Roland, what took you so long?

My man Roland Dobbins is getting slow with age.

This time, it took him almost three hours to solve my problem: http://store.treocentral.com/content/accessories/14-42.htm.

I just ordered it now online.

Next problem to solve: where to take my family next spring to celebrate my (excuse me, our) 20th anniversary. I'm talking (then) 14, 10, 6 and 2 spread, and WDW is out of the question (did that recently). Want something fun and cool and outdoorsy if possible (even watery), but need to cover that age spread.

This query, methinks, will take Roland (and others) longer.

But I thank him for his diligence.

This is why I rarely need to visit Google. I blog, and the answers come to me!

The return of "Rummy resign!"

An op-ed in the Washington Times, typically fairly conservative, from Jack Kelly.

Washington Times
September 28, 2005
Pg. 16

A Strategic Exit?

By Jack Kelly

It saddens me to write these words, because I respect and admire him so. But it's time for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to move on. On balance, he has been a terrific secretary of defense.

Mr. Rumsfeld's efforts to reform a baroque, wasteful, and frequently corrupt Pentagon procurement process have been heroic . . .

Mr. Rumsfeld shook the military out of Cold War thinking and an obsolescent Cold War basing structure. He has been the driving force behind a long overdue and badly needed transformation . . .

But the balance is shifting. Mr. Rumsfeld has always had flaws (as do we all), and his flaws have caught up with his many virtues.

My concerns about Mr. Rumsfeld are both stylistic and substantive. Mr. Rumsfeld's management of the department of defense has been highlighted by two techniques * "wire brushing" and "snowflakes" * that have long since passed the point of diminishing returns.

"Giving someone the wire brush means chewing them out, typically in a way that's demeaning to their stature," explained Thomas Barnett in a favorable profile of Mr. Rumsfeld in Esquire in August. "It's pinning their ears back, throwing out question after question you know they can't answer correctly and then attacking every single syllable they toss up from their defensive crouch. It's verbal bullying at its best."

"Wire brushing" was at first arguably necessary to shake generals and admirals out of parochial service concerns and Cold War modes of thinking, but it is inherently disrespectful of general officers, the most competent and dedicated public servants we have.

Another characteristic of the Rumsfeld management style are memoranda asking pointed questions to which subordinates are supposed to drop everything in order to respond. There are so many of these that people in the Pentagon refer to them as "snowflakes" . . .

Mr. Rumsfeld is almost always the smartest man in any room he enters. The problem is, he is too well aware of this . . .

Mr. Rumsfeld was a terrific CEO in the private sector, but this, too, is sometimes a problem in the Pentagon . . .

In business, efficiency and effectiveness overlap so much they are virtually synonyms. This isn't true in the military, where efficiency is often the enemy of effectiveness. It's efficient to use just enough force to accomplish what you need to do. But that's not what's effective in war . . .

Substantively, I don't think Rummy "gets" ground warfare. He was hugely wrong (and "wire brushing" victim Gen. Eric Shinseki completely right) about the number of troops required to pacify Iraq. Still, he persists in trying to fight the war with too few troops. In a war that's being fought almost entirely by the Army and Marine Corps, this is a big failing. Army officers think Mr. Rumsfeld has it in for them. I don't think that is true. But such a widespread perception becomes a reality . . .

Mr. Rumsfeld has, on balance, been a great secretary of defense. But the longer he remains in office, the less likely it is that he'll be remembered that way.

Would the Pentagon--and the SysAdmin force--do better with somebody beyond Rumsfeld? Very possibly. But given the overall bias of the military and the Bush Administration in general, the far greater likelihood is that we'd get a reactionary type who would pull the military back from such operations, promising only the warfighting focus.

Rumsfeld does have his faults, but he's less likely to do harm in his final months than somebody else brought in to play caretaker til the end of this administration. The backsliding from the Big War crowd would predominate in his absence, making it all the harder for the Rumsfeld-after-next to go seriously long in creating the SysAdmin function.

My Denver "Executive Forum" talk summarized and graded

Find an interesting summary here: http://www.executiveforum.net/pdfs/2005/Barnett_Summary.pdf.

Then check out the instant grading from the audience. Depending on your curve, I think I got an "A."

Hedging China the wrong way

Reference sent to me by reader: http://www.mac.com//redirect/http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GJ01Ad01.html.

Here's my problem with the piece: the Pentagon thinking it will stop China from becoming a regional military power. Not possible. Pissing in the wind, really. And if we choose to interpret our failure on this as "evidence" of Chinese "aggression," we'll be making a huge mistake.

Tone of this piece is to contain China with series of FTAs that they are inevitably forced to join. I think we're dreaming on this one, and being foolish to assume China can't become center of very stable and worthwhile Asian free-trade association that does not include the U.S.

This article highlights the big failing of the Bush Administration's vision: it assumes the "indispensable nation" notion lasts forever. It does exist now in the military realm, less so in the political one, even less more in the technological realm, and far less so in the economic realm.

China will build its networks where we're weakest: economic, then technological (e.g., their constant pushing for standards unique to China or Asia), then political (relationships, like those with Russia, India, Brazil, will follow the economic relationships), and then militarily (by achieving these networks, they essentially hedge against us asymmetrically).

The Bush people, so trapped in Cold War mindsets, can't escape their value imprinting from youth: we think we'll contain China militarily but China will asymmetrically work to contain us militarily over time, shutting us out of economic integration in Asia in the process.

I have praised the Bush team in the past, and will continue to do so on many levels, but my gut instinct on the 2004 election was correct: Bush had his time to change the rule sets, and did a great job. He was not the guy--nor the team--for the follow-through . . . on Iraq, on China--you name it. This crew has gone as far as it can. Everything that needs to be done now is--sad to say--largely beyond their imagination (although I still place great faith in Bob Zoellick, Dep Secy of State; and I believe Rumsfeld's reforms inside the Pentagon lay a lot of good groundwork for changes to come).

I fear American foreign policy will be largely useless between now and January 2009. Again, the discounting is coming with a vengeance. Everyone is making their plans for what comes next. Thus, the irrelevancy of U.S. foreign policy will grow immeasurably in coming months.

Meanwhile, the (good) Negroponte tries to shrink the Gap with cheap laptops ...

Interesting article sent to me by reader: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4292854.stm.

As much as I admire this sort of stuff, I am chastened by son Kevin's response to my new Treo yesterday (he being all of ten): He immediately asked me if he could have my Mac laptop. Why? He said, "If you can do all that on your cellphone Dad, you don't need your laptop anymore, right?"

My guess is that what ultimately connects most of those Gap kids will be something inbetween the two, but closer in portability to the super cellphone. Here's why: the big hang-up for heavy use of the Treo is the lack of the keyboard. But I had a foldable keyboard for my Palm (whose connection naturally doesn't fit my new Treo, just like all power cords must be different so the companies can keep selling you new ones!), but I would expect to a Targus portable keyboard for my Treo.

In fact, I may check that out now at their site. [Just did and found the keyboard that seemed right, but Treo's are not listed as compatible PDA/cells; I imagine that will change shortly.]

Once you have that, then you really are getting close to not needing the laptop (with the addition of a bit of software, of course, although I've done my sharing of serious composing in the "Memos" function on my Palm).

My first Treo blog

Obviously, much depends on thumb speed!

But brevity has its virtues.

New blogging possibilities...

Got a new Treo 650 phone with Verizon. Steve DeAngelis of Enterra convinced me to get one, because you're basically never out of touch on anything with one, and that's cool for a remote employee like me.

It's basically a Blackberry merged with a Palm Pilot merged with a cell phone that has all the usual camera/video fun--plus you can surf the web (not just in some data sense, I'm talking the full graphics, Real Audio etc.). Hell, I think I could listen to Packer games over the radio/internet/cellphone on this thing (which is cool, because it means I could basically listen to the Pack anywhere).

Also got that Star Trek like earpiece (Bluetooth) to go with it, and extra power cords for everything for my road gear (otherwise you're always forgetting!). Now I can check BFA's Amazon rank wherever I am, which is proving a bit addicting. Complex phone, and yet since I've owned Blackberries, high-end phones, and Palms in the past, it's not too bad. Just some stuff to set up on the Internet for passing along the emails.

Most interesting possibility: I can access Movable Type via the web surfing function (unlimited for about $40 a month), which means I can now blog from pretty much anywhere, anytime.

I foresee many frightening possibilities . . .

I will endeavor not to break too many rules.

Transcript of my Esquire interview with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

Since the New York Times (Thom Shanker and, I think, David Sanger) did the same thing with their own front-page profile on Rumsfeld (i.e., post the full transcript of the interview on the web), I asked for, and got permission from Esquire to do the same.

It was a fasinating interview, as far as I was concerned, with a towering historical figure. Here's the transcript in full. I will offer commentary throughout in bold text and a short wrap-up at the end.

It's long, so it segues into an extended post entry:

21 April 2005, 1420
Secretary of Defense's office
Room 3E880
Pentagon

[Some background: This interview occurred Thursday afternoon. I had been waiting for about two weeks to get in, finally flying down Monday afternoon even though I didn't have any firm timeframe for the interview, just Larry DiRita's [chief of staff and head press person] continuing promise that "we'll get this done in time." Mark Warren [executive editor of Esquire] kept telling me it had to happen by the end of this week-or else. So I flew down Monday, camped in a hotel in DC, made clear to DiRita that I was just minutes away and ready to roll, and emphasized that it needed to happen this week.

Well, Tuesday comes and it looks good, but then I get the call from DiRita's people and I'm told not today but come in and interview DiRita himself, which I do, for close to an hour and it's a great interview. He tells me we're set with Rumsfeld for Wednesday early afternoon.

Next morning comes and I get a call: can't be today (Wednesday) because schedule intervenes.

Then I get an email from the public affairs people assuring me I'll have all the transcripts from previous interviews in my hands momentarily. I had been bugging these people for weeks on this. Why were they all of a sudden appearing? Word I got was that the Secretary wanted to review all the interviews himself today so as to be ready tomorrow. Thus the promise was, I'd get to interview him on Thursday. He just wanted more time to prepare.

Fine and dandy.

I show up Thursday ready to roll. The young officer who escorts me in says he loved the book and is a big fan. I met another senior aide in Rumsfeld's outer-office lobby who says he's disappointed he didn't know I was going to be there today, because he would have brought his copy for me to sign.

This is the dynamic I've run into consistently in these interviews: underlings know the material, seniors know of the ideas but haven't had the time to read anything, thus reinforcing my old notion that if you want to get ideas in front of people, it's the PowerPoint that prevails. How did Rumsfeld get my stuff? Through Art Cebrowski's briefs during his stint as director, Office of Force Transformation.

So I had no illusions about Rumsfeld being familiar with my writings or me per se, just the ideas.

I'm standing outside in the lobby when all of a sudden Rumsfeld appears and strides out the door, a young officer jumping up from his desk and trailing him instantly as they head down the hall. It's now 2:05 pm and my interview was supposed to run from 2:00 to 2:20, so that worried me some. DiRita comes over and says Rumsfeld needs to do a grip-and-grin with a visiting delegation (Czech) and he'll be right back.

I chat a bit with DiRita and his deputy. Five minutes pass. Then they duck into Rumsfeld's inner sanctum of offices. Then a secretary comes out and beckons me in. Rumsfeld is in office, apparently re-entering through another door.

As I say in the piece, it's a huge space.

The interview begins . . .]

Dirita: Mr. Secretary, Tom Barnett

Rumsfeld: Hey! How are you?

Barnett: Good to meet you, sir.

Rumsfeld: Nice to see you. [to DiRita] Do we want to sit here?

Dirita: Well, why don't we go to the big table.

Rumsfeld: Okay, well.

Rumsfeld: Rumsfeld [to DiRita, teasing]: You don't believe I sang a Czech song to the Czech [delegation], do ya?

Dirita: Did you actually sing?

Rumsfeld [mock serious]: No, I was dignified. Behaved myself. Acted diplomatic. [smiling to Barnett] Fire away. We're changing the calendar so I can stay here til about--

Dirita: We're good for about 20 minutes, Tom

Rumsfeld: Yeah, okay.

Barnett: Okay, let me just jump right in--

Rumsfeld: First of allÖ what do you write for? What do you do?

[Naturally, I was taken somewhat aback by this. Then I remembered: this is Rumsfeld's drill of "getting to the bottom" of things before proceeding. He knew the answers to these questions. He was just interested in how I'd present them. So I went along with the implied reverse interview to start the process.]

Barnett: My name is Tom Barnett.

Rumsfeld [with implied "duh!"]: I know that!

Barnett: And I write for Esquire now, among many things I do since I left DoD.

Rumsfeld: What did you do here?

Barnett: I worked for Art Cebrowski--

Rumsfeld [slowly, as if remembering]: --That's right.

Barnett: --in the Office of Force Transformation for two years after 9-11. Enjoyed it a lot.

Rumsfeld: Yeah, I bet you would. Interesting. That's great. And do you like what you're doing now?

Barnett: Well, I'm writing a sequel to a book that I wrote when I was in DoD that did well. It was a New York Times best-seller, so I'm pursuing that, giving speeches, doing all sorts of stuff.

Rumsfeld: What was the book?

Barnett: The Pentagon's New Map. Based on a lot of the stuff I'd done

for Art. A lot of thinking.

Rumsfeld: I'll be darned. Well good. And you wrote it while you were working here?

Barnett: Well, I wrote it on my off-time. Actually, after the War College made me quit. Art bought my salary for two years. The Naval War CollegeÖ

Rumsfeld: Is that why you left?

Barnett: No, they eventually got pushy on me with the idea of the second book.

Rumsfeld: They didn't want you writing a second book?

Barnett: Yeah, because the first book sold about 60,000 copies, or last I checked, and that's the problem. You start writing for Esquire and stuff like that--they put the Esquire magazines on the thing right next to Parameters and Naval Institute Proceedings and there'd be Scarlett Johansson lookin' pretty damn niceÖ just didn't go well.

Rumsfeld: [laughs] I love it!

Barnett: A little too transformative. So this thing's going to be the "Ten Men Issue" which they're reviving from 2001. They've done sort of this issue for the last few years. They're going to call it "Ten Men" again.

Rumsfeld: What's it mean?

Barnett: It just means they're looking at ten guys that they think are important and they want to profile.

Rumsfeld: Males?

Barnett: Males. It's a guy-oriented magazine. That's why Scarlett Johansson is on the cover.

DiRita:[Rumsfeld's aide]: Couldn't put Schwarzenegger on the coverÖ

Rumsfeld: In the old days it was Vargas and Petty, isn't that right?

[At this point, I had no idea where the hell this was going, and I wasn't quite sure how to get the interview back on track, but I figured he'd cut it out eventually, even as it was entertaining.]

Barnett: Right. Yeah, I think they did have Vargas.

Rumsfeld: SketchÖ the sketchesÖ. Vargas girls and Petty girls, I think.

Barnett: Ö On the hood of a car.

Rumsfeld [searching his memory]: Yeah, maybe.

Barnett: Yeah.

Rumsfeld [collecting himself]: Well, fire away!

Barnett: Okay--

Rumsfeld [suddenly leans forward]: --Who are the other nine?

Barnett: I have no idea. They don't tell me.

Rumsfeld [leans back in his chair slow]: I see. [laughs]

[At this point, I figure it's now or never. Rumsfeld's done his mild wire-brushing of me, gotten his answers, feels comfortable, so it's finally a go.]

Barnett: Looking to write something sort of like an eight-year history of transformation, treating '05 as sort of a tipping point. So, interested in getting your sense as to how this thing has kind of unfolded and what you think is left to be done, in your mind. And your sense of how well it's going now. First question: The fact that you were SecDef before Ö Did that inform the way you thought about transformation coming in? Did they give you an early definition? I know you didn't call it transformation when you were first coming in so much and you weren't identified particularly with that crowd, but you had ideas about transformation?

Rumsfeld: Oh sure. Well, it was so clear that the Cold War was over, that we were in a new era. And technologies had advanced by leaps and bounds, and that the institution was still kind of industrial-age instead of information-age. We worked on it from off of the President's Citadel speech. And as you--I don't know if you were here during that periodÖ

Barnett: Yeah, I was up at the war college.

Rumsfeld: Yeah, but we worked hard on it and began developing the directions and then announced it all about September 10th. We had a major speech on transformation before September 11th. Clearly September 11th provided the impetus, the urgency, and Ö

Barnett: A little more maneuverabilityÖ

Rumsfeld: Well, yeah. I mean, people said, ìYou can't fight a war on terror and transform this place at the same time,î but obviously you probably couldn't have transformed it absent Ö I don't know if I believe that, but it sure helped a lot of people understand the need to change. I wrote down some processes that we've been changing.

[pulls out a piece of paper from a folder laying on the table]

[I got worried at this point. I wasn't interested in The List of talking points. Had them all already from other interviews. But I could tell he was determined to read me through the list, so my goal immediately became one of getting him through that list as quickly as possible while mining the precious time for whatever I could still get in, in terms of questions. I was also determined not to go silent for any stretch of time. I know guys at this level expect never to be interrupted, but I was comfortable doing that, and I didn't want the interview to become just his mini-speech. Still, I knew that fighting the list wasn't a good tactic. I just wanted to get him through it ASAP and establish enough connection on the material so that when the time allotted came to a close, I'd be allowered to run over, which is what happened.]

People, as you've probably observed, think of transformation as ships, guns, tanks, planes

Barnett: --High-tech. YeahÖ

Rumsfeld: --Which I don't. And we haven't here particularly. Process reform, to me, is significant, because what it does is. When I came in, I looked at all these conveyer belts that seemed to be going a lot that looked like they were loaded six, eight years ago, and they were just chugging along, and you could reach in and take something off, or put something on, but you couldn't connect the different conveyer belts. Each process had a life of its own and drivers that were disconnected from the others, and it was really just stark for me to see it that way, having been in a company where you could make things happen.

Barnett: Right. You could switch stuffÖ

Rumsfeld: Right. So we formed this senior-level review group [SLRG, pronounced "slurg"] that meets down in this hall down here--

Barnett: --Slurg?

Rumsfeld: --The Slurg. And I tell you, it has had as much effect as anything else we have done. Everyone got to know each other, we know our strengths and weaknesses, we know what's important, and we learn from each other. There's no one smart enough to know what ought to be done in this department on big things like that, you have to be informed by others. And you have to have a process where people are confident, they can talk, they can take risks, they can speculate on things and raise questions, and it has been just an enormously important part of what's happened.

[referring to the list] Then you look at contingency planning and how we've changed that process for war plansÖ I mean, just a dramatic difference today. There have to be assumptions up front for a change. You can look at it and know if some of those assumptions are no longer validÖ pretty quick. And before you do all the TIPFIDs [Time Phased Force Deployment Data; this is the primary logistics implementation mechanism with any operational deployment], and all the work down the line.

[referring to the list] Budget and program cycle: we've gone to a two-year with a year for worried about implementation [couldn't follow that statement].

[referring to the list] The employment order process Ö and it really looked like it was 3X5 cards in a shoebox when it came to me the first thing. And we've got that--not perfect, and not fully automated--but it is a whale of a lot better. A lot more respectful of people's lives and their employers and their families that they get more notice of what's going to happen.

[referring to the list] We couldn't balance risk. We could balance risks of this tank against that tank. But you couldn't balance risks of Ö well not just risk but the desirability of putting power using this technique as opposed to that technique. You couldn't balance investment risks against a war plan risk versus the quality of life for the troops and what that would do if you didn't have the right housing and you didn't have the right pay and so forth. We didn't even begin to know how to balance risks against investments today for things we have versus investments that won't pay off for ten years. Worse we didn't seem to know it that we didn't have the ability to balance those.

Barnett: And you coming in you knew that making a change in these processes was going to take years?

Rumsfeld: Oh yeah. But if you don't change the process,

Barnett: Then changing the budget's kind of meaningless.

Rumsfeld: Exactly.

Barnett: But then they've been complaining about you from the start, that you never made the tough decisions on the budget until '06. Okay, in your mind it took that long to change those processes and set in motion. Otherwise you are just like Lucy in that one scene from "I Love Lucy," changing things coming out of the factory and you can do that to a certain extent [Rumsfeld chuckles], but once Lucy's pulled off the line, some one else has sat down and nothing gets changed--where you're really changing the gear box.

Rumsfeld: These are fundamentals. These are what we call the gear boxes.

Absolutely.

[back to the list] The theater of security operation guidance and how everybody interacts with the rest of the world, the reconnaissance orders and how we've totally shifted how we do all these platforms and what kind of information they're picking up and where they're doing it and why they're doing it and what the risks are and in many cases the risks reverse. The risks became an advantage as opposed to a risk after 9/11.

Barnett: And that's all stuff that goes up to war.

Rumsfeld: Exactly.

Barnett: That's all preparation.

Rumsfeld: Sure.

Barnett: Decision making right up to it.

Rumsfeld: [again going to the list] The time we've spent on getting the right people in the right jobs, the military leadership from two-stars up, so that we have people who take risks. People who are joint, people who are involved in joint war-fighting.

Barnett: Is that when the Slurg really took off? When your people started to appear? It really takes a couple of year for a new SecDef to get those people in those military positions.

Rumsfeld: I think it was--I wouldn't want to put that as the benchmark. It was the more time we spent with each other.

Barnett: Just physically spending time, just talking it out.

Rumsfeld: And learning about each other. And what we're thinking and why we're thinking it. And learning from each other. Now it happened that as that went on, new people came in, so--

Barnett: --But as that goes on, you establish a culture and when new people come in they understand the culture pretty quickly as it's demonstrated.

Rumsfeld: When you don't let a lot of people in the room, there's no chatter about "Gee this guy said something dumb and he proposed this."

Barnett: So the word doesn't get out and it's a real--

Rumsfeld: It's been a-[back to the list] the special operations Ö the way we've expanded that . . . putting them in charge of the global war on terrorism.

Barnett: And made them a supported as well as a supporting-

Rumsfeld: Right. [referring to the list] And the global posture going away from the end of the Cold War and pulling people to places where we can use them and places where they'll be more available.

[referring to the list] The rebalancing going on in the Guard and Reserve and within the Guard and Reserve today and between the active and reserve components is making an enormous difference in our capabilities.

[referring to the list] The new commands: the Northern Command, the Joint Forces Command Ö Giambastiani's down there just doing a terrific job with the place.

[referring to the list] And then the changes in the Army: increasing the size and Pete Schoomaker's concept about increasing the number of brigades and making them pull some of the capabilities down from the divisions down to the brigade level.

[referring to the list] Tackling NATO: if some one had said four years ago that you could get an institution of then 18, 19 up to 26--an increase of 6 or 7--bring the command structures down from 22 to 9 or 10 to 11Ö NATO response force in place able to function without excessive caveats and restrictions--

Barnett: And all short of a direct attack on them.

Rumsfeld: --And get them functioning in Afghanistan and Central Asia and taking responsibility and then stick and train and equip in Iraq. Some would have said there's no way in the world. It's hard enough to get one country to do something, let alone to get all of them to do it and then changing the Atlantic Command and ending it and turning it into a Transformation Command. Those were enormous decisions that we pushed along.

[referring to the list] The National security personnel system: I'm just getting going but it could be a big thing.

Barnett: Do you think that's going to have a demonstration effect for the rest of the U.S. government?

Rumsfeld: I don't know.

DiRita: The people who are involved with it might-

Rumsfeld: They say so. The say so.

DiRita:The people on the Hill are aware of the possibility of that, which is why they've spent so much time making sure we get it right.

Barnett: Because that's sort of been the attempt with the Department of Homeland Security and that's been hard.

Rumsfeld: Yeah, yeah. People are talking that way but I've got enough trouble just trying to get this thing planted here and going.

[finally puts away the list, having completed it] But all of those things, almost nothing I've mentioned is something that was in the speech at the Citadel or something that was a centerpiece of transformation people talking about high tech.

[Now I work hard to establish the connection, because nothing he's given me up to now is particularly useful for the piece. I need some killer quotes, and I knew I had only a few minutes to get them here. If DiRita perceived the interview was lagging once Rumsfeld got done with his list, the hook would come out immediately. So, let's say, I was incentivized here.]

Barnett: Well, it was all "skip a generation" was all you ever heard.

Rumsfeld: And yet all of these things, in my view, will have a more fundamental change and your comment about "Gee, you didn't make any tough budget decisions" and so forth, the--it is perfectly possible to reach into the middle of the gear box and grab something and cancel it, we did it on Crusader. Right thing to do and an enormous amount of energy and wasted time and effort defending it.

[shifting gears to positive developments] Stuff's happening down here [knocks on table] in ways that it's coming up from the institution.

Barnett: You don't have to cancel that.

Rumsfeld: [agreeing] It's going to come up right. And it's going to come up over time. And it's going to come up in a manner where there's been interaction with the press and with the Congress and the contractors so it doesn't take that jarring of changing something at the last minute.

Barnett: But you must have known starting back in 2001 that this was a two-term effort.

Rumsfeld: Oh it takes time. Any CEO in a corporation you ask him what the rough amount of time to do it. It's eight or ten years. You just don't do things. And that's one of the biggest things we may accomplish here before I'm done and we haven't done it yet, that may very well be lengthening the tour lengths for military people. They've been skipping along the tops of waves and not been around long enough to clean up their own mistakes and touching on those things but never really getting into it. And we need people who have made mistakes and have done stuff and have set priorities and tried to implement them and who understand that and understand leadership.

Barnett: Who've left real imprints instead of just doing tours.

Rumsfeld: Exactly. And we're going to be lengthening these tours. We're doing it. I'd like to lengthen the number of years people serve if they want to serve longer.

Barnett: Right.

Rumsfeld: It doesn't fit the model of the defense reformers particularly, but the outcome may be surer. I hope.

[Here comes my big push.]

Barnett: Yeah and talking to everybody in this interview series, the whole "light and lethal" kind of thing or "agile and lethal" Ö they tended to kind of look at it in terms of process and they almost never discussed weapons systems or platforms.

Rumsfeld: Is that right?

Barnett: And that's kind of interesting because there is a lot-

Rumsfeld: They've been doing more what I do.

Barnett: There is a line that says well Rumsfeld doesn't know transformation, all he can come up with is [sing-songing] "light and lethal," "light and lethal," "light and lethal," "light and lethal."

Rumsfeld: I haven't even said it!

Barnett: Well whatever it is .. "agile and lethal." There's about eight different things.

Rumsfeld: In this discussion here I've talked about totally different things.

Barnett: [exclaiming in exasperation] Right, but where is the "light and lethal" weapons system and the descriptions I've been getting--have been--right up to it, right up to when you turned these guys on?

Rumsfeld: Yeah.

Barnett: When I've had discussions with people about "Where's the micromanaging on thinking?" Ö about how to use it, that's where I hear about top cover and just absolute freedom to think about using things differently. So there's a real disconnect between the perception about what you've been changing, what you've been micromanaging, and where the freedom's been. So there's just an interesting sort of misperception in my mind, which I've spent years trying to explain in various briefs to people and it's interesting to sort of have it validated in this discussion now later. It was always my supposition. It was always very frustrating Ö because I developed a brief for Art that sort of went around--and he said, "Give me a briefing on transformation that doesn't mention the whack list once, that doesn't mention Crusader, that has nothing to do with that." So it [the brief] became a description of the world and how you dealt with it and why you had to be more agile and lethal because it was more about thinking and process than anything else.

Rumsfeld: Yeah, I mean speed kills.

Barnett: In the best way.

[Now the interview begins for real, in my mind. Officially, we are out of time. But here's where I get virtually everything I need for the piece. Here's where it stops being merely an interview and starts being a real converstation, in my opinion.]

Rumsfeld: I play squash with him [gesturing to DiRita]. And when I pass him in a shot and it's a well-played hard shot, I saw speed kills. And it does. If you can do something very fast you can get your job done and save a lot of lives.

Barnett: And that's been your mantra: this whole thing is just making everything move faster and with more agility. It's been mostly process.



Rumsfeld: The process determines everything else. So it isn't mostly process, it's substance that you tackled, not this thing here and that thing there substantively and kill that program and beef up that one. It's been process that's going to produce--and is producing--a set of products that are vastly different than otherwise would be produced.

Barnett: Right. What I always say about the Pentagon is that the Pentagon doesn't really control the military so much--in the popular understanding of controlling the military. That's what the combatant commanders do.

Rumsfeld: Mmm hmm.

Barnett: What the Pentagon does is think about the future of war and builds a force for it and that could either be a great positive, all-sorts-of-capabilities-thing or it could be a narrowing, TIPFID-driven, pain-in-the-ass sort of thing that just drives you nuts.

Rumsfeld: When they showed me that first TIPFID, and what the hell they were doing, and the number of people that were doing it, and the way they were doing it, I just could not believe it. It was just medieval.



Barnett: And it took almost just a month to figure out the writings.

Rumsfeld: Right. And I looked at the contingencies plans and was stunned at how stale they were and how unfocused on agreed-upon assumptions or where assumptions existed or where assumptions were no longer valid.



Barnett: So you're going to be frustrated when you go to Iraq and you get that question which people describe as the hillbilly armor question. You know that one is an example of--that's a system that's been building a force for a quite a long time. That force bumps into a different reality and all of a sudden you're supposed to have the problem solved that afternoon.

Rumsfeld: Yeah, we had a--one of our folks made a comment the other day and I called him on it and said, "You said you have 20 percent of something you need" and he said yeah. And I said, "You have 100 percent of what you have and you've decided you need something else." And he said that's right. And I said, "Well, when did you decide that?" And he said last week. And I said, "Well, what you need to do is not say that you have 20 percent of what you have. What you need to do is adapt your tactics, techniques and procedures to fit what you have because that's what you asked for. And you now have it."

Barnett: That's what you wanted.

Rumsfeld: That's what you wanted. And now you've got it. And now you've got to go do what you do with what you have and make sure that you're protecting lives and achieving goals by designing tactics, techniques and procedures to fit it. There's nothing wrong with saying you want more of something or something different. But you're against a thinking enemy, the enemy's going to change. If you are successful and you get a body armor that will stop a certain size slug.

Barnett: He's going to come at a different angle.

Rumsfeld: He's going to come at a different angle or he's going to get armor-piercing slugs. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. If you get a jammer to take these frequencies out, they're going to go to these frequencies or they're going to roam or they're going to do something different. That is the nature of it. And you will never have the ability to defend it against every location and every conceivable technique at every moment of the day or night--

Barnett: --With just your stuff.

Rumsfeld: --With stuff. We would sink a country with that stuff! So that's what the commander's gotta do. He's gotta use his head. And adapt those techniques and procedures. Ask for what he wants and get it as soon as you can, but that kind of thinking, it seems to me, is what they have to have in their heads, and they do now--and that's good.

[That whole sequence generated some good stuff for the article.]

Barnett: And that's a sense of accomplishment on your part? In terms of the change that you've tried Ö the culture of change.

Rumsfeld: Well, we've got people out there who are so good, and they've got the guts to call audibles, and they do. And I think it's admirable. I mean, the idea that the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, or the Combatant Commander in Tampa could tell the people in Iraq or Afghanistan what they're supposed to do when they get up in the morning just isn't realistic. These soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen are so good, and their leadership is so good, that they are doing an enormously complex task the way it should be done. It's different in every part of that country. If [U.S. ground forces commander] George Casey designed a template and dropped it down and said, ìHere's what each division should doÖ each brigade,î it wouldn't work! Because the situation is different in north, in the south, in Baghdad Ö We've got rural problems out west. So what he has to do is get very good people, give them the right kind of leadership, encourage them to be bold and to take risks, and to communicate back what they need, what they're doing, get ideas from others--and go out and do their best, and that's what they do. And the folks they're working with are terrific. It is really impressive to see what they're doing. Have you been out there?

[More stuff for the article right there.]

Talking cybersecurity to the state government of Florida

Dateline: Delta flights from Tallahassee via Atlanta to Indy, 28 September 2005

Gave a 75-minute presentation today (on four screens-first time for me) in a decent sized ballroom to a decent-sized crowd of roughly 100-125 at the annual Florida government conference. Started with PNM overview, then a long bit on cyber-security, drawing here and there upon some of the excellent ideas presented at the AFEI conference a couple of weeks back (where the briefs were quite good), then wrapping up with a basic Enterra pitch on enterprise resiliency. Then some Q&A and a nice lunch in the arena where FSU plays basketball. The lunch was with a bunch of local FLA government officials and senior corporate types, and the discussion was good enough that by the time my hosts pulled me away for my flight, I had forgotten to eat most of my lunch! (Not that I need any more trips to the buffet with all the conferences, etc. I attend.)

Then two flights home, interrupted by a nice long phonecon with Mark Warren, where we gabbed about BFA now that we had final copies in our hands. That was a great discussion, because we both feel good about the text and look ahead to what we imagine would logically complete the PNM trilogy . . . say . . . 18 months from now.

Still, no carts before any horses. Got a book to move. Warren may be done on this one, but I have many miles to go.

Here's the daily catch:

■ Bush wants his domestic SysAdmin force-now!

■ Beyond the endgame in Iraq

■ China's emergence on the world cultural stage

■ The New Core likes to remodel

■ Resilient enterprise book

■ America's latest immigration bulge tops out-sort of

■ Yet another example of why strategic communication is a complete waste of time

■ When the disconnected connect, "new" resources are inevitably found

Technorati Tag: tom barnett

Beyond the endgame in Iraq

■"The Endgame in Iraq: Will the Sunnis choose peace?" op-ed by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 28 September 2005, p. A27.

■"5 Teachers Slain In An Iraq School: Shiites Were Sought Out by Fighters, Police Said," by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 27 September 2005, p. A1.

■"Half a Step Forward to Rein in Iran: Insisting on Action Is the Easy Part; Taking Action Is Hard," by Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 27 September 2005, p. A6.

Great piece by Tom Friedman today in the NYT. Yes, it does look a lot like a post I wrote a few days back, making all the same points, but let's not be petty because this one's written a helluva lot better than mine was. When Friedman sticks to global economics and the Middle East (especially the latter), he's a purveyor of popular understanding without parallel, and he really boils it all down in Iraq in this piece.

What he says is that the Kurds and the Shiites have basically chosen what kind of Iraq they want (loose fed), and have indicated they're willing to share oil revenues with the Sunnis who will otherwise enjoy little. Now, as Friedman writes, the Sunnis need to decide what kind of minority they want to be. But there is no question: they will never rule Iraq again.

Friedman also makes clear what most astute observers have stated: Iraq's Shiite Arabs have little intention of letting their state-within-a-state be dominated by Persian Shiites, aka the Iranians.

Best part of piece is the ending, which is almost impossible to discount:

So, folks, we are falteringin Iraq today in part because of the Bush team's incompetence, but also because of the moral vacuum in the Sunni Arab world, where the worst are engaged in murderous ethnic cleansing--and trying to stifle any prospect of democracy here--and the rest are too afraid, too weak, too lost or too anti-Shiite to do anything about it.

Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind. We must not throw more good American lives after good American lives for people who hate others more than they love their own children.

My nephew's Wisconsin National Guard unit has suffered two deaths and a severe casualty in just a month of convoy duty to date. It gets awfully tough to explain to his loved ones why we should stay in Iraq to achieve a peace between the Kurds and Shiites on one hand, and the Sunnis on the other. Given that Kurds and Shiites are more than willing to defend themselves, if given the arms, it only makes sense to reduce our presence, put our troops increasingly behind safe walls, and let the Shiites and Kurds fight their own battles.

There was never any question that some portion of the Sunnis would fight on. You can't topple a minority rule like Saddam's Iraq and not expect the long-suffering populations of the Kurds and Shiites to demand--at the very least--a political set-up that makes a return to such one-sided domination impossible. The Bush administration did indeed blow a certain historical opportunity, in the immediate aftermath of Saddam's fall, to keep a large portion of the Sunnis at least non-hostile to this inevitable outcome, and in letting this insurgency blossom as it has, we set in motion some inevitable clashes within Iraq--if the Sunnis so choose this pathway.

This dynamic is very similar to the Serbs in the former Republic of Yugoslavia, where, quite frankly, we provided air cover and let the locals defend themselves for the most part. Expect a similar division of labor here--if the Sunnis don't take it upon themselves to police themselves a whole lot more on this insurgency.

Toppling Saddam was a success. Letting Kurdistan emerge in its well-developed statehood has been a huge success. Fostering a responsible Shiite emergence has also been a reasonable success. Not preventing the Sunni-based insurgency has been our big mistake. There was a transition from war to peace that we simply botched in our arrogance and our sloppiness and our years of institutional bias against such operations--so well codified in the Powell Doctrine that our military and our society celebrated and enshrined across the 1990s ("We only do war, we don't do the peace.").

At some point, we take our successes and we manage our failures to the best of our ability. Letting Kurds and Shiites do the dirty work yet to come is more than fine--if the Sunnis choose this pathway.

That doesn't mean we bring the boys home so much as it means we increasingly retreat to a pure SysAdmin role, letting the Kurds and the Shiites do their own Leviathan work, augmenting them with air power, logistics, intelligence, and command and control.

This is not failure so much as the inevitable progression for our interventions in the most intransigent Gap situations (like the Sunni regions in Iraq): go with local labor, administer the larger system, speed the killing that cannot be escaped, and stay the course as intelligently as possible.

Given that likely long-term scenario, it is even more incumbent upon America to figure out a new and better relationship with Iran.

Again, the Bush administration accomplishes much with the Big Bang, but it has to keep playing the game, not just upsetting the board every so often with a takedown. Iran is a key to that game. Tehran was always going to "win" the Iraq war. The question that remains is whether or not America is going to share in that victory, or suffer a complete shut-out.

Get back in the game, Mr. President. Get in it for real, Secretary Rice.

Bush wants his domestic SysAdmin force-now!

■"Bush Wants to Consider Broadening of Military's Powers During Natural Disasters: Some experts say the president already has all the legal authority he needs to act," by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 27 September 2005, p. A18.

■"GOP in Congress Leads on Energy, Disaster Policy: Panel to Begin an Inquiry into the Katrina Response and the Military's Role," by Robert Block and John D. McKinnon, Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2005, p. A3.

■"When Storm Hit, National Guard Was Deluged Too: Slow Response Faulted; Troop Deployment to Iraq Hurt Louisiana Effort, Commanders Say," by Scott Shane and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 28 September 2005, p. A1.

■"Hurricanes' aftermath whips up new deal for president: Bush's ambitions plans draw sharp GOP criticism," by Susan Page, USA Today, 28 September 2005, p. 1A.

The political deconstruction on Katrina continues unabated.

I give Bush credit: when he recognizes failure, he's willing to entertain bold ideas.

Experts will say: you have the authority now, but authority isn't everything. What the country and the government need is a military that recognizes that there is no appreciable distance between themselves and the people. The military is not separate, not distinct, not beyond. It exists to provide security, whenever and wherever it's needed.

The military will resist this call for an expanded role. Leaders will claim all sorts of danger to operational readiness, ignoring the fact that the majority of their operations around the world since the Cold War involve exactly this constellation of skills. What many in the military fear from Katrina is that it will serve as a tipping point toward a universe of responsibilities they have long disparaged and kept subordinate to preferred scenarios.

But the reality is that we have both militaries: one that exists to make smoking holes and little else and one that exists to enable that first force to do its thing. I'm not talking about abusing that first force, just tapping the obvious skills sets of the latter.

We will be told that because Louisiana's Guard was itself impacted by the hurricane, that was a major cause of the slow response, but the real story is more mundane than that. The bias against stepping in proactively is profound and pervasive across the military. When Guard personnel (from other states) already in region for training aggressively volunteer on their free days to go in and help with the clean-up, only to be told by superiors, "no thanks," you know the problem runs very deep, despite all the rhetoric.

Meanwhile, Bush demonstrates his continued willingness to bite off more than the GOP is comfortable chewing. He is definitely moving into LBJ range. In the end, he will outdo Reagan in his massive expansion of the federal government.

China's emergence on the world cultural stage

■"A Classical Movement In China Gives Pianist Rock-Star Status: Economic Boom Helps Fuel Cultural Renaissance; Mr. Li's Hot Music Video," by Laura Santini, Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2005, p. A1.

■"More Firms Pick Hong Kong for Office Location," by Dow Jones Newswire, Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2005, p. A17.

Great story that locates China (yet again) in America's past: "This country's emergence as an economic superpower is fueling a cultural renaissance that, in many respects, parallels America's burst of interest in the arts that coincided with economic growth in the early 20th century."

Bingo!

Education spending in China is more than double what it was just three years ago, getting close to $100 billion. We're talking a lot of piano lessons in there. So Steinway now not only looks to China as its big future market (me, I gotta get a baby grand before I die, because the ones I've played are just unreal!), it's also outsourced the production of its lower-ends models (though not my Boston).

Remember when Van Cliburn could get a ticker-tape parade after winning the Tchaikovsky competition? Well, China is a place where "rock star" pianists are afforded that sort of acclaim.

Now just watch the classical world start beating a path to China's door. This will be a clear sign of China's Core status: when foreign artists start trying to "make it big" in your market because it's a big enough market to make the effort.

But, you ask, isn't this still the same China that's "communist" and hard-line authoritarian? Haven't we seen what happens to Hong Kong after it was absorbed?

China's leadership recognizes golden gooses when it sees them, or stuff that brings now just wealth but real acclaim as a modern country. The arts can do that. The Olympics will do that. And keeping Hong Kong as Hong Kong does that.

Why are more companies locating their regional HQs in Hong Kong: biggest reasons are the "tax system, the free flow of information, the absence of exchange controls, and its ports." Biggest downers? High cost of real estate and office rents.

Where are the commies in all of that? Beats me.

The New Core likes to remodel

■"A New Russia Leaves the Old in the Dust," by Seth Mydans, New York Times, 28 September 2005, p. A4.

When you join the New Core, you start remodeling the capital. I guarantee it. Beijing is doing it (along with Guanzhou and Shanghai and a few of those other 10-millio-plus cities they have over there). New Delhi is doing it (as is Mumbai). Moscow is doing it with a vengeance.

Many locals and foreign observers naturally lament the out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new mentality. "Preserve the past!" they cry out. But frankly, the past usually sucks in these environments. It's crumbling. It's not up to code. It's awfully hard to maintain, much less do modern business in. It just doesn't work for a modernizing city.

And frankly, Russians love big and new-always have and always will.

No doubt the younger capitalists drive this process most: they are rebuilding their world and they want a new cityscape to go with it.

Like I say below: watch the Gap emulate the New Core more than the Old Core, but watch the New Core emulate the New Core with a vengeance.

As one lamenting observer put it about all these "new rich": "They have no sense of their own identity [meaning they're not "Russian" enough for him]. They not only want to get as rich as the people in the West, they want to live in the same kind of buildings and drive the same kinds of cars."

This, in a nutshell, is what is driving the extreme ramp up of energy consumption in places like India and China: they want those cars, they want that lifestyle, and all that takes a lot of energy. That desire drives their foreign policies.

And if we're smart, we'll see the obvious alliances in that historical trend . . .

America's latest immigration bulge tops out--sort of

■"Decline in Immigration: Study Finds Arrivals in U.S. Peaked in 2000," by Nina Bernstein, New York Times, 28 September 2005, p. A1.

■"Study: Immigration falls from 2000: Share of those here illegally has increased," by Emily Bazar, USA Today, 28 September 2005, p. 3A.

Total immigration into the U.S., both legal and illegal, topped out at last century's end at approximately 1.5 million a year. Now it's back down to around 1 million a year, or what we had in the mid-1990s, the decade during which we took in more immigrants than ever before in our history.

Why the severe up and then the down?

Best explanation is economic: booms drive it because jobs are plentiful. But part of the decline is also due to America being a less friendly place (less come, and more are scared to admit they're here in surveys like this one).

At the beginning of the 1990s, legals outnumbered illegals significantly, but now that is reversed, as about100,000 more illegals than legals entered the country in 2004.

Bottom line, as one expert put it: "Immigration remains at a historic level . . . the foreign-born population continues to grow . . . faster than any time in American history."

Globalization may be perceived as the Americanization of global culture, but it also means the Hispanicization of American culture.

So there!

Resilient enterprise book

■"What to Do Before Disaster Strikes," book review of The Resilient Enterprise (Yossi Sheffi) by George Anders, Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2005, p. D10.

Good review of a book that really seems to define resiliency fairly narrowly, despite its alleged systematic overview, meaning it focuses on recovering from disasters. In short, it presents a strategy that seems more active than it really is.

Don't get me wrong: I don't believe the vertical shocks can be prevented, so resiliency is a lot about dealing with the horizontal scenarios that emerge (meaning you deal with what you can control, not what you can't prevent).

It's just that, to me, and likewise Enterra, resiliency is a 24/7/365 management strategy that encompasses not just security and continuity, but performance metrics in general and compliance issues specifically.

Still, since Enterra doesn't lead with disaster recovery as much as some would like to see our marketing go, this book may be a good reminder that fear sells. Again, Steve DeAngelis likes to focus on the positive overall benefits and not get too caught up in the scenario-based sales job, and I respect that for a lot of reasons. As many studies have shown, and as this review points out, a lot of companies have wasted a lot of money getting ready for a host of fantastic threats and scenarios, so freaked were they by 9/11 and the Global War on Terrorism. Enterra's approach is like a good NFL general manager who focuses on drafting and signing the key players (left tackle, quarterback, tight end, strong safety, nose tackle, strong-side linebacker): focus on the crucial stuff and keep it both reasonable and real.

This is all about administering the system, not gearing up for every big scary scenario you can dream up.

That's the big criticism the reviewer offers of this book: the author seems a little too indiscriminate in his praise for companies that create a lot of redundancies and back-up systems without critiquing those that go overboard.

Still, I think I must buy this book.

Yet another example of why strategic communication is a complete waste of time

■"Saudi Women Have Message For U.S. Envoy," by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 28 September 2005, p. A12.

Painful story about Karen Hughes, uber-UnderSecretary of State, on her "listening tour" in the Middle East. She gets in front of a slew of women in Saudi Arabia (all of whom, I'm sure, just wandered in off the street) and guess what? They give her an earful in this very public setting, taking offense with virtually every word that came out of her mouth.

Anyone who "debated" Soviets during the Cold War in such public shows, whether they occurred here in the U.S. or over in Russia, will tell you that this is pretty much all you will get in these settings. You wanted to talk some real turkey with Russians, you went off-line with them, smoke some of their papyrosi and drank some of their flavored vodka, and then, after about three hours of that, family photos came out and you really started to have an honest discussion.

I imagine there is some version of this (probably sans alcohol) if you want to have a serious discussion with your average Saudi woman (none of whom were likely in this meeting) from your average Saudi town (this meeting occurred in a university in one of the most liberal cities in the country; I say, show me the women who don't go to college).

But even in such circumstances, you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of women, I imagine, who can easily stand having the big-boned American woman march into their ranks and start telling them about how much they "suffer" is her twangy Texas accent. I mean, people anywhere just don't like having strangers come in and diss them (and a Texan like Hughes should know better).

Sure, Hughes tried hard to be humble and "listen," but this tour is mostly about propaganda, not the re-education of Karen Hughes.

The best line in the piece said it all: "Many in this region say they resent the American assuption that, given the chance, everyone would live like Americans."

It's true that no one conflates globalization with Americanization more than Americans, and that tendency will die here last. In the rest of the world, though, India and China and Brazil and other New Core powers will increasingly shape the tone and pace of globalization's spread, meaning you won't just become American, you'll become all those cultures as well.

Of course, therein lies the ultimate rub, because let me tell you what you look like when you truly globalize your culture in all those directions: you guessed it! You look closer to American than any other culture in the world.

But that will take time, just like it has for us. America of 50 years ago was nowhere near the globalized culture it is today. As I harp on inside BFA, this journey from Gap to Core is nothing something we can direct or mandate, and it does not happen as fast as we might want. Watch the Gap become more like the New Core (e.g., China and India and Brazil especially) and watch the New Core become more like the Old Core (e.g., more American, certainly, than European or Japanese).

When the disconnected connect, "new" resources are inevitably found

■"Texas Tea From a Russian Sea: Sakhalin's Offshore Reserves Are About to Make Their Debut," by James Brooke, New York Times, 28 September 2005, p. C1.

Russia's massive Sakhalin oil and gas project is finally coming online. It took a large consortium of oil companies to pull it off (Exxon, Shell and BP). The oil and gas were discovered three decades ago, but it took time for Western energy companies to come in with their greater technology and deeper pockets to pull it off (the largest single inflow of foreign direct investment in Russia's history). The resulting integrated oil and gas production facility (armed with Russia's first liquefied natural gas plant) ends up being the biggest in the world.

Here's the key reason why oil companies will not give up on Putin, despite the heavy handed treatment of Yukos, which was essentially sucked back into state ownership:

The recent slowdown in Russian output and the Kremlin's tighter grip on its energy sector have raised concerns over the investment climate in Russia. But with much of the Middle East shut off to foreign oil companies, Russia still offers some of the best prospects for growth in oil supplies.

So while Exxon and Shell work two sections of the field, BP explores a third. Nine other sections "remain virtually untouched."

How much does this matter to Russia? "Sakhalin promises to be a cash cow that will loom large in calculations of Russian economic might."

Until now, Russia has largely produced oil and gas in western Russia for sale only to Europe. Now, just 12 days from the U.S. west coast by tanker, expect the U.S. to encourage a lot of E&P (exploration and production) in Siberia.

Of course, we aren't the only countries interested, as "much of Sakhalin's energy will power China, Japan and South Korea."

The rising demand of Asia has been the real cause of the rising price of oil in the world, and Russia benefits much from this:

"Originally, Russia needed foreign companies for technology and for the money," said William Dinty Miller, senior vice president of BP Sakhalin. Referring to Russia's soaring foreign currency reserves in the era of $70-a-barrel oil, he added: "Now the money argument has gone by the wayside."

Got security? Then rules? Then watch the money flow, the infrastructure get built, the resources flow, and the connectivity expand.

Does that turn Russia into Saudi Arabia? Hardly. Highly literate and educated and technically adept population.

Deal with any Saudi high-tech firms? There are plenty in Russia, including one that goes by the name "Enterra."

The uninformed, perceived near-death experience

Dateline: Governor's Inn, Tallahassee FL, 27 September 2005

Readers will remember my accounting of a last-minute aborted landing at T.F. Green in Providence last spring (I think). First time ever in well over a thousand flights.

Today was #2.

As is my custom, I was reading BFA, burying my usual fears in the delight of self-absorption, when I noticed that distinct, bottoming-out-at-the-end-of-the-rollercoaster-drop sensation of having the jet power up dramatically, pull up sharply, and suck up its landing gear immediately.

We were definitely under 1k altitude.

Everyone goes very quiet when this happens, because you just know it's so not right.

What was worse with this one was the extreme bank the pilot took as we pulled out, you know, the kind where one side of the plane's windows are full of ground and no sky.

The combo was the most fear-inducing experience I've yet had in a plane (big turbulence doesn't scare me much, for some reason).

Naturally, the pullout/banked turn lasted a good 30 seconds before the pilot said anything. Lotsa time to think. I just kept waiting for a sudden ditching motion and I instinctively scanned the ground for a good place to land (pretty swampy).

Finally, after a good minute, we were level again and you lost that sense of the plane straining to get it up. You could feel the tension drain a bit then, and next the pilot came on the air to say the last-second abort was due to a flock of about 300 birds just off the side of the runway. As we were coming down, the crew of them lifted into flight and that spooked the pilot appropriately (bird strike being a particularly goofy way to go--almost Hitchcockian!).

So we swung around a full 360 and repeated the approach. No scare that time, and we're down without a hitch.

Still, the situation had me thinking hard for a good 20 seconds, which is always mind clearing.

Now, here at this nice hotel, tab picked up by host, listening to nice house band (very Dead-ish, bit of Skynard) playing across the street at restaurant where I'll eat tonight, drinking some free hotel wine, I am chilled.

Working tonight on brief that combines PNM, BFA, and overview of cybersecurity threats. Big chunks of the material contracted out to old and new colleague Bradd Hayes. I give the talk tomorrow at Florida Government Conference. Will work in a certain amount of Enterra, just because it makes sense.

Weird little scare. I almost thought of flying later tonight to take up offer to appear on Lehrer Newshour on Bush proposal to make military lead agency on homeland disasters. Got the call at 10am. But it was too hard to arrange, and with spouse feeling not well, I needed to focus on giving her some rest before I flew out (rather than cramming for a TV appearance), so I spent morning playing with younger kids at playground.

I know the offer came a bit casually: my book is on the top of the pile right now at the show, so I enter the expert-du-jour lottery circuit. PR people love to have you take advantage, no matter what the topic, and I would have held my own just fine on the topic, but sometimes you have to resist the urge to drop your pants the second the TV people call.

Later conversation with my PR guy at Putnam, Michael Barson, made me feel better. Getting some good media offers for the upcoming tour, including possible major net news show. Prefer to go on regarding the book vice just being current affairs expert, but I am willing to play that game.

Still, you know I was thinking during those 20 seconds about how I'd rather be on PBS right then!

Got articles to blog tonight, but no promises. Gotta get brief to my happy level and can't tell how long that will take. I am obsessive on this point, but I am optimistic it can be done.

Good news from Amazon just now: both PNMs in 4k range and BFA at 12k.

As my five-year-old Jerry likes to say: "Now that's what I'm talking about!"

The half-won, half-lost, totally good weekend

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 26 September 2005

Kev ran well Saturday morning. Small field of just 8, despite four teams (he runs in the younger classification), and he finishes five out of 8. Nice ribbon, which he likes, and I respect the time (just 9 seconds of his personal record, which I admired given the hills and the steamy heat).

We leave Indy feeling good.

I found out late Friday night that Six Flags Great America (just north of Chicago) was closed for the weekend, so I got the Brewers tickets, which turned out to be a great time for us both. I had never been to Miller Park and it is something to behold: a queer yet very inviting pastiche of every great park you can think of. The place is a monument to asymmetry, the antithesis of the space-ship stadiums of the 1970s. Every step you take is a new and unique view to something. Really a great place to watch baseball, and it has the retractable roof!

Cardinals in town. Best team in baseball. Brewers get 7 in the 2nd (two big homers) and hold on for 8-7 victory. Kevin and I watch last half of game in upper grandstand's highest seats (we switch each inning for new view). We had a blast. Kevin said he wished the day would never end (music to any dad's ears).

But it does end, at a Holiday Inn Express I score for free with points just north of Milwaukee.

Up the next morn we drive, with seemingly everyone else in Milwaukee, up I-43 to Lambeau, in dense fog, with every car jockeying for position at 85-90 miles an hour (no cops to be seen, nor much landscape-for that matter).

Kev and I score a lawn spot two blocks from Lambeau for $10 and walk toward the stadium. As we approach the WTMJ booth outside, we hear the Packer pregame and it seems like the people inside are on the air. Then I recognize the voice of the guy being interviewed-Jerry Kramer, legendary right guard of the Lombardi era and author of my all-time favorite book that I've read maybe a dozen times (Instant Replay).

I look in the booth, and by God, he's in there doing the interview!

I stand outside and wave at him like a five-year-old. He smiles and waves back during a commercial.

I jump up and down like a girl an at Elvis concert.

I wait with Kevin, who can sense my excitement.

The interview finally ends and he comes out the end of the trailer, flanked by two Packer security people.

I have no shame.

I say, "Mr. Kramer. I have to tell you I've been a huge fan of yours my entire life and I read your books over and over again. Could I please just shake your hand?"

He smiles (I get this on occasion myself, so I know how good it feels) and says, "Sure!"

He shakes my hand with his big beefy fingers and I notice the Super Bowl II ring on his pinky (I would have asked to kiss it, because I retained just enough self-awareness-even in this mind-blowing moment-to resist that temptation).

As he passes by, Kevin does his usual unbearably cute shtick and warrants a big hug from the man.

We are both thrilled.

So what to do next? We enter Lambeau and do the Hall of Fame, touching the sacred plaque. We also do the kid zone up big time (Kevin throws the ball 26 mph, me 46!).

Then we migrate up to the third deck to the Leinie shack, where I have some Honeyweiss and Kev does some hot chocolate. We meet up with two of my brothers, a significant other, and a nephew. We exchange some Viking tix for the MNF game in late November. We hug a lot. I buy a round. We notice the time passing and we break for our seats.

During game it rains on and off. Kevin swears that it rains at every Packer game he goes to, and I do believe it's four for four with him (he always goes with me to the second home game).

Game has some highlights (two more Favre TDs) and some lowlights (missed PAT cost us the game), and we're sad to see them lose and go 0-3 (our two lost guards haunt us mercilessly), but Kev and I emerge beaming anyway, Kev still insisting that he wished this day never ended.

And as we walked out I thought back to all those Brewer doubleheaders my Dad took me and my little brother Ted to in the 1970s. We lost most of those games too, and yet I always wished those days had never ended-just like Kev.

Horrible long drive back, through more blinding rain showers than I could count, arriving just before midnight.

And it felt good to be home-in Indiana.

Here's the daily catch:

■ Storms reveal the military-market nexus

■ How much to outsource abortion?

■ China tightens on technology, lightens on politics

■ The endgame on Iraq began a long time ago

■ But where are we going on Iran?

Storms reveal the military-market nexus

■"Bush: Increase military's relief role: President says Congress should consider letting generals lead during natural disaster," by Jim Vandehel and Josh White, Washington Post, 26 September 2005, syndicated in Indianapolis Star.

■"Iraqis wonder what price they'll pay in Katrina's wake: Their big worry: U.S. will shift resources to rebuild at home," by Steven Komaow, USA Today, 23-25 September 2005, p. A1.

■"Why the World Is One Storm Away From Energy Crisis: With Demand at Record Level, Disturbances Take Toll; Refining Capacity Stalls," by Chip Cummins, Bhushan Bahree and Jeffrey Ball, , 24 September 2005, p. A1.

Bush speaks openly of giving the military a more lead role in domestic SysAdmin-style operations (our post-conflict situations being either post-disaster or post-terrorism), which is obviously a given after the poor response to Katrina, and yet, it signals an ever increasingly embrace of such non-combat operations by our military in general, and if they can do it at home, they can do it abroad. The same bias against such work is what led us all down the garden path in Iraq (i.e., it wasn't just the Neocons or the poor planning, it was the entire institutional bias against preparing for this kind of stuff). If Katrina pushes all a bit further down the pathway of admitting the profound military-market nexus so that we stop pretending that "war is war" and "peace is peace" and never the twain shall meet in military capabilities, then so much the better.

People are wrong to say, "We shouldn't be in Iraq trying to nation-build there if we can't do a decent job of disaster relief here at home." What they should be saying is, "This is yet another example of how we have to get good at this sort of thing-whether it's home (New Orleans) or abroad (Baghdad). There should be no robbing of Peter (Iraq effort) to pay Paul (domestic disaster relief), but more a realization that we have long underfunded the SysAdmin force while overbudgeting the Leviathan force, and that bias no longer makes sense.

Today, the military-market nexus is all about business continuity, whether we're talking local disasters, terrorist strikes or threats to the global economy. It's all about keeping business up and running. The warrior culture protects the merchant culture and the merchant culture funds the warrior culture, and the only standard that matters increasingly in our interconnected world is, "Can you keep the net up and running?" Whatever that net is.

The WSJ piece on global energy markets says it doesn't take a war in the Middle East anymore to disrupt global energy supplies, which are far more just-in-time in their networks than most people realize. Just about any decent System Perturbation can disrupt global energy markets, and that means a disruption of globalization itself.

Globalization needs more than just a bodyguard against bad actors bent on "direct action." It needs a system of System Administrators, and the military's got a big role to play in all this. Baghdad showed this. New Orleans showed this. Many other events in coming years will show this.

This ain't your daddy's military.

Then again, it ain't your daddy's global economy either.

In the end, it is all about what the military has long called robustness and that which the info tech industry tends to call resiliency. It's no longer the size of the dog in the fight, but increasingly the size of the fight in the dog. In the industrial age, we built bigger dogs. In the globalized, IT-driven world of today, it's how much fight we can cram into that dog, regardless of size.

We tend, far too often, to try and scare people and institutions into resiliency, and I want to make sure Enterra Solutions avoids that. The CEO-perp-walk is certainly a wonderfully frightening imaged (easily exploited, mind you), but the better sales centers on the promise: When the going gets tough, the system gets perturbed, and everyone else is falling apart, you'll still be standing. You'll have your shit together when everyone else is bailing. You won't just have contingencies, you'll have options. The resilient individual, company, country is always making money off disasters/tumults/shake-outs/etc. The whole crisis/opportunity yin-and-yang is just naturally assumed. These people welcome what most people fear.

That's what real resiliency is: being masters of disasters. Every big growth period I've ever experienced has begun with disaster, and almost every period of lost opportunities has begun with success. This is why I stopped fearing failure a long time ago.

It's also what I admire about the military, and entrepreneurs in general, and capitalism in general: the best times to spend with such characters is when things are going worst, because that's when they're most creative.

I know I'm rambling here, but hey! It's a blog. I only have it to experiment.

I just find myself reaching for new and better descriptions of what I call that military-market nexus--trying to discover the great similarities I feel exist between these two worlds, and the whole Enterra resiliency thing is pushing me nicely along those lines. It's all about continuity--no matter what the level. It's all connected, between individuals, companies, states, the global economy as a whole. Resiliency is what wins. It's what keeps us strong. It's how we prevail in whatever war or competition you want to name . . .

So I keep reaching for words in the blog . . .

And yes, when I do that stream of consciousness sort of thing and use the word "Enterra" as part of that stream, it does unnerve people there now and then (you do notice--my lawyers trust--the disclaimer on the top of this blog . . . ). Enterra's an amazing little company led by an amazing big guy named Steve DeAngelis (who does an amazing job of selling the promise and not just the fear--as hard as that is). What it's trying to do is quite noble (build this cross-cutting notion of enterprise resiliency that unites a host of stovepiped mindsets/fields). Enterra really does want to change the world. Everybody there could make plenty of money doing something else, but they want to do this. (Same holds for me: if I just wanted to make money, I'd become a total slut in my writing and pen something like "100 Right-Wingers That Are Ruining America (And Antonin Scalia doesn't even make the top 50!)" and I'd make a shitload of money and it wouldn't change the weird, embittered person I'd become one whit (and yet so many people would think I had accomplished so much more in my fame!)!)

And yet they're a working company, and working companies have to play by certain rules, just like me being a writer. You want an audience, well then, you better be successful, because that's what gets you audiences. For companies, it's called clients.

So Enterra struggles a bit on the inside between wanting to be the company that just does well (wins clients, which usually requires very careful management of words, message, image) and wanting to change the world in a big, big way (change minds as well, where--quite frankly--you have to be more reckless if you want to break on through to the other side!). And I admire this struggle (e.g., Enterra consistently asks for small, opening jobs just to prove their vision rather than trying to rope in clients with huge, buy-everything-up-front deals), because I respect the ambition Ö and the sense of obligation to leave the world a better place . . .

God! This is why I love writing posts so much! You start out with a few articles and who knows where it takes you when you're done (which is my Freudian-slip sort of explanation for why Enterra references keep creeping into my posts: obviously, I'm still working out what I want this relationship to be for both myself as a part-time employee and the vision I nurture full-time (I know no other way to behave because--even more frankly--I don't have to behave and I can still make all the money I care to make just being my iconoclastic, megalomaniacal me!).

And yes, I will get a talking to tomorrow, and I guarantee you, it will be okay . . . because I will be okay with . . . whatever . . .