Afghanistan and Failed States

Steve DeAngelis of Enterra Solutions has a couple of timely posts that call attention to the broken parts of our world. The first addresses the need for the core states of the world to act in concert to address the failing and failed states of the world.

Steve begins:

The Economist, in a recent International section article, asserted that "in almost any discussion of world affairs, there is one thing on which doves and hawks invariably agree: much more needs to be done to shore up states that are failing, in a state of collapse, or so poor that they are heading in that direction" ["Fixing a Broken World," 31 January 2009 print edition]. Since Development-in-a-Box™ is one of Enterra Solutions' core offerings, development is a topic I frequently address in this blog [see, for example, my posts entitled Dealing with Failed States, More on Dealing with Failed States, and Fixing Fragile States]. As an opening to its article, The Economist claims that "the planet's most wretched places are not always the most dangerous." That shouldn't come as too great a surprise since the residents of some of those countries are so poor that they spend nearly every waking moment just trying to stay alive.

Drawing this quote from the article, Steve shows the correlation to observations made by his associate Tom Barnett.

A rather precise taxonomy is offered by Robert Cooper, a British diplomat and Eurocrat, in his book, 'The Breaking of Nations'. He splits the world into three zones: Hobbesian or 'pre-modern' regions of chaos; areas ruled effectively by modern nation-states; and zones of 'postmodern' co-operation where national sovereignty is being voluntarily dissolved, as in the European Union. In his view, chaos in critical parts of the world must be watched carefully. 'It was not the well-organised Persian Empire that brought about the fall of Rome, but the barbarians,' he writes."

You might recognize some similarities between Cooper's taxonomy and Tom Barnett's, my colleague at Enterra Solutions. Tom's Core States comprise Cooper's modern and post-modern states and his Gap States comprise Cooper's pre-modern or Hobbesian states. Between the two, Tom places Seam States, which are often the places exploited by criminal and terrorist organizations as gateways into the developed world. Tom believes that diplomacy is the only security tool necessary for working with the Core, but in the Gap, a capable military force (a Leviathan force) is also a necessary part of the kit. Between the extremes of diplomacy and conflict, Tom recommends using a nation-building force (a System Admin Force) to help Gap countries along the path to prosperity. He was preaching his gospel of "shrinking the Gap" long before it was adopted by the U.S. or the EU. The Economist's article provides a brief history of why thinking changed.

This post is well worth the time taken to read and understand that ignoring these problems will eventually grow like a pandemic to engulf the functioning states of the world.

Read more:

Fixing a Broken World

Steve turns to the dean of American diplomats, Henry Kissinger who as DeAngelis notes is still making grand strategic observations at the ripe age of 86. In this post, Kissinger offers sage advice for President Obama and America on the treacherous course in Afghanistan.

Henry Kissinger, who has labored in academia's ivory towers as well as Foggy Bottom's government offices, remains, at age 86, keenly interested in world events and U.S. responses to them. Never shy to express his opinions, Dr. Kissinger offers up his views on the war in Afghanistan for consideration by the Obama administration ["A Strategy for Afghanistan," Washington Post, 26 February 2009]. As one might expect, Dr. Kissinger is not happy with the direction the war is heading; otherwise, he would have likely have remained silent. He writes:

"The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point. The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk."

The post ends with these cautious words aimed at both the President, but the oposition party.

Dr. Kissinger suggests that the Obama administration should not count on much help from outside the region (especially from America's NATO allies). Conflict in the Middle East remains unpopular in Europe and Kissinger doesn't believe that President Obama's popularity will change that sentiment. He is more sanguine that Europe would be willing to help rebuild Afghanistan should the security situation there be stabilized. Kissinger concludes his op-ed piece with these words: "Whatever strategy [President Obama's] team selects needs to be pursued with determination. It is not possible to hedge against failure by half-hearted execution." I hope that members of Kissinger's own party heed his words as well as the administration.

Read more: Kissinger on Afghanistan

Two Reads, Like Battery Posts, Negative and Positive

Niall Ferguson has an article at http://www.foreignpolicy.com, where he warns about new and larger dangers facing President Obama and sounds a clarion call to the nation that we may be facing an upheaval of unprecedented challenges.

Ferguson begins.

Seven years ago, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 29, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush warned of an “axis of evil” that was engaged in assisting terrorists, acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and “arming to threaten the peace of the world.” In Bush’s telling, this exclusive new club had three members: Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Bush’s policy prescription for dealing with the axis of evil was preemption, and just over a year later he put this doctrine into action by invading Iraq.

The bad news for Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, is that he now faces a much larger and potentially more troubling axis—an axis of upheaval. This axis has at least nine members, and quite possibly more. What unites them is not so much their wicked intentions as their instability, which the global financial crisis only makes worse every day. Unfortunately, that same crisis is making it far from easy for the United States to respond to this new “grave and growing danger.”

Read More:
The Axis of Upheaval

And in a related article from the same issue is this piece entitled Globalization by Moisés Naím editor and chief of Foreign Policy Magazine.

“Globalization Is a Casualty of the Economic Crisis.” No. That is, not unless you believe that globalization is mainly about international trade and investment. But it is much more than that, and rumors of its demise—such as Princeton economic historian Harold James’s recent obituary for “The Late, Great Globalization”—have been greatly exaggerated.

Naim stakes out the following positions.

“Globalization Is Nothing New.” Yes it is.

“Globalization No Longer Means Americanization.” It never did. For some critics, globalization has been little more than an American project aimed at expanding U.S. economic, military, and cultural dominance. Yet, since the 1980s, Japanese sushi has gone as global as Latin American telenovelas or fundamentalist Islam, while massive inflows of Hispanic immigrants have had a huge impact on U.S. society.

“Great Power Politics Are Back.” They never went away. We only thought they did.

“Globalization Is by and for Rich People.”Go tell the Indians. Or, for that matter, the Chinese, or the emerging middle classes in Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, and countless other countries that owe their recent success to trade and investment booms facilitated by globalization. Until the financial crisis broke out in 2008, the middle class in poor countries was the fastest-growing segment of the world’s population.

“Globalization Has Made the World a Safer Place.” Not really. It’s true that in the past 20 years, the number of armed conflicts between countries has plummeted.

“The Financial Crisis Is a Symptom of Globalization Run Amok.” No, you just think it is.

An interesting take on the same subject that this blog has been covering the past few weeks as part of an sharing ideas from Great Powers: America and the World After Bush. Many of Mr. Naim's points are in concert with what Tom Barnett has been talking about for the past half decade.

The Eagle Eyed Armchair Admiral Spots a Quote At 6834 Miles!

Galrahn the Admiral of Information Dissemination broke out his spyglass to report this sighting. Hillary Channels Thomas Barnett.

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And more from the WAPO Clinton Urges Continued Investment in U.S.

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Interesting bit of back ground from a twitter post by Tom when he was in Washington last month.

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Books handed personally to Obama and Clinton Sunday night. My emissaries are being turned loose.

8:20 PM Jan 17th from txt

I wonder what Hillary was reading during that long flight?

A Few Thoughts on the Importance of Teaching American History

Alexander Hamilton

Senator Henry Clay

Theodore Rooesvelt Jr.

An item that caught my eye today, stimulated me to write about the importance of teaching American history to both young and old in this country.

First, an article that Thomas Barnett posted today Cheap houses, happy immigrants where he comments on this article in Newsweek "A Fence Can't Stop the Future.

The main point of the article is that:

The law of large numbers guarantees that Latinos will move the national averages in almost every measurable area of American life. The question is how. If current trends continue, Latino growth could actually speed our national decline. Need a cautionary tale? In California, the under performance of Latino students has pushed the state to the bottom of the heap—45th among 50 states in educational attainment. On the other hand, if we invest in services that lift Latinos into the middle class, they could become the dynamic heart of a continuing American success story.

This point about an investment in education is critical in my opinion. And that brings up an issue where I differ with the current trend in studying American history by focusing too much on our failures over the triumphs that led to the conditions that brought us to the place we are today. I do not advocate ignoring those shortcomings as was done in past decades, just a re-awakening of the strengths that have led us to continue to be the desired destination of millions like those above who seek what Barnett describes in Great Powers as an; "America..built for speed, for the cutting edge, and for both producing and attracting ambition." Where, "Our promise is of equal opportunity, not equal outcome." Phrases, that best define why we continue to be the magnet that turns the turbines of innovation and change.

Those new to our country send their children to class where they learn so much about the negatives that when I get them in my college classrooms, they are mystified to learn about roles that men such as Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Theodore Roosevelt played in shaping a future that today's Americans enjoy.

Understanding how our system of government works in relation to the civil government that their parents were familiar in their home country is another area where a massive effort to educate would pay off in dividends that would make the most jaded hedge fund trader jealous.

If we as Americans care about our future, we need include the lessons learned by studying the virtues of America's past along side the scars left by that journey.

One of my favorite passages was found written in the margins of a copy of The Pilgrim's Progress, carried by Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. son of President Theodore Roosevelt and discovered after his death during World War II. "I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am...My marks and scars I carry with me" And later to his wife he had written after being relieved by General Patton in Sicily. "The longer I live the more I think of the quality of fortitude--men who fall, pick themselves up and stumble on, fall again, and are trying to get up when they die."*

General Roosevelt went on to win the Medal of Honor for leading his men ashore on D-Day. He died of a heart attack one month later, on the eve of taking command of the 90th Division.

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Roosevelt's words serve as an allegory to the American spirit and the importance of introducing there meaning into the minds of those seeking that opportunity of equality, so that they have a full measure of what being American means.

*Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), 160.

Thoughts on a Sunday Morning

Connectivity to Major Cities

Wealth concentration Year 1 CE, to 2015 CE.

World Economic Freedom

Per Capita GPD

Sunday mornings are a chance to reflect on the week that was and give thought of the week ahead. This last week saw the passing of a second stimulus package of $787 billion that joins the previous outlay of $750 billion passed last October as the twin thumbs in our financial dike. This amounts to 1.5 trillion dollars or over 10% of our current Gross Domestic Product or 14 trillion dollars.

That is enough to make even the most die hard believer in government social spending pause and wish for something stronger than coffee. But coffee it must be to sober Americans up to facing a changing world.

The past several weeks I have been promoting Thomas Barnett's new book Great Powers: America and the World After Bush. Between it's covers Dr. Barnett charts out a course that he recommends America consider following in order to preserve the dominate role we have played in the past century and ensure that the source code of a free market economy, our DNA as Dr. Barnett labels it, continues to spread across the globe.

To begin collecting our thoughts about the course that Great Powers offers, it is helpful to read Barnett's column this week, where he defines America's role this way.

The United States has been the demand center in the global economy for so long that we can't remember when that wasn't true. And yet global corporations increasingly view us as just another market among many as the global middle class expands dramatically and rising India and China collectively compete with America's demand function.

Read more:

Barnett: New motto of Globalizations 'R' U.S.

In the column you will note that Barnett lists our states by region and compares the economies of those member states with it's counterpart nation in the global economy. To take that line of thought and project it out consider this, in the coming decade our economy is projected to grow about 23% by 2014. The rest of the world's combined economy, GDP is projected to grow by 46% from 60 trillion to 87 trillion. Most of this growth will occur in the emerging nations that Tom Barnett labels the "New Core". Here is a brief list of the growth projected for a few of those nations.

2008-2014 projections

China, 114% 4.2 to 9.1 trillion, USD

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India, 80% 1.2 to 2.2

Russia, 135% 1.6 to 3.9

Brazil, 75% 1.6 to 2.8

Mexico, 100% .9 to 1.8

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List of 2008 forcast from the Economist.

http://www.economist.com/theworldin/forecasts/country.cfm?d=2008.

Even countries emerging from decades of war like Vietnam and Cambodia are projected to see growth rate of 105% and 122% respective. The point I am making is that the connectivity that Dr. Barnett has so clearly outlined is something that like water will seek it's natural course and over time wear away the resistant rock that blocks its path.

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As a nation that has for the past century emerged to do more to equalize the people of the world than any body of people in history, we are faced with two choices. One, withdraw, as was done by another "Great Power" the Chinese in 1435, when they abandoned their treasure fleets and sealed themselves off from the outside world believing that their way was secure by limiting contact and selling off their assets to the highest bidders through strictly controlled gateways. They ended this adventure cut off, stagnant, technologically far behind and easy pickings for the new "Great Powers" the Europeans and in part, the United States.

Or, we can stay engaged, renew our goals by remembering our past and the setting course with just as much self assurance as our ancestors. This has always been the legacy of the New World. Even those we named "Native Americans" took up that challenge thousands of years ago when they continued to advance across the land bridge and down the twin continents that make up this hemisphere. Our legacy is that sense of wanting to see what is over the next hill and then finding a way to improve what we find there to enhance our community. We Americans are a conglomeration of people who were not satisfied to stay behind and enjoy the status quo.

It seems our course is clear to let our natural instinct as Americans be our guide.

A New Blog: The Bellum, A Stanford Review Blog

February 9th was the maiden post of a new blog, The Bellum: A Stanford Review Blog. The members introduce themselves with this opening paragraph.

Welcome to Bellum, a new media project of The Stanford Review. Conceived in January, this collaborative blog brings together a team of Stanford alums who, despite having entered professional fields quite far removed from war, have nevertheless retained a passion for international security affairs and geopolitics. Ideally, Bellum will serve as much as a creative outlet for us as a useful resource for you.

Finding a niche will admittedly take time, but we enter the fray with a few strongly held beliefs that we hope will generate some uncommon insights. The first is a pronounced suspicion of theoretical frameworks that strike us as either too complicated or too simple.

The second is a pronounced worry that some of the thinking prevalent in today’s discourse not only obscures reality but positively promotes fantasy. Debates are all too often reduced to point-counterpoint affairs, dissenters from orthodoxies are hounded and maligned, and some topics are declared off-limits altogether.

The third and final is a pronounced desire to elevate the role of logistics, geography, economics, and history in discussions about military affairs.

By way of introducing this new blog to my readers, I am posting a few links to offer a flavor of the blogs content.

Always sure to ignite a hot debate is Pearl Harbor. This post asks Jeffrey Record, a researcher at the Strategic Studies Institute and professor at the Air War College and author of a report concluding that a massive failure of Japanese statecraft led to them become the aggressor in starting the Pacific War. The blog asked Dr. Record to respond to questions that compared the debate about the origins of the Pacific War and the debate over the Iranian nuclear program.

Read more:
Pearl Harbor: Historical Revisionism and Lessons for Today

And staying with the Iranian theme is this post.

Geopolitics is a field ripe with narrative. The dream of stumbling upon an enduring insight that summarizes something hopelessly complex into something beautifully simple is, in large part, what keeps political science classes filled to the brim.

Read more:
Modern Iran: Empire or Network?

And closer to home this post about the drug cartels poised on our southern border.

In the first weeks of the new administration, much attention has been committed to standard geopolitical hotspots like Iran and Afghanistan. While these theaters will continue to merit strategic efforts by the United States, Barack Obama’s top brass would be well-advised to deal more forcefully with terrorism along the Mexican border that presents arguably trickier security challenges.

Read more:
Narcocorridos: The Cartels Stretch Their Wings

This new blog has hit the ground running. I don't showcase it to endorse their conclusions or editorial content. On it's maiden voyage into the blogosphere The Bellum shows promise of offering the kind of debate and well crafted posts that are welcome and critical to understand our world. I welcome them and look forward to reading their contributions.

Now He Belongs to The Ages

Lincoln' boyhood cabin

Abraham Lincoln 1864

"Now He Belongs to The Ages"

February 12, 2009 will the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincolns birth. Every American should pause and reflect back on our 16th President and his remarkable accomplishments.

Lincoln is forever remembered for his preserving the Union and leading the country through a bloody and costly Civil War. Ending the scourge of slavery was the result of his perseverance and earned Lincoln immortality. Less known is Lincolns other great accomplishments. Following the example of his political hero, Henry Clay, Lincoln pressed through several acts in the first two years of his presidency that had the effect in the words of Thomas Barnett of "front loading the Union's overall postwar recovery...and eventually a contiguous United States."

In the mode of Clay, Lincoln sought to open the west with the Homestead Act, that made thousands of square miles of land available to new homesteaders. He also granted federal support for the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad, that linked the nation by knitting the coasts together with a ribbon of steel that spawned hundreds of towns and intersections of commerce. After the war, these two accomplishment set the stage for the next 35 years of explosive development that resulted in the United States becoming a true nation, poised to become a future world power on the doorstep of the 20th Century. Lincoln also created a national currency, giving us the "greenback" dollar, that replaced the thousands of bank notes that had been used prior to 1862.

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A short but important review of Lincoln's much overlooked domestic policies can be found in chapter three of Thomas P M Barnett's Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.

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Hopefully, this brief post will give pause to encourage reflection on the greatness of Lincoln.

Announcing! The Great Powers Junto Club Reading Group

Here is an important announcement just posted over on Thomas Barnetts web site about an upcoming series that I have been invited to host.

Beginning a week from tomorrow, Monday, February 16th, I will be hosting a reading group to read and discuss Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.

We will be covering one chapter a week and discussing the content and ideas contained within each chapter. All are invited to read along and join in the discussion with your questions and comment. My role will be that of a facilitator to encourage participation and stimulate discussion.

In this endeavor, I like to think that we will be following the great tradition of the Junto Society that Benjamin Franklin founded in 1727 to discuss the important issues and books of the day. We may not found any libraries, fire departments or hospitals, but hopefully we will enlighten ourselves by sharing our thoughts and learning from each other.

Next week we will begin with the Preface and chapter one. The Seven Deadly Sins of Bush-Cheney.

Read the post.

Great Powers reading group

So if you are interested, and haven't ordered, here is a link. to buy Great Powers. Get it, read it, polish off your keyboards and join us next week for a free and informative discussion about this important new book.

Ten Questions with Thomas P.M. Barnett

Three days in release, and Thomas Barnett's new book, Great Powers: America and the World After Bush is number six and seven on Amazon's top ten, non-fiction list for the most popular books on politics and International Relations.

Part of my continuing focus on recommending this book will be to highlight an interview of Tom, by Mark Safranski, of Zenpundit at Small Wars Journal.

The stand out sentence that describes what Great Powers is about is best illustrated by this paragraph in Barnett's response to Mark's first question.

"What is “grand strategy” and why is it vital that America have the right one?"

So the book’s really about navigation, which is the essence of grand strategy, and I designed it to be an intellectual journey akin to John Boyd’s OODA loop: I want you, the reader, to observe where we are now in history (post-Bush), then orient yourself in America’s long-standing grand strategic arc (our American System-cum-globalization), then decide on a series of strategic realignments (economic, diplomatic, security, technological, social) I think we need to make as a nation in the days ahead, and finally act by doing what you can to bring it about.

I think everybody in this super-empowered age needs their own foreign policy, I just want my “300”--million, that is—all paddling in the same direction, because if we don’t move faster than the current, we are simply moved by the current.

To help understand this concept is this short primer. The John Boyd Roundtable, Debating Science, Strategy, and War

Another key area that has been written about on this blog, is China.

Part of Tom's response to question 9, incorporates thoughts that I have expressed before, A String of 600 Year Old Pearls and Chimerica? A Team of Rivals?

The strategic implications of a rising China has figured prominently in your writings and Great Powers is no exception. Why is China today more like Teddy Roosevelt’s America to our Great Britain and not like the Kaiser’s Germany?

But more to the point, China’s never—across its thousands of years—displayed any real ambition for empire beyond its historical borders, and if you check out the emerging middle class in China, there’s simply no stomach for it. Not too many parents over there are looking to send off their one child to die in some great power war that self-destructively eliminates its most important economic bond to the outside world—access to America’s markets and technology.So the simplest explanation of why China won’t be Kaiserian Germany or Nazi Germany is that we’ve already infected its society with the sort of consumerism and middle-class ambition that makes that path simply inconceivable to a populace with a reasonably clear sense of what’s possible in terms of great-power conquest in this world.

Read the whole interview for a primer on why this book is important to every American.
Ten Questions with Thomas P.M. Barnett

Other fellow bloggers have been adding their voice to recommend this book.

Information Dissemination who says this about: Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.

One Day to Go! Great Powers: America and the World After Bush

Tomorrow February 5th is the release date for Thomas Barnett's important book, Great Powers: America and the World After Bush. This blog has been promoting this book, not because I am a paid lackey or a star struck fan of Thomas Barnett. I was introduced to Dr. Barnett when I picked up his book, The Pentagon's New Map, during one of my forays into a Barnes and Noble, as my wife was shopping at a local mall. As I scanned the book, I became intrigued and when I rejoined my wife, I had the book to match her purchases.

Over the next few weeks, I read and reread his premises. At the time, I was fully involved in a masters program for history and immediately began to draw the connection between American history and it's trajectory within Barnett's strategic vision. I found his blog and became a daily reader and began sending articles that I thought Dr. Barnett would find an interesting read. Soon I began to see my name appear in a hat/tip for the story. I guess it was like being an "unpaid stringer" in the old newspaper days. Later, as I began to offer comments I created the nom de guerre of historyguy99. After a couple of years of posting comments, Tom's webmaster, Sean Meade and another friend Brad, of the Potbangers Blog, suggested that I begin my own blog. Hence, HG's World was born.

Enough of my digression about how I came to follow Tom Barnett. The next segment in the ongoing posting of commentary on chapter five is up and noted below.

Tom begins:

Obviously, the chapter's theme is inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on Lincoln, elevating the "team of rivals" concept up to the level of nation-states. I like the concept plenty, but just as clearly, the notion of resetting our alliances from Old Core to more New Core isn't a new idea for me.

Nothing else overarching to say about this chapter, so let's start the page tripping.

What follows is the section headers:

THE UNDENIABLE TRAJECTORY: THE "GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
It is already amazing how past tense that phrase sounds. I don't think we'll hear it ever from the Obama people. It will be interesting, however, to see what they call things.
The quick tie-back to our own history on democracy.

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM PERTURBED: THE BIG BANG LAUNCHED
This was a fairly easy choice: in effect, making the decision on the invasion of Iraq the seminal thrust of the Bush-Cheney grand strategy, which it ended up being whether they wanted it or not.

THE NEW RULES: FROM INDISPENSABLE SUPERPOWER TO INSOLVENT LEVIATHAN
The "burned very brightly across his eight years" line is one I draw from "Blade Runner" the movie, when Tyrell says to Roy Batty: "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy." Just an explanation, because the image there (Africa) is decidedly disturbing. Then again, I always found that scene very disturbing.

THE NEW NORMAL: AMERICA THE CONTAINED
I note the general bureaucratic rebellion within the U.S. Government on the possibility of going to war with Iran in the second Bush term. Here I likewise briefly note Fallon's firing, stating that "this time 'Truman' removed 'MacArthur' because the latter resisted adding a third country to the war.

THE GLOBAL ACCELERANT: SOFT-POWER BALANCING
There is the system danger posed by less-than-bright leaders who approach the global economy and the resource question with this own-in-the-ground mentality. They don't realize the risk isn't supply, but merely price. Plus, when push comes to shove, nobody respects those I-own-your-resources-deal-and-here's-my-piece-of-paper. They simply shut you out.

THE INESCAPABLE REALIGNMENT: REBRANDING A TEAM OF RIVALS
Note I'm writing this a solid year before Obama starts up with his version, so I will claim that great minds think alike--or at least like the same authors.

THE BETTER NORMAL: THE SERVICE-ORIENTED ALLIANCE
Basic point here: We're now watching the first global generation grow up totally inside globalization instead of migrating there from some lesser past. So like AOL was good enough for most nervous transplants from the world of broadcast to the world of the web, the general "walled garden" mentality will rise and fall with generational speed once the totally globalized generation appears and isn't interested in such a filtered experience.

Read the whole post:

Director's Commentary On Chapter Five: The Diplomatic Realignment: Rebranding the Team of Rivals

If you haven't done it already order them from your favorite vendor.

SPECIAL PROGRAM NOTE!

Hugh Hewitt put up a post announcing his and Tom's coming interview series: "Great Powers" with Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett. Local program: 870 AM at 3pm PST, in the Los Angeles area.

Hugh writes:

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A couple of years back I conducted a series of interviews with Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett on his best-selling and hugely influential The Pentagon's New Map. We spent an hour a week for eight weeks doing a chapter-by-chapter conversation about the book. I don't think anything like it had ever been done on talk radio, but the audience loved it. Dr. Barnett and I don't agree on crucial issues --especially on how to deal with Iran-- but my job is to deliver a program that attracts as wide an audience as possible for subjects that matter greatly. That series did exactly that.

Dr. Barnett has a new book out, one that is often very critical of President Bush and his Administration's conduct of American foreign policy. Unlike most such books, this one balances the criticism with calibrated appreciation, and argues not from any agenda of scoring political points but of advancing a competing approach to the conduct of grand strategy. It is thus a fascinating and detailed counter-account of what just happened, and a detailed prescription of what should happen next. Great Powers: American and the World after Bush is thus part of the necessary bookshelf that any serious participant in the conversation of where we ought to go next will have to read.

As an assist to that project, I begin a series of interviews with Dr. Barnett on Wednesday's program. We'll cover chapters one and two of Great Powers in the first hour of the program, and reconvene for about a chapter a week for the next few weeks thereafter. Get the book, catch up and read along. You will be very glad you did, even if you are, like I am, a great admirer of the Bush Administration's strategic direction.

Here are Tom's comments about Hugh: The Hewitt taping went very well

"Afghanistan: A Dream That Will Not Come True"

Respected independent war correspondent Michael You sent out this letter to those who subscribe to his online newsletter. Michael has for the past four years covered the long war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He saw the light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq before most had rubbed the sand out of their eyes. Now he offers this stark assessment of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is in a sad state. Some folks are worried about "disturbing trends" in Afghanistan. I was concerned about disturbing trends back in early 2006. But that concern is over. My concern is more grave; that we will completely lose the war if we set expectations too high. We should downgrade our expectations for Afghanistan, and what we are willing to invest there. The world is a big place and there are other problems at hand. Iran just launched a satellite to orbit, for example. Afghanistan is such a sorry place that it will require at least decades severe effort to become half-way presentable, and likely a century to bring to anything respectable. In Iraq, the light at the end of the tunnel was always bright (except during the civil war), and now Iraq is already out of the tunnel and blinking in the light of a new day. But Afghanistan is a national Humpty Dumpty. The best I see is the very distant, very dim, twinkling of a star. Or maybe it's just a phosphene and not a star at all. My humble recommendation is to downgrade all expectations for Afghanistan. Treat the patient as best we can, and concern ourselves with more important matters while striving not to allow Afghanistan to again become a launching pad for international terror. President Obama should not stake our national reputation on the idea that we will achieve our current more ambitious goals. Decrease expectations, and work on more important matters such as the world economy and other more serious military threats. Afghanistan is not worth so much effort when most of NATO has no heart and is virtually worthless. Eventually we'll likely end up alone, or mostly alone, holding the bag, while Europe goes home to its wine and beer.

Please read: "Afghanistan is a Gaunt, Thorny Bush."

Respectfully,

Michael Yon

And this from Bruce Fein in the Washington Times:

The sepulcher of President Barack Obama's greatness lies before him — Afghanistan.

His scheduled doubling of United States troops there to more than 60,000 could bring his presidency to ruin. The twin justifications for dispatching American soldiers to fight and die in a war against the Taliban to protect a wasteland of corruption, tribalism and warlords are unpersuasive: to prevent a second edition of Sept. 11, 2001; and, to transform Afghanistan into a recognizable democracy featuring human rights and the rule of law. The war is making the United States less safe by squandering resources better employed at home and creating enemies by knowingly or unintentionally killing civilians. Furthermore, an Afghan democracy for the indefinite future is unattainable.

Read more: Afghan Sepulcher?

Over the next few months, decisions will have to be made as to whether we are willing to invest a century to try and rebuild what Michael Yon calls a Guant, Thorny Bush. The President, General Pretraus and eventually, we the people of this democracy must decide our course of action.

Thomas Ricks Wanat Battle: Part (V) Underestimating the Threat

Battle of Little Big Horn, 1876

Clark Field, Dec 8, 1941

Isandlwana, 1879

The last stand of the survivors of Her Majesty's 44th Foot at Gandamak, 13, January 1842

Firefight somewhere in Afghanistan, 2008

In a previous post, After Action Report: Wanat Aftghanistan, I linked the ongoing reports over at Tom Ricks Foreign Policy Blog, where Rick's details the investigation of what went wrong last July in Eastern Afghanistan at the village of Wanat, where a small force of American soldiers held out against overwhelming odds.

In part (5) of this series, Ricks continues his analysis.

By this point, we've seen that the company commander, the platoon leader, and the platoon sergeant all had misgivings about the deadly Wanat mission in eastern Afghanistan last summer. They feared that the enemy had been tipped off, that the mission was inconsistent with counterinsurgency doctrine, that they didn't have enough people to execute it properly, that it was coming too near the end of their unit's deployment, and the commanders and staff above them were distracted by the turnover to the replacement unit.

Read more:

Inside an Afghan battle gone wrong (V): Neglecting the misgivings of those given the mission.

What troubles me is how so many charged with sending these men, could have been so blind to the obvious. Placing a unit in what amounts to a box canyon, view, with no observation posts, high enough to see the enemy's approach borders on gross incompetence and neglect. I must note that if this were the Navy, and a Captain had run his ship on a sandbar, he would have already been relieved and a court of inquiry would have been convened to determine if it warrants a court martial.

"1st LT Brostrom expressed concerns to me about the number of men he was taking with him for the mission. . . . and that he was also concerned about the terrain surrounding the area. When I asked him about the terrain he said it was like Bella [another outpost], but he would have no OPs [observation posts] up above him."sworn statement from Lt Bostrom's best friend.

When those men deployed to Wanat, these words may have been both comforting and prophetic.

King James Bible Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

As someone who saw the same kind of mistakes being made in another war decades ago. I am deeply troubled that those charged with leading, have as Ricks distinctly observes with this lesson, let hubris, trump good soldiering.

The lesson: Yes, commanders need to show a spirit of confidence. But they shouldn't let that "can-do" spirit prevent them from taking on and weighing the honest doubts of those being sent on the mission. That doesn't appear to have happened here.

The "can-do" spirit and over confidence, led Custer to misread Sitting Bull, Custer'sLast Stand; MacArthur, Japanese airpower, MacArthur's Failures in the Philippines; Chelmsford, the Zulu warriors, Battle of Isandlwana. And from an earlier time in Afghanistan, General Elphinstone and the Ghilzai tribesmen, Kabul and Gandamak.

Granted, the battle of Wanat, is a pimple on an elephant's ass compared to the above failures in planning for the threat. But, consider this, in 1868 during the Battle of Washita River, Custer was accused of failing to come to the aid of Major Joel Elliott, who with 19 men, had ridden off a short distance and were attacked. Custer left the detachment dead on the battlefield, to be retrieved in the spring. Custer never was able to erase the stain from the memory of those he continued to lead.

The Army needs to shine a very private spotlight on the judgement of those charged with deploying these men, so that in the future, commanders rely on more than a "can-do" attitude to accomplish a mission, that in hindsight, looks like a recipe for disaster.

I do not post this to ignite a controversy, I have loved the United State Army from the first time I donned the uniform. During my service, including Vietnam and the year of discord (1968) as federal troops were deployed to major American cities, I sensed the responsibility that an army fielded by a democracy carries. To my last breath I will carry the knowledge that the common soldier wants to do his best, and is willing to sacrifice their life for their country and their fellow soldiers. It is critical beyond measure that they deserve the best in leadership. In reviewing what went wrong at Wanat, and adding comment, I hope to add my voice and those who visit this blog and to those of Thomas Ricks and abu mugqawama who have questioned the logic of sending these men into an impossible situation.

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In a war such as this, perception is everything. Note, that we abandoned the valley and now only fly predators, like deadly hawks seeking prey, over a village now totally committed to the Taliban.

UPDATE:

This report about Counterinsurgency in Vietnam by SWJ Editors is worth the read. The smell of Vietnam's jungle is beginning to waff from the rocks of Afghanistan.