The China trajectory the hawks never see
Thomas Barnett
¦"China Eases Rules On Stock Buying By Foreign Holders," by Kate Linebaugh, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. A6.
¦"Mitsubishi UFJ Negotiates Stake In Bank of China," by Andrew Morse, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. A12.
The China hawks in the Pentagon and on the Hill view that country's "rise" strictly in terms of alleged "power" and "influence." They never see the liabilities, especially the internal ones. They never see the factions and divisiveness and political infighting, so they constantly misinterpret or fantastically extrapolate from their very narrow focus on military matters an entire Chinese view of the world (Yes, yes, it's all "unrestricted warfare" from here on out! As if you can't find similar bullshit from our own Fourth-Generation Warfare hard-core types.).
Worse, the hawks are never able to locate China in our own past history, seeing them only as necessarily vectoring toward some Nazi-like outcome, as if China's embrace of globalization and rapid privatization (70% of the economy is now private-sector driven) comes anywhere close to the Third Reich's very different trajectory.
Nor do these hawks ever examine the relative differences between ... say ... China's foreign policy and America's over the past several decades. I mean, which country has waged war time and time again distant from its shores, and which country has essentially acquiesced time and time again with such warfare. Recall any dramatic, Soviet-like military showdowns between the U.S. and China anywhere other than its coastline or the Taiwan Straits? In other words, where do we find China's "influence" and "infiltration" leading to superpower rivalries of an unstable sort?
Ah, we are told the Chinese are too masterful and clever for that--way too 4GW. You are thinking too crudely if you expect such things. The Chinese are doing this all indirectly, which is why we need mucho gigantic military platforms that are absurdly expensive because ... uh ... that is clearly where warfare is going, right?
Me, I see a clear trajectory with China: day-in and day-out it slowly but surely opens up its precious "communist" economy to outside economic influence and connectivity. Its political leadership, which is clearly autocratic, increasingly lets that process of growing connectivity drive a comprehensive and profound transformation of its internal economic rule sets, while trying desperately to keep itself insulated from the pluralistic impulses that process inevitably unleashes throughout society, but especially among the youth.
But seeing that economic trajectory for what it is, well, that's considered naïve and idealistic. Yes, yes, focusing on economics and capitalism and reading the WSJ, that's the naïve observer all right.
Meanwhile, clinging to dreams of great power war with China, a dream that has clearly prevailed in the current Quaddrenial Defense Review, means we change our force structure and acquisitions strategies very little, despite this Global War on Terrorism, the "long war" with radical Salafi jihadists, and the Iraq of today and the Iraqs of tomorrow--that's realism.
Or perhaps just a particular form of greed we have a hard time shaking--or should I say, Congress and the Pentagon have a hard time shaking.
How to kill an insurgency? Where are the 4GWers on Mexico?
¦"Mexican Rebel on Reality Tour: Few Outside His Entourage Cheer Famed Chiapas Champion of Poor," by Jose de Cordoba and John Lyons, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. A12.
Fascinating article on the pathetic "farewell tour" of the Chiapas rebel leader, Subcomandante Marcos (who now calls himself "Delegate Zero"), as he tries to sort of run in/influence the upcoming July national elections.
Focusing on poverty is good, but Marcos' answers never were. Clearly, though, his rebel force were masters of the sort of netwar so promoted by Fourth Generation Warfare types as being the new top dog in international conflict: they worked the web and the media like few had before them.
So what killed this rebellion and turned this guy into a pathetic joke? Was it some amazing "info war" campaign by Mexico's government. Did the public diplomacy and strategic communications rule the day?
The sight of the aging revolutionary on an undersized bike prompted Mexico's leading newspaper, Reforma, to compare Marcos to a pizza deliveryman.
"If he keeps this [motorcyle tour] up," quipped one radio commentator, "he should be called Sub-comedian Marcos."
More stinging than the mockery is the growing realization, even by many of his once-devoted supporters, that Marcos has become increasingly irrelevant as Mexico has embraced democracy and free markets. While his legacy is evident--leftists and indigenous movements have become a political force here and elsewhere in the region since he burst onto the scene, and President Vincente Fox felt compelled to launch a competing tour of indigenous communities--few Mexicans these days buy Marcos' revolutionary rhetoric, and townspeople here offered studied indifference and wariness when he arrived amid an army of masked followers.
My, what an inconceivable outcome, so clearly driven by the dynamics of 4GW. How the incompetent Mexican government and private sector pulled this off, I'll never know.
And clearly, any movement by Iraq's fledgling government and economy down similar pathways will yield nothing of value there.
No, no, only the masters of 4GW disaster take the long view. The naïve idealists of economic connectivity are no match for this brilliant realism.
Cheney on domestic eavesdropping isn't as crazy as you think
¦"Cheney Cites Justifications for Domestic Eavesdropping: Secret Monitoring May Have Averted 9/11, He Says," by Jim VandeHei and Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 5 January 2006, p. A2.
Cheney makes reference to NSA intercepts of comms inside the U.S. among the 9/11 hijackers, in effect arguing that if the government had more freedom to monitor such comms inside the U.S., it would have connected some dots and possibly prevented the attacks.
Noted terrorist expert Bruce Hoffman is quoted in the piece saying that's a bit too simple and that our national security system's failures were more systematic, so no silver bullet here.
But the larger point implied by Cheney remains: there's a weird hole in our system if we basically give terrorists a free pass once they get inside our borders. Clearly, allowing for such domestic surveillance is a risky venture, one that should be subject to all sorts of judicial oversight, something Cheney is definitely not fond of. But just as clearly, this notion of "home" versus "away" game is awfully artificial: this idea that we can be as brutal and extra-legal as we want overseas while playing an ultra-fair version within our borders.
The more we cling to that chimera at home, the more we'll drive our government toward "illegal" and immoral strategies abroad. We will not extend rule sets, we'll just perpetuate an us-versus-them divide that simply will not serve us well in this war.
January 05, 2006
A foreign policy that seems to revolve around energy access? Unbelievable!
¦"Putin, Acting in Character: A Pipeline Ploy Worthy of the Soviets," op-ed by Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, 5 January 2006, p. A15.
¦"Russia and Ukraine Reach Compromise on Natural Gas," by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 5 January 2006, pulled from web.
Hoagland likes to ride Putin and he's right to do so. As I have said here many times, watching Putin rule is simply an exercise in observing the limits of the ex-commies in power: they know how to get power, they just don't know how to use it.
So yes, Putin now clings to his energy "influence" in the same way as Brezhnev and the gang (man, does that name evoke ancient history!) once did with nukes, because that's how Putin was raised and that's all he knows.
So the question isn't, "How do we change or reform Putin?" It's, "How do we help the next generation of Russian leaders see the world differently?"
The U.S. political system once viewed global energy supplies in very similar ways as Putin (and, increasingly, the Chinese and Indians) does today: either own the barrel in the ground or you've got bupkis in terms of power and influence. That view was pervasive in our national security establishment and political system as recently as the 1970s.
But we largely moved beyond that in the years that followed. By and large, we now see a fluid global oil market where our insecurity is defined less in terms of potential loss of supply than in potential movement of prices. But, just as clearly, New Core pillars India, China and Russia have yet to reach that maturity of understanding, so their foreign policies revolve around energy in as crude a fashion as ours once did.
What do we need to do? On some levels, time itself takes care of the problem, as governments and private sectors in all three countries will simply learn by experience.
Like so many things in life. It's not so much a matter of getting it right as not getting it wrong: avoid the unnecessary conflict and let your potential opponent grow past this point of immaturity.
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