What is eternal and ephemeral about China - and this modern world system we call globalization

Fabulous op-ed in WSJ on 6 July by Liu Junning, an "independent scholar in Beijing."

You should read it all.  Here are my favorite bits:

First, Liu speaks to the infatuation in the West for the alleged "Beijing consensus":

This view fundamentally misunderstands the country's growth progress. China has indeed made great strides since 1978's "Reform and Opening" in alleviating poverty, opening up to the world, and making slow steps down the road of legal reform. Yet on closer inspection, the most significant transformations from the perspective of boosting prosperity have involved loosening of control over the people, not some alchemy of power and Marxism.

This becomes clear in comparing China's economic performance during periods when Beijing has been more closely versus less closely following the Beijing Model. According to MIT economist Yasheng Huang, "[W]hen measured by factors that directly track the living standards of the average Chinese person, China has performed the best when it pursued liberalizing, market-oriented economic reforms, as well as conducted modest political reform, and moved away from statist policies."

I have read such analyses too many times to count, and yet it still amazes me how many don't get it: China does best when it moves in the direction of the allegedly discredited Washington consensus and does significantly less well when it goes more statist.  But the mythology (like Reagan "reducing the size of government") lives on.

Liu also dismisses the notion that defenders of Chinese authoritarianism make: that the Chinese naturally abhor Western-style rights:

This too is at odds with current experience. Simply talk to those peasants who have had their land arbitrarily taken, and we see that property rights are implicitly cherished by all, regardless of race or ethnicity. Despite Beijing's crackdown, lawyers and activists continue to press for Western-style rights.

The rest of the piece is a tour of Chinese history that shows that the ideas and practices of liberalism have flowered throughout. Again, Mao gets credit for reunification but also for perverting the system profoundly. China has always been far more capitalistic than realized. It was Mao's 30-year rule that was the historical aberration, as was his erratic authoritarianism.

Then the solid finish:

To say that the narrative of liberty vs. power is uniquely "Western" is to turn a blind eye to the struggles of those who have gone before us. Individual rights are not a Western development any more than paper and gunpowder are inventions that are uniquely Chinese. Is Marxism "German"? Is Buddhism "Indian"? Of course not. When ideas are born, they take flight into the world to be used, improved or discarded by all of humanity. Constraints on political power and the protection of individual rights belong to all.

The tragedy is that we Chinese don't have full access to these protections. That increasingly will hold us back instead of propelling us forward as proponents of a Beijing consensus believe. Real success for China in the 21st century will depend not on the Communist Party itself, but on the establishment of the rule of law, limited government, and further economic liberalization that opens China's market to the world.

Fundamental to this is the right to speak freely. China will truly prosper only when individuals such as Liu Xiaobo, Ai Weiwei and the many other Chinese patriots who speak for reform are safe in the knowledge that they can do so without a late-night knock on the door from the government.

I continue to believe that the Chinese need a certain historical distance from the Cultural Revolution, plus time to get used to their new-found wealth/development before democracy arises naturally from within - meaning the popular push gets so strong that the Communist Party is forced to birth two or more successor parties in order for the system to survive.

I will readily admit that, until that tumultuous process unfolds, there will be plenty in the West who buy into the Beijing-sold notion that somehow the Chinese are "unique" in their history and developmental trajectory. I personally think that's nonsense.

I also think that the real genius of the American System projected onto a global stage these past seven decades as an international liberal trade order-cum-the West-cum-globalization is that it enables countries like China to start the developmental jump and continue it with enough force - via a package that remains far closer to the Washington consensus than any other I've seen - to trigger the pluralization process that best fits the society in question (aka, what we call "democracy" but really mean as a republic or a government based on law). The timing is variable but inevitable if economic success is had (show me the large rich country that is both politically mature and not a democracy).  Yes, in the era following the Cold War's end, we must suffer waiting out a host of countries and their evolutions, but as the Arab Spring shows, the people themselves will keep on trying - no matter the costs and frustrations.

To imagine democracy is on the wane in this era is, in my opinion, simply wrong-headed and stubbornly so. Ditto for free markets, understanding that we don't live in a world of pure or absolute anything and that these things ebb and wane with events.  

But the march of history is beyond clear, as is America's supremely positive impact on it these past seven decades.  Most of everything we consider to be good in this world has come about in the last seven or so decades.  Go back before them - before America's ascension to global power - and you find everything much worse and on the path of self-immolation. Instead, we now have unprecedented peace, wealth, development and freedom - especially for women. These are not accidental events; the timing is incontrovertibly linked to America's role.

Which is why maintaining that role in a sustainable fashion is so crucial. "Post-American" is a self-defeating lie - a cancer within our ability to think in grand strategic terms. There is most definitely a "pre-American" world. There will never be a "post-American" one - nor should there be in a world that will be ruled by the middle - again, thanks to the system we created, nurtured and defended all these years.

Insensitive yes, but Geronimo reference is historically apt

From the AP on Yahoo news:

WASHINGTON – The top staffer for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is objecting to the U.S. military's use of the code name "Geronimo" for Osama bin Laden during the raid that killed the al-Qaida leader.

Geronimo was an Apache leader in the 19th century who spent many years fighting the Mexican and U.S. armies until his surrender in 1886.

Loretta Tuell, staff director and chief counsel for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said Tuesday it was inappropriate to link Geronimo, whom she called "one of the greatest Native American heroes," with one of the most hated enemies of the United States.

"These inappropriate uses of Native American icons and cultures are prevalent throughout our society, and the impacts to Native and non-Native children are devastating," Tuell said.

This is what I said in Esquire's The Politics Blog yesterday:

It's become a drones-without-borders world, befitting the frontier-integrating age we live in. Think of the American West after the Civil War and how we spent years hunting down all the Native American "insurgents" who popped up over the decades. Bin Laden goes down just like a Crazy Horse or Geronimo — a grubby end to a mythical warrior figure. But the larger process goes on, even as the Chinese drive most of of globalization's advance in that part of the world. But, yes, we'll keep hunting them down. That's what bureaucracies do, and that's why the lone-wolf resistance always loses in the end.

I saw comments that indicated that people were offended by my Crazy Horse reference.  The Senate staffer takes similar umbrage at the US military referencing Geronimo.

Yes, now, we cast these figures in better lights, but at the time they were considered blood-thirsty killers who preyed on Americans, which, of course, they were and did - whatever the post-dated nobility of their motives.

But my larger point, and I think the military's larger point, is the similarity of the process.  The US military hunted Geronimo for many years.  With Crazy Horse, it was a sad and grubby end to a warrior's life, getting shot while surrendering at a US government post (I've been to the historical site).

In their time, these guys were magnificent insurgents who brutally murdered in a fashion designed to incite terror.  They were fighting for their way of life - and they doomed in the same way that Bin Laden was.  The process of frontier integration was too powerful and too vast and they could not adjust.  Back then it was the westward expansion of the US - a microcosm of today's globalization expansion.

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Global Role Depends on Hard Fiscal Choices

Much of the global perception of America's long-term decline as the world's sole surviving superpower is in fact driven by our fiscal decline. That's why I was disturbed to hear Democrats so quickly dismiss GOP Sen. Paul Ryan's bold, if flawed, federal budget proposal on the grounds that it would "end Medicare as we know it."  Frankly, arresting our decline means ending a lot of things "as we know them." That's simply what being on an unsustainable path forces you to do.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer and David Gordon cite top geo-pol risks for 2011

David Gordon is an old friend, who, as the National Intelligence Officer for economics and globalization in the National Intelligence Council, came to most of my wargames at the Naval War College and World Trade Center in NYC.  He later became Vice Chair of the NIC and then head of policy and planning at State in the final Bush years (when diplomacy made quite the comeback).  One of the smartest guys I know and just a great guy all around.  After Bush ended, he left government and went to direct research at Ian Bremmer's Eurasia Group, which specializes in political risk consulting.

Ian, you know from his books ("J Curve," "Fat Tail," "End of the Free Market"), all of which have made it into my own books or columns.  Ian and I did a back-and-forth on his "The Call" blog at Foreign Policy regarding the last one.  Ian is deservedly recognized as THE political risk guru out there (he often writes with Nouriel Roubini) and he's done an amazing job of building up Eurasia Group from nothing in just over a dozen years.  Having worked with Steve DeAngelis is building up Enterra Solutions over the past 6 years, I truly appreciate what that takes.  

I've been working for Dave and Ian since January as a consultant on a project for the government that's been a lot of fun and there are others in the hopper, so this is turning out to be a nice working relationship in addition to my other affiliations.  I've missed working for the USG these past few years, so it's been great to get back to that sort of analysis.

The top ten risks cited will also sound familiar enough to readers of this blog.  Here's the opening, plus the list as links to the report:

The risks that exercise us most usually center on a country, an issue, an event. We worry over political chaos before or after an election, a coup in a fragile regime, or military conflict with a rogue nation. But for the first time since we've been writing, the political risk environment is much broader this year. It's the change in the world order itself that gives us most cause for concern.

Two years after the financial crisis, there's a strong argument to be made for optimism. The American economy is poised for (at least modest) growth and emerging markets are still churning ahead. By that logic, it's high time for governments, captains of industry, banks, and citizens to get back to business. Time to leave behind record gold prices and put the trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines back to work.

But that conclusion implies a level of confidence, if not quite comfort, with where the world is headed. Whatever your expected shape of economic recovery—a U-curve, V-curve, L-curve, or something else—we're entering an entirely new world order. That means new ways for states to relate with one another both politically and economically. It means new areas of conflict. 2011 looks to be the year that our understanding of how the world works becomes out of date.

This is scary not because it's incomprehensible but because the scale of change is so great that it becomes difficult to manage. Few of us have experienced a transition of this scope. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago, it was fashionable, briefly, to herald a new world order. The pronouncements were premature. Soviet collapse remade the global security balance, but its economic impact was considerably more modest. The advanced industrialized economies had ruled the global economic system; the end of the cold war meant a move from the G7 to the "G7 plus one." Globalization sped up a bit, the West had new countries to invest in (at least for a while), and some of the old ones (Germany) got stronger. "Plus one" didn't imply a new world order.

That's not true today. After the financial crisis, the G7 was replaced by the G20. This change brought no challenge to America's global military supremacy. But the rules of the economic road are a different story and the new geopolitical order is shaped not by a military balance but by an economic one. This new world order marks the end of a decades-long agreement on how the global economy should function. This is world-changing indeed, because the dominant economic trend of the last half century, globalization, now faces a direct challenge from geopolitics.

---

The rise of this new order will have a profound impact on nearly all of the world's big-picture, long-term trends. A lack of coordinated governance on key economic issues will become entrenched and give rise to lasting international conflict. States and corporations will become more closely aligned in both developed and developing states. Most significantly, we'll see a shift in the highest levels of global conflict to the region where globalization and geopolitics collide with greatest force: for the past twenty years, the sharpest geopolitical tensions were to be found in the Middle East; we'll now see a decisive and long-term shift of those tensions to Asia.

All the risks we're looking at in 2011—conflict from the North Korean succession process, the unwillingness of China to budge under international pressure, the lack of political and economic coordination in Europe, currency controls intensifying global economic misalignment, the geopolitics of cybersecurity—are intensified by this transition to a new world order. The red herrings on our list avoid risk in spite of it.

Surprisingly, and despite all the anxiety these changes have created, there's no name for this new era. We propose the G-Zero. This is the lens through which we'll understand global events in the coming years. It's our top risk for 2011.

THE RISKS

1	The G-Zero
2	Europe
3	Cybersecurity and geopolitics
4	China
5	North Korea
6	Capital controls
7	US gridlock
8	Pakistan
9	Mexico
10	Emerging markets
*Red herrings

Being Mr. Counterintuitive, I like the "red herrings" the best. They are Iran, Turkey, Sudan and Nigeria. I like the optimism on each.

WPR's The New Rules: The State Strikes Back

The rampant globalization meme of the 1990s was that the state would wither away, leaving nonstate actors to rule -- or ruin -- the world. The terror attacks of Sept. 11 seemed to confirm this notion, triggering all manner of academic fantasies that a proliferation of super-empowered individuals would overwhelm the world's declining and failing states. But when globalization's alleged coup de grâce arrived in the form of the 2008 global financial crisis, not only did the world not slide into widespread conflict, as so many anti-globalization hysterics predicted, but the state made quite the comeback.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

WPR Feature: Managing Global Supply Chains a Key U.S. Advantage

co-authored with Stephen F. DeAngelis

While many in the West fret over the challenge of "rebalancing" the global economy after the recent global financial crisis, several trends suggest that the field of supply chain management could offer a key advantage for an America eager to double its exports by 2014. On the surface, supply chain management might not sound too sexy, but understand this: In today's globalization, neither companies nor countries compete -- supply chains do. Companies like Wal-Mart have known this for some time. Thus, positioning America to be the world's pre-eminent provider of secure, transparent and efficient supply chains will ensure that our economy masters globalization's competitive landscape in the fullest sense. 

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

See also Steve's broader post on transforming global supply chains.

The larger WPR special feature: The DNA of Global Power

Find it here for sale.

Nostalgic for me to appear with Professor Nye.  He was on my PhD committee with Adam Ulam and Houchang Chehabi.

CoreGap 11.08 released - Obama’s “Chinese menu” of Past Presidential Doctrines

Wikistrat has released edition 11.08 of the CoreGap Bulletin.

This CoreGap edition features, among others:

• Obama’s “Chinese menu” of Past Presidential Doctrines
• Disaster in Japan and instability in Gulf likely alter global energy landscape
• China steps on growth brake, hunkers down on potential domestic unrest
• Mexico, at wit’s end over blood-soaked drug war, pushes US for relief
• Egypt’s political change agenda proceeds, but tougher economic reform awaits

The entire bulletin is available for subscribers. Over the upcoming week we will release analysis from the bulletin to our Geopolitical Analysis section of the Wikistrat website, first being "Terra Incognita: Obama’s “Chinese menu” of Past Presidential Doctrines"

To say that President Barack Obama’s foreign policy plate is full right now is a vast understatement, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for a leader who needs to revive his own economy before trying to resuscitate others (e.g., Tunisia, Egypt, South Sudan, Ivory Coast – eventually Libya?).  Faced with the reality that America’s huge debt overhang condemns it to sub-par growth for many years, Washington enters a lengthy period of “intervention fatigue” that – like everything else, according to the Democrats – can still be blamed on George W. Bush.

It is estimated that 30 percent of the current US federal deficit was set in motion by the Bush administration and another 30 percent by Obama trying to correct those mistakes.  But the biggest problem remains the 40 percent triggered by entitlements growth – the simple aging of America.  With China now applying the brakes, Japan suddenly and sensationally damaged by mega-disaster, Europe still processing sovereign bankruptcies, and Arab unrest pushing up the price of oil, there appears no obvious “cavalry” riding to the global economy’s rescue.  It would seem that America’s “circle the wagons” mentality has gone global, as every beleaguered leadership now looks out for itself.

Read the full piece here

More about Wikistrat's Subscription can be found here

To say that President Barack Obama’s foreign policy plate is full right now is a vast understatement, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for a leader who needs to revive his own economy before trying to resuscitate others (e.g., Tunisia, Egypt, South Sudan, Ivory Coast – eventually Libya?). Faced with the reality that America’s huge debt overhang condemns it to sub-par growth for many years, Washington enters a lengthy period of “intervention fatigue” that – like everything else, according to the Democrats – can still be blamed on George W. Bush.

Referenced from Wikistrat: http://www.wikistrat.com/geopolitical-analysis/obamas-chinese-menu-of-past-presidential-doctrines/#ixzz1Gs4QTx6a

WPR's The New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts U.S., and Globalization, at Crossroads

Events in Libya are a further reminder for Americans that we stand at a crossroads in our continuing evolution as the world's sole full-service superpower. Unfortunately, we are increasingly seeking change without cost, and shirking from risk because we are tired of the responsibility. We don't know who we are anymore, and our president is a big part of that problem. Instead of leading us, he explains to us. Barack Obama would have us believe that he is practicing strategic patience. But many experts and ordinary citizens alike have concluded that he is actually beset by strategic incoherence -- in effect, a man overmatched by the job. 

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Chart of the day: Cinema B.O. reflects globalization of mass media

Per my many past posts on the subject, a great chart showing how flat domestic US box office is (hovering around $10B mark), while DVD sales have come and gone and Blu-Rays aren't filling the gap as Internet- and cable-delivered (virtually indistinguishable when it comes to the home) take over with their much-thinner margins (none of that being shown on this Economist chart).

Thus, why it's so crucial to Hollywood that foreign B.O. has more than doubled in last decade, and shows all signs of taking off even more.

Why?  As with most things, it's the emergence of the global middle class.  Think to when movies took off in America (1920s) and then realize how sustaining they were even during the Great Depression (escapism), thus all bottom-of-the-pyramid logic plays here too.

WPR's The New Rules: America Need Not Fear Connectivity Revolutions

A lot of international relations theories are being stress-tested by events in the Arab world right now, with some emerging better than others. Two in particular that are worth mentioning are Ian Bremmer's 2006 book, "The J Curve," which predicts a dangerous dip into instability when closed, authoritarian states attempt to open up to the world; and Evgeny Morozov's new book, "The Net Delusion," which critiques the notion that Internet connectivity is inherently democratizing. (In the interests of transparency, I work as a consultant for Bremmer's political risk consultancy, Eurasia Group, and penned a pre-publication blurb for Morozov's book.)

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

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.

India's Achilles heel: the Gandhian/Jeffersonian ideal

versus

Gandhi reified the village as the center of Indian life.  There you find the ones left behind in the rapture that is globalization's narrow advance into "shining India."  Gandhi is the modern Jefferson, and he shows you just how wrong that guy was.

Western investors may take eager note of India’s economic growth rate of nearly 9 percent a year. But that statistic rings hollow in India’s vast rural areas. Agriculture employs more than half the population, but it accounts for only 15 percent of the economy — and it has grown an average of only about 3 percent in recent years.

Critics say Indian policy makers have failed to follow up on the country’s investments in agricultural technology of the 1960s and ’70s, as they focused on more glamorous, urban industries like information technology, financial services and construction.

There is no agribusiness of the type known in the United States, with highly mechanized farms growing thousands of acres of food crops, because Indian laws and customs bar corporations from farming land directly for food crops. The laws also make it difficult to assemble large land holdings.

Yet even as India’s farming still depends on manual labor and the age-old vicissitudes of nature, demand for food has continued to rise — because of a growing population and rising incomes, especially in the middle and upper classes. As a result, India is importing ever greater amounts of some staples like beans and lentils (up 157 percent from 2004 to 2009) and cooking oil (up 68 percent in the same period).

Food prices are rising faster in India than in almost any other major economy — and faster than they did during the 2007-8 surge.

The whole India-v-China model is a fascinating experiment in Jefferson versus Hamilton, or Gandhi versus Deng.  It's not a state capitalism versus market thing, because the ratios there aren't all that different.  It's really a question of whether you like cities and industry versus villages and agriculture.  

China's Aviation Industry Corp plans another team-up with US firm

Get used to this line-up

WSJ story on how AVIC (Aviation Industry Corporation), which has already announced a joint effort with GE on commercial airliners, is now teaming with a small CA-based avionics firm (US Aerospace) to offer its signature big helicopter in US markets, to include defense markets and possibly even a bid on the Marine One contract to supply the White House.

Yes, there will be push back, but eventually these things will happen.

For years now, I've fantasized about China Southern buying Southwest Airlines, for no particular reason other than they have similar names and, when I flew China Southern and was warned in advance by so many people how much it sucked, I found that its service was just fine and actually on par with my favorite SWA.

But think about it:  We used to have this huge shipping fleet, and now most of it flies under other nation's flags.  Why?  Got so routine and so thin margin, that US companies got out of it, abandoning to cheaper providers.  I've heard plenty of pilots in the US airline industry say the same thing will eventually happen there, and the logical flagship companies will hail from nations with the biggest flier markets.

And you know who that will be eventually.

So yeah, if you want to compete globally, you have to compete in China, and if you want to compete in China, you'll need to be - partially - Chinese.  That is how it works in economics and trade and it won't change over China's rise.

Podcast archive for Vantage Point radio appearance 31 Jan 11

Find the one-hour segment here.

First segment audio a bit bad.  Did it over Skype and needed to listen on my headphones so no feedback, so later chunks better.

Mubarak's call: for cooler heads - and better downstream outcomes, the best possible path for Egypt (updated)

[EXTENSION OF ARGUMENT AT BOTTOM; VARIOUS UPDATES BOLDED THROUGHOUT]

Mubarak's just-announced decision not to stand for re-election in the slated September poll is obviously a good one, but so is his vow to remain in office until a successor is installed.

Why?

I just like how the paired decision allows the relevant authorities (i.e., the military) to slow things down, while demonstrating it's largely in charge without having to really step out there and harm any numbers (thus decredentializing itself).  The breather also gives all the relevant outside parties time to influence events to their - sometimes yes and sometimes no - reasonable liking.  It also gives the military time to interact with outside powers in a manner that should be reassuring.

We're talking a leaderless revolt that's driven by an underlying socio-economic revolution long in the making but weak in the developing of suitable political leadership.  Carpetbagging Mohamed ElBaradei [who must now dump on the US every chance he gets to prove he's really Egyptian and not just a lifelong UN bureaucrat, otherwise known as electioneering] actually needs time in-situ to develop a real following, for example.  And the Muslim Brotherhood's intentions and capabilities are more easily gauged/managed by the Powers That Remain in the run-up to the election than if something was slapped together, unity government-wise, in the immediate aftermath of Mubarak high-tailing it to Saudi Arabia.

As much as the romance of that image attracts ("See!  We scared the old bastard out of office!"), the subsequent dynamics are rarely so good.  This is a political system that's purposefully been retarded in its development for decades now, so giving it 8 months to find its feet will be a good thing.

Yes, much depends on how Mubarak behaves in the next few days and months (and seeing the social network sites back up is a VERY good sign), because the right moves will placate and soothe and the wrong ones will only inflame.  People on the street need to be satisfied that they've triggered something huge and permanent and that a new political era has already dawned.  Once that shock is over, then the real bottom-up networking and organizing can proceed apace, the key thing being that the police and Interior Ministry stay out of the picture.

That's not to say that I wouldn't expect the military to sanction some serious repression of the Brotherhood if they proceeded to scare people, but in general, it would be best if everybody had their chance to prove themselves under the new conditions without anybody being declared off-limits.  A truly free election where the Brotherhood does okay but somebody far more stabilizing wins the presidency would be a huge victory for democrats everywhere and a severe blow to Iran, al-Qaeda, radical Islam in general, and even the vaunted China model and its alleged transferability to places like Egypt.

Plus, given America' leadership-from-behind to date, the interregnum gives the Obama administration some time to make amends. [Now, Obama, in catch-up mode, demands Mubarak leave right now, and if the military can live with the interim choice, so can I.   But I'm against the general vibe of accelerating the pace out of fear of the mob, as I imagine the Army is - for good reason.  I think that if you fear the Iran 1979 scenario, you want this to be as calm and orderly as possible, so you exploit Mubarak's decision the best you can, in consultation with the military, and you don't just pile on now for the sake of cleaning up your johnny-come-lately mistakes.].  The lag likewise makes possible the international mediation process, if that's welcomed and usefully applied in this instance (and I think it could be).

Done well, this becomes another Big Bang-like notch in our belts, proving that regime-change doesn't have to come at the barrel of the foreign gun but can be opportunistically achieved in concert with globalization's natural advance.  Also done right, the flow of money to remake the Egyptian economy isn't in the form of official developmental aid but foreign direct investment - from all sides in a true collaboration-of-civilizations mode.  

The best outcome of the election is a new president able and willing to make the right investment climate happen (so think legal and security  and social tolerance in addition to economic and political stability) so globalization can flood in far faster and provide the jobs and opportunities and brighter future these protesters truly desire.

In short, I think this whole thing has gone amazing well.  It should be embraced by a down-in-the-mouth West and United States in particular, because this is very much our side winning. This is globalization's connectivity fomenting revolution and leading to even more connectivity and self-empowerment.  Overall, a huge positive that should be celebrated and nurtured for the profound demonstration effect.

Imagine:  just 8 short years after we go into Iraq we face the prospect of that country and Egypt presenting the world with democratically-elected governments.  I know everybody wants everything by Tuesday, but to me, looking at it strategically from a longer-term perspective, I can't believe how well things are turning out in this globalization-versus-radical-Islamic-fundamentalism struggle - or how quickly.

[per the comment on the Big Bang reference--see below, understanding that I'm taking on the notion here, not the commenter per se]

You don't argue that Iraq directly caused Tunisia and Egypt. That's silly, but so is Wilkerson's hatred of all things Bush. The guy went round the bend years ago. Saying there's a direct causality is like saying we descended from modern apes. I'm citing a larger phenomenon that begets both, one that presents us with different challenges, if we so choose to recognize them.

You argue that they're all part of the same process of opening up the Middle East to globalization. Sometimes it makes sense to force the issue, and sometimes it's better to act opportunistically.

["Really? I thought one size supposedly fit all!"]

Iraq was kinetic because Saddam was a big-time disconnector who required an enemy-world image to justify his amazingly cruel rule.  No such effort is required with either Tunisia or Egypt because there, you're not talking a totalitarian ambition (Saddam failed), nor a required world-enemy justification for militarism and constantly threatening behavior to others.  Simply put, not enough boxes were checked, and in Mubarak's defense, he did plenty to help out US interests in keeping the region stable, so even some boxes that could have been checked were left unmarked (and yes, we call that "realism," boo hoo!). 

Where we do draw parallel lines between the two is this:  by taking down Saddam, we triggered a larger tumult in the region.  We triggered all manner of accelerated connectivity, in part because we told the world we'd be responsible for regional stability by taking down its worst, most destabilizing actor and standing up to #2 in Iran (which we've done consistently, and thankfully haven't invaded given our tie-down elsewhere and the related arguments I've long made that Iran is a soft-kill option staring us in the face).  We saw the rippling tumult in 2005, when the Saudis held local elections for the first time in 70 years, Lebanon broke somewhat free of Syria in the Cedar Revolution, Mubarak felt the need to conduct a somewhat freer election, etc. Governments across the board felt some need to either firewall or prove their reform credentials, and Iraq helped fuel that by saying, Change is coming one way or the other.

[And then we got unduly obsessed with Iran's nuclear pursuit, which I have also criticized ad nauseum.  And Obama has persisted in this painfully myopic view of the world and globalization.]

Of course, and I've made these arguments ad nauseum, we could have done Iraq better, but the realist in me concerning the Pentagon and the US military says that the small-wars mindset wasn't going to emerge until we failed using the old "lesser includeds" techniques (big war force pretends to have small-wars skills).  Bush held off on that shift for way too long (until the people spoke in 2006) and now big Blue (Air Force, Navy) are dying to revive it all vis-a-vis China, which I think is nuts.  But evolutions such as these are non-stop fights, and so those of us who believe in them continue that struggle.  But that's a side issue to this argument.

And that larger argument remains:  globalization is impinging on a part of the world that is not ready for it and will experience tremendous social, economic, political and security tumult as it absorbs its impact.  That penetration process is not some elite conspiracy in the West; it's a demand-pull primarily by youth and middle class and students - and oppressed women - locally. When it's impeded enough by evil elites, and those elites constitute security threats in addition, the US calculus will always broach the question of kinetically removing them to facilitate the process ("global capitalist domination" to the neo-Marxist bullshit artists, liberation of an emerging global middle class to me).  Sometimes the threshold is met, but most times it is not.  Why?  We're too busy with other things.  We're feeling down on ourselves.  We're experiencing crisis.  Or it's just not enough of a me-versus-him feeling to justify whipping ourselves into action, which is just how democracies are (and God love them for that). 

But does that mean we don't intervene?  Of course we intervene.  Just get your head out of your butt and realize that interventions aren't all the same.  Some are kinetic and some are very subtle. We're intervening right now plenty in Egypt via our contacts with the military, a very broadband connection spanning decades and thousands of officers (and a process I know well, having been involved with it on many levels for two decades--see PNM for my description vis-a-vis India/Pakistan).  That is an unknown but huge power of the Leviathan force:  we train people all over the world.  And so, when stuff goes down, we have influence.  

Will this influence somehow get us everything we want?  When we want it?  With praise ringing in our ears?  Again, let's stay out of fairyland.  Lumps will be coming, as will brick bats.  Only question for us is, 8-10 years later, do we like the outcome?  Did our side win?

In Iraq, come 2013, we're looking at a very good situation.  A democracy with a handful of free elections by then.  Iranian influence, but not much more than Turkey's (and it's the economics where both matter, not the politics).  A rising oil power that shifts the balance in OPEC away from Iran to a country that has cooperative investment deals with basically every continent in the world--connectivity!  In the end, we still could have done it vastly better, like simply giving the Chinese the entire rebuild contract on day 1 instead of our supremely bad fumbling effort (Check out China preparing to dump $10B into Zimbabwe).  We could have gone COIN from day one instead of 3-4 years in, wasting the vast bulk of our lives and the vast bulk of the Iraqi lives.  And yes, we hold Bush-Cheney accountable for such decisions, but the mistakes were throughout the system, products of decades of assumptions and thinking that many of us still battle to this day.  But, in the end, the Iraq that stands there in 2013 is something entirely different from what the pessimists have long predicted.  It is a force that makes globalization move more broadly and deeply in the region, and that means we win.

My hopes for Egypt are that, by 2020-2022, we're looking at a Turkey-like player with a broad and relatively happy middle class.  It's got a military that's respected and still a very solid friend of the US and the US's friends in the region.  It is Islamist in flavor, because that's the people's heritage and it must be respected, just like a Christian-Judeo one is in the US.  But it's not unduly dominant or nasty to other faiths, because that's bad for globalization and business.  It becomes a conduit for the Horn and North Africa and the PG - connecting in all directions.  

And sooner than you think, it becomes the justification for similarly successful unrest elsewhere.

But yeah, we're now in the business of nation-building in Egypt, and fortunately for us, this time the US won't be in charge.  I hope we learn how much better that can be, and how many more players we can and should help tap right from the start, encouraging the Egyptians to self-empowering connectivity in all directions, so long as they create and sustain the rule sets necessary to make that work.

So to sum up:  my argument here is not to wash away Bush-Cheney's many mistakes.  I'm on record and in books and articles and columns and speeches and posts galore listing all the things they did that I disagreed with.  My point here is to remind us of the larger connections with history - a history we purposefully sought to create and continue to try and shape.  

And to remind you that our side is globalization, and globalization is winning - big time.

So wake up, Austin Powers*, and realize the world has shifted - yet again - in our favor, just when we needed a lift.

And then keep your chin up through all the name-calling to follow. Stick to the long-term perspective, because the dumbasses will be freaking out, bemoaning yet again how "America lost and THEY won!"  It's just our self-critical and Type A nature, which is good much of the time and just plain silly at various stretches of perceived and real crisis.

Simma down, nah!

Basil Exposition: Austin, the Cold War is over!

Austin Powers: Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?

Exposition: Austin... we won.

Powers: Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism! 

Listen to the podcasts of Tom Barnett on Colorado talk radio (Sun, 30 Jan 2011)

Go here for the one-hour (two segments = 5 & 6).  Good show!

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.

Same problem, same prescription

LAT op-ed by Congressman Mike Honda, Dem from CA, by way of Chris Ridlon.

Great logic:

Given the comparatively weak Afghanistan team, and the fact that the Iraq inspector general's office is due to close in 2012 despite 50,000 troops and 80,000 defense contractors still operating in Iraq, we need a better form of oversight. Iraq and Afghanistan — and every other U.S. "contingency operation" involving billions of taxpayer dollars — should be under the watchful eye of a permanent, independent Office for Contingency Operations, with its own special inspector general. Rather than a piecemeal and reactive approach to the oversight of billions of dollars in these situations, we need a dedicated shop run by a proven investigator who can report to the National Security Council, and the Defense and State departments, without being cowed by political pressure.

We cannot afford to continue overseas relief and reconstruction efforts in an ad-hoc fashion, spending billions of taxpayer dollars under "emergency" pretexts with too few conditions and too little coordination, transparency, oversight and evaluation. It weakens our economic and national security.

You need a Department of Everything Else because the current approach simply wastes too much money and too much opportunity - and too many lives.

You can say we won't do any more of these, but you're kidding yourself. This is basically all that's left. We either do it or withdraw from the field, because fantasies of terrorists wielding loose nukes or rampaging pirates taking over globalization are silly.  There as two rogue regimes that want protection from U.S. invasion and believe nukes will buy them that (duh), and then there's the now rather symmetricized counter-terror effort spread across 75 states (SOF and drones and other nasty bits), and then there are the issues of failed states.  We can likewise fantasize about months-long bombing campaigns the width and breadth of China - that don't trigger nuclear war - but then we're into the serious nonsense.

Use your mentality.  Walk up to reality.

What Europe did, then what America accomplished

From Mike Nelson by way of Talking Points Memo.

What I got from it:  

Life was bad in the usual way, and then the Industrial Revolution made it much better in the West.  Then rising Europe turned to colonialism and that created a godawful have/have-not world system that was doomed once the greedy Europeans turned on each other in "world wars." Then the US-style of globalization kicked in, eventually creating the better world we know today by creating the opportunities for the "rest" to advance. 

Our polite European host skips all the ugly colonial realities, and instead just notes the tremendous inequality that defined the middle period.  It's a painfully selective way to capture the past two centuries.