderful party apparatchik. I mean, he'd be a natural at a show trial. But isn't that always true with such head cases? Scratch the surface and you find this little kid inside just dying to perform the very same role he condemns.

So we're basically talking a frustrated demagogue here, and while it's one thing to humor these people a time or two in email replies, it's another thing to waste your time doing their jobs for them, especially when that job is fundamentally about making people fear the future, which is basically the exact opposite of what I seek to do in my work.

So, thwarting Jones'ódare I say it?óplot to "reveal the truth" about my plan for "slavery" around the planet ("prison planet" is a big theme of his site, which has a wonderful, Alice Cooper-ish feelóabsent the self-mocking tone, of course), I leave poor Alex hanging for an hour, because his Air Force general coming on to critique PNM won't appear until the hour is up, so he spends some time recounting our lively phonecon, and then starts taking callers. I listen through the first one via the Internet, get bored almost instantly, and then shift back to the real world.

Should I have gone on to debate this "expert"? There's always that desire to stand up to these sorts of blowhards, but I feel a real responsibility to the men and women of the U.S. military, so when it comes to appearing in venues like the Alex Jones Show, which posits that everything the U.S. military does is part of some White House plot to dominate the world/imprison everyone/institute martial law/create a one-world government/etc., I simply believe it's wrong to lend any sort of legitimacy to his endeavors. Just the way Jones bragged to me over the phone that several Texas senators and congressmen had been on his show in the past told me that this would be an uneven exchange: my reputation diminished as his credibility is enhanced. Frankly, I saw nothing of value in that transaction. Moreover, if you're a serious Alex Jones listener, I would consider you so lost to the world of fear and paranoia that any such effort on my part would be a waste of time. I don't work the fringes. I leave soul-saving to the priests. I work the vast middleóyou know, the ones who think for themselves.

Yes, in a free country you have to put up with that sort of fear-mongering nonsense, but you don't have to participate in it or lend it any air of respectability by appearing in its venues as though they are similar to the "mainstream media" that Mr. Jones constantly keeps referencing. I've simply known too many good souls who've lost their lives over the years to protect the rights of people like Mr. Jones to engage in free speech, and to me, appearing on that sort of show is a genuine betrayal of their sacrifice. I don't choose to be in the business of fear mongering, even as I understand its marketability to the public.

Today I offer another review. This one is from Public Governance Institute in Alexandria VA. Itís a interesting review in its easy-to-follow format. Following the review, hereís todayís catch:

■GOP discipline versus ìreverse the curseî

■Why Turkey and Indonesia are Seam States

■Putinís gearing up for real international economic leverage

■Chinaís new rules all come in good time

■Iraqís funniest homebuilding videos

■Why DoD needs to stop funding wars na levo

Reviewing the Reviews (Public Governance Institute)

■ìThe Pentagonís New Map,î by Don Morrissey, Public Governance.org, September 2004.

Note the dual versions: one for dummies and one for people who like paragraphs that actually go together. I gotta admit. I liked the one for dummies better!
Hereís the complete review, followed by my commentary:

Public Governance ìBook Review in Briefî

THE PENTAGONíS NEW MAP by Thomas P. M. Barnett.

Putnam Publishing Group, 2004, 389 pages, $26.95

CORE THESIS: Around the world, the ìhave-notsî are ìdisconnectedî from global commerce, and they pose a mortal threat. The U.S. role is to lead, militarily where necessary, the ìconnectedî states in an effort to impose security and begin reconstruction and development of those ìdisconnectedî countries and regions. This will require a radical shift in how U.S. policymakers view their mission, leading to a completely restructured defense establishment.

WRITING STYLE: Aside from the self-invented jargon, this books offers an almost ìThere I Wasî style. It contains a good bit of biography and ìinsiderî stories about the Pentagon. One gets the impression that NEW MAP is what the author almost says it is -- a book-length extension of a heavy-duty Power Point presentation. It has some of the feel of a typical DOD brief. Nonetheless, Barnett conveys powerful ideas succinctly and with clear logic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thomas P. M. Barnett is a senior researcher and professor at the U.S. Naval War College. In partnership with Cantor Fitzgerald, Barnett directed the ìNewRuleSets.Projectî (a multi-year effort to explore how the spread of globalization alters the basic ìrules of the roadî for international security). He also directed the Year 2000 International Security Dimension Project and ran projects for the Center for Naval Analysis and the Institute for Public Research. In sum, he has gobs of experience and credentials, but that hasnít killed his imagination or sapped his energy.

WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK: (a) Anyone connected with the White House who realizes that the Presidentís foreign policy, while solidly designed, has been poorly described and defended; (b) pundits who donít have a clue about whatís at stake in the ìwar on terrorî; and (c) European policymakers whose heads are not irrevocably stuck in the sand.

WHO SHOULD STEER CLEAR OF THIS BOOK: Anyone who has a vested interest in the world one recalls from before 9/11/2001. This means a person with economic or power positions threatened by events and demands since then. But ìvested interestî also refers to individuals and groups that are psychologically dependent on a bygone era and in denial about the need to change, which by definition means trading the security of the known for the insecurity of the unknown.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Don Morrissey worked on Capitol Hill during 1980-95, where he helped fund and organize anti-Communist counterinsurgency activities in several countries including Afghanistan. He is now a legislative strategist with expertise in the financial-services industry. Reactions welcome at DonaldJMorrissey@aol.com

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For those who like traditional book evaluations, hereís a longer takeÖ

THE PENTAGONíS NEW MAP

by Thomas P. M. Barnett

Since an earlier Bush Administration introduced it in 1991, the phrase ìNew World Orderî has done much to help conspiracy theorists. The rest of us went through the 1990s wondering: ìNew World Order, huh? What is Dat? And where does the United States fit in?î

This reasoned and sometimes brilliant book is the best single place to find workable long-term answers. Barnettís key contribution is building a bridge over the torrent of todayís events (war on terror, globalization, cross-Atlantic finger-pointing) to what he calls ìa future worth creating.î

Much of todayís debate exposes a disconnect (about the size of the Grand Canyon) between the immediate ó ìglobal war on terrorî ó and the longer term. The latter requires defining and executing the critical role for the United States in the new era of globalization. Some smart-alecky critics of the Iraq war claim that terrorism is process, not a place. Ergo, why are we in Iraq? Barnett makes the connection between the process (terrorism) and shows us the place -- where it is; why it is; and what we need to do about it.

But first, a slight digression. NEW MAPís second chapter contains a paragraph both Presidential candidates and every pontificator on the ìwar on terrorî need to memorize. It is the most concise description you will find of the military aspects of the global war on terror: ì[T] his global war on terror is simultaneously fought across all three of the levels I cited earlier: Network war across the global system to disrupt terrorist financing, communications, and logistics; state-based war against rogue regimes that harbor or support such terrorist groups; and special operations that target individuals for either capture or -- when dictated by circumstances -- serial assassination.î

Thatís it in a nutshell. We are experiencing the clarity of a nuance-free zone. And that was only the authorís preamble.

In the new era of globalization, according to Barnett, the fault line is not ìnorth vs. southî or ìrich vs. poorî or ìcommunist vs. capitalist,î but ìthe Functioning Coreî and ìthe non-integrating Gap.î The ìCoreî countries and regions live within, or try to move towards, the mutually understood and accepted ìrule-setsî that provide global stability and prosperity. The countries or regions in the ìGapî either canít or wonít do so.

Listen to Barnett define the bifurcated world. A region or a country in the ìCoreî can (1) ìaccept the connectivity and can handle the content flows associated with integrating oneís national economy to the global economyî; or (2) ìseeks to harmonize its internal rule-sets with the emerging global rule of democracy, rule of law, and free marketsî; or is (3) ìadministered by a single dominant party that ó in fairly technocratic style ó engineers a systematic, state-directed economic development strategy.î

The ìGapî is where none of this exists.

Okay, this time in plainer English. Security, the rule of law and institutions not only allow you to interact with your neighbor, but your neighborís neighbor, his neighborís neighbor, and so on. No matter what the geographical distance, you have commerce: Ideas, people and things all move relatively freely and under mutually understood and accepted rules. With true commerce, you have connectivity. If you are ìconnected,î you are part of the ìCore.î

Without security, and lacking laws or institutions that allow you to connect to the middle, long, and sometimes short end of the neighborís-neighbor chain, under mutually accepted rules, you fall into the ìGap.î

This is also where you have mass murder, rape and pillage. (Iím not sure in which part of the world Hollywood fits.) Itís also where you tend to have despots, theocracies, warlords and just plain thieves doing the ìgoverning.î (Again, the Hollywood question arises.)

Now for the kicker: in a post-Cold War world, virtually all wars, terrorism, and terrorists come from the ìGap.î Thus, the key national security and foreign-policy objective for the United States, over the coming decades, is to systematically shrink the ìGap.î We need policies that move individuals, families, tribes and nations out of it. Since many will prefer to stay where they are, this means transforming several regions and environments.

Multilaterism Yes, Exit Strategies Probably Not

First, Barnett wants the U.S. to educate domestic audiences and also our ìCoreî allies as to why the rule-sets of globalization are critical to global stability and prosperity. By definition, a ìfunctioning Coreî works on a degree of consensus. Thus the imperative to consciously expand the ìCoreî (or shrink the ìGapî) needs a degree of consensus and commitment.

Barnett lays out part of this explanation: ìI think four things need to be spelled out clearly to both our citizens and the rest of the Core: (1) that arms control as we have known it for decades is now dead and buried; (2) that it is not a question of ëwhení unilateralism makes sense, but ëwhereí; (3) that while itís okay for America to ó in most instances ó get the ball rolling on specific security threats within the Gap, eventually all jobs there are multilateral efforts; and (4) since there is no exiting the Gap militarily, there is no such thing as an exit strategy.î

Second and more important, the U.S., as the only power capable of doing so, must take the lead in advancing these ìrule-setsî inside the ìGap.î This is where Barnettís long experience with force structure and strategy (grand as well as military) come into play. To take the lead in a systematic and long-term way, Barnett favors changing the U.S. military force from its current structure to two different forces:

The first is called ìLeviathanî and ìwould be a smaller, deadly military organization with technological superiority.î Not unlike the forces that operated in Afghanistan and Iraq (at least in Iraq from March to May 2003). This force would tackle rogue regimes and its special-ops component would handle the individual cadres not defined within rogue regimes. This force would be the spear-tip in the thrust to lay down the first security ìrule-setsî where they do not exist today.

The second, called ìSys-Admin,î would be civil-affairs oriented and network-centric, providing resources and technical expertise for old or new friends in need. They would be the follow-on resources to maintain the security rule-sets and help initiate the reconstruction and development activities to allow ìconnectivityî to take root. Here is the force that has been, or rather should have been, operating in Iraq from May 2003 on.

This military transformation, and all it entails, plays to Barnettís strong suit. He tells the tale much better than a Web review can convey. What matters is that he has thoroughly thought through the structure and activities necessary to carry out his key mandate: That the U.S. role in the New World Order is to lead the imposition of rule-set changes in those parts of the world where todayís norms either thwart global stability or are non-existent.

What About China, Russia, Fundamentalist Culture?

I like where Barnett has ended up (canít you tell?) -- yet no single book with NEW MAPís ambition could be completely convincing. Accordingly, after appreciating the bookís neat and clean strokes, a reader begins to wonder aboutÖwell, ìgapsî in the new scheme. Let me briefly mention three:

First, Barnett is too sanguine about the ability of the U.S. to ìconnectî the ìunconnectedî world through imposition of ìpeaceî (security rule-sets) and support for commerce (globalization). Some people donít want to be connected (Al Qaeda, most Middle Eastern rulers) and are willing to kill and die to stay disconnected. Followers of Osama bin Laden are the most radical of those who are ìresisting changeî not because globalization will squeeze their enterprises, but because they see their sacred values as being under siege. No matter how well we follow Barnettís strategic imperative to shrink the ìGap,î an irreducible number of peoples and/or countries will hate us not for what we do, but for what we are. How do you solve that?

Second, he is disdainful of any threats to U.S. security that appear outside the ìGap,î including the biggest one I see: China. It would also be wise to account for potential tensions with a revitalized ìnationalistî Russia.

Third, since his forte is military, he comes up short on saying anything about the non-military institutions and policies that need changing to address the world as he sees it. If anyone thinks that institutions such as the State Department, USIA, CIA, AID, IMF, World Bank or NATO are capable of effectively addressing the world Barnett describes for, they need to send me whatever prescription medicine they are taking. More on the need for widespread institutional change in the next segment.

Working the Plan Before You Have Worked Out the Plan

Barnett is calling for a basic change in the strategic framework of U.S. foreign policy -- akin to the changes that occurred between 1945 and 1950. This also entails managing a change in the structures that undergird policy.

The strategic framework that governed the following four decades is contained in ìNSC-68î (National Security Memorandum #68), which became official on April 14, 1950. But The Truman Administration had begun to function under some of its principles when confronted with Soviet attempts to dominate war-torn Europe, several years before NSC-68 became policy.

Starting in 1947, the Truman Administration delivered military and economic support against the communists in the Greek Civil war. It acted covertly in the Italian political and economic environment to prevent a Communist takeover in 1948. During 1948-52, the Marshal Plan lifted Europe from wartime ashes and allowed it to be a bulwark against Soviet expansionism. Truman and his people also reorganized the U.S. military and national-security apparatus with the National Security Act of 1947, which among other things created the NSC, the CIA and a new, separate military service, the Air Force.

Similarly, Barnett credits the Clinton Administration, in the post-Cold War era of globalization, with actively taking ìthe lead in enunciating the overarching economic rule-sets that guided globalizationís advancing across the 1990s.î

He credits the current Administration with recognizing that ìglobalizationís security rule-sets need to catch up with its economic rule-sets.î This includes the actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq, as well as efforts by the Pentagon to begin ìtransformationî of the military.

So a rough parallel emerges. The United States in both cases, following the end of a war, reacted to a crisis in ways that are congruent with a strategic framework ñ but without having the name. And by changing the strategic framework, it becomes necessary to change the structure and apparatus of the government to accomplish that new ìmission.î

Barnett does a good job of describing and applauding what he sees as the U.S. militaryís efforts to initiate and manage the change that goes along with the new strategic framework. His book does not offer much on how the other cultures and institutions of U.S. foreign policy will need to change, or how each set of responsible officials will execute that change.

The ìchange processî weíre witnessing today, in policy and structure, is similar to that at the start of the Cold War. Rather than being seamless, it takes place in fits and starts. And the lesson from 1945-50 is that the ìframeworkî of policy might not be fully in place before the structural changes are accomplished -- or vice versa. Barnett appears to believe that, if you follow the logic of his strategic framework, then managing the structural change will become obvious. Without mentioning Peter Drucker, he affirms the latterís prescription from the business world: ìStructure follows strategy.î

But I think the authorís biggest contribution is implicit: Until the U.S. understands and manages a change in its basic strategic foreign policy outlook, the wrong questions will continue to be asked; and the wrong measurements will continue to be used to define the relative ìsuccessî or failure of U.S. foreign policy.

From the NEW MAP perspective, media coverage of activities in Iraq and Afghanistan has mostly dealt with the wrong things. The author states that ìthe fundamental measure of effectiveness for any U.S. military intervention inside the gap must be: Did we end up improving the local security sufficiently to trigger an influx of global connectivity?Ö Increasingly, our military interventions will be judged by the connectivity they leave behind, not the smoking holes.î

A last point about the ìeducation processî advocated by Thomas Barnett: ìUntil the Bush Administration describes the future worth creating in terms ordinary people and the rest of the world can understand, we will continue to lose support at home and abroad for the great task that lies ahead.î Exactly. THE PENTAGONíS NEW MAP is a stab at creating the NSC-68 for this ìera of globalization.î And an impressive one.

_________________________________________________

Feedback is welcome by reviewer Don Morrissey ñ write to DonaldJMorrissey@aol.com

For a lively Providence Journal account (from March 2003) of author Barnettís background and advocacy methods, see http://www.nwc.navy.mil/newrulesets/Projo%20profile%20of%20Barnett.htm

COMMENTARY: You can tell this guy worked on the Hill because heís such a smart-ass, and a clever one at that. This is simultaneously one of the best summaries of the book and the funniest review I have read to date. He probes the bookís weaknesses better than any reviewer to date, but likewise is the most forgiving given its scope and stated ambitions. As a veteran of many Pentagon briefs, Morrissey knows where to poke holes, and I donít argue with his catches. Hell, I loved the review solely for the ìwho needs this bookî and ìwho should avoid itî paras, which were not only spot-on in their analysis, but good enough for stand-up theyíre so funny. Overall, very sharp mind, very sharp review. Anybody who takes the book that seriously can fire at will as far as Iím concerned.

Why Turkey and Indonesia are Seam States

■"Adultery a Crime? The Turks Think Again and Say No: No Support Gained In the Parliament," by Susan Sachs, New York Times, 15 September 2004, p. A3.

■"Jakarta Bombing Linked to Al Qaeda: Morning Blast Kills Nine, Wounds 150," by Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, 10 September 2004, p. A18.

It almost sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy routine, but if your parliament still has to debate whether or not adultery is a crime worth throwing women in jail over, then youíre a Seam State.

Why? Youíre Seam because you still have idiotic debates like that. But youíre also right on the cusp of the Core becauseódang it!óyou got a parliament full of sensible enough people to blow that piece of nonsense right out of the water.

Thatís what I mean by Seam Stateócould go either way.

But I also mean it as a state thatís at the front line between Core and Gap, or logically located where youíre going to find the violence that comes from globalization penetrating relatively traditional societies. In other words, itís where the bombs will mostly go off.

GOP discipline versus ìreverse the curse

■"Bush Succeed in Tying Iraq, Terror War," by Jackie Calmes and Jacob M. Schlesinger, Wall Street Journal, 15 September 2004, p. A16.

■"Loss Leader: At 0-7, Adviser Bob Shrum Is Well Acquainted With the Concession Speech," by Mark Leibovich, Washington Post, 10 September 2004, p. C1.

Why is Bush doing so well despite the problems in Iraq?

He has succeed in making more Americans see the war in Iraq as part of the broader war on terror, for which Mr. Bush consistently has gotten higher approval ratings in polls than has Democratic foe John Kerry. In addition, Sen. Kerry has struggled to say what he would do differently in Iraq, a shortcoming exacerbated by Republican successes in highlighting his vacillations on the problem.

ìThe Bush campaign has worked hard, really hard, for months, to make terrorism and securityîónot Iraq specificallyóìthe issue of the election, and as usual, theyíve done it with enormous discipline.

Meanwhile, the man closest to Kerry, the guy who puts the words in his mouth, has an 0-7 record of running presidential campaigns. Bush has Rummy, but Kerry has Shrummy. So our Bean Town boy is working not only to defeat a sitting president, but ìreverse the curse.î

So we go from the Comeback Kid to Gore the Bore to Reverse the Curse.

Tell me this is good . . ..

Putinís gearing up for real international economic leverage

■"Russiaís Planned Energy Giant Will Be Open to Western Investors," by Gregory L. White and Chip Cummins, Wall Street Journal, 15 September 2004, p. A1.

■"Putin Backs Gazprom Bid To Buy Big Oil Company: Deal Would Consolidate Kremlin Control," by Erin E. Arvedlund, New York Times, 15 September 2004, p. W1.

This one has good news/bad news written all over it. The Kremlin gets 51% control of the resulting company, but itís going to open up the rest of the stock to foreign investors (that Journal, always highlighting the bright side!). Itís Putin trying to build his own Aramco, but itís Putin trying to build his own Aramco.

Yes, this will be one big company, but profit-wise, majority-state ownership doesnít translate well into earnings. But it will do this: it will remind the global economy that Russiaís seat at the table isnít based on rotting nukes anymore.

Chinaís new rules all come in good time

■"Party Democracy in China Is on Agenda," by staff, Wall Street Journal, 15 September 2004, p. A19.

■"Pirated Goods Swamp China: Official Crackdown Has Little Effect," by Peter S. Goodman, Washington Post, 7 September 2004, p. E1.

Chinaís economy is swamped with counterfeit money, videos, drugsóyou name it. The feel of the place is like America at the turn of the start of the last century: jittery with ambition, a bit raw with its manners, but growing like crazy. All the fakery means little can be trusted there, and that inefficiency is really getting to be a drag on the economy as it seeks to open up more and more to the outside world. Counterfeiting survives at such high levels because the party can be bought and sold on a regular basis, through bribes and corruption, to look the other way. But all that pirating pisses off the rest of the Core, which pushes China to do better.

Chinaís answer: open up the party to new levels of democracy. Why? Itís the best way to clamp down on corruption (Gorby called it glasnost!). That politics being led by the nose by economicsóand thank God for it.

Iraqís funniest homebuilding videos

■"On Iraqi TV, a Welcome Take on Reality: Shows Rooted in Everyday Life Provide an Escape From War," by Jackie Spinner, Washington Post, 10 September 2004, p. A1.

ìLabor and Materialsî is the new big hit show on Iraqi TV. Itís a reality TV show that follows the efforts of ordinary citizens in rebuilding war-damaged homes. The host is a perky, red-headed 29-year-old woman who delights in tackling the toughest do-it-yourself construction jobs.

But it gets better:

An upcoming drama series on al-Sharqiya called ìThe Lootersî will feature families who grew rich off the spoils of ransacking after the U.S.-led war last year. Another show, called ìIraqís Most Melancholy Home Videos,î will capture reactions of Iraqis watching footage of former neighbors now living abroad. ìBlessed Weddingî will follow a young couple as they get married, go on their honeymoon and adjust to domestic life together.

ìThe Iraqis were not used to these kinds of programs,î said Alaa Dahan, 37, the director of al-Sharqiya, the countryís first privately owned satellite TV station. ìBut we have to depend on the reality, to focus on the reality, particularly what happened after the war, both the positive and negative sides.î

Wow, weíll never understand these people. Itís like an entirely alien culture that makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Why DoD needs to stop funding wars na levo

■"Navy Plans to Buy Fewer Ships," by Renae Merle, Washington Post, 7 September 2004, p. E1.

Na levo is an old Russian phrase that means, "on the side" (or literally, "on the left"). It has the connotation of being an underground or not quite legal activity.

Navy announcing itíll buy only four ships in 2006, compared to 9 planned for 2005. How can this be when the defense budget is growing leaps and bounds?

All that growth is to pay for personnel, whose costs have risen 30% since 1999, and for current operations, which are NEVER planned in the budget.

Thatís right: we NEVER plan for any operations in the defense budget. Isnít that amazing? We plan only to buy stuff, and train and take care of our peopleóthatís basically it. Every time we actually use them in any operation, the Pentagon has to go scrambling to Congress for supplementals. This is why wars kill force structure, meaning we buy fewer tanks, ships and aircraft. So anyone who thinks the Pentagon dreams of wars so they can buy stuff is just plain misinformed. Wars kill force structure.

This idiotic reality is yet another good reason why we should bifurcate the force into the Leviathan (hopefully only rarely usedóand paid for by supplementals) and the Sys Admin, whose budget would be mostly about operations. We need to separate our preparation for war from our actual operations, and when I say operations I mean the back half stuff, which always ends up costing a lot more than we plan because it ends up taking much longer than we plan.

The one-man show

Dateline: SWA Flight 227 from BWI to PVD, 14 September 2004

Any Bears fans should avert their eyes through the first para:

That was one fabulous win last night by the Packers. Yes, the Vikes and Eagles both looked good, but both were playing at home against weak (Giants) to middling (Cowboys) teams, whereas the Pack won on the road against the NFC champs. What was impressive about the win was not just the butt-ugly 100+ yardage that Ahman Green cranked (not a pretty run in the bunch), nor Favreís complete lack of mistakes, but just the confident way they played against a team nobody (check out the ESPN pregame) picked them to win. And you gotta like a defense that blitzes that effectively. Only one game, yes, but a very good one.

Okay, now that thatís out of my system, I wish I could report we (me and my webmaster) saw it coming before yesterday but we did not. So we too were a bit surprised at having the site shut down by the provider for exceeding our bandwidth flows. Real problem is that the C-SPAN broadcasts created such a huge demand for the slides, that when I direct these people to the Pre-Production Storyboard pages, all that graphics downloading taps out our allotment. Yes, we immediately put in to have it boosted dramatically, but I wonít pull the slides, because to me they are interesting artifacts of the book-writing process, and more than anything, I see the site as an archiveóprimarily for me. Having the slides on the site allows me to beg off the many requests for a copy of the PPT file itself, something I simply donít hand out.

Why? Itís my baby and my lifeís blood, so why in hell should I simply hand it over to anyone on the web who asks for it? So instead of handing it over, I direct people to the static slides, which, because the brief mutates constantly, grow older by the day. You might say, ìYou need to spread your word, so why not put the brief online?î First, the animation doesnít work online, and second, I wrote the book for that purpose. Thatís a message I spent months getting down just so. That can never be with the brief, which is just a bunch of whirling images without the oral soundtrack. ìBeing thereî for the oral pitch is what I do, so I resist efforts to separate me from the material, just as I insisted (along with editor Mark Warren) that the book be written in a very first-person style. I didnít spend a career getting the vision to this point to have it casually unleashed upon the world; I want to control that process as much as possible, primarily because I fear misinterpretation.

So, everyone who wants the brief emailed to them as an attachment, understand it will never happen. Meanwhile, we buy more bandwidth to accommodate all the downloads, and life goes on.

Today I was in DC to do a repeat of the C-SPAN broadcast: same theater at Fort McNair, same college (Industrial College of the Armed Forces), same guy introducing me (now good friend Paul Davis), and pretty much the same package (with about a dozen or more changes sprinkled throughout the slides). Only thing different is the crowd. Last June I just caught the tail end of the school year, briefing the entire class on its way out the door. Their big complaint in the feedback was, ìWhy didnít we get this material at the start of the year?î So here I am back again in roughly three months, doing a repeat performance for this yearís class at the start of the school year. Combine this brief with the one I seem to give every year now to the Naval War College class, plus the one I scheduled to give at the Air War College in Alabama in November, and weíre really only talking about the Army holding out at this point. But good news on that front as well: finally got the invite from Ft. Leavenworth and the lessons learned/warfighting lab down thereóand so life goes on.

I flew in last night even though I am not talking until 1330 today. Why? Two big reasons: one, I donít like to fly there and back on the same day; and two, I donít like to fly the day of a brief as long as the long I offer at Fort McNair (the mega, 50+ slide version). You have to remember, this is one long, one-man show of almost three hours of me talking in strict synchronization with the slides. Thatís a lot of RAM and hard-drive usage. My CPU is cranking at just under 100 percent the whole time, which means I canít let my mind wander much during the show. It is an exhausting affair. Sometimes I can barely talk afterwards, and often, about a third of the way through, I catch myself wondering if Iím going to make it to the end that day, or should I just bag it and walk off the stage for once.

But I never do. Once in the show, itís all about finishing. Much like playing a long piano piece (I just started Beethovenís 8th Sonata, Opus 13, Adagio Cantabile), once youíre in, you donít stop until you hit the finish line. Itís almost instinctive.

So I have a fairly strict routine for a show this long: get there the night before (not late), get a good night sleep (no, the beer and the game didnít help, but the 1330 start did), and then find some way to busy the mind right up until the show. Then leap out of my hotel room, dash across town, and show up just in time to start the show without much forethought. Then itís bang-bang-bang until youíre done, and then you canít believe you just talked non-stop for almost three hours straight. In many ways, it reminds me of running the marathon: best not to think about the finish until you can see it. Until then, stay within yourself, working each stride to the best of your ability.

Yeah, much like the Packers last night.

I must say, though, that it is weird to be traveling alone again, after three weeks with Vonne and two weeks with baby Vonne Mei. I always miss my family on the road, and it feels nice to realize I miss Vonne Mei as well, even the 3am feedings she sometimes insists on. But it does feel normal to be alone on the road again, which is almost always how I travel. Like anybody, I have routines and preferences, and while traveling with Vonne was great (I remembered why I originally loved hotel rooms as a young man), itís nice to be off the tour bus.

The brief went okay at NDU. I say okay because I started awfully slowly and had the break much later than last time. It always amazes me how no two briefs are ever the same, despite my using the same material by and large. Today, however, I was guilty of trying out new material, which never goes quickly, plus I loaded up the brief with even more slides than last time. Going right to the edge of my time limit, I only answered one question, which made me feel bad, but I offered to answer any by email if sent. I also signed maybe 40 copies of the book, which is always nice. Also got an interesting invite to a policy "writing group" inside State (they were there checking me outóapparently PNM sits on more than a few desks there, like DepSecState Armitage), and heard of an NDU negotiating exercise that is going to use the concept of splitting the force into Leviathan and Sys Admin as a bureaucratic scenario to be played out by students in coming weeks. Also looks like I'll be invited to brief all the new one-stars in the congressionally-mandated Capstone program (another guy checking me out). Add to all that I get an invite via my Blackberry to brief the Defense Science Board, a high-level group of grey beards who advise SECDEF (been waiting on that one for about a year or more). So clearly, the vision is picking up steam

All in all, a wonderfully reinforcing experience, even if it wasn't my best performance (alright, alright, the "St. Pauly girls" from last night didn't help, but I can't watch the Pack without tipping a few back; anyway, my "bad performances" tend to exist only in my mind, as several who had their books signed said I was much better "live" than on C-SPAN).

Today I offer another review. This one is from a local Democratic party newsletter in Pennsylvania. Itís a great review that shows the book in the way I like it most to be interpreted: as fundamentally compassionate and driven by a need to care about the world outside our bordersóeven outside the Core.

Following the review, hereís todayís catch (all from the Washington Post, becauseódamn it!óIím in Rome):

■Sometimes a banana is just a banana in North Korea . . .

■Why I can't vote for the big-government Republicans

■Maintaining the "grip" is what maintains connectivityóand the Core

■India and China grappling with AIDS, each in their own bottom-up way

■Fareed Zakaria cracks the code on Iraq

Reviewing the Reviews (The Lancaster County Democrat)

■îDysfunction Amid The Functioning Core,î

by Bob Slone, The Lancaster County Democrat, September 2004, p. 11.

A reader, apparently a registered Democrat in PA, notified me of this review and sent along a link to an online PDF version. The review would appear to be solely about PNM, judging by the title, and yet, itís a dual review of my book along with Larry Everestís Oil, Power & Empire.

And no, thatís not exactly the pairing I would advocate (remember when Business Week paired PNM with Bob Woodwardís book, Plan of Attack?). But there it is.

Hereís the complete review, followed by my commentary:

DYSFUNCTION AMID THE FUNCTIONING CORE

By Bob Slone

ìWhen individuals cannot find opportunity in life, they are reduced to fighting over whatís left over: the land and the cultural identity they attach to its history.îóThomas P.M. Barnett, The Pentagonís New Map.

An unfortunate side effect of the Clinton years has been the relative economic excess most of us enjoyed during his administration. It became an opiate to our collective concern and later, like a bunch of party goers waking in a post-excess fog, we found ourselves shuffling through the kitchen to our new espresso machines when a brick in the shape of the Iraq war came crashing through the window. As comfortable people often do, we relaxed when the Bush administration offered to go chasing after the evil brick throwers while the rest of us turned our attention back to our coffee and finding someone to come repair our window.

The problem is, those brick throwers are people who believe they have no recourse left in their lives other than to break our windows and, unless we provide them with some alternatives, weíre going to be repeating this cycle for a long time. The boys in D.C. were pretty good at fighting the Cold War but they donít have much experience chasing brick throwers.

That is the premise of Thomas P.M. Barnettís book, The Pentagonís New Map, an intelligent, if not slightly self promoting, proposal on the future state of global power.

Barnett, a Harvard Ph.D., strategic researcher, expert on the Cold War and strategic insider to the Pentagon and political administrations, divides the world into two groups. The Functioning Core is made up of countries that have accepted globalization and moved economically and militarily toward stability initiatives based on competing and existing globally. The U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, China and even the former Soviet Union are included in that group. The second group, the brick throwers, are the Non-Integrating Gap countries. Most of the Mid-East countries, Africa and parts of South America are still ripe with fence building regimes who can only control through fear and anger in their primarily poor, uninformed populations.

Barnettís book is a crucial read for any citizen, any voter, interested in making that vote count by supporting intelligent alternatives to global hegemony. It lifts the reader beyond the obvious and proposes intelligent alternatives to how we go forward managing globalization within the context of those in power today and those that will assume power tomorrow.

Armed with a broader vision for the future, Americans must be seen as facilitators rather than global policemen. Rather that simply sitting at the table staring into their coffee and hoping others will chase away the evil brick throwers, the American public will have to re-engage in more robust and decisive management of the pople we elect to serve us while paying more attention to managing those who would have it otherwise. It is that disconnect between ìwe the peopleî and our ship of state that Larry Everest brings into dramatic and sharp focus in his book Oil, Power & Empire.

Everest, a correspondent in the Mid-East and Asia for over 20 years, lays bare the intrigue, mistakes and blunders that have led to the current situation in Iraq since the time of British Colonialism. Most disturbing is the trail of manipulation over multiple administrations that have left Bush with the opportunity to put Big Oil in charge of our foreign policy and to put our military at their disposal.

This book is important because it builds a practical history of Iraq, its culture and its inherent political instability, making it a prime target for manipulation. It is into this unstable milieu that the Bush teams (Sr. and Jr.), found themselves able to front Oil into an unabashed grab for oil rights in a process that has broken international agreements, excluded our traditional allies and set up the conditions that making ìwinningî Iraq an impossibility. There can be no reasonable exit strategy when the main participants donít wish to leave, and there should be nothing but concern that this scenario could repeat itself in Iran and other countries over time.

These are great companion booksóone very much in the present and simply gut wrenching it its clarity and perspective; another offering hope, a way to establish intelligent, and even compassionate, leadership in a world of brick throwers and knee-jerk reactionaries. Both present clear reasons why Americans must address the influence of wealth and business in our foreign policy and why that element add unprecedented urgency to find our collective conscience and voter energy once more.

COMMENTARY: Whew! Pretty mad and pretty soaring at the same time, whatís interesting about this populist-styled review is how easily it absorbs PNMís message as that amenable to a leftist perspective. More typically, it is the rightist perspective that is considered PNMís natural fellow-traveler (something I need reject nor accept in whole), so itís awfully nice to see a true liberal focus primarily on the hope, compassion, and optimism of PNM, while apparently ignoring my critique of many of the arguments that Mr. Slone so passionately praises in Everestís book, which frankly, I think poorly of. It is fascinating to me that Slone can read both my book and Everestís and see a hearty condemnation of the confluence of wealth and business in our foreign policy, when clearly I feel as though I offer nothing of the sort. Rather, if anything, I celebrate it in the original sense of the term, liberal. Still, overall, I love this review because it almost reads like the original book proposal we marketed, one which promised a primer for voters who we assumed were hungry for exactly this sort of non-partisan information. There are sentences in this review that I not only could have written, but actually did write in the original PNM proposal! So that makes this one very satisfying review as far as this author is concerned (and yes, I caught the line about "slightly self promoting"--from a politico no less!).

Sometimes a banana is just a banana in North Korea . . .

■"Officials Discount Nuclear Suspicion In N. Korea Blast," by Anthony Faiola and Joohee Cho, Washington Post, 13 September 2004, p. A15.

Do I think Kim is working hard on missiles and nukes? Absolutely. Do I think he might have been pushing hard for some symbolic nuke test on the anniversary of the founding of North Korea in 1948? Weirdos like him typically love that sort of stuff. Do I think Kim feels like he's being progressively cornered by the U.S. and that China's patience for his shenanigans will inevitably run out so he better grab his nuke mantle while he can? Yes, that is exactly what I expect.

But I do discount the notion that what happened was the actual nuke test we all fear and expect Kim will someday soon unleash. Why? The "horse diagnosis" here seems as compelling (even more so) than the "zebra diagnosis," meaning the simpler answer is probably a screw-up, an accident, a genuine snafu. Everybody thinks that an authoritarian system runs like clockwork, when in reality it tends to be amazingly inefficient, and it's primarily in that stunning inefficiency that control is maintained. So this blast is probably just an accident, like the one in April. They have accidents in authoritarian countriesóplenty of them. It's just because they go to such lengths to hide them that we tend to fall back on zebra answers when the horse diagnosis will do.

None of this changes anything. We still need to push hard on Kim. He still needs to go down, and soon. We still need that takedown to occur with the strong partnership of China, Japan, and Russia. The reunification of Korea still needs to serve as cornerstone for an East Asia NATO. We need that NATO so we can reduce troops there and get our bases realigned more toward the Gap and this Global War on Terrorism.

But the blast does serves as some nice pretext, not that much is needed with Kim, who's probably got about 3 millions shortened lives on his conscience alreadyóif he had one, that is.

Why I can't vote for the big-government Republicans

■"$3 Trillion Price Tag Left Out As Bush Details His Agenda," by Mike Allen, Washington Post, 14 September 2004, p. A1.

■"The Choice on the Deficit," editorial, Washington Post, 14 September 2004, p. A26.

■"Trade Flip-Flops: It's odd that Bush has chosen this moment to threaten China with protectionism," op-ed by Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post, 13 September 2004, p. A21.

■"U.S. Wants to Cancel Poorest Nations' Debt," by Paul Blustein, Washington Post, 14 September 2004, p. A6.

Scary and slightly counter-intuitive article on page 1 of the Post stating that Bush's second term plan for the budget would likely cost about $3 over a decade (one in cuts, two in new spending), while a similar analysis of the agenda Kerry put forth in Bean Town clocks in at about $2 trillion (all new spending). Yeah, yeah, what's a trillion?

What a minute . . . that's a lot of money!

Isn't it weird to read the Wash Post endorses a Democrat for president because he's actually pushing an agenda to control government spending while the Republican is going hog wild on spending? Is it just me, or it that completely backwards?

As the Post points out, deficit hawks aren't happy with Kerry either, but it's odd that more Republicans aren't taking Bush to task for the massive expansion of government he's unleashed. Yes, you can say Osama unleashed it, but it really is our choice, and it's a dangerous one. Already, US Treasury bonds are going unsold at auction. There are limits, and Bush seems determined to test them with an aggressive foreign policy that seems to expect the rest of the world to pick up the check.

On the other hand (and please, Kerry backers, stop sending me emails telling me not to be so even-handed), Bush's flip-flops on trade and protectionism seem small and obviously particular in their search for electoral college votes, whereas Kerry comes out point blank against things like a Central American Free Trade Agreement, telling me he lacks Clinton's magic at avoiding making globalization the "enemy" of the workers. Plus, the Bush White House is pushing a new plan to cancel billions upon billions of public debt for a host of the poorest Gap states, making U2's Bono presumably quite happy.

Upshot for me? Bush loses me on the $1 trillion in permanent tax cuts. I'm a major beneficiary of the cuts, and they don't strike me as worth all the pain they are going to cause the federal government over the years ahead, especially as we spend a lot of bucks in what I consider to be a serious GWOT. If Bush was as serious, he would abandon making his tax cuts permanent.

Maintaining the "grip" is what maintains connectivityóand the Core

■"Putin Moves to Centralize Authority: Plan Would Restrict Elections In Russia," by Peter Baker, Washington Post, 14 September 2004, p. A1.

■"Pakistan Losing Grip on Extremists: Attacks on Officials Linked to Al Qaeda," by John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, Washington Post, 29 August 2004, p. A1.

Putin is using the Beslan massacre as his own 9/11, or System Perturbation that allows him to push through some very significant tightening measures. Feeling that too many vertical political controls were snipped by reformists across the sloppy Yeltsin years, he's seeking to tighten up the very horizontally-challenged Russia (which spreads itself over more time zones than I can count).

How worried should we be? The reformists' real success in the 1990s was to snip as many vertical (or top-down) economic controls as possible. Those gains for freedom aren't being reduced by this act, even as significant political freedoms may well end up being lost for quite some time. Remember the Chinese argument I state in PNM: freedom is about 90% economic and only 10% political. When Putin moves seriously against free enterprise in Russia, then I get scared, but until then, his push to maintain his political grip may well be exactly what is required to keep Russia a functioning member of the Core. Because remember this, if Russia loses control of the Caucasus, guess who inherits that front in the GWOT?

As for Pakistan, more disturbing evidence that the government there controls little beyond the capital. High-level US officials are admitting (and I use the word "admitting" since this same administration talked openly about making Pakistan a "major, non-NATO ally" recently) that Pakistani extremists and "second-rung Al Qaeda operatives from Arab countries" are apparently growing a significant alliance in the country's ungovernable northwest territory.

Pakistan's security services grew these "home-grown militants" to employ them against the Sovs in Afghanistan (with US help) and then later in its long-running dispute with India over Kashmir (to the dismay of the US). With Musharraf saying he won't rein them in until he gets a deal on Kashmir, US patience, along with those of other allies, is growing thin. But the Pakistanis don't see it that way. Instead they feel like they're doing all they can in this GWOT and keep asking what the US is going to do for them in return.

Interesting question. What exactly would we want to do to help Pakistan?

To me, Musharraf's plea is an empty one: he says he wants to be part of the Core, but he clings to his "olive grove" with a reckless abandon that belies his stated desire. And don't cite me that "honor" argument. "Honor" is to international relations like "statistics" are to the NFL: they're for losers.

India and China grappling with AIDS, each in their own bottom-up way

■"India Steps Away from the Old Song and Dance: Bollywood Film Is First Mainstream Offering to Directly Address HIV Epidemic," by John Lancaster, Washington Post, 29 August 2004, p. A18.

■"China's Orphans Feel Brunt of Power: Party Thwarts AIDS Activist's Unofficial School," by Philip P. Pan, Washington Post, 14 September 2004, p. A1.

India's first big Bollywood film looks at an HIV-infected woman who loses her job and then fights back to regain her dignity. Sound familiar? It should, it's basically a "Philadelphia" redux, absent the usual Bollywood formula of "seven fights, ten songs, four kisses." Big stars play the lead, their excuses being the same ones Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks offered way back when: they wanted to stretch themselves as actors.

This is a big deal. Bollywood films have a huge Gap audience. Why? Most are about the clash of modernity and tradition: daughter of traditional dad falls for modern lover and Ö well, you know the rest. So for Bollywood to finally tackle AIDS this unsparingly (she gets it from sex, not some transfusion), this issue really comes out of the taboo closet in the world's second-largest country.

Meanwhile, the stigma attached to HIV in China seems as strong as ever, as witnessed by the rough treatment an unofficial AIDS orphanage has received. Here's the key analysis on that one:

The party still tries to control all social organizations in China. But after a quarter-century of capitalist-style economic reforms, Chinese enjoy greater prosperity and personal freedom than ever before under Communist rule, and growing numbers are taking advantage of both to band together and campaign for causes as varied as environmental protection, and end to domestic violence and the preservation of Chinese architecture.

The party has said it welcomes the rise of these civic groups, recognizing that they can provide much-needed services as the government sheds the welfare commitments of its socialist past. But it has also expressed worry that they might threaten the party's monopoly on power, and it has tried to exercise control by setting up its own organizations, limiting the number of new ones that people can establish and requiring them to find government sponsors. At times, the party simply declares a group illegal and crushes it.

Tricky yes, but remember my point: direction is critical not degree. China is moving in the right direction, at a pace it can handle politically. Let their own "pain" guide them, I say, rather than lecturing them from afar. This is a sensible people and a pragmatic leadership. We could have a lot worse in both instances.