Africa: a place NOT to leave alone

George Friedman's new book, "The Next Decade," presents his usual shtick that looks suspiciously like a rerun of WWII (as all his stuff does).  We are made to believe the Japanese threat is still there (Friedman is still trying to justify his early 1990s book that said war with Japan was inevitable), that China will fragment (oh so InterWar), and that Russia and Germany will ally in a frightening Molotov-Ribbentrop way (no kidding!  that's why we must quickly ally with Poland!).

But the bit that got me was his chapter on Africa, which he entitled, "A place to leave alone."  Why?  By his geopol standards, it isn't coherent enough to create a dominating challenger to US global empire, so no reason for US to go there whatsoever.

Interesting perspective.

I would tell you that Africa is going to be the ground zero for globalization's economic and network integration over the next 2-3 decades, as in, a very happening and increasingly coherent place.  But no, no hegemonic dragons for the US to slay.

And you have to ask yourself: is that all there is to US grand strategy?  Preventing the rise of challengers and asserting primacy?  Because I thought that path got explored fairly aggressively in Bush-Cheney to almost nobody's satisfaction.  And are we, on the basis of such thinking, simply supposed to ignore major chunks of the world?

Again, brilliant stuff if your goal is to shape Eurasia prior to, during and following WWIII there (read Friedman's hilarious "Moonraker" war between Japan and the US on the dark side of that celestial body in his "Next 100 Years"), but my reading of US grand strategy since around 1900 is all about creating that open door-cum-post WWII international liberal trade order-cum-the West-cum-the global economy-cum-globalization.  To me, the goal of primacy (deflecting all rising would-be competing great powers) is entirely unAmerican. It's simply not who we are as a people or what we've done these last several decades as a superpower.

But Friedman completely ignores the concept and reality of globalization, preferring his stated dream that Americans finally realize they're running a world empire (honestly! he's sticking with this fantasy after the Global Financial Crisis revealed a world a bit more balanced than he cares to admit).  Check out either book and you will see virtually no references to globalization (albeit one on globalization in the 16th century in "Next 100 Years") - as if he simply doesn't "do" globalization.  And that's why his books have a weird, back-to-the-future feel whereby we're still worried about Russo-German schemes to rule the world!

Better than reading Friedman's WWII redux material, check out the WSJ's running serial on the emergence of the middle class in Africa, hence my chart of the day:

This is why Wal-Mart doesn't consider Africa "a place to leave alone," nor should any serious global corporation.

Nor, frankly, should the US.

We have to be able to see a world for what it is, not for what we're conditioned to look for.  Friedman still sees the world in terms of great powers balancing each other out of the 1920s-1930s, because that's what he was classically trained to see.  But I ask you, how is his persistence in spotting what he wants to spot any different from a religious type who keeps seeing "clear evidence" of the Book of Revelations in events in the Middle East?  Both of these characters have their preferred storyline from the past, and by God, they ain't swapping it out for anything!

To me, that's not teaching people how to think strategically, but the exact opposite.  It's providing a familiar, fixed box and then encouraging readers to lop off those limbs of the world body that do not fit this Procrustean bed - like Africa.

And unfortunately, that sort of approach yields a solid 2-3% capture of globalization's fascinatingly dynamic and complex reality.  Get smart at viewing that holistically and you've got a grip on the world as we know it.

Or you can fantasize that America's grand strategy of this decade is thwarting Japan's resurrected militarism and Russo-German schemes to dominate the heartland of Europe!  

Achtung baby!

Friedman's memo to China:  you're conquering the world all wrong!

China to Friedman: very true, and completely irrelevant.

Bashir, making nice on divorce, may get off on ICC charges

FT story.

A very realistic appraisal by the West of the utility of seeking to extradite (North) Sudan's president Omar Bashir over ICC charges WRT Darfur in light of his acceptance of the South's split (scheduled for this July, I believe).

In effect, the charges becomes a bargaining tool in the months ahead:  Bashir can be rehabilitated if he plays nice.

This was Wikistrat's recommendation in a recent CoreGap bulletin story on the vote.

WPR's The New Rules: A Wish List for the New Year

To kick off 2011, I thought I'd put together my top-10 international affairs wish list for the year, going from left to right on my wall map. But like Spinal Tap, only better, my list goes to 12:

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Wal-Mart moves into Africa big time

WSJ and FT pair of stories.  Scanned graphic from latter.

Apparently, Wal-Mart didn't get the "deglobalization" memo.

Wal-Mart bids $4.6B for Massmart Stores chain, a South African company.  The offer, if it goes through, would give Wal-Mart an instant presence of 290 stores in 13 countries.  

The offer is a good one--almost too high for the industry, indicating Wal-Mart's sense of urgency.  As the WSJ piece declares, it's an "aggressive and expensive bid to expand in Africa ahead of its international competitors."

Unlike in booming Brazil, where Wal-Mart has spent plenty and still trails Carrefour in sales share, the company is looking to springboard ahead in Africa.  Carrefour also holds the top international retail spot in China.  Clearly, Africa is a riskier bet/environment than either of those too, but with consumer spending in the trillion dollar range (aggregate), the continent is hard to ignore.  

Emerging/overseas markets now make up one quarter of Wal-Mart's $400B-plus annual revenue, and it is clearly the growth engine in the company.  Wal-Mart is said to be examining Russia and the Middle East as well.  

Places where this strategy of buying a local chain have failed for Wal-Mart tend to be more established markets--to wit, Germany and South Korea.

But when it comes to sub-Saharan Africa, the clear choice is to buy South African chains.  They draw neighboring states' consumers and typically reach back into those same states with satellite stores.

Wal-Mart is paying 13 times pre-tax earnings, which is a nice price for most industries but particularly good for a retail player in developing markets.

As usual, Wal-Mart's entry is expected to shake up the existing grocery oligopoly.

You want an example of how the Gap gets shrunk?  It doesn't much better than this.

Globalization cherry picks, and so do we on the failed-state carcass that is Somalia

Voice of America piece by way of reader Robert Prescott.

The opening (in more ways than one):

Somaliland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs said the willingness of residents living in the self-declared autonomous region to fully embrace democracy has played a pivotal role in making the area unattractive to hard-line Islamist insurgents, such as al-Shabab.

Mohammed Abdullahi Omar welcomed what he described as the renewed U.S. interest after a top official in the Obama administration said Washington wants to strengthen ties with both Somaliland and Puntland, located in the Horn of Africa.

The US official expressing interest is our top State diplo for Africa, Johnnie Carson.  Interest, for now, equals more diplomats and aid officials.  Our logic?  Keep the al Shabaab problem as small as possible geographically. 

These Somalis are more than happy to get direct US aid:

“Somaliland has been stable for the last 19 years and we have definitely adopted (a) system into our politics. And, we have had a free and fair presidential election a few weeks ago, whereby a new president won the election. This has demonstrated that Somaliland’s political system has matured.”

He added that Somaliland’s “matured” democracy has renewed interest not only from Washington, but also “other western countries, and made them change their view on Somaliland.”

And I would guess there is some eastern country interest as well.

Five points:

1) Note the pattern that where US troops go since the Cold War's end is to intervene mostly in fake states, and that one outcome of such interventions is that, where there was originally one state, now there are more than one state, meaning we effectively play mid-wife to the birthing of new countries--ones typically buried by past European colonial creations.

2) Globalization, which comes in many forms, has an interest in salvaging as much of Somalia as possible, making chunks open for business and access to East Africa, cutting down on the footprint of the pirates (not mentioned here so must not be a problem here), and keeping the al Shabaabh reach as small as possible. Somaliland really has been a break-away province going all the way back to our first intervention there at the junction of Bush-Clinton. It now presents just enough stability for the connectivity to happen.

3) This is my old story of the break-up of a fake or weak state when globalization shows up:  the more stable and ambitious parts are more than eager to break off and make a better life for themselves with globalization, thus ending--in their minds (and often in objective reality)--their tragic relations with the other "losers."

4) Somaliland's emergence shows that we and other Core powers will be in the nation-building business for the very long haul.  That doesn't--by any stretch--always result in troops or even aid, as most nation-building results from private-sector activity generating local public demand for government services--NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!  But yes, if you, the state in question, can put on a good show of a modicum of democracy and stability, that is highly attractive, because it means whatever public nation-building efforts are made will proceed with little to no controversy back home.

5) Our goal for places like East Africa is to encourage overarching economic union in a radial pattern, meaning from the inside of Africa to the coasts like slices of pie. We want to help stitch together a pattern of economic complimentarity wherever possible, so that even places with modest resources are at least selling their location for transit of other peoples' goods.  We want, in effect, to create larger associations to which these fledging states can belong.  So as Africa is remapped by globalization and more states appear (like South Sudan shortly), we help provide a larger regional pattern and structure for them to glom onto--local political disintegration married to regional economic integration.

This is a perfect example of SysAdmin function unfolding with merely modest US interest and resources.  It happens simply because globalization is coming to Africa whether or not America cares.  It happens because globalization will remap fake states whether or not America cares.  It happens because everybody and anybody, when given just the slightest chance by circumstances, reaches for connectivity and the options it brings.

All of this happening in a place where we've studiously avoided a military return.

Does China rebalance the world economy in its search for resources?

FT full-pager analysis definitely worth a read.

It explores the notion that China's reach for raw materials around the planet is creating such a self-sustaining bond between Asia and Latin America/Africa as to constitute a real rebalancing in the works--truly post-American consumer, so to speak.

China's outbound FDI was about $5B in 2003.  By 2013 it could be $100B, with two-thirds staying in Asia (a pattern found among all Asia states), one-sixth going to LATAM and presumable most of the rest going to Africa.  On this basis, China comes out of nowhere to become Brazil's biggest trade partner and--next year--its biggest foreign investor (filling up all those CHINAMAX mega ships with iron ore and what not).

Meanwhile, with China experimenting through Hong Kong with letting foreign companies hold and thus settle their business with China in yuan, Beijing is described--accurately I think--as rerunning the same strategy they pursued with the US over the previous three decades:  recycling the trade surplus back into the partner's financial nets so as to stimulate further demand of Chinese exports.  In effect, that means China will run up trade surpluses with a lot of poor countries just like it did with rich America.  We'll see how that works in terms of triggering a political backlash.  My guess is that it won't run three decades before China feels the friction.

And yet, is this not what we asked for?

Well, not exactly.  What we really wanted was for Asia's stubborn trade surplus with America (ably consolidated by China over the past two decades) to shift over into something far more even. This isn't happening, in large part because China seeks to have its cake (surplus with America) and eat it too (replicate it across the Gap).

The one good thing:  by slowly increasing the circulation of the yuan, Beijing progressively loses control of its exchange and interest rates, meaning it becomes harder to "cheat" through monetary means.

IBM follows Bharti Airtel into Africa

You remember my WPR telecom special feature a while back, where I highlighted Indian firm Bharti Airtel's purchase of Kuwaiti firm Zain's mobile customer base in Africa.  In that piece, I noted the Bharti model of subcontracting most of the basics while concentrating on expanding the customer base.  

Here, in an NYT blog, we see how Bharti is pulling along longtime partner IBM to the tune of a $1.5B investment:

Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s chief executive, doesn’t jet around the world to make an appearance every time the technology giant wins a services contract. But the announcement Friday morning in Nairobi is different, says I.B.M.

[Bharti Airtel Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s chief executive, left, with Sunil Bharti Mittal, the chairman of Bharti Airtel.]

I.B.M. will supply the computing technology and services for an upgraded cellphone network across 16 nations in sub-Saharan Africa. Its customer is India’s largest cellphone operator, Bharti Airtel, which paid $9 billion a few months ago for most of the African assets of Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Company, or Zain.

Under the 10-year agreement, I.B.M. will handle customer service for Bharti and provide the hardware, software and services to run everything from billing and call-traffic management to delivering new services like music and video. The deal takes the broad partnership between Bharti and I.B.M., begun in 2004, beyond India. I.B.M. is not disclosing the dollar size of the deal, but analysts estimate it at more than $1.5 billion over the decade-long span.

The Bharti contract also punctuates I.B.M.’s Africa strategy. The company’s presence in Africa dates back 50 years, but in the last five years I.B.M. has invested $300 million in the region to build data centers, add country offices and foster technology training programs — and it plans to expand aggressively in the region.

“This is a huge step forward for I.B.M. in what we think is the next major emerging growth market — Africa,” said Bruno Di Leo, general manager for growth markets for I.B.M.

Though it looms small in the global technology market today, Africa is primed for growth, according to Frank Gens, an analyst at IDC. “And I.B.M. is, as it’s done before, getting in on the ground floor,” Mr. Gens said.

The company’s strategy calls for the growth markets — not only the well-known BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, but also dozens of others — to increase as a share of I.B.M.’s revenue from 19 percent to 25 percent by 2015. That is the equivalent of $1 billion in new sales a year.

In these nations, I.B.M. is targeting the linchpin industries of economies including telecommunications, banking, transportation, health care and energy.

Same logic Enterra brought to our Development-in-a-Box work in northern Iraq: focus on the fastest connections to be built.

A serious example of how seriously multinationals (nay, globally integrated enterprises--to quote Palmisano) are beginning to appreciate Africa's growth trajectory.

SWFs as a way to protect national resource wealth from the government

Intriguing argument from a CSM op-ed:  African nations taking cue from Arab sovereign wealth funds. Argument: better to secretively stash the cash in a SWF that is kept distant from the bureaucrats' and politicians' corrupt hands.

The key logic:

The continent’s top oil exporters, and even some of its newcomers like Ghana, are taking advice from similarly resource-endowed countries that run state revenues through SWFs, many of them in the Middle East and Asia.

Some of Africa’s oil exporters, like Nigeria, have wrestled for decades on how to safeguard resource revenue at a distance from venal bureaucrats.

Other, more nascent oil powers, like Ghana, are simply trying to get their system right from the get-go.

Middle Eastern oil giants – whose money managers often tuck away state earnings in safe, if not transparent, investments – may be an example for the continent. "The model works well because they're relatively secretive. You can't say transparency is a golden ticket," Gary Smith, head of central banks, supranational institutions and SWF business at BNP Paribas Investment Partners, recently told Reuters in an analysts of Africa's entry into the SWF market.

A $3 trillion industry

An SWF is essentially a massive, state-held investment fund – something like a 401k for the Nigerian people – that invests in a smorgasbord of assets, whether they be property, currency, sacks of gold, or Goldman Sachs shares.

The one thing they don’t do – and this is where the controversy erupts – is invest that money at home. After all, the Ghanaian cedi, the Ghanaian interest rate, the competitiveness of Ghanaian exports, and the average price of a Ghanaian home, are all wed in sickness and health to the Ghanaian economy. Piping some of that oil money toward a far-off market is a way for the country to protect its revenue far from the vagaries of its national economy.

On one hand, a sad admission of a sad state of government affairs.  On the other, whatever gets the development train moving is a good thing.

For now, judgment withheld.  Africa doesn't have a good history of secretive money stashes overseas.

Chart of the Day: Somali piracy = sole rise in global piracy

WSJ story where chart caught my eye:  pull out the Somali bump-up and the rest of global piracy is basically flat from 2005 through 2009.  Because of Somali pirates, the total number of attacks has been increase by about 50%, meaning Somalia alone now accounts for roughly one-third.

The twist:  al Shabaab, the youth militant successor to the Islamic Courts Union (kicked out of Mogadishu by the Ethiopian military three years ago) used to just tax the pirates, but now it fields its own boats and speaks of "sea jihad." This is viewed primarily as a revenue-raising effort, because few American-flagged ships pass by there (Maersk Alabama was a relatively rare passage).  And with average ransoms paid now up to $2m (double the average of last year).

The good news?  The booming market for pirates suffers a talent dearth, as multinational navy response officers are noticing a steep decline in proficiency.

An insider's account of what Africom is all about

Robert Moeller, who was Africom's original #2 as it was being set up, and oversaw its initial period of operation as its first deputy for operations, writes the "truth about Africom" in Foreign Policy (hat tip to WPR's Media Round-up).  In my mind, Africom is the most SysAdmin commands by far, and its operational philosophy will eventually penetrate the other regional combatant commands.

Of course, the subtitle must exclaim, "we're not trying to take over Africa!" because everybody thinks we can pull it off with 10,000 troops or so, but after that crushing that silly straw man, the piece settles into a no-hype description of the new command, with some dissembling required.

Here are the five main points:

Lesson 1: Africom does not create policy.

Lesson 2: Africom must work hand in hand with the diplomatic corps.

Lesson 3: Keep our footprint in Africa limited.

Lesson 4: Africom is most effective when it listens to the concerns of its African partners.

Lesson 5: Don't expect instant results.

The dissembling part is when Moeller attacks the big footprint argument by stating emphatically that Africom has no plans to create an HQ on the continent--as if that defines the footprint. No mention is made of the Contingency Operating Locations (COLs) or mini-bases that characterize Africom's avatar, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

But overall, a great piece.  It shows that America's national security establishment is both serious about shrinking the Gap in Africa and capable of doing it far more cheaply than Iraq and Afghanistan suggested.

I interviewed Moeller in the Pentagon for my "The Americans Have Landed" article for Esquire back in 2007.

A safer, nicer Africa? Rising incomes drives the process

 

Christian Science Monitor op-ed via WPR's Media Round-Up.

I just liked this reminder of the true facts on the ground:

In the past four years of the Global Peace Index, run by the Institute of Economics and Peace, Africa emerges as the most progressive region in terms of peacefulness. This is not the say it is the most peaceful; it isn’t. But, from a low base, the region is moving toward peace at a much faster pace than any other region as the number and intensity of conflicts decrease, military expenditure is reduced, and access to small arms is lessened.

Africa’s progress underscores the profound link between peace and prosperity. Indeed, a the continent’s peacefulness increases, its GDP growth is now the highest since the 1960s, when many African nations achieved independence. In another hopeful sign, child mortality has been dropping by 2 percent per year for the past decade.

As for the conventional wisdom that says we're living in the most war-filled era in human history and that globalization serves only to make the poor poorer, Africa' path reminds us that such notions are complete bullshit.

Stealing from Africa: China's aggressive pursuit of Global Fund health grants

Foreign Policy piece, by way of WPR's Media Roundup, that rightfully accuses China of stealing from Peter (Africa) to pay Paul (it's own interior rural poor) in its aggressive pursuit and winning of "Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and  malaria" health grants to the tune of $1B.

Chow points out that China has donated only $16m to the fund over 8 years, compared to $5.5B by the U.S. 

Particularly egregious:  $149m in health grants to battle malaria, when last year China suffered 38 deaths from that disease.

Meanwhile, a lot of African countries with far worse health burdens are getting crumbs compared to China, which ranks #4 in the world for Global Fund grants.

No one says China still doesn't have issues, but with $2.5T in money from the West already in terms of trade-surplus-generated reserve currency holdings, it's hard to argue that China should still be shoving aside more worthy African recipients.

Africa as the next BRIC in the wall

FT op-ed by Jim O'Neill, chief economist of Goldman Sachs.

He says he is being asked whether his BRICs concept should recognize South Africa as the little "s."

He then notes that two of the "next 11" (another Goldman term) hail from Africa:  Nigeria and Egypt.

So he explores the notion that Africa as a whole becomes a BRIC-level entity.

So O'Neill adds up the 11 biggest African economies and projects to 2050, saying a $13T economy is there for the making, leaving the African brick bigger than either Brazil or Russia in that timeframe, but not as big as India or China.  Nearly half of that imagined GDP would come from Nigeria and Egypt, with South Africa naturally serving as globalization's gateway to the southern cone.

Piece ends with the usual bits about what needs improving for the scenario to unfold.

What's interesting, of course, is that we're even having this conversation about African pillars.

Another good reason why I say globalization is an amazing collective good.

Chart of the day: democracy in Africa

From Economist story that declares, "The democracy bug is fitfully catching on.

I would argue two observations:  First, the impact of South Africa is crucial for the beachhead in the south; and America has had some role in enabling the weaker beachhead in the West.

Good underlying trend seen in second accompanying chart:

If the Chinese and Indians and Arab sovereign wealth funds now represent the dominant economic dynamic in the region, then you cannot say that it's resulted in more coups, even if the progress toward serious democracy is "fitful."

WPR's The New Rules: Putting the Brakes on China until Beijing Can

In late-July, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gently put China on notice regarding its increasingly aggressive claims over the near-entirety of the South China Sea by proposing a formal international legal process to resolve territorial disputes there.  Naturally, the Chinese were not pleased, but the proposal was a great move by the Obama administration. Every step that China takes to build up its military power naturally triggers a strong balancing desire throughout the rest of Asia.  But with none of those far-smaller economies looking to anger “rising China,” somebody needs to give voice to those fears and create vehicles for organizing the sought-after balancing.

That somebody can only be the United States.

Read the rest of the column at World Politics Review.

South Africa as the Core's great integrator of the continent?

WSJ on successful World Cup symbolizing South Africa's ambition to unite the continent economically.

Intra-African trade remains paltry by global standards, largely due to missing interior infrastructure, as one colonial legacy is that the entire place is built to move commodities to the coasts.

South Africa now pushes a Cape Town-to-Cairo free trade zone as part of its ambitious vision.  The self-confidence shown is a big deal, because South Africa has the biggest and most liquid financial markets on the continent, so everything has to start there.

But South Africa is part of the problem:  a ten-fold increase in trade with China since the century began, but only a 4-fold increase with the rest of Africa.  So gateway ambition, yes, but not gateway performance--yet.

But Africa is poised for better things, we are told, because it escaped the financial crisis and because it's sizable middle class continues to emerge--and spend.

Here's hoping South Africa's ambition and self-confidence are catching.

Hard to do SysAdmin by proxy

WAPO story on AMISOM's difficulties in avoiding civilian casualties in Mogadishu as it fights al Shabaab:

An African Union peacekeeping force, funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States and its allies, has killed, wounded and displaced hundreds of Somali civilians in a stepped-up campaign against Islamist militants, according to medical officials, human rights activists and victims.

Led by Ugandan and Burundian troops, the force has intensified shelling in recent weeks as Somalia's al-Shabab militia, which is linked to al-Qaeda, has pushed closer toward the fragile government's seat of power. The shells are landing in heavily populated areas, in some cases even neighborhoods controlled by the government. Al-Shabab leaders say the peacekeepers and the shelling are the key reasons it bombed two venues in Uganda's capital last Sunday, killing 76 people watching broadcasts of the World Cup final.

More to the point, the ultimate blame, as far as the locals are concerned, still lies with us:

"When one kilogram of mortars are fired by al-Shabab, AMISOM replies with 100 kilograms of artillery," said Abdulqadir Haji, director of a volunteer ambulance service, using the acronym for the African Union force. "It is America and the West who support them. America and the West are the silent killers in Somalia's war."

In the Long War, you may escape the casualties--on your side--by contracting out, but you cannot escape the blame when things go badly.

Bottom line:  the Gap's high demand for SysAdmin services will not be going away any time soon.  The only question is who is actually on the front line and what is the level of their professionalism.

Al Shabaab branching out

Although al Qaeda made more than a few threats and feints in the direction of the World Cup in South Africa, prompting all sorts of warnings from friends about my traveling there for the Global Forum, all the group could manage was a soft-target attack in Uganda, not all that far from where I ended up traveling with Vonne a couple of weeks earlier in southern Ethiopia next door.

At once, it's unimpressive and troubling, because it suggests the usual regionalization strategy of somebody looking to internationalize their domestic fight--al Shabaab controls the southern quarter of Somalia but can't seem to expand that control.  One way to overcome such resistance or lack of success is to plunge the country into worse violence as a result of intervening troops.  Another way is to push those troops out, like Uganda's African Union peacekeepers.  By bombing soft targets in Kampala, al Shabaab gets it both ways:  trying to intimidate Uganda into leaving and trying to create enough fear in the West to go back to Somalia.  For now, it's a fat chance on both.

Most of the reporting on these strikes highlights the "new" linkages between al Shabaab and AQ, but they've been there all along, by most expert accounts, in that usual fellow-traveling way.

All this goes back to a long-standing prediction of mine (in all three trilogy books):  as you squeeze AQ with failure in the Persian Gulf, it can go NE into Central Asia or SW into Africa. More regional powers up north willing to fight to stop that than in the south, so the path of least resistance in through the Horn.  

Back to my "Americans Have Landed Piece" logic, this is why we set up Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa in the first place, and ultimately, it's why we set up AFRICOM in a strategic flanking maneuver, just like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was set up by China and Russia in a pre-emptive fashion before even 9/11--same geostrategic instinct.

Point of this story being, expect more of the same over time.  Our hope is that we strengthen local security to handle it just well enough, and their hope is a direct fight.

Connectivity: it starts at the port

FT story on the need for port privatization across Africa to boost connecting trade, especially in countries where past civil strife led to a deterioration of infrastructure.

Maputo, Mozambique is held up as shining example, thanks to privatization seven years ago, with DP World taking over 40% ownership (yes, the very same company we ran out of America on this very subject).  DP also has a 60% share in the container terminal there, partnered with a railroad company.

Overall, DP runs 3 ports in Africa, a Danish company runs six, and a Hong Kong company runs one.  In each instance, experienced hands are upgrading infrastructure and improving operations and--most importantly--convincing regular customers to move in.

No, privatization is no panacea, and the roads issue can still starve a port, but once you establish the potential for throughput, you trigger more demand for better roads, etc.  The business will come, all right, if you give them a good reason.

WPR's The New Rules: Globalization's Staying Power a Triumph of American 'Hubris'

There’s no question that globalization, in its modern American form of expanding free trade, just went through its worst crisis to date.  But while economists debate whether or not we in the West are collectively heading toward a 1938-like “second dip,” it’s important to realize just how myopic our fears are about the future of a world economy that America went out of its way to create, defend, and grow these past seven decades.

Read the entire column, which you can consider my oblique response to Peter Beinart's "Icarus Syndrome" book, at World Politics Review.

See the references for my inspiration on this piece.