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.

WPR's New Rules: Worried by China's Rise? Watch Out for its Decline

Much of what drives America’s current phobias regarding China stems from the dual -- and fantastically linear -- assumptions of America’s terminal decline and China’s perpetual ascension. We are thus led to believe that China no longer needs the United States and that America, in turn, can do nothing -- short of increasing military pressure -- to constrain the Middle Kingdom’s rise to global hegemony. On all scores, nothing could be further from the truth. China and the United States suffer a level of strategic interdependency that is vast and shows no signs of reduction. Simply put, America cannot stay rich without China, and China cannot get rich without America.

Read the entire post at World Politics Review.

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Clutching for Straws With Energy Independence

The United States is on the verge of an industrial renaissance, according to energy experts enthusiastic about technological advances surrounding the “fracking” of shale gas and the processing of “tight oil.” America is sitting on a century-worth of natural gas, and the Western hemisphere boasts five times the reserves in unconventional oil as the Middle East claims in the conventional category. Suddenly, all our fears of resource wars with China and never-ending quagmires in Southwest Asia seem to melt away, heralding with great certainty another American century based on the promise of energy independence. As “deus ex machina” moments go, this one arrives just in time for a nation magnificently down on its luck and itself.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

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.

NPR's All Things Considered: My appearance yesterday on US-China relations

The segment:

Analyst Spells Out U.S. Interests In Pacific Rim

November 17, 2011

President Obama used his trip to the Pacific Rim this week to announce plans for a new American military base in Darwin, Australia. The move changes the stance of U.S. forces in the region — countering the growing strength and presence of China's military. Guy Raz talks with Thomas P. M. Barnett, chief analyst for Wikistrat, a consultancy that provides geopolitical analysis. He's also executive vice president of the Center for America-China Partnership.

Download this: http://thomaspmbarnett.squarespace.com/storage/20111117_atc_15.mp3 or go here to find the NPR/ATC page.

WPR's The New Rules: How to Stop Worrying and Live with the Iranian Bomb

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear programsurprised no one, even as it created the usual flurry of op-eds championing preventative “next steps.” As I’ve been saying for the past half-decade, there are none. Once the U.S. went into both Iraq and Afghanistan, the question went from being, “How do we prevent Iran from getting the Bomb?” to “How do we handle Iran’s Bomb?” That shift represents neither defeatism nor appeasement. Rather, it reflects a realistic analysis of America’s strategic options. With that in mind, here are 20 reasons why Iran’s successful pursuit of the Bomb is not the system-changing event so many analysts are keen to portray.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" 2011 brief, Part 8 (Q&A on global economic crisis)

More Q&A from my presentation of the current Brief to an international military audience in the Washington DC area in September 2011.

Audience question was about the global economic crisis and role of China in global economy.

WPR's The New Rules: Obama Must Avoid the 'China Threat' Trap

No credible international affairs specialist would contend that the 2012 presidential election will hinge on U.S. foreign policy, given the state of the U.S. economy and the widespread social anger that one sees bubbling up across the country. What's more, Americans -- if not Beltway partisan pundits -- have achieved a certain sense of consensus on foreign policy under President Barack Obama, whose leadership has displayed a palpable "give them what they want" dynamic that reflects his desire to keep overseas issues on the back burner while he focuses on domestic ones.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" 2011 brief, Part 6 (Flow of Security)

In this section I cover the symmetricization of the Long War, nuclear proliferation (and the lack thereof), how America shaped this world with its grand strategy, and who the key superpowers will be in the post-2030 landscape.

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" 2011 brief, Part 5 (Flow of Food)

In this section of the brief I explore water and how it connects to grain-production centers of gravity, how climate change will impact the flow of food, how that flow will surpass the flow of energy in global importance in the future, and how the Western Hemisphere evolves as a result of its incredible water advantage.

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.

Chart of the Day: Isn't a coincidence that the two biggest energy consumers . . .

 . . . happen to own the world's two largest reserves of shale gas?

Nice timing, huh?

The trick, of course, is the environmental impact.  American companies don't want to reveal their techniques, but the public needs to know so we can judge the impact and enforce the necessary precautions.

How that works and what volumes that ultimately allows us to extract is a big variable going forward.

With China, one assumes the niceties are not observed - until the riots start.

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Resilience Can Rise to Future Threats

Last month I spent a couple of hours on the phone being interviewed for the next iteration of the National Intelligence Council's global futures project. This one imagines the world in 2030, and the interview was part of the organization's early polling process of experts around the world. I've participated similarly in previous iterations, and I've always found the NIC's questions fascinating for how they reveal the group's primary fears about the future.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

The real leading indicator of China's power

Apologies for no post for two days. I was in DC and busy.

FT story here on how the demographics are already playing out in China: fewer workers entering the work force can be choosier and more demanding on wages. That sends wages skyrocketing in China along the coast. Companies have two choices: go inland for cheaper Chinese labor - but then accept the higher transpo costs, or they go to neighboring states - all of which are just now on the cusp on a very big and long demographic dividend that will make their labor cheaper than China's from here on out. Those neighbors are basically all of Southeast Asia and especially India and Bangladesh.

So the subheader here says it all: "Demographcis and Beijing policy on workers' pay mean manufacturing is relocating in Asia."

Won't change a whole lot about America's trade deficit with Asia. It was large when "factory Asia" was just Japan and South Korea and ASEAN, and it got bigger when China cleverly inserted itself at the top of that assembling chain and consolidated the region's trade suprlus with America into its massive foreign currency holdings. And it won't go away when others displace China increasingly.

But it does mean that China's days of "inexhaustible" cheap labor are already ending.

And it means that India's eclipsing of China as the next big thing - to include all the soft power that goes with that (which will be greater for democratic India than authoritarian China) - has already begun.

Time's Battleland: Right where we've always wanted us

Philip Stephens of the Financial Times recently pens a rather pessimistic piece on what Libya said about "Britain's pretensions of influence." Noting that the "campaign has stretched the armed forces to their limit," he calls it a "last hurrah." Now, the underlying tone of the piece is his criticism of PM David Cameron's desire to pursue a foreign policy more independent of both the US and EU, thus reaching out to the emerging powers, but his overall use of the Libyan intervention got me thinking: isn't this what we've always wanted in terms of a balanced world?

Read the entire post at Time's Battleland.

US-China grand strategy agreement advertised in Foreign Affairs, new US-China Relations.net website launched

The following ad appeared in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, touting the work I performed with John Milligan-Whyte and Dai Min at the Center for America-China Partnership.

Go to the just launched US-China Relations.net website for more coverage (note that not all the videos are up and working yet).  Go there for printable versions of the PDFs.

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.

WPR's The New Rules: The Race for Global Leadership in the Age of Anger

Ian Bremmer, the founder and head of Eurasia Group (for which I work as an analyst), has argued that we are living in a "G-Zero" world, or one in which there is no genuine great-power leadership. From the perspective of political science, it is hard to disagree, as anyone reading a newspaper these days can attest. Still, the historian in me says this situation cannot last for too long. My reasoning here has nothing to do with the global correlation of military force, since thanks to globalization's emerging middle class, "butter" will inevitably emerge as the winner over "guns." 

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Chart of the Day: Perot sold that story too

Now let me first say that I hunger for serious competition to Obama.  If he gets back in, I want it to be a tough fight because, otherwise, his first-term arrogance will return unabated.

Let me also say that, as a rule, I think second terms are disasters. I have always favored a single six versus 2x4=8.  I haven't lived through a second term yet that I wouldn't have traded in for the 2nd election competition. I just see scandals and drift and lots of lesser talent creeping in for no good effect.

So I want Perry to be real, because Romney ain't doing it for anybody except Peggy Noonan.  And while I respect her considerable political instincts, I remain unsold (even though his campaign book cited me very favorably), primarily because I'm unsure he can win and - again - I want a real election and not some disappointing recrowning for a weak first term. If Obama is to win, I want him to earn it this time rather than have it somewhat handed to him by a weak opponent.

And so far, Perry is looking like an un-self-aware Romney.  Romney may flip a bit to win the nomination, but he at least knows who he is. Perry is for HPV vaccination so long as his friend says so, but then the religious right get on him and he flips like a pancake for no more reason, it seems, than his initial decision.

Now, he's selling the Texas miracle like H. Ross Perot sold his buffalo-tinged, I-made-my-own-fortune story, except Perot and EDS got fat mostly through gov contracts and Perry's jobs miracle seems similarly fueled:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has leapfrogged to the top tier of Republican presidential candidates largely on the strength of one compelling fact: During more than a decade as governor, his state created more than 1 million jobs, while the nation as a whole lost 1.4 million jobs.

Perry says the “Texas miracle” rests on conservative pillars that he would bring to the White House: minimal regulation and government, low taxes and a determination to limit the reach of Uncle Sam.

What he does not say is that much of that job growth has come because of government, not in spite of it.

With a young and fast-growing population, a large and expanding military presence and an influx of federal stimulus money, the number of government jobs in Texas has grown at more than double the rate of private-sector employment during Perry’s tenure.

This guy needs to figure out if he's real or just enough of a snow job to sell in Texas.  If he is real (the other numbers are undeniably un-shabby), then he needs to start acting real, meaning acknowledging truths and acknowledging that what goes on in Texas is indicative of just about nothing in this country (Anybody else getting a one-fifth increase in gov jobs? Because those can go away too.).

So yeah, make your sale on your record, but make it honestly and show me some realistic translation to the real world known as the US outside of Texas. Indiana, for example, has a serious governor with a serious record and a serious capacity for telling the truth - Mitch Daniels.  I don't like everything he does, but at least our finances aren't a disaster amidst all the ongoing difficulty, and that counts plenty.

Perry is coming off, so far, too slick and too political.  I am not sensing the "real deal" dynamics in his presentation to date.  Some of that may be how the press is working him over, the usual rumor mills from enemies, etc., but the guy needs to get a grip before he gets himself defined down dramatically.  Maybe that's inevitable and there ain't no there there (all hat,no cattle, in TX terms), but mebbe it ain't.

It just doesn't feel like it's working so far, because I smell a Perot, and I don't want any cartoon character running for POTUS.