The mythical American aversion to casualties rears its ugly head

ïìPolls Suggest War Isn't Hurting Bush: Mounting Deaths in Iraq Have Not Resulted in Major Backlash in Public Opinion,î by John F. Harris and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 10 September, p. A10.

Old notion that has haunted Pentagon since Vietnam: U.S. public is severely averse to casualties (body bag syndrome). Most in military felt this phenom was given huge push by first Iraq war (the war with almost no casualties, they said, would mean Americans would expect all such wars to be like that). Then the so-called CNN Effect was demonstrated with "Black Hawk Down" in Somalia, and the sense of the unbreakable connection was all the more concrete in most leaders' minds. I don't know how many Pentagon briefs I've sat through where I've seen the bullet about "casualty-averse public."

So how come Bush is doing so well in the polls? When "these results challenge what some public opinion analysts had for years assumed was a reliable link--which some scholars argued operated with an almost mathematical precision--between combat deaths and erosion of support for military operations."

Good quote from always reliable Andrew Kohut of Pew Research Center: public support "does not so much track with number of casualties per se, but with the public's sense of whether things are degrading." Or, as I argued in my book (p. 204), what the public needs to see are: "(1) the goals are well defined; and (2) the cost seems worth the potential gain." In other words, does the op make sense to the pubic, and do they think we're succeeding, or at least not screwing it up too badly?

So you have to ask the question again: why is Bush doing so well? I don't think the Swift Boat Veterans' bullshit is doing this to Kerry. I think it reflects some bias too many voters may have against a Dem candidate. I mean, my God, the man is a decorated combat veteran who's killed the enemy and been wounded by live fire, and he's still trailing Bush 53 to 37 on who would handle Iraq better in the future! Right after the 1000th casualty is announced and following a week where Bush intimated that we could not win the GWOT and the Pentagon admitted we don't control a big chunk of Iraq (the toughest Sunni part).

So you really do have to wonder, Michael Moore's successful movie notwithstanding, whether or not a major chunk (now just half, but only down 20 percentage points from May 2003--when I would have expected a much bigger decline) of the population really do buy the man's attempts at explaining the bigger picture and goals of transforming the Middle East to end the scourge of transnational terrorism coming out of there.

Doctors with a chip on their shoulders

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 10 September 2004

Got a call yesterday from Doctors Without Borders. Apparently they caught that I use their logo in my presentation (the one shown on CSPAN) in a slide where I talk about the Sys Admin force needing to be able to interact with a far wider array of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and PVOs (private voluntary organizations) in post-conflict and post-disaster relief ops and security generation.

They wanted quick explanation of concept. I said I advocated more cooperation between military and NGOs and PVOs as a good thing. This representative said Docs Without Borders doesn't want that per se, but prefers separation so as not to muddy definitions of who's who. Docs just left Afghanistan after 24 years. Why? Their personnel started being targeted by terrorist insurgents there. So their stand is, we want nothing to do with the U.S. military.

And they'd like me not to use their logo, because they feel it might imply they approve of concept.

Interesting choice for me. Of course, I say nothing of the sort in my presentation (that Docs approve of the concept), and since I don't use the logo for commercial gain, but in a public presentation as a USG employee, I don't have to agree with their request.

I think the answer will be that I will continue to use the logo, but now tell the story of the phonecall, emphasizing their position and talking about how that position reflects the bad job the military has done historically in such relationships.

Of course, their answer can be to decry the concept and the ideas associated with it, but that's only par in a world without borders on free speech.

Interesting feedback, huh?

Gaming War in the Context of Everything Else

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 9 September 2004.

I was approached by Jon Compton, editor of Fire & Movement: The Forum of Conflict Simulation just before PNM came out in late April. He asked if I could pen something op-ed'ish for his magazine, which he had just taken over and was hoping to return to its former glory.

This is how Jon intros the piece in Issue 134 now out:

. . . Thomas P.M. Barnett wrote an article for Esquire magazine last year entitled "The Pentagon's New Map," in which he described what he believes is the new security environment that the U.S. finds itself in today. His recent book of the same title more deeply explores his thoughts on the matter. I asked Prof. Barnett what he thought the role of the commercial board wargame industry might be in the new world war in which we find ourselves. His response is included in this issue. It's definitely worth a close read.

For a look a the magazine cover, where the piece is trumpeted at the top, click here

Below is the piece I wrote for him. No additional commentary needed. I think it stands pretty well.

Gaming War Within the Context of Everything Else

By

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor,

Warfare Analysis and Research Department, Naval War College

[pp. 15-16]

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett is a senior strategic researcher and professor at the Naval War College. His latest book, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, is published by G.P. Putnam's

Sons (April 2004).

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Naval War College, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Last January the U.S. military conducted a huge tabletop wargame in Alabama designed to test out new, "transformational" technologies and force postures in four emerging warfighting areas. The military's version of board games is used primarily to stretch minds and test new ideas at low costóusually in the range of 1/5th the normal cost of a more realistic exercise. While the technologies employed were certainly impressive (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, with almost unlimited loiter time), the actual scenario used was downright pathetic, indicating just how low the Pentagon's imagination has sunk despite being more than two years past the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (not to mention the anthrax scare, the DC sniper case, SARS in China, and so on and so on).

The scenario, you ask? It was basically the same one the military has been using for a good decade now: a large unnamed Asian land power exhibits a rather unhealthy interest in a small, island nation off its coast. Seems this large unnamed Asian land power has designs on this little state, which just so happens to be a close military friend of the United States. Now, this scenario was kept secret, but let me go out on a limb here and suggest that the "near-peer competitor" in question was none other than China. How can I state this with utter certainty? Because basically every big wargame we've conducted since the Taiwan Straits Crisis of 1996 has been a replay of that scenario, even as most military intelligence suggests that if China were to invade Taiwan anytime soon, it would likely go down in history as the "million man swim."

So why is the Pentagon so stuck on this largely implausible scenario? Pure lack of imagination. Simply put, the ordering principle of the Department of Defense (DoD) hasn't changed one whit since the Cold War: we built DoD around the core conflict model of great power war back in 1947, and nothing has come along to knock that baby off its doctrinal pedestal since. When the Soviets went away officially at the end of 1991, we hung on to the hope of their eventual return through the strategic planning pillar known as "reconstitution," a fancy word meaning we'd hedge against their revival until we could dream up something better to force size ourselves against.

That something better came in 1996, when we shadow boxed the Chinese in the Taiwan Straits during one of their periodic shows of force designed to scare the Taiwanese political leadership from making any declarations of political independence from the mainland. Don't get me wrong, I believe this is a scenario worth gaming, because if it went down, a lot of important things would immediately get screwed up in Asia, which represents almost half of humanity. My problem with the scenario is that it represents the height of imagination right now inside the Pentagon regarding the future of warfare, and as far as I'm concerned, it is the strategic planning equivalent of steering by staring at your rear-view mirror.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 gave us a glimpse of what "asymmetrical warfare" in the 21st century is going to be all about. It won't just be some other great power or some regional rogue keeping America from accessing some future battlespace they hope to own, because frankly, there ain't no such thing as a conventional battlespace anywhere in the world that our military force cannot access. Asymmetrical warfare in the future is going to feel more like you're trying to play football while the other guy has decided to play soccer. In other words, you won't be playing the same game, with the same rules, or even the same scorekeeping.

Great power war effectively died with the realization of mutual assured destruction thanks to nukes. Meanwhile, classic state-on-state war is going the route of the dinosaur: basically no one engages in it anymore. What's left is plenty of violence within states and non-state actors looking to hijack societies from globalization's creeping embrace so they can disconnect those societies from the global grid and have their way with the captive population. Increasingly, the most motivated non-state actors will employ terrorism to scare off advanced states from caring about those societies they seek to hijack from history. That's basically the alñQaeda's game, and if it reminds you of a similar movement of a century earlier (Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks), then you were paying attention in history class.

Like Lenin, Osama bin Laden has proven himself a capable leader of a transnational terrorist movement, and like Lenin, bin Laden seeks to break off a huge chunk of humanity (a billion Mulsims living in predominately Islamic societies) from the Western-dominated global economy so as to be able to lord over them in their collective pursuit of a "good life" divorced from all that Westoxification imposed by globalization's advance. Bin Laden (and all the Bin Ladens to follow) realizes that time is not on his side. In twenty years, the Saudi Arabia he hopes to jerk back to some seventh-century version of paradise simply won't be there for the taking, so he has to move fast. If Lenin realized he had to start his socialist empire by targeting the most pre-capitalist societies, bin Laden seeks to begin his version of Islamofascism by targeting the most pre-globalized societies. That's why al-Qaeda has flourished up to now in some of the most backward, disconnected states such as Sudan and Afghanistan.

The struggle I describe here is basically the dominant conflict model of the 21st century: between those who would lead their states toward embracing globalization and enmeshing their governments within the security rule sets it imposes and those who seek to disconnect relatively backward states in order to impose their particular brand of isolating authoritarianism. What I'm talking about here is basically a Risk for the era of globalization. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda don't just want to drive the U.S. military out of the Middle East, but to drive the Middle East out of the world. That's the global war they are waging when they take down the twin towers on 9/11. And it's the global war America (or at least the Bush Administration) believes it's waging when they take down Saddam Hussein in the Middle East. Al-Qaeda seeks to disconnect the Middle East from the global economy, whereas the United States seeks to reconnect the Middle East to the larger worldóone big game of Risk.

Now if someone could just clue the Pentagon in on what's really going on, because, if left to their own devices, military strategists will continue gaming the Taiwan Straits ad infinitum. Why? It's a wonderful proving ground for various weapons systems they are convinced they need. Do they really need these systems? Depends on whether you think the Chinese diesel submarine threat is the big obstacle between some future, downstream global reality we seek to generate through the strategic employment of our military forces around the world and us.

Myself, I don't stay up nights fretting over Chinese diesel subs, not when China is sucking up foreign direct investment like crazy and putting massive state enterprises up for auction (want to know what the biggest Initial Public Offering in the world was last year? China Life Insurance!). No, I see a China busting its rear end trying to integrate its society with the global economy, and as far as I'm concerned, that push for connectivity is a very good sign. When I look around the world, I see danger and violence overwhelmingly concentrated in the most disconnected states and regions, like Africa and the Middle East. Moreover, that's where the bulk of the terrorist groups are, because it is primarily within those regions where we find the endemic conflicts and authoritarian regimes that breed such desperate people.

But gaming the spillover effects of raging civil wars and far-flung terrorist networks is hard, dang it! And awfully complex to explain to a Congress that just wants to know in whose district the Pentagon plans on building that fabulous new weapons system or expensive platform. Gaming the sort of war al-Qaeda seeks to wage against the United States wouldn't look anything like the tabletop wargames the Pentagon knows only too well how to play. Instead of just gaming war within the context of war, you'd have to game war within the context of everything elseóRisk meets Monopoly meets Life meets . . ..

But that is exactly what we saw on 9/11: war within the context of everything else. The New York Stock Exchange was shut down for a week. Do you think they gamed that one in the Pentagon wargame last January? Or air travel being shut down for an even longer stretch? Or a bulge of hate crimes against Arabs? Or a rush among Americans to buy guns? Or insurance companies refusing terrorism coverage? Or a GM auto plant in Indiana shutting down because it couldn't get a computer chip from Taiwan "just in time?î

All of these downstream effects occurred in response to 9/11, along with our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, along with a host of new anti-terrorism laws being generated around the world, along with an immediate slow down of foreign students visiting the United States, along with . . .. Is the Pentagon gaming any of those aspects of this global war on terrorism? Is anybody? Do we even understand warfare of this nature?

Let me give you an even better example. The U.S. Census Bureau says two-thirds of America's population growth between now and 2050 will come from Latinos immigrating here from Central and South America. Without that flow of bodies, our Potential Support Ratio (PSR) of workers-to-retirees will plummet dangerously. That's the future economic strength of this country in a nutshell. Guess what happens in response to 9/11? We tighten our borders and already we see a diversion of that flow to Europe. You want to know who made that call? Bin Laden did. He's playing a game of Risk we don't understand, because we lack the imagination to do soóbecause we only understand war within the context of war and not within the context of everything else. We're role-playing 20th century warfare across a global security system against opponents who already moved onto the 21st century's version of warfare across a global economic system. We lack even the language to describe this new form of warfare. So we call this new form of attack a "9/11." What will we call the next one? Well, I guess it depends on the date.

Rest assured, the Pentagon will know exactly what to do . . . when China invades Taiwan. As for the next 9/11, military strategists don't have a clue, because they can't wargame that scenario, because those board games simply don't exist.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the commercial board wargame industry cranked out plenty of games designed to scope out the core conflict model of the dayóthe Sovs streaming the Fulda Gap and everything else that would follow. But where is that industry today? Where are the games that will teach a new generation of strategists to think about war within the context of everything else? Or strategic minds that will recognize a 9/11 as something more profound than just three buildings being hit?

Board games are all about tracing cause and effect, thinking several moves ahead, and seeing the entire playing field in one fell swoop. Show me the board that can locate a 9/11 somewhere on a battlespace that includes energy markets, global financial flows and labor migration patterns and I'll show you a game worth playing, because you'll be describing the conflict that few in the world understand and yet all in this world find themselves operating within.

America is currently engaged in a global war that is neither global nor a war in any way we've previously understood or experienced. We need a new lexicon to describe this sort of warfare, and the commercial wargame industry has a vital role to play in this voyage of discovery. The sort of in-depth, context-rich role-playing games that are typically filed under Fantasy need to be reclassified, through revision and expansion, under Complexity, because they offer many of the skill sets strategic planners need to master in the battles ahead.

The Pentagon needs to start understanding this global war in all its non-military complexity, so that we can employ our military assets around the world for maximum impact. The military is reaching for this understanding in its pursuit of effects-based operations, which is just a fancy way of saying that smoking holes areóin and of themselvesónot nearly enough to win the wars ahead. You can see this in Iraq today. Did we wargame the Saddam takedown effectively? The results speak for themselves. Is it clear we didn't have a clue about the occupation? Again, the results speak for themselves.

As a result, the U.S. military has wandered intoówith almost no strategic forethoughtówhat even Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz admits is the "super bowl of terrorism." Show me the commercial board game that effectively prepares tomorrow's military leaders for the Iraq-occupation-after-next and I will show you a product that saves lives.

The intellectual challenge is clear. The only question is how the commercial wargame industry will respond.

Today's catch:

ïìQuestions For a Wartime President,î by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 31 August, p. A21.

ïìA Democratic Foreign Policy,î by Joseph Biden, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 9 September, p. A16.

ïìAbduction of Peace Activists Brings War Home in Italy,î by Ian Fisher, New York Times, 9 September, p. A14.

ïìMassacre Draws Self-Criticism in Muslim Press,î by John Kifner, New York Times, 9 September, p. A8.

ïìSaudis Fight Militancy With Jobs: Private Posts Formerly Held by Foreigners Are Offered to Locals,î by Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 31 August, p. A1.

ïìOil Explorers Searching Ever More Remote Areas,î by Jad Mouawad, New York Times, 9 September, p. C1.

The Kerry Camp gets Sys Admin just fine

ïìQuestions For a Wartime President,î by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 31 August, p. A21.

ïìA Democratic Foreign Policy,î by Joseph Biden, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 9 September, p. A16.

Great op-ed from Ignatius, who, when he is on, is about as good as it gets:

President Bush has a special responsibility this week to explain how the war is going and what strategy he will pursue if he wins a second term. John Kerry owes the country the same clarity.

Bush is not doing that. He does not offer the happy ending nor does he reveal his path for getting there.

Joseph Biden, whom I would take any day over Richard Holbrooke as SECSTATE in a Kerry Administration, does a decent job in today's WSJ:

Democrats would challenge the American people and our allies to refocus our attention, reallocate our resources and reform our institutions to address this challenge [terror]. Together, we have to take seriously the task of economic development, commit to broader and deeper debt relief, buffer countries against economic shocks, give them tools to combat corruption, dramatically expand our investment in global education, reorient the Bretton Woods institutions and the U.N. to stabilize weak states, and lead the world in a massive effort to combat the scourge of disease, especially AIDS.

We also have to take seriously nation-building. This administration came to office disdaining the concept, only to be confronted with the two biggest nation-building challenges since World War II. Thus far, it merits a failing grade in both Afghanistan and Iraq. A Democratic foreign policy would empower experts to plan post-conflict reconstruction ahead of time, not on the fly; it would build a standing roster of international police to handle security after we topple a tyrant; it would create a system to rapidly stand up indigenous security forces. And Democrats would make sure that when it comes to a war of choice, we think twice about initiating the conflict if we're not prepared for the post-conflict.

The Democrats don't get PNM? Don't get the real tasks in a GWOT? Can't embrace the Sys Admin concept like the Bush Administration has?

Please.

Another country hurt from . . .

ïìAbduction of Peace Activists Brings War Home in Italy,î by Ian Fisher, New York Times, 9 September, p. A14.

You want proof that it isn't our "policies" but simply who were are that they hate and oppose?

The greatest shock here was not just the awful fact itself, that two vibrant young Italian women were kidnapped in Iraq, dragged from their office by attackers who, it seems, knew their names. The deeper jolt was that they worked for a relief group that was outspokenly against the war in Iraq and helped child victims of the war.

France has it's two journalists held hostage because of the head-scarf ban, and now Italy joins the ranks of those suffering incomprehensible attacks. Can we blame it all on the "chaos" unleashed by the war? Hmm, taking Western hostages in the Middle East, where have I heard that before . . . ?

This isn't about winning a war of ideas, not for them, and it shouldn't be for us either. Our world is growing smaller as the Core grows larger, and we're simply at the point in history when that growth process is bumping up against the desire of too many in the Middle East to keep the big bad world at bay, securing the region's permanent retardation as societies, economies, states--right down to the level of individuals hell-bent on doing nothing more than generating hell on earth.

And yeah, this world is too small for both visions of the future, so the Gap has to go, along with all those hate-filled types who will fight tooth and nail, waging wars of perversity, to keep the Gap the Gap in the Middle East. We're watching a civilization die, and the wounds are self-inflicted.

Where is Islam going with all this violence?

ïìMassacre Draws Self-Criticism in Muslim Press,î by John Kifner, New York Times, 9 September, p. A8.

The historical question for the Muslim world is, "Where are you going with all this?" Where are you going with the radicalism, the rejectionism, the nihilism, the cult of death, the keeping-out-the-West, the death-to-infidels, the whole nine yards.

Where are you going with this? Where does it take you? What's the happy ending you generate? If not for you, then your kids. Tell me what that world looks like.

If you ask that question to a serious radical, all you will hear about is the past. There is no future in that vocabulary, just past tragedies leading to current grievances that . . . if met . . . would solve nothing.

No Israel? Middle East still sucks at globalization and is falling behind.

No U.S. Military there? Middle East still sucks at globalization and is falling behind.

No Western influences? No oil trade? No occupiers? The Middle East still sucks at globalization and is falling behind.

The real courage to be found right now in the region are the critics willing to say the harsh truths, like Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, a TV executive at a popular Arab station, writing in pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat:

It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims . . .

The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings all over the world, were Muslim. What a pathetic record. What an abominable 'achievement.' Does this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture? . . .

Let us contemplate the incident of this religious sheik allowing, nay, even calling for, the murder of civilians. How can we believe him when he tells us that Islam is the religion of mercy and peace while he is turning it into a religion of blood and slaughter?

There has to be a definition of the Islam in the greater Middle East that isn't about what the outside world has done to the region, but what the region has to offer the outside world--besides oil and terrorists. Until that positive definition of a future worth creating emerges there, it is going to be assimilation by negation, meaning the Core absorbs those willing to leave and join and largely babysits the rest, killing them when they get out of line.

Well the first thing you know ol' Saud's a millionaire . . .

ïìSaudis Fight Militancy With Jobs: Private Posts Formerly Held by Foreigners Are Offered to Locals,î by Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 31 August, p. A1.

The House of Saud sees the writing on the wall and they're using the oil money while they still have it to buy off the potential unrest from hundreds of thousands of young Saudi males, "betting that greater economic opportunities in the kingdom will counter the rising Islamic militancy challenging the royal family."

It's a decent bet and the right thing to do, but it only delays the fall of the House of Saud. I don't say that as a criticism per se. I don't want the House of Saud to drop overnight. I want it to mutate into the House of Windsor slowly and with great transparency, accomplishing the feat in . . . say . . . a generation's time.

Today, just 13 percent of the Saudi workforce--private, that is--is actually Saudi. The rest are foreigners. Amazing no? It used to be that many Saudis entering the workforce could be put on the government's tab, but now that job pool can cover only about 10 percent, leaving 90 percent as potential recruits for bin Laden.

This is the Beverly Hillbillies effect coming to haunt them after three decades of the good life. Saudi Arabia had a small population three decades ago, but all that oil wealth led to an explosion of the population, to the point where today, more than a third of the entire population is under 15 years of age. So they went "overnight" (demographically speaking) from the "old mountaineer barely kept his family fed" to a trust-fund society where enough of the population had a decent enough life to seriously expand their ranks with kids. That gets you a bulging population, that gets you youth without solid connections to prosperous futures, that gets you the danger of unrest, and so now the old model of using guest workers is rapidly being altered to accomodate all those young males needing jobs.

But guess what? All those males entering the private sector and making lives within it are going to start demanding more pluralism from their government over time. If not on the dole, then they'll be more demanding, especially in terms of protecting their accumulated wealth.

You know where this is going. It's called a middle class that demands democracy, women's rights, etc.

Does this turn of events buy off potential radicals in the meantime? Yes. But it sets in motion a far more powerful economic trend that can't be suppressed by a secret police, and it's called rising expectations coupled with a sense of entitled ownership growing ever more free from state control.

Oil, oil everywhere, but not a well to sink

ïìOil Explorers Searching Ever More Remote Areas,î by Jad Mouawad, New York Times, 9 September, p. C1.

One of the responses I get a lot to the brief is that shrinking the Gap is unrealistic because we'd need . . . like . . . five earths to support all that development! One of the alarms typically sounded in this approach is: we're running out of oil.

The main evidence for this is that big oil discoveries are becoming more rare, as oil companies, bitten dramatically by the under-$10-a-barrel prices that came out of the Asian Flu of 1997-98, have gotten a lot more stingy in terms of both exploration and development since then--meaning they look for certain payoffs and simply don't accept risk like they did. Does having oil at $40-a-barrel or higher lately increase that risk taking? Not as much as you'd think, at least so far.

Why not? Oil companies more and more think of themselvs as energy companies, so it's all about making money off energy, not just about oil. Oil is only really about transportation in the global economy (plus petrochemicals and industrial feedstocks), whereas the gas and coal and renewables are all about electricity, which continues to grow all over world and not just in emerging markets going car-happy like China is right now (we got stuck in plenty of traffic jams when we were there in August). Transportation is moving toward hydrogen, with hybrids as the half-step, and that sense of historical momentum doesn't exactly make energy companies want to go out on major long-term investment "limbs" for oil like they used to, and that reticence will only grow, I think.

You can say that much of these restrictions on drilling and exploration are self-imposed (environmental concerns, countries isolated by economic sanctions), and you'd be right. If we didn't have such restrictions, we'd be finding and exploiting oil all over the dial, but those considerations aren't easily swept aside, so the underinvestment pattern continues, soon--I would argue--to be overwhelmed historically by a sense of clear momentum to hydrogen, which will come from natural gas, which is all over the world and not just in "Muslim countries."

So our collective decision making (environmental, political, economic, social) are all working against oil production, and over time, as emerging markets like China bump up against some real capacity limits, you'll see that pain and desire translated, perhaps far faster than anyone realizes today, into heightened momentum toward hydrogen-fueled cars.

So it won't be the end of the world, nor the end of cars, nor the end of anything really. But it will be the start of some amazing new global rule sets.

The places this book takes me

Dateline: SWA flight 227 from BWI to Providence, 8 September 2004

Spent the day on the run. Up at 0530 to catch an 0800 plane to BWI. Rental to DC, then gave lunch time speech at DC think tank. Then a long and winding road to suitably non-descript location in Northern Virginia to spend an afternoon discussing the possibility that PNM is the real deal (the grand strategy that prevails) with someone who might act on it in a big way in coming months and years as the national security establishment revamps itself in light of the 9/11 intelligence failures. Itís a quiet conversation that strains my brain cells to the limit. This guy is a serious thinker with serious problems requiring serious solutions. Am I interested in helping? There are some offers you cannot refuse on a day when the U.S. announces the 1000th casualty in Iraq.

Hereís todayís catch:

ï"U.S. Conceding Rebels Control Regions of Iraq: U.S. Deaths Pass 1,000; Pentagon Is Not Certain When Central Areas Can Be Secured,î by Eric Schmitt and Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 8 September, p. A1.

ïìPutin Angered By Critics On Siege: West Fails to Grasp Situation, He Says,î by Susan B. Glasser, Washington Post, 8 September, p. A1.

ïìChina Ex-President May Be Set to Yield Last Powerful Post,î by Joseph Kahn, NYT, 7 September, p. A1.

ïìTurkish Surprise: As Nation Struggles to Join EU, Maker Of TVs Shows Way: Kocís Manufacturing Success Highlights Both Progress, Hurdles to Membership Bid; Europeís Most Efficient Fridge,î by Hugh Pope, Wall Street Journal, 7 September, p. A1.

The September slump

ïìU.S. Conceding Rebels Control Regions of Iraq: U.S. Deaths Pass 1,000; Pentagon Is Not Certain When Central Areas Can Be Secured,î by Eric Schmitt and Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 8 September, p. A1.

Thereís the old argument about talking your recession as early as possible in your first administration so you can get it out of the way in time for your re-election campaign. That was supposedly the great lesson of Reagan I.

This administration has taken a surprising but understandable tack on Iraq: the White House prefers to admit a September slump, forego any October surprise, and apparently put off the bad news until January, hoping that when that bad news invariably comes, the main price will be paid by Iraqis fighting insurgents, not U.S. troops.

That the Pentagon chooses to admit that coalition forces do not control a major chunk of Iraq on the same day that it announces it has surpassed the 1,000-death mark in this operation should put the war back on the front burner in this election, but in a strange twist it may actually bury it further in the publicís consciousness. By giving Allawi several months to try and negotiate settlements with insurgent factions, the U.S. military hopes to train up the Iraqi forces sufficiently to constitute the bulk of the warfighting force that ultimately retakes the Sunni triangle come January, in what will surely be some fierce fighting if political settlements cannot not reached.

Can Iraq recede from this election in the meantime?

As long as the Swift Boat Veteransí book targeting Kerry can remain number 1 on Amazon, donít underestimate how ugly this campaign may still get.

Putin starts asking ìWhoís with us or aginí us?

ïìPutin Angered By Critics On Siege: West Fails to Grasp Situation, He Says,î by Susan B. Glasser, Washington Post, 8 September, p. A1.

Putin to a bunch of Western academics and journalists Monday night:

Why donít you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House, engage in talks, ask him what he wants so he leaves you in peace? You find it possible to set some limits in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child killers?

That was Putinís response to calls from Western critics that he seek to negotiate with Chechen separatists.

Nice comeback.

3rd Generation exiting stage right in China?

ïìChina Ex-President May Be Set to Yield Last Powerful Post,î by Joseph Kahn, NYT, 7 September, p. A1.

Strong rumors that Jiang Zemin may actually step down as Chinaís military leader, giving 4th Generation president Hu Jintao far greater leeway to forge future diplomatic compromises on Hong Kong and Taiwan. Hu is considered ìmore open to change at home and possibly less truculent in managing local hot spots like Hong Kong and Taiwan,î and with Jiang truly sidelined, any moves in that direction would be less likely to expose Hu to charges of being soft regarding Chinaís core security interests.

This would be very good news for the world.

Itís not a Lexus, but pretty good fridge from Turkey

ïìTurkish Surprise: As Nation Struggles to Join EU, Maker Of TVs Shows Way: Kocís Manufacturing Success Highlights Both Progress, Hurdles to Membership Bid; Europeís Most Efficient Fridge,î by Hugh Pope, Wall Street Journal, 7 September, p. A1.

Fascinating article on how Turkey proves itself economically in its longstanding bid to join the EU. Turkey remains the Seam State most likely to join the Core in the near-term. It has put in its security dues for decades, has cleaned up its internal act to the point where the generals arenít the political threats they once were, and itís the most modern and secular Muslim country in the world, by many expertsí estimation.

If not Turkey, then who from the Muslim world can really join the Core, and if not now, as we seek to transform the Middle East, then when?

Tom Not-So-Mighty

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 7 September 2004

I'm just plain sore now. Several hundred emails more today, and since I need about 25 laudatory ones to balance each and every piece of hate mail (nothing too threatening yet--just the vague "I hope bad things happen to you and yours"), I remain compulsive about answering each.

Experiences like this always remind me that fame is to be desired more than actually achieved--fun for a while, but not a life's pursuit. Still, it's so encouraging to receive so many emails from people who say they've never written an author before, never watched C-SPAN before, never listened to anything of that sort before, etc. You love those sorts of response so much, because that's the real teaching aspect--turning people on who haven't been turned on before to a particular subject. Makes me respect all my teachers from over the years all the more, when I think about it.

Still, I am really starting to ache. Typing hour after hour is just plain difficult. After a while it feels like an orgy--nice, yes, but how long can you do it? Perhaps I should have experienced this when I was younger, but I'm almost certain I would have become insufferable, whereas I feel like I remain sufferable (annoying, yes, but sufferable).

No attempt at blogging news stories. Between email marathon sessions, I gave brief to entire Naval War College class today in big hall at Newport, and that is a burnout experience all its own. Big laughs today though, and that energy alone propels you even as your brain decomposes in real time.

Thanks again to the hundreds who sent emails. I have saved many. Why? I have no idea except my hotmail account is huge now that I gave Bill Gates his $20 finally, so why the hell not. A private treasure trove to wallow in on rainy days.

I also keep the hate mail though--primarily to aid the investigators (yes, I am talking about you in particular!).

Repeat NPR radio appearance today at noon

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 7 September 2004

The show is "Here & Now" out of WBUR in Boston. I did a 20-minute interview with host Gail Harris (apparently a guest host) back in early May. It ran originally on 13 May 2004 and you can hear the original audio at their site.

It's going to be rerun, I am told, during the noon hour show today, or at around 12:20 to 12:30. Slight chance they may not use it if something better comes up, but this was the latest heads up I got from the producer of the show, who was nice enought to track me down and let me know. So, if you're listening, you may hear it. If you want to hear it anyway, click on their archives above.

Tom Almighty

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 6 September 2004

Remember the scene in "Bruce Almighty" where he's answering everyone's prayers via email and he can't possibly keep up with the flow, so he just starts saying "YES!" to everyone?

That's the closest description I can come up with for my life in the past 24 hours. I've answered emails for about 12 hours out of the past 24, averaging a response every 30-40 seconds. Yes, that means I skim the content very quickly, look for a hook or question to respond to, hit REPLY, type in the one or two sentences that personalize it, then I paste the standard bit about "thanks," "enjoy the book and site" and my name. I tried to type some new each time for the first couple of hours, but my hands started shaking after a while and the numbers in my email box grew faster than I could answer and delete them. So I had to start cheating somewhat by prepackaging much of the response.

Getting emails on broadcast is very different than getting them on Esquire articles. There I got a lot of hate mail (about 50% I would say), but here it's maybe one of every 40 emails, so much nicer.

Do I wish I could spend the time to respond to all like I usually do? Yes, but I know people value the speed of response more than the content when they feel so motivated as to send something off immediately upon seeing you on TV, so I try to meet that expectation, sacrificing the content somewhat.

Plus, frankly, I just can't stand having unread email in my accounts. Bugs the hell out of me. Plus, I just can't stand not replying immediately if someone goes to the effort to send something to me. Many write that this is the first time they've ever sent an email like this, so you want to be as responsive as possible.

Still, it all becomes a blur with that sort of volume. Not that I'm complaining, but the time I've spent on this gets stressful with the family, who wonder why I feel the need to stay chained to the PC all day on a beautiful Labor Day weekend Sunday.

I've saved a bunch of the nicest ones, and would love to post them, but that's probably too self-congratulatory (something I got an email about!).

Anyway, besides all the responses I sent out, I want to thank everyone again generally for the flood of emails. Very thrilling to receive and read, despite the crush. Things like that are fairly rare in life, so you try to enjoy the fact that you've managed to touch people enough to move them to such efforts.

To my surprise, PNM is still #3 on Amazon this morning. My wife said, "Maybe they don't update the list on holidays." Hmm. Here's hoping she's wrong.

Dropped back down to 8 on B&N, but hard to complain about being in the single digits again on Amazon and for the first time on B&N.

In fact, I'm hoping people are buying the book mostly online this time, for I fear the numbers won't be on the shelves in many bookstores at this "late" date. Remember, the book came out in April and the competition is crushing this year on political books.

Anyway, no news stories to blog today. Burned up all my PC time on the emails. Kids are getting restless.

And then PNM hit #4 on B&N

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 5 September 2004

And it was a very good day . . ..

[Still at #3 at Amazon]

Stop the emails! Here's the DVD address at CSPAN!

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 5 September 2004

Too many emails!

If you want to buy DVD of Book Notes appearance from Memorial Day weekend broadcast ($19.95), go here:

Book Notes appearance by Tom Barnett

Here's the details:

Program ID: 182064-1

Format: Booknotes

Event Date: 4-27-2004

Location: Washington, District of Columbia, (United States)

Last Airing Date: 5-31-2004

Length: 59 minutes

Sponsor(s):

C-SPAN

Appearances by:

Barnett, Thomas P. Professor - U.S. Naval War College

Summary:

Professor Barnett talked about his book, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, published by Putnam Publishing Group. He described the changing natures of war, security, and foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. He explained a theory of the effects of globalization that combines security, economic, political, and cultural factors to forecast future military needs. He also uses autobiographical elements to explain the behind the scenes workings of the Pentagon and described the PowerPoint presentation that he presents.

If you want to buy DVD of brief ($24.95) shown on CSPAN over Labor Day weekend, go here:

American Perspectives taping of Tom Barnett's brief

Here's the details on that one:

Program ID: 182105-1

Format: Speech

Event Date: 6-2-2004

Location: Washington, District of Columbia, (United States)

Last Airing Date: 9-4-2004

Length: 2 hours, 41 minutes

Sponsor(s):

Fort McNair

National Defense University

Appearances by:

Barnett, Thomas P. Professor - U.S. Naval War College

Summary:

In a three-hour Power Point presentation Professor Barnett takes a global perspective that integrates political, economic and military elements in a model for the post-September 11 world. He argues that terrorism and globalization have combined to end the great-power model of war that has developed over 400 years, since the Thirty Years War. Instead, he divides the world into an increasingly expanding "Functioning Core" of economically developed, politically stable states integrated into global systems and a "Non-Integrating Gap," the most likely source of threats to U.S. and international security. Professor Barnett uses this map to call for a new system for deployment of the U.S. armed forces. Professor Barnett is the author of The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, published by Putnam Publishing Group. In the book he described the changing natures of war, security, and foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. He explained a theory of the effects of globalization that combines security, economic, political, and cultural factors to forecast future military needs. He also uses autobiographical elements to explain the behind the scenes workings of the Pentagon and how his PowerPoint presentation has been used.

Somebody take a picture before it disappears forever!

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 5 September 2004

Okay, at least one totally self-congratulary post (if you discount the previous two). I mean, who knows when I'll ever be able to do this again.

Here's the top ten on Amazon right now:

1) Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry

by John E. O'Neill, Jerome R. Corsi

2) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel

by Susanna Clarke

3) The Pentagon's New Map

by Thomas P. M. Barnett

4) Trace (Kay Scarpetta Mysteries)

by Patricia Cornwell

5) The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks

6) American Soldier

by Tommy Franks, Malcolm McConnell

7) The Da Vinci Code

by Dan Brown (Author)

8) Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order

by Mark Crispin Miller

9) The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, Book 7)

by Stephen King

10) Angels & Demons

by Dan Brown

Here's the top ten from B&N:

1) Unfit for Command

Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry

John E. O'Neill / Hardcover

2) Trace (A Kay Scarpetta Novel)

Patricia Cornwell / Hardcover

3) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Susanna Clarke / Hardcover

4) The Dark Tower VII

The Dark Tower

Stephen King / Hardcover

5) American Soldier

Tommy R. Franks / Hardcover

6) The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown / Hardcover

7) The 9/11 Commission Report

The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (Authorized Edition)

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks / Paperback

8) The Pentagon's New Map

War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century

Thomas Barnett / Hardcover

9) The South Beach Diet

The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss

Arthur Agatston / Hardcover

10) Eats, Shoots & Leaves

The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Lynne Truss / Hardcover

Gotta be happy to be doing battle with the Davinci Code and Stephen King at the same time! No matter how brief it is, the taste of single-digits is pretty heady stuff.

My review of CSPAN broadcast

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 5 September 2004

I'll keep this brief.

As for CSPAN's production values: hard to complain. Felt the main head-on camera struggled at first with how to cover my movement while keeping track of the graphics. But he got better with time. As brief wore on, the second, close-in camera to the left of the stage started doing close-ups of the screen in addition to all those crowd reaction shots. The angle on those was a bit awkward, but it was easier to read the screen that way than when the head-on camera tried to shoot it through all the overhead lighting.

As for the crowd shots: the angle at which the side camera caught people was too far "above" their eye-lines, so when audience members were looking down at their notebooks as they wrote down things, it looked at though they were sleeping. Got more than a few emails decrying this, but it was strictly an optical illusion. I know, because I was there, and I notice anyone sleeping like they're holding up a big sign saying "BORING." Trust me, no one slept at that event, despite the appearances in some crowd reaction shots.

As for the sound: sometimes my sound effects came in too heavy, but can't complain about my mike too much, although sometimes I moved my arms too much and got some muffling. I was glad that, at about the midway point in the brief, they caught one of the section slides coming up along with the Law and Order ch-ching sound. Because until that was seen on camera, I couldn't see how the audience at home could understand the meaning of the sound effect (which is meant to signal the start of a new section in the brief).

As for me: I was very still for the first 20 minutes or so, then I started my usual back and forth pacing, which I think the camera-man (head-on one) handled well. Whenever I went upstage to the screen I would pass in and out of lights, which was a little disconcerting, but how was I to know? I liked how I kept my delivery fairly deadpan throughout. Not sure why I did, but sometimes that's just the way I feel. Room laughed at all the usual jokes, but CSPAN sound didn't pick it up unless it was a big laugh (just no mikes pointed that way).

You can tell how bad my allergies were that day by how low my voice was. Amazing to note: I don't take a drink at any time in the show, except the off-camera break between first and second halves and then just before Q&A. Doesn't seem like much to average person, but remember I was talking non-stop without any lozenges (stopped using those after I heard myself once) and my throat was in pretty bad shape. Still, I like the lower sound of my voice anyway, so I'll take it.

As for my appearance. I made sure to get my haircut right beforehand, so that looked good. And amazingly, despite all the awkward overhead lighting (which is NOT flattering), my emerging bald spot wasn't its usual shiny self (thank God for small favors). Thank God my wife also talked me into buying a whole new wardrobe of suits before the book came out. I was really happy with how I looked in the navy blue 3-button. Shirt with cuff links looked good, as did the well-tied tie (never easy for me). So looks-wise, I was very pleased. The suit made a nice V out of my, so it wasn't like every time I turned around you just wanted to gasp, "my God what a big ass" or anything. I also like how erect I stayed (not easy for that length of time, which is why I must move around), and how my hand gestures were measured and not distracting.

Overall, I liked the show a lot. When you watch yourself on something like that, you fear so many things, almost none of which occur here. I did flub about a dozen lines (meaning a mispoke a word or just a syllable), but that's par for the course when you're talking non-stop for 2 hours and 40 minutes. It is amazing to realize I go that long without any script. I have never written the material down anywhere, and yet it does not vary from speech to speech by more than about 5 percent, I estimate. It is a true oral performance from the stage--a one-man show that's never exactly the same and yet always pretty much the same.

I was happiest with the Q&A, because I got good questions that let me drive home points I really wanted to make before I got off the stage, like the one about the role of women in Islamic countries (the question from the Pakistani officer--got a lot of emails about that). Best, though, was that I didn't lose my cool with any, nor did I cut people off (except the Pakistani officer one time early in his question, but then I realized what I had done and dialed down my excitement level to make sure I let every person ask the question in full--not easy, when you're that pumped up after going that long!).

Overall, then, I was extremely happy with the outcome. I know Putnam loved every second they ran that byline under the screen (Thomas P.M. Barnett, Author: The Pentagon's New Map), because being able to match the content with the book is paramount in an opportunity such as this. Was it my best performance? No, but a very good one. Could any production do a better job on capturing both me and the graphics? Sure, but CSPAN did pretty well, and used the two cameras to the best of their ability, getting better as they went along. So no complaints. Again, when you think of all the things that can go wrong but did not, you are ecstatic with the outcome.

And then there's the Amazon bounce, which sees me at #3 still as of 1600 on Sunday. And then there's the ability of anyone now to order the DVD for themselves, which steals a little of my thunder, but is good in the long term.

So I walk away from this feeling awfully good, not to mention relieved.

And yeah, my wife Vonne did give me some grief about the references to her, but nothing I can't handle after 18 years of marriage!