Wikistrat post @ CNN-GPS: Millennials shaping foreign policy with Kony 2012?

Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy.  It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.

The Kony2012 Youtube sensation has triggered a secondary op-ed explosion, as “real experts” sound off - mostly negatively - about having their sacred analytic turf encroached upon by celebrity endorsers and ADHD-addled “slackivists” who’ve merely clicked a couple of buttons (Like! Donate!) before moving on to the next viral sensation.

There’s nothing more disturbing to the national security intelligentsia than having American foreign policy crowd-sourced, especially when those allegedly apathetic Millennials are preemptively arguing for aU.S.military intervention.

Doesn’t America’s biggest-ever generational cohort realize that the country is tired of performing global police work?

This week’s Wikistrat crowd-sourced drill looks at the Kony2012 video phenomenon, offering several reasons why it signals something new and important in U.S. foreign policy debates – and not.

Read the entire post at CNN's GPS blog.

WPR's The New Rules: A Positive Narrative for U.S. Foreign Policy

Where is the positive vision for U.S. foreign policy in this election? President Barack Obama and on-again, off-again “presumptive” GOP nominee Mitt Romney now duel over who is more anti-declinist when it comes to America’s power trajectory, with both slyly attaching their candidacies to the notion that “the worst” is now behind us. On that score, Obama implicitly tags predecessor George W. Bush, while Romney promises a swift end to all things Obama. 

Halftime in America? Indeed.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Ben Shobert on Wikistrat's look at China-->Africa FDI dynamic

Find the post at Cross the Rubicon.

The bit I found interesting:

Dr. Barnett several years ago made a prediction that I imagine some rolled their eyes at, if for no other reason than it seemed outlandish at the time.  He suggested that as China’s presence in Africa grew, they would be greeted as a new colonial power, admittedly different in form and context, but none-the-less viewed as an outside power interested only in extracting resources from lowly Africa.  This would ultimately, as he saw it, create situations where African extremists would target Chinese operations in Africa, kidnap workers, etc.  It is worth noting this is precisely what has been happening, with a handful of other people asking the question, as Stan Abrams did earlier this week, what the world would think if China were to drop its equivalent of a Navy SEAL Team into Africa to get its people out.

If you want to participate in this business and do it well, your work will constantly be on the edge of outlandishness, otherwise you'll be trailing the pack and just picking up the conventional wisdom (like the increasingly regurgitated debate on state-capitalism-ruling-all versus America-in-decline-or-not?) as it's beaten to death.  

Spending my time, as I have for nearly a decade now, exploring the future reality of Chinese and US co-management of the world, puts me on the edge of most people's plausibility. After all, we got that "Chimerica" definition from Ferguson just as the global financial crisis killed the long-running model he was describing, so OF COURSE we now shift into a long-term rivalry between types of capitalism (strategic pivot et. al) and the "resumption of history" and so on.

But, of course, none of the larger structural dynamics in the world system have changed. We're just seeing the elite's perceptions begin to catch up, and when they do, they naturally package the undeniable reality into old boxes - like containment and superpower rivalry and AirSea Battle Concept (a painfully unimaginative retread from the 1980s with the Sovs).

However, for those of us who stick to their stories (scenarios), tomorrow's superpower interdependence will have less to do with the promise of shared death (MAD) than the promise of shared wealth - and the commensurate challenges of a world ruled from the middle for the first time in history.  That world, dominated by the C-I-A troika of China, India and America, is the subject of my next book, which I'll simultaneously crowd-source within the Wikistrat community over the next several months.

China as Africa's De Facto World Bank - the Wikistrat video

This is a recorded briefing that I generated from the recent Wikistrat internal training simulation entitled, "China as Africa's de facto World Bank." It summarizes the points I gleaned from the wide-ranging simulation (dozens of wiki pages filled with all manner of brainstormed ideas, strategies, options by several dozen analysts) and summed up in an 8-page report.

This was the first major video production in the set-up I have constructed - after excruciating testing and accumulation of equipment - in our new rental home, which, in various parts, doubles as my work environment. Fortunately for me, virtually everyone else in my family is in school, with youngest Abebu starting within months. So during the day I have the house completely under control, meaning I can meticulously set up the gear, test at length, and pursue recordings and subsequent processing/production in peace.

Ah, the life of the bootstrapped start-up!

Naturally, comments and suggestions are welcomed on content, presentation choices (there are many ways to skin that cat, given the tremendous volume of ideas generated by any one simulation), and video capture.

One correction already accomplished: on this taping I set up a flatscreen for video feedback (I can see screen's content and myself in foreground) just to the right of the camera.  That gives me a slight off-camera eye orientation, which I thought was fine for simulating an audience interaction. But in retrospect, we decided that a straight-into-the-camera style would be better.  That is accomplished in an improved set-up that involves a smaller feedback screen being place just below the came - as in, within a couple of inches. That way I can look directly into the feedback and be, for all practical purposes, looking directly into the camera. The feedback screen is crucial because all of these briefs will be screen-content heavy and first-and-one-time briefs on my part, meaning I can't possibly memorize every click like I do on my regular brief. In that way, it is a LOT like doing the TV weather: lots of data/info to get through and you need to position yourself in front of the screen while not blocking it.  I do fairly well on this first try, but can obviously get smoother - trick being the feedback presents itself in a mirror image.

Another fix in the works: I lost my clip for my clip-on mike and therefore had to wear below the camera line because my substitute clip ain't so elegant.  That meant I picked up the clicking sound from my remote controller a bit too much - for my taste. New one is in the mail, so next time I'll wear the mike far higher and hopefully not pick up that sound.

Overall, pretty happy with the effort. At first, I repeat the text too much, but I warm up over time and get more extemporaneous and relaxed as I got more comfortable with moving myself around. This is far different from me being tracked by a cameraman on a big stage, because I go completely unconscious on my style and let the camera-guy deal with all that.  Here, with a fixed camera, I have to adjust my style somewhat. So a bit stiff at first, improving throughout, and clearly something I will grow more easy with it as I repeat the process.

The New Rules: China Must 'Pay Globalization Forward' in Africa

Globalization's historical expansion from Europe to North America to Asia has featured a familiar dynamic: The last region "in" becomes the integrator of note for the next region "up." Europe was the primary investor, customer and integrator for the U.S. economy in its rise during the 19th and 20th centuries, and America subsequently "paid it forward" with East Asia in the decades following World War II. Recently, it has been Asia's turn, primarily through China, to pay it forward once again with Africa, arguably the hottest integration zone in the global economy today.

Nonetheless, in Washington -- and especially inside the Pentagon -- China's rising influence across Africa has been viewed with genuine trepidation. Beijing's "non-interference" mantra doesn't exactly jive with President Barack Obama's stern focus on counterterrorism, while China's rapacious hunger for raw materials fosters fears of strategic minerals being "cornered." .

Read entire column at World Politics Review.

Connecting Africa's middle to the coast

Nifty WSJ piece from the 21st.

A standard bit in my Wikistrat's "World According to Tom Barnett" brief: the reality that, as globalization penetrates Africa, a certain political fracturing is inevitable (and not necessarily bad if handled well). How it gets handled well: an overarching effort at regional economic integration so that, when such fracturing happens, it doesn't go zero-sum because everyone is sensing the larger economic opportunity.

Historically, African trade goes like a pin-wheel: lines connecting the middle to the coast. But the colonial set-up of so many states (Africa has more states per square mile than any other continent) creates all these interior situations that are not economically sustainable - thus the connection imperative.

Economic communities meet that challenge, although some serious gaps remain: would be nice to see West package extend southward a bit; need something in Horn eventually, and I suspect it's an expanded EAC; and there's nothing really up top, but there the Arab Spring opens up possibilities considerably.

Right now Wikistrat is running an internal training simulation for the younger analysts that puts me in Yoda mode: Hmmm. Good she will be. The analysis is strong with that one.

The simulation is entitled, "China as Africa's De Facto World Bank." We planned it merely as a training tool, plus a way to - as always - build up the GLOMOD (our online Global Model of globalization made up of all these hundreds of scenario pages). Naturally, working out a few new wrinkles in the established simulation methodology, because we always want to be evolving through experimentation on the edge (new twists, new features, new modules, etc.). I honestly didn't have big expectations for the output, but the padawans, as always, surprise me with their inventiveness.  In the end, they may push us to productize the material. At the very least, they have me thinking that my next strategy book should be a crowdsourced effort throught Wikistrat itself (the next step up from thanking a hundred or more bloggers in "Great Powers"), because just like the International Grand Strategy Competition, this China-Africa sim is generating cool ideas that deserve a wider platform.

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Must Engage With World Beyond Security Threats

Thanks to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the two wars they spawned, it seemed like the near entirety of President George W. Bush’s two terms in office were characterized by efforts to define, harness and exploit fear. Despite living in the most peaceful, prosperous and predictable period in world history, Americans became convinced that they faced an unending era of war, impoverishment and chaos. That muddled mindset put us painfully out of touch with the rest of the planet.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" 2011 brief, Part 4 (Flow of Energy)

This section of the brief explores how urbanization and infrastructure development is shaping globalization, how Asia is the natural integrator of future globalization across the Gap, and how China's and America's interests overlap in the future evolution of Africa.

WPR's The New Rules: A Look Ahead at the Geography of Global Security

As part of a “big think” forecast project commissioned by an intelligence community sponsor, I’ve begun to think about the future geography of global security. As often with this kind of project, I find myself falling into list-making mode as I contemplate slides for the brief. So here are nine big structural issues that I think any such presentation must include . . .

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Esquire's Politics Blog: 5 Post-Qaddafi Realities for Libya and the Rest of Us

They came to bury Muammar Qaddafi, not capture him. After more than four decades of rule, he was still in the business of threatening and killing Libyans — a kind of start-up insurgency that would never go away. So if Qaddafi is indeed dead, then so much the better; the great bogeyman has been removed from the scene. Of course the world will (temporarily at least) lament the violence required for his departure from power, but as dictator-toppling exercises go, this one was about as good as it gets: First, the Arab Spring's power of example, then the rebels-turned-ruling-military-force driving him out from below, and finally an enabling from the human rights-minded powers that be.

But still: How did we really get here? And, perhaps more importantly, what now?

Read the entire post at Esquire's The Politics Blog.

Time's Battleland: AFRICOM gets seriously . . . nasty

In 2007, I wrote the first definitive piece for Esquire on the kernel code for Africom: namely, the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa. Back then, I described it as essentially a non-kinetic force, or no "trigger pullers." But the piece led off with a quick summary of a special ops event that occurred in conjunction with Ethiopia's military intervention in Somalia. So when the deputy commander of CJTF-HOA said that the command had "never fired a shot in anger," he was being truthful in a bureaucratic sense. Back then, HOA didn't kill bad guys on the Horn, SOCCENT [Special Operations Command, Central Command] killed bad guys on the Horn.

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland.

Time's Battleland: Defining the floor and ceiling of US interventions post-Bush

Qaddafi's handiwork

NOTE: No World Politics Review column this week as journal shuts down for its summer break.

Nice NYT analytic piece (already cited by Mark Thompson) by Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers regarding the downstream legacy of the US involvement in Libya to date. Starts off by saying the Obama White House seeks no doctrine definition because it fears being pulled into inappropriate situations, but, of course, that's what a doctrine is supposed to do - delineate those cases. Bad doctrines tend to be too vague and open-ended (George W. Bush's WRT terror), while better ones tend to be fairly specific (Jimmy Carter's WRT the Persian Gulf).

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland.

Time's Battleland: Follow-Up on African Christian-Muslim Fault Line Post

Good book on the observation of a religious fault line between the predominantly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian/other south of Africa:

"Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam" by Eliza Griswold.

Find the book here on Amazon.

Find the NYT review here.

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland.

Time's Battleland: An explosive glimpse of the future of the long war in Africa

The militant Islamic group of north Nigeria, known as Boko Harum, takes credit for the deadly car-bomb attack on a police station in the capital city of Abuja yesterday.

You might not think of West Africa as a likely site for radical Muslim violence, but the map on the left, which I use in my current "global futures" brief, may clear things up a bit when you hear about this, the recent north-south election standoff in Ivory Coast, or al-Shabaab violence extending over to Uganda.

Read more at Time's Battleland blog.

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Counterterror Stance Ain't Broke, So Don't Fix It

Despite the rush right now to declare important milestones or turning points in the fight against terrorism, the best handle we can get on the situation seems to be that al-Qaida is near dead, but its franchises have quite a bit of life in them. The implied situational uncertainty is to be expected following Osama Bin Laden's assassination, as he was our familiar "handle" on the issue for more than a decade. But although it is normal that we now seek a new, widely accepted paradigm, it is also misguided: In global terms we are, for lack of a better term, in a good place right now on terrorism, meaning we don't need to unduly demote or elevate it in our collective threat priorities. Instead, we need to recognize the "sine wave" we're riding right now and seek no profound rebalancing in our security capabilities -- other than to continue protecting the "small wars" assets that we spent the last decade redeveloping.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Chart of the Day: South-south trade defines Africa's rise

WSJ story on US companies seeking to "catch up" in Africa.  As the chart indicates, US trade with the region has remained steady in the high teens (percentage), while it's Europe that has lost ground to emerging south-south trade (emerging and developing markets trading with each other).  That share was about one-third at Cold War's end, but now it's up to more than half.

Old Core demand for African commodities has long been an up and down affair (boom and bust according to its business cycle), but with rising New Core economies creating plenty more demand, Africa enters into a supercycle of demand that floods the local economies with money and cheap consumer goods in reply.  In combination, Old and New Core demand create a lift-off moment for the continent, the likes of which it has never seen before.

Many good things will come of this, but so will a host of painful transitions, the trick being that the primary integrating agent right now on the continent is the one country famous for not caring about its local impact whatsoever.  This is touted as a virtue by many (Beijing consensus), but it comes with a price - this indifference.

Chart of the Day: Asia and Africa's near-perfect asymmetry on trade

From FT.

Africa has raw materials to sell and needs manufactured goods, one would assume.  Asia is just the opposite. The asymmetry is acceptable so long as both growth as a result of the trade - like now.  But over time, everybody wants things to even out some.

And yet, with climate change, that logic may go out the window.  Africa will suffer, but it's got about half the unused or underused arable land in the system, whereas Africa is a major grain importer already.

North America will face similar asymmetrical pressures in its trade with Asia, begging the question, Will we be happy enough being - once again - the land of the plenty?

Why Mauritius highlighted on ease of doing business?  It's an Indian Ocean banking center (island) that aspires to be the main conduit of finance from Asia into Africa - the Singapore of this equation.

The Chinese in Africa: welcome is wearing off

Nice Economist piece on the Chinese in Africa.  Echoes of the "ugly American":

Once feted as saviours in much of Africa, Chinese have come to be viewed with mixed feelings—especially in smaller countries where China’s weight is felt all the more. To blame, in part, are poor business practices imported alongside goods and services. Chinese construction work can be slapdash and buildings erected by mainland firms have on occasion fallen apart. A hospital in Luanda, the capital of Angola, was opened with great fanfare but cracks appeared in the walls within a few months and it soon closed. The Chinese-built road from Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, to Chirundu, 130km (81 miles) to the south-east, was quickly swept away by rains.

Business, Chinese style

Chinese expatriates in Africa come from a rough-and-tumble, anything-goes business culture that cares little about rules and regulations. Local sensitivities are routinely ignored at home, and so abroad. 

But here's the essential dynamic to take into account when making snap judgments:

 In the South African town of Newcastle, Chinese-run textile factories pay salaries of about $200 per month, much more than they would pay in China but less than the local minimum wage. Unions have tried to shut the factories down. The Chinese owners ignore the unions or pretend to speak no English.

They point out that many South African firms also undercut the minimum wage, which is too high to make production pay. Without the Chinese, unemployment in Newcastle would be even higher than the current 60%. Workers say a poorly paid job is better than none. Some of them recently stopped police closing their factory after a union won an injunction.

Good piece that explores a variety of theories as to why the Chinese are wearing out their welcome despite the money flow.

My sense:  The Chinese, like anybody else, try to see what they can get away with.  If Africa wants better from China, it needs to demand it but likewise provide it.  This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the continent, which can shape it for the better or squander it like other opportunities in the past that - in many ways - were far less kind.

Failed states keep neighborhoods bad, allowing AQ sanctuary, while rising states allow connections, but it's civil strife that remains AQ's bread-and-butter dynamic

Trio of articles worth differentiating in their meaning. First via Chris Ridlon and other pair from WPR's Media Roundup today.

Underlying question is, Which states do we care about in the Gap?

Some argue that failed states are THE threat. The Patrick piece is clear enough on the record and it's right out of PNM: Yes, at any one time there are several dozen failed states, but, on average, only about a half-dozen fall into the transnational terrorism pool. Why? Only so many in the al-Qaeda network worth mentioning.  

The same dynamic was true in the 1990s, or what I cited in PNM: Usually about three-dozen failures out there, and, on average, the US gets involved in some short-to-medium duration intervention in about a half-dozen each year, mostly on humanitarian grounds.

Why tend to these states?  They are the crack house on the inner-city block:  they bring everybody down to their level on trust, criminality, bad investment climate, and the like.  Regions hook up to the Core in clumps, not individually.  A critical mass of improvement is needed in a region, and failed states prevent that critical mass.  They do, therefore, create conditions that encourage backwardness, disconnectedness, corrupt, smuggling, and civil strife.  These are where AQ do their real business.  Yes, we are concerned about their ability to strike inside the Core, but these are episodes and nothing more.  There is no real struggle to be had there, just good police work. The real struggles are in the Gap.  And so we deal with failed states when they get above the crap-line, otherwise we mostly ignore and hope they eventually present something the Chinese want so they'll come in and rehab the place a bit, like they did in Sudan.  I know, I know. China in Sudan is evil, except Sudan is much better now and the only big delta in experience is Chinese investment and purchasing of oil.  And China has gone along with the divorce - a very good precedent.

Patrick is also right that AQ prefers up-and-comers, or states with just enough connectivity and technology and corruption to give them access to the Core.  Pakistan is perfect in this regard, much better than Afghanistan (my column Monday).  Under the right conditions, we need to worry far more about Pakistan than Afghanistan, which is a solution for locals.  

But as the Yemen article shows, a certain amount of strife is necessary for a semi-connected state (Yemen is valuable for its close location in the Persian peninsula) to be truly useful.  If the state comes together and gets itself a decent government, then the Core security aid will flow and AQ will have its moments but no great advantage.

Better, as the third article suggests, to work a true civil war, where, in the heat of battle, sides get less picky about their allies.

It's been my argument for a while now (meaning about a decade), that AQ is doomed in the Middle East due to demographics - or the middle-aging of the youth bulge. That forces revolutionary change and job creation, because the alternative is too scary for the world, especially with the coming nuclearization of the PG.  In that overall dynamic, AQ becomes an element but a small player. It needs to go "back in time" a bit, like any revolutionary group that is seeing its moment pass (think Lenin looking at Germany and then recognizing the opportunity in Russia).

As the Middle East middle-ages, AQ goes to either Central Asia or Africa.  I say Africa, because in Central Asia, there are too many great powers willing to kill and repress to keep it out (actually, all of them).  In reality, that was the dynamic that led to the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Africa, by way of contrast, is a looser and easier place to infiltrate.  Fortunately, for us, most of the Islam there is relatively mellow and not easily whipped into AQ shape, and yet, AQ must try, because here is the last gasp. What Africa provides is huge churn, a lot of globalization remapping and plenty of opportunities for civil strife - like Libya.  Central Asia will be a backwater by comparison.

No, I'm not worried about Africa.  Many great things happening there, but with the good comes the bad and the processing must occur along the way.  But not any "WWIII" or "perpetual war" or any of that nonsense. It's just what is left over with globalization's continued advance.

Esquire's Politics Blog: Seven Reasons Why Qaddafi Would Be the Best Domino Yet

Please, spare me any dread over this goofy dictator's hopefully looming and well-earned demise. Muammar Qaddafi has had over four decades to do right by his country and he ranks right up there with old-man Castro as one of the worst leaders ever to keep a people down. Team Obama should have zero qualms on this one, no matter what any of our alleged allies in the region may say, because if they're worried about the Qaddafi family's influence powering on, they know damn well what needs to be done (or not done). Here's why you, Mr. and Mrs. American, should cheer on this revolution along with your careful president.

Read the entire post at Esquires' The Politics Blog.