Children and their dreams

ARTICLE: Six-Year-Old Chinese Girl Dreams of Being a Corrupt Official, By Luo Ya, Epoch Times, Sep 7, 2009

Ms. Boss Tweed-in-the-making.

(Thanks: Jim)

The shoot hogs, don't they?

MARKETPLACE: "Harley to Ride Indian Growth," by Eric Bellman, Wall Street Journal, 28 August 2009.

For now the big bikes remain a luxury item. But we're talking about 500m unbranded Indian teenagers heading toward middle-class lifestyles.

So how to resist the opportunity when your buying base back in the States is aging out (notice the trikes)?

UAW, meet FAW--your replacement

CORPORATE NEWS: "GM Launches Truck Venture in China: Agreement with FAW Is Part of Auto Maker's New Focus on a Growing Market," by Norihiko Shirouzu and Patricia Jiayi Ho, Wall Street Journal, 31 August 2009.

Very ouch! We're talking 100k vehicles assembled per year by next year. The total joint venture now approaches 200k vehicles per year.

But no choice: light trucks in China represent half the global market.

And guess who the main foreign investor will be?

WORLD NEWS: "Iron Mine Is Key for Gabon's Next Leader: Candidates in Sunday's Presidential Vote Promise to Develop Nation's Rich Resources After 41 Years of Bongo Ondimba's Rule," by David Gauthier-Villars," Wall Street Journal, 28 August 2009.

The Chinese, of course.

Think China won't be in the business of nation-building on the continent? Dream on.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying China wants to do this. I'm saying China will be forced into it.

That's why the biggest missing discussion right now in the system is the lack of dialogue between China and the U.S. on Africa.

Where Africa differs on demographics

BRIEFING: "Africa's population: The baby bonanza; Is Africa an exception to the rule that countries reap a 'demographic dividend' as they grow richer?" The Economist< 29 August 2009.

The familiar Africa: high birth rates and high death rates and a hugely young population that never seems to morph into that fat middle of laborers with few to support above (elderly) or below (kids). So Africa remains pre-1800, Malthusian, yes?

Yet there is another Africa, an Africa whose people are charting a course more similar to that of the rest of the world: one where they are living longer, having fewer children, and in which more of their children are surviving infancy. Cities are restraining population growth, just as they have in Asia and Latin America. Addis Ababa, Accra, Luanda, may be fetid in parts--shockingly so for those coming from richer countries--but they have low fertility. An emerging African middle class is taking out mortgages and moving into newly built flats--and two children is what they want.

Africa is experiencing huge change. Only about 100m in 1850, Africa is now 1B and will reach 2B by 2050 (or two Africans for every European). And yet the demographic reductions are real too: in 1990 the total fertility rate is over six. By 2030 it should be three. By 2050, when humanity tops off as a species, it'll be 2.5.

So Africa is not all that different when growth really comes.

But the key is to take advantage of that demographic divided (big middle, relatively small cohorts of kids and elderly) when it comes, because it does not last long. Indeed, China's will disappear more quickly than it arrived.

Why Malthus can still be right in Africa: birth rates are still too high (so more contraception please); agriculture vastly underperforms (all those small plots); and then there's climate change a' coming.

The second big problem is the lack of adults relative to kids. Estimates are that there are 50m orphans in Africa, and that the number will rise to 100m over time. Africa has the highest rate of child disablement in the world--up to 20%. This is why China will fade as the source of transnational adoptions and why the next wave will be all about Africa. Some day soon enough our family will join the burgeoning numbers of American families that include children from both China and Africa.

The third big problem is the continuing burden of disease (Sachs' focus).

Then there's the lack of government institutions, which just tells me that we--and China--will be in the nation-building business in Africa for decades.

So what makes Malthus finally wrong in Africa like he's been proven wrong everywhere else by now?

Globalization comes to town.

Innovative Entrepreneurs Warm to Global Warming

As somebody who spends his workdays evaluating investment opportunities in emerging/frontier economies, I receive a lot of business pitches involving new technologies. The time I spend listening to these accounts of how things can ultimately work out for the better balances my work in the national security realm contemplating how everything must "inevitably" collapse into conflict. I find the perspective it offers invaluable, because it reveals how often what we call "realism" tends to be hopelessly trapped in centuries past.

Continue reading this week's New Rules column at WPR.

The role of special forces around Afghanistan

ARTICLE: CENTRAL ASIA: PENTAGON PLANS FOR DEPLOYMENT OF SPECIAL FORCES TO STATES OUTSIDE AFGHANISTAN, Deirdre Tynan, EurasiaNet, 9/17/09

No surprise, but hardly, in my mind, representative of a "worst-case scenario," as opined in the piece.

This kind of ground work with local militaries takes time to improve their capabilities, so tying the move to perceived progress or lack thereof in Afghanistan is simplistic.

(Via WPR Media Roundup)

Missile defense realism

ARTICLE: The New Defense Realism, BY JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, Foreign Policy, SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Cirincione on the missile "shield" decision. As always, very sensible stuff.

We are now right-sizing according to the threat, and moving faster instead of slower with proven technology instead of hoped-for.

(Thanks: jjennings)

Que est√∫pido!

OP-ED: How the US deepened the crisis in Honduras, By Eric Farnsworth, Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2009

Couldn't agree more. This is a dumb, self-limiting move on the part of the Obama Administration. I expected smarter from Clinton.

Discrediting a free election beforehand serves no purpose whatsoever, and it closes the best escape hatch from the crisis.

(Via WPR Media Roundup)

Know when to fold 'em

ARTICLE: Iran bullish ahead of nuclear talks, By Kaveh L Afrasiabi, Asia Times Online, Sep 18, 2009

A very well articulated and argued presentation of my current gut feeling on these talks. I sense Team Obama goes through the motions because it knows it has a losing hand.

Of course, the sanctions crowd will argue we've only begun to sanction! But the only time sanctions really work is when observation is near universal, and we know that won't be the cast, even if the "entire" West is on board.

(Via WPR Media Review)

Why we should stay in Afghanistan

ARTICLE: Pashtuns and Pakistanis, by Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Weekly Standard, 09/21/2009, Volume 015, Issue 01

The key stuff, for me, mentions the fallout of the choice to let Afghanistan fall completely into civil war:

But there are many compelling reasons to keep fighting in Afghanistan. Most important among them is that an American withdrawal would return Afghanistan to civil war and reinforce frightful trends in Pakistan. In an Afghan civil conflict pitting the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Shiite Hazaras against the Pashtuns, the United States would have to choose the anti-Pashtun, anti-Pakistani side to protect against the possibility that the Taliban, a Pashtun-based movement, would again gain the upper hand. Remember Western insouciance about Afghanistan between 1994 and 1996, as the Taliban gradually gained ground? This time around, Washington would be obliged to intervene. It could not simply assume, as many suggest, that Pashtun jealousies, tribal differences, and powerful competing warlords would be enough to thwart a neo-Taliban advance. But successfully intervening in Pashtun politics from "over the horizon," with American troops no longer significantly deployed in Afghanistan, would be impossible. The Taliban currently have the offensive advantage throughout most of the Pashtun regions with U.S. forces active in the country; imagine U.S. forces gone.

Choosing sides would immediately thrust us into conflict with Islamabad, which remains a staunch and, at times, nefarious defender of Afghan Pashtun interests. Such a collision between Washington and Islamabad would be awful, fortifying Islamic militancy within Pakistan and placing al Qaeda and its allies, more clearly than ever before, on the same side as the Pakistani military establishment, which is only now getting serious about countering the radical Islamic threat at home.

The terrorist ramifications of this for us and for India could be enormous. Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, is working around the clock to monitor and thwart terrorist plots emanating from Muslim militants on the subcontinent. Great Britain does not receive the credit it deserves for doing the heavy lifting in building a security barrier against subcontinent Muslim radicals and their militant brethren resident in Europe. Even more than the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, MI5 is America's frontline defense against mass-casualty terrorism.

Pakistan, not the Arab Middle East, is where extreme Islamic militancy probably has the most growth potential. And Britain's intelligence officers are quick to confess that they could not do their work without cooperation on the Pakistani side, which today, even after Islamic militants have lethally targeted members of Islamabad's intelligence and security services, remains complicated and problematic. Pakistan has been loath to sever long-standing ties to the Afghan and Pakistani Pashtun militant groups with which it has dealt for years. This is particularly true for those who come under the Taliban umbrella. Mullah Omar, the Taliban's divinely anointed founding father, is more or less an honored guest of Islamabad, holding court in Pakistan's western province of Baluchistan. Imagine scenarios where the Pakistanis receive requests for help from the British and the Americans, even as Western powers are aiding Afghanistan's bitterly anti-Pakistani non-Pashtun minorities against pro-Taliban Pashtuns.

Point being, until we're really willing to demonize Pakistan and risk everything that entails, we stay in Afghanistan.

But, in the end, I still think we need to choose India first--no matter the consequences.

(Via WPR Media Roundup)

Iran is not an existential threat to Israel

ARTICLE: Israel Finds Strength in Its Missile Defenses, By Howard Schneider, Washington Post, September 19, 2009

This program has never been a secret and has progressed along nicely across my career. To me, this has always been the way to go with Israel's fears re: Iran, not some goofy system in Eastern Europe.

ASHKELON, Israel -- As it pushes for international action against Iran's nuclear program, Israel is steadily assembling one of the world's most advanced missile defense systems, a multi-layered collection of weapons meant to guard against a variety of threats, including the shorter-range Grads used to strike Israeli towns like this one and intercontinental rockets.

The effort, partly financed by the United States and incorporating advanced American radar and other technology, has been progressing quietly for two decades. But Israeli defense and other analysts say it has now reached a level of maturity that could begin changing the nature of strategic decisions in the region. Centered on the Arrow 2 antimissile system, which has been deployed, the project is being extended to include a longer-range Arrow 3, the David's Sling interceptor designed to hit lower- and slower-flying cruise missiles, and the Iron Dome system intended to destroy Grads, Katyushas, Qassams and other shorter-range projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon.

With the Arrow system in operation and the Iron Dome due for deployment next year, Israel "has something to stabilize the situation: the knowledge that an attack will fail," said Uzi Rubin, a private defense consultant who ran Israel's missile shield program in the 1990s. Iran, he said, now cannot be assured of a successful first strike against Israel, while groups such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon may find one of their favored tactics undermined.

Ultimately, it is this kind of capability that allows me to project ahead to a regional security dialogue that involves the region's nuclear powers, and using that as a top-down peace creator instead of trying to fix the whole package inside-out with Palestine-Israel.

Great line comes from Uzi Rubin later in piece:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said this week that he did not consider Iran's nuclear program an "existential issue" because "Israel is strong." Part of that strength lies in its nuclear capabilities -- never acknowledged but widely presumed to exist -- and part in the assumption that the United States would stand behind Israel if it came under attack. But it also rests in the calculation that enough of the country's air bases and other military facilities would survive a first strike to retaliate effectively.

The sort of deterrence -- guaranteed retaliation -- that the United States and then-Soviet Union once achieved by deploying nuclear warheads in submarines and keeping bombers aloft is what Israel is striving for through its antimissile systems.

Iran "is radical, but radical does not mean irrational," Rubin, the defense consultant, said. "They want to change the world, not commit suicide."

God forbid you ever find some common sense in the blogosphere, crowded as it is with a lot of less-than-real talent.

The Israelis and the Americans have been planning for this reality for a very long time, thus my continuing admonition not to go all wobbly over Iran's nuclear program. We are simply running out the string on a 20th century technology that does not represent the dominant threat of the 21st.

Asymptotic inquiry

ARTICLE: Inquiry Into CIA Practices Narrows, By Carrie Johnson, Jerry Markon and Julie Tate, Washington Post, September 19, 2009

Per my Esquire column, this investigation will get narrowed almost to the point of irrelevancy.

'Evolution' from revolutionary to tired authoritarian

ARTICLE: Iran's Revolution Grows Up, By Jon B. Alterman, World Politics Review, 15 Sep 2009

Great piece.

Especially liked the end:

This month, the government has reportedly canceled a series of public Ramadan celebrations and moved others to smaller venues that can be more easily controlled, all out of fear that they would become anti-government rallies. The days of mass mobilization are over.

In this way, Iran has become like many of its neighbors, drawing the lesson that it does not need the veil of revolutionary rhetoric to preserve its rule. Straightforward authoritarianism, with its control of the economy and a willingness to coerce opponents, has been the backbone of many Middle Eastern regimes for decades. The masses have no role but to follow. So it is now in Iran.

Iran's leadership is betting that it can make this pivot without forcing important parts of the clerical establishment into opposition. In this, the odds are clearly with the leadership. Clerics, and especially those on the state payroll, tend to support evolutionary rather than revolutionary change. But many clerical leaders were clearly repulsed by the government's acts of violence against Iranian civilians in June, and they have been slow to acknowledge the government's proclaimed victory, where they have done so at all. We may be seeing an important split opening up within Iran's ruling elite, with unpredictable results.

What is starkly clear, however, is that this Iranian government has crossed a threshold from which there is no turning back. The revolutionary promise of the Iranian regime, and the mobilization of the public to support that promise, is no more. The government will do as it wishes, and it will seek to sustain itself in power. The people's role is no longer to take to the streets, but rather to stay at home.

The revolution has grown up. Indeed, it is now over. Iran is no longer a singular revolutionary state; it is an ordinary authoritarian one.

This is why I don't view the nuke thing through the "crazy" angle. This evolution from revolutionary-to-tired-authoritarian is completely unremarkable.

(Via WPR Media Roundup)

And it's only going to get much worse--and regularly so--for India with climate change

ECONOMIC & POLICY: "Delhi Diary: Dry Fields, Dashed Hopes; India's wait for the monsoons isn't just an economic hardship--it's an embarrassment for a rising power," by Mahul Srivastava, BusinessWeek, 24 & 31 August 2009.

India barely feeds itself now, which is a huge accomplishment given the lack of cold container networks and proper logistics and all those middlemen (who need to be disintermediated) between farm field and dinner table. This year we see drought conditions that bring that industry to its knees, which can be very destabilizing.

All models on climate change say India will be adversely impacted by even more such drought conditions.

What does that mean? Skyrocketing interdependency.

Moving units in China, but counting pennies nonetheless

NEW BUSINESS: "China: Booming Car Sales, Tiny Profits; The small, inexpensive autos favored in the soon-to-be No. 1 market make it tough to make a buck," by Ian Rowley, BusinessWeek, 7 September 2009.

Analysts say China has overtaken the U.S. already and for here on out as THE big global car market.

But big surprise: selling to the bottom of the pyramid means you sell many units at low rates of profit. Many of these cars earn manufacturers only $100.

Then again, low margins have been a hallmark in the U.S. for a while. So where is the profit? Maintenance and financing, the former for the dealers and the latter for the car companies.

Evolutions to come, winners uncertain.

The SE option: still to be watched

WORLD NEWS: "Islamic Rebels Gain Strength in the Sahara: Moving South from Algeria, al Qaeda-Affiliated Insurgents Find Support Among Locals in Mauritania, Mali and Niger," by Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, 15-16 August 2009.

A vast desert where it's easy to hide. Deadly attacks from Tunisia to Mauritania to Mali and Niger. The original battleground in Algeria has expanded.

Why has Algeria proven such a stubborn issue? Vets of Algeria's civil war (began 18 years ago; 200k dead) have created a deep Saharan insurgency. It attracts the attention of Al Qaeda in its typical parasite fashion (it must feed on existing conflicts), and then outside recruits are sent, organization is built (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), and the spreading begins into neighboring countries. There is a concentrated effort to go south and attract new young Muslims to the cause, says an African specialist on AQIM. The financing comes from drug and people smuggling, plus the usual ransoming--the usual.

Tom around the web

+ In Afghanistan, It's About More Than Just the U.S. made the top slot on Real Clear World on Monday.
+ MICHAEL S. SMITH II quoted it.

+ The (NYT) Opinionator linked Sullivan's superior takedown.
+ So did Internet Anthropologist Think Tank.

+ Internet Anthropologist Think Tank embedded the 3-part NDU/CSPAN Brief on YouTube.
+ HG's World linked In Afghanistan, It's About More Than Just the U.S..
+ Curtis Gale Weeks linked The Leviathan is screwed.
+ Kris Lane linked The greatest analyst of Marxism who ever lived.
+ No More Walls used 'the Core'.
+ New Yorker in DC linked How Obama Should Maneuver Against the 'Axis of Evil' 2.0.
+ Greg R. Lawson linked Foreign interventions in the 'national interest'.

+ Glenn Sacks has appointed himself the fairness to fathers monitor for the web. He takes Tom to task for his Esquire.com swine flu column saying:

repeatedly refers specifically and only to "moms" when discussing the flu's possible harm to children

Truth and fairness in reporting: Tom mentions 'moms' twice.

And Sacks' screed got picked up by other overly-sensitive fathering sites.

We get nothing by not talking

ARTICLE: U.S. Accepts Offer From Tehran for Broad Talks, By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, September 12, 2009

Smart move by Obama administration to take up the broader talks offer from Tehran. We don't learn anything or move the ball whatsoever by not talking.

Chinese trade: we're older and should know better

ARTICLE: China-U.S. Trade Dispute Has Broad Implications, By KEITH BRADSHER, New York Times, September 14, 2009

The key bit:

For many years, American politicians have been able to take credit domestically for standing up to China by enacting largely symbolic measures against Chinese exports in narrowly defined categories. In the last five years, the U.S. Commerce Department has restricted Chinese imports of goods as diverse as bras and oil well equipment.

For the most part, Chinese officials have grumbled but done little, preferring to preserve a lopsided trade relationship in which the United States buys $4.46 worth of Chinese goods for every $1 worth of American goods sold to China.

Now, the delicate equilibrium is being disturbed.

All this connectivity that has sprung up between us in the past two decades comes with a lot of ability to confound the other with domestic politics. Both sides must resist the temptation to use protectionism to put off much economic change, and we need to be more careful than China, because we've got the experience in tamping down such nationalism, whereas, for China, these are much newer and scarier dynamics. Note the quote about how Beijing freaks when the Chinese netizens freak. This is no way to run a country, but it's the breakthrough/best China's got right now.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)