Parts to Wholes: the Socionomic Systems Nexus

Our plan was to pass on to other international issues but this week's news from Yemen, Detroit, Iran, et.al. suggests a brief interlude with some recent news and opinion. It also suggests taking a broader look. Our analysis of the ME is actually drawn from a broader body of work on the nature of good government, how it might be developed, the application of that framework to the specifics of foreign policy and the specific analysis of particular problems, e.g. the ME or Iraq. At this point there's good news and bad news. Having developed the framework over several years and tested it against real world events in the last couple it's working. The bad news? Well, it's working. For example our assessment that good government is necessary for stability and progress but socionomic development is necessary for government stability and legitimacy is being tested to the limits by the Iranian regime.

After the break we'll provide more background links to white paper collections. In case you haven't noticed our postings tend to be mini-essays that fit into these broader frameworks. Over time it turns out we end up with quite a collection of machinery, tools, principles, findings and applications. Taking a brief interruption to point you at them seems like a useful sort of thing to do therefore.

Let me set the stage and reinforce the importance by pointing to a few recent news items that are worthwhile but also support our arguments - more test cases if you will.

Continue reading "An Interlude on Good Governance: Iran, Yemen, ME Instabilities and the Theory" »

Posted by dblwyo at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The most important issue we face over the next several decades is adapting the the architecture of the world system to the rise of rapidly emerging countries to accommodate the rise of the new powers, incorporating them constructively into that system, supporting their continued growth and responding to collective challenges, e.g. energy, water, environment, et.al. The most important and urgent right now and for at least the rest of this decade, and beyond, is establishing stability and security in the ME and encouraging the socionomic development of that region. Withing that broad umbrella, despite the on-going challenges of Is/Palestine, Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, the central issue is the stability and survival of Pakistan.

Like a host of other issues many question whether this is either possible or our problem. If you've been following along, now and again, we'd suggest that post-WW2 experiences from Taiwan to South Korea to Turkey to Indonesia (not to mention Japan and Germany) suggests that it is possible. And if you look back at history Central and Southwest Asia were productive and progressive societies, for their time, both in older history and more recently. A final observation - whether you believe that or not it's still better to take our best shot than let things drift into collapse, as they've threatened todo for decades with increasing risks recently. The good news is that after letting them drift it's finally dawned on the major powers that is in their own vital self-interests to encourage the development of the ME. The first step in addressing any problem is accepting that it exists while the second is agreeing to attack it. We've pretty well crossed those barriers - now we "just" have the enormous hard work of figuring out how, of paying for it and then doing it.

At the heart of the challenge is the question of good governance, and the attitudes and values of the people who live there. And on both those fronts the news, while not strongly positive, is getting better. On that front this recent keynote address by Queen Rania tells us a lot, if we're willing to listen.

Continue reading "Vicious Cycle Risks: Instabilities, Upsets and the ME Outlook" »

Posted by dblwyo at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We were going to pass on from Afghanistan to other things but the news keeps on coming in, fast and furious. As a somewhat mechanical alternative instead of "infinitely" adding to our list of updates from the prior post we're moving all the update to this post (in the section after the break btw) and instead focusing on a couple of the key new findings that highlight some of the key, real issues that are finally beginning to surface. Starting with this excerpt from a Jim Hoagland piece in the WaPo that's one of the best assessments we've run across:

Obama's Afghan Squeeze Play Obama is orchestrating a drawn-out review that is actually a policy instrument itself. That reality is (happily for Obama) obscured by the miasma of leaks, counter-leaks and guesswork that has settled over official Washington. But three things are absolutely clear: First, Hamid Karzai cannot be accepted as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan on the basis of August's election. He should either accept an immediate runoff ballot or agree to become Afghanistan's ceremonial president and appoint a national unity government to run the country. Only then can the United States and its allies move forward to significantly expand military and civilian aid to Kabul. Second, NATO's European members must greatly increase their involvement (and spending) in civilian reconstruction projects and provide some more manpower. Little noticed in Washington's overheated debate about troop numbers, a new U.S.-European bargain on counterinsurgency is an essential feature of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's bestseller of a secret report to the president.Third, the Obama administration must not slip back into letting Pakistan present itself as an aggrieved party whose delicate national sensibilities are unjustly offended by suggestions that its army and intelligence services might be ripping off U.S. aid and covertly encouraging terrorism.They are doing just that. And they must continue to be told directly that Washington is keeping score. Congress gently did that in passing a $7.5 billion, five-year aid bill that requires assurances that the money will not be stolen -- provoking nationalist outcries in Islamabad.

Continue reading "More of the Afghan Debates: Searching for Legitimacy" »

Posted by dblwyo at 07:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the Afghan debate heating up to a talk show pitch, as well as the seriousness of the real issues, we're going to take a more focused dive, building on the last post's broader overview of key ME touchpoints. There's both good news and bad news but on balance we'd judge it good. The bad news is that most of the talking head discussions aren't looking at the real issues (surprise), are mis-representing and mis-emphasizing the key ones while sensationalizing the debates and not helping much.

The good news is twofold. Several of the discussions are more balanced, informed and useful than anything we've heard in months. And the really good news is that the Administration is going back to a zero level reset and asking really tough questions, being inclusive of the different opinions and involving them all in the process and working, carefully, thru the right sequence of questions. We'll refer you to a videoclip from Meet the Press where Bob Woodward is discussing how different this is (NB: in all its history we never did this for Vietnam nor did we do it in '03 on our way into Iraq). But just to flavor things we'll also refer you to an earlier post on adventures in Afghanistan during "Charlie Wilson's War". We wish we had the right clip but go watch that movie - the most heartbreaking moment is toward the end when Congress decides to walk away, with results we know.

Some Ground Truths: What McChrystal Really Said

The press and blogosphere has postured McChrystal's initial assessment as a "must have more troops" statement and mis-represented what he actually said. The gist of it is that a) we've been under-resourcing the war from the beginning and fighting a penny-wise counter-terrorism campaign on the cheap. Then b) the operationally we've been very ineffective because we've been fighting with a force-heavy doctrine focused on killing the enemy and not protecting the population, the recommended strategy of some of the debate participants (NOTE: in other words the failed strategy of the last eight years is being re-urged....gee wonder if that'll work?).

Continue reading "Boots On The Ground: Realities, Strategies, Policy & Politics" »

Posted by dblwyo at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've been meaning to get back to foreign policy for a while now but this last week's news gives it a certain sense of urgency, though HC Reform continues to be a (if not THE) major domestic agenda item. Specifically the recent news out of Afghanistan and Iran is going to cause us to shift gears and focus on the ME in general and the hot spots in particular. As to why we should care, since it seems to be off the table yet again, let's reiterate something we've said before: a stable and progressive ME is the most urgent, and perhaps the most important, foreign policy problem we have for the next decade. Aside from the obvious that we don't want any more 911s the chart, without a lot of further explanation, pretty well sums it up. Without a stable ME that becomes a reliable energy supplier in the face of mounting demographic and socionomic challenges the world economy would be in danger. When you add in the number of major flashpoints, particularly a nuclear armed Pakistan that's fragile and unstable, benign neglect is no longer feasible.

Let's Start With Iran

We've talked about Iran before and suggested that a policy of constructive engagement combined with containment is our best bet. Unfortunately that's not when the typical voter or talking head wants. They want something dramatic, quick, effective, that suits our prejudices and they can then forget about. The problems with that are manifold - it won't work, there aren't simple, short, quick or cheap answers. On top of which each of these countries and regions are their own things. All the alternatives among the chattering classes are, sadly, being frame that way and will cause more trouble than they'd fix. Take the case of Iran - the alternatives as presented are either get more stringent sanctions or mount a military attack. That was preceded of course by what appear to be fraudulent elections and protests and continued civil opposition. Of course the talking heads immediately wanted the President to come out decisively in support of the opposition, speak forcefully for democray and de-legitimize the regime. 

Continued ... 

Continue reading "Middle East Challenges: Game-changes, ME, Iran, Iraq & Afghanistan" »

Posted by dblwyo at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If we learned anything from 911 a critical insight is that we can no longer safely ignore what goes on in the rest of the world - our oceanic barrier walls are that no longer. Which means, geo-political and economic issues and threats aside - it's important to us on a personal level. A derivative lesson is that we can no longer treat the rest of the world with semi-benign neglect but must be willing to be involved, all tradeoffs considered, appropriately in each area of concern. But as we've learned in Iraq appropriate is based on local conditions, details and idiosyncrasies. That, taken all together, makes the current multiple series of crisis of in the ME important and a laboratory for US foreign policy in general. Here we want to provide another update of the status of each country involved and suggest that we need to treat them 1) for their own sakes, 2) as part of a great ME whole (a systematic, systemic and holistic approach is called for) and 3) take what we've learned and are learning there as lessons for elsehwere. Suitably adapted and customized of course.

The Multi-Factor ME

One of those key learnings, which we've discussed before (The Next Decade's Crisis: ME, Bubbling Cauldrons & Fracture Lines) so we'll just briefly review, is that it's one damm thing after the other. Put differently each country and sub-region must be evaluated on it's own terms but also with regard to it's linkages to other countries and players. Here's out previous attempt at mapping out some of these complexities with some, certainly not all, of the linkages involved being shown. Now experts in the area have usually always had this sort of perspective, at least in their heads if not explicitly mapped out. But the really good news is that the current administration seems to be shaping a holistic policy of balancing a focus on local problems with integration into the broader context. For example we now have senior level special envoys of the highest caliber dedicated to the Israeli/Palestinian and Afghanistan/Pakistan problem. And they clearly understand that things are linked. They also clearly understand that US policy must be built on a deep local understanding of the cultural, political and institutional characteristics of the different players. Something that is new to the US at this level and with this sort of focus. Judging by recent Presidential speeches this inclusive and balanced approach where tactics and strategy are balanced and attempt to integrate local with broader concerns is now central to our approach to foreign policy. That's the really good news - we're making as concerted a good effort as we've ever made. The bad news is that the challenges may still exceed the capabilities and resources - in which case there's not much of an available fallback except to bend over and kiss it goodbye.

The Devil's Details: a Checklist for the ME

In another previous post (Witches Brew Recipes: ME Details (Iraq to Iran) {Updates}) we suggested a series of steps that the US should undertake in dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian dilemmas and alluded to the possibility that it was a more general checklist of actions and strategies for shaping a constructive foreign policy. Historically we and others have simply attempted to contain the dysfunctions of the various ME countries within their own boundaries, interpreted local events within our own context (seeing everything for forty years for example strictly within the framework of the Cold War; which led us to abandon Afghanistan, encourage Pakistan's ISI to support the Taliban and alienated most of the Arab countries by ignoring their concerns and interfered in legitimate Iranian local politics strictly in our own interests). We'll see if we've move on at all but the penalty for not trying is pretty severe. We've made no pretense of populating the checklist for each of the local situations, instead leaving that to the experts for now. BUT...we will suggest that the historical assessment would be that we've simply focused on the first few steps and now we MUST evolve policies that lead to effectiveness on all of them. In the readings below you'll find current selected news on each of the key countries:

1. In Iraq where we've learned that force must be coupled with civil development which has resulted in enormous strides. Iraq became an independent country 87 years after it's founding. The same timeframe in US history was the day after Gettysburg. Judged by appropriate standards a lot of progress has been made in a very short time with a long road ahead. A road that there are increased indications that the Iraqis are willing and able to walk.

2. The Administration has announced a bold "new" strategy for Afghanistan that builds on these lessons and has garnered widespread applause from knowledgeable pundits of widespread political persuasions. This will be, again, a long, hard road in very different and more difficult circumstances that nonetheless holds great promise.

3. The key to Afghanistan lies in Pakistan, which is a sovereign country in which "kinetic intervention" is not an option. Yet the lessons still apply suitably morphed. Our primary national interest is in preventing an unstable and fragile country that is nuclear-armed from breaking down into chaos. Whatever it takes.

4. If we segue over to the Mediterranean coast we now have very clear evidence that the Syrian site bombed last year was in fact a nuclear weapons development center with heavy North Korean and Iranian involvement. Can you imagine the world with Hezbollah having access to nuclear weapons ? The lessons for being locally informed, constructively involved and controlling adversarial interference from outside powers seem pretty clear; and ones that pass all possible cost/benefit tests.

5. The Israeli/Palestinian conundrum continues to be just that yet it's one of the great running sores in the ME that we cannot NOT afford to be constructively engaged in. (Gaza and the ME: Flames for the Fuses) Unfortunately local attitudes appear to have both hardened up and deteriorated. A great irony is that both Israelis and Pallestian populations would prefer peaceful solutions yet don't know that about each other. A critical key will be to move on from past hatreds, not forgetting or even forgiving but at least tolerating in mutual self-interest.

6. So far the spoiler in the ME appears to continue to be Iran which in the name of it's own Revolution continues to support violence and develop WMD at the expense of the health of it's own society and economy. President Obama is beginning to reach out so we'll have to see. What people are missing in their commentaries is that this is a brilliant strategy AND tactical maneuver - if the Iranians fail to respond constructively and sincerely they will simply isolate themselves more and strengthen the case for more restrictive sanctions and concerted worldwide efforts to contain. And cooperation would be in their self-interest. The real dilemma is is it in the interest of the power-holders who control the fruits of the country for their own benefit ? Aye, there's the rub.

7. During his visit to Turkey the President not only reached out to the Turks in ways that were extremely well received but also to the rest of the Muslim world. As the example of Indonesia shows not all Muslims are dedicated to reglious extremes. They are choosing instead to pursue an increased religiosity balanced with more open and secular governments. The lesson and hope would be that similar stances could be evoked and evolved from other players. Possible ? Yes. Likely ? Perhaps. Easy ? NO. Quick ? Definitely NOT. Alternatives ? None good. Either disciplined, constructive and patient engagement or worldwide economic disruption that will make the current crisis look like a walk in the park. We have little to loose in spite of the armchair quarterbacking.

The Confluence of Self-interest: Lessons Learned ?

Looking back at the lessons of 911, the Cold War or farther some other key lessons come to mind.

1. It is in the clear self-interest of the US to promote stable, progressive regimes thruout the ME.

2. We must be constructively engaged.

3. It is in the interests of each of the individual countries as well.

4. The primary opponents of moving forward seem to be self-serving power holders in various countries who put their immediate advantage over the long-term welfare of their populations.

5. Those populations have been so inculcated with emotional shibboleths that it will take time and effort to de-tox them. And ask of them some hard, hard, hard choices to give up their hatreds which are counter-productive but immediately emotionally satisfying for possible long-term benefits. Surrendaring immediate emotional gratification for long-term abstract benefits is not something humans do well. Just ask yourself how your last diet or anti-smoking efforts went.

6. A critical challenge to all the parties is to give up the "bloody shirt" of revenge for a civil society. Or more importantly we must figure out how to engage and sell the long-term benefits to the street...not just he power-holders.

911 Lessons: Pointing Fingers vs Potential Futures

And before we point to many fingers at supposed local irrationalities let's ask how well public spirited policy has faired in this country as opposed to partisan posturing and the pursuit of self-interest. (Back in the US: Economic Realities vs Partisan Posturings) Flawed, narrow and destructive self-interest as opposed to the enlightened variety ? The basic tradefoffs are between creating and supporting a virtuous vs a vicious cycle of self-destruction vs one of mutual gain, between a zero-sum and a non-zero sum set of public policies.

UPDATES: 

We've added three stories related to Iran that sketch the complications and convolutions of dealing with that theocratic kleptocracy in the context of the ME maelstrom. Egypt's arrest of Hizbollah operatives apparantly plotting an attack against Syrian tourists, the supression of press freedom thru intimiation of foreign journalists and a sudden peace overture by Pres. Ahmadinejad. Taken all together it's hard to reach a summary conclusion but we take it as continued evidence of the multiple influences straining that country as power protection by the clerics bumps against the realities of needing to rejoin the world. Will they or won't they ? On that MUCH hinges.

Continue reading "ME Update: Exemplar, Laboratory and Conundrums (Updates)" »

Posted by dblwyo at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The last foreign affairs post was a broad overview of the ME situation, the challenges and the context (The Next Decade's Crisis: ME, Bubbling Cauldrons & Fracture Lines) and built on an earlier one focused on the Gaza situation (Gaza and the ME: Flames for the Fuses"). Here we'd like to take a deeper dive on specific countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and Iran. Interestingly enough two of the four are wrestling with important national elections (Israel, Iran) - one wrapping up but not resolved and the other underway while another (Iraq) finished one that testified to how much progress has been in re-building a badly damaged society. In our last post, and yet again, we ended up arguing that the most important strategic factor to support in the ME was the evolution of good governance.(SoW IV(the Ugly): Israel, the ME and Good vs Bad Government) Let's start by reinforcing that point and then consider the consequences. The graphic shows the different histories and timepaths of four major European powers and the consequences of their different strategies. Spain opted for rigid central authority and had taxes that favored certain interest groups that were easy to collect from. They have yet to recover to this day. France followed a similar but more flexible path yet in the last two centuries has had a very turbelent history as governments came and went. Tiny little Holland fought the Spanish to a standstill over almost a century of continuous warfare with a market-based economy and representative government while England learned from it's own multi-decade war with Holland and it's own experiences and created modern capital markets and was the progenitor of the Industrial Revolution. The case for flexible, inclusive and adaptive government with security, the rule of law and forward-looking policy seems pretty clear and has shaped history. The question then becomes what's feasible in the ME in what timeframe ?

Continue reading "Witches Brew Recipes: ME Details (Iraq to Iran) {Updates}" »

Posted by dblwyo at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Let's continue our foreign affairs survey with a look at the overall situation in the ME. In fact we're going to split it in two, or counting the earlier post on the Gaza situation, three. As this week's news from Pakistan, which we rollup in the ME, tells us the fragility and risk factors are high even though Iraq has made enormous progress. The general ME, and Iraq in particular are not new topics and we've poked at them enough that they have their own separate archives in fact. We're going to make a flat prediction - just as 911 and Iraq were the foreign policy challenge of this decade ME stability and progress will be the critical challenge for the next decade. We've managed to sashay on by and treat the region with minimal involvement, benign neglect and looking the other way for decades. None of which can continue, as we've discussed multiple time, for two primary reasons. First, the escalating demographic explosion is more and more likely to create a socionomic implosion. And second, ME oils supplies are the sine qua non of the world economy and will be for at least the next three to four decades. (Gaza and the ME: Flames for the Fuses) Period, end-of-story. We can either continue to roll the dice and hope the Laws of Averages let us keep sliding by, or we can figure out how to get more constructively engaged. There is no muddle thru middle road left to anybody, even though that's probably not visible to the man in the street yet. By the time it is it'll be to late. Fortunately the ME is drawing increased attention from US policy-makers and our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan commits us there for this next decade. (Oil and Other System Shocks: Beyond Iraq & Georgia)

Complicated Context

On the other hand you can hardly blame anybody for not wanting to get involved deeply and permanently in the region. Ugly and messy doesn't begin to cover it. Worse yet each country and sub-area is it's own enormously complicated problem and they all inter-act. Back when we first started poking at Iraq here it quickly became clear that the Iraq problem wasn't confined within it's borders. The graphic is one we first came up with in 2007 to try and frame the problem and get some handle on how all the pieces fit together. The reason for building such a picture of the inter-woven relationships is that it tells you what you have to deal with tactically, strategically and on a policy level. By under-taking the most startling self-transformation in military history while under fire the US Military not only put the lid back on a situation looking to spin out of control it's actually laid the foundations for future progress. Which is NOT being Pollyannish IOHO....there's still a long way to go but the prerequisite was establishing security and local control. That transformation led to tackling most of the internal problems, many of the external ones and really left only Iran hanging out there as a continuously disruptive factor. Strangely enough though the Iraqis themselves reduced Iranian influence by mounting Operation Knight's Charge to suppress and control the Iranian sponsored Shi'ite militias in Basra and Baghdad. An operation which cut down Iranian influence (The Iran Dilemma: They Like Us, Not; We Like Them, Not...usw.), removed a major domestic source of instability, proved the level of progress made in re-vitalizing Iraqi security forces, established the credibility of the central government and received almost no attention the US. But we wouldn't be where we are without it !

Context Part II: the Perennial Sore

Since the technique of relationship charting worked well enough we re-applied it to the Gaza situation in the context of the broader ME. Iraq and the related instabilities (Afghan., Pakistan) are quasi-recent events but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a running sore for decades, even by some countings a century or more. Again, IF we can find the lever, the fulcrums and the weights we can probably deal with each of the separate situations illustrated here (consider this graphic the zoom-in expansion of the I/P/L triangle in ME context from the previous map) but it'll be more challenging. And much more important now. As we put this chart together it again became clear that reducing, moderating or controlling Iran's influence in the region was vital however. In fact each of the "small" stand-alone problems is even more intricately connected to the larger picture so that any long-term solutions must start locally and evolve regionally. For example one by one the major Arab powers have struck their own separate deals with Israel after loosing a conflict but always without addressing the Palestinian dilemmas. And often using the conflict as a "bloody shirt" to distract their local populations from bad governance and failing socionomic systems that aren't keeping up with growing populations and declining well-being. Hmmm...have we just suggested that encouraging the evolution of good governance, more inclusive regimes and investing in socionomic development are essential to prevent a blow up. We believe so. One final observation about Realpolitik vs Ground-truth. Much as we might dislike the situation and the players Hamas and Hizzbollah have established their rights to a seat at the table; unless somebody is prepared to eliminate them entirely thru force. And who can and would bell those cats ?

Readings Guide

The readings cover four topics: history of the region (in a limited way), attempts at reform, the realities on the ground and the policy and political realities. A friend has organized a current affairs reading club and is trying to stretch their interest to include deeper books instead of current lite-weight best-sellers and had a challenging time. A major source of pushback is lack of background in what drives the symptoms being treated as conceptual candy in those. Put another way we've always found that analysts don't do history while historians don't do analysis yet one can NOT understand a current situation without understanding the historical roots, currents and constraints.The problem is culture persists and persists and drives history AND current events. Some roots of Arab culture go back thousands of years while Islamic extremism is rooted in the failed reforms of the Wahabist movements of the 17thC and the institutional reponses of the Ottomon Empire ! (ME Faultlines(Readings): Values, Culture & Conflict)

The history section starts with two C-Span Booknotes interviews from a Jewish scholar of current affairs who's also an experienced soldier. The insights and new information he provides are just stunning IOHO. For example for those of us who could never figure out why Russia supported Israel's independence....guess what ? It split the the British Empire at it's most vulnerable point. The second interview is with the religious scholar Karen Armstrong who, in a very broad-ranging interview, provides a superb introduction to the roots of Islam. Which was, at it's founding, one of the world's more progressive and liberal religions which tried to suppress much of the violence and abuses endemic to the existing tribal cultures. What Islam is at it's core and best is something we'd all like to see restored, or perhaps reformed. And let's judge fairly by comparing similar historical stages - the bloodiest civilization in human history over a sustained period of time was Western Europe and a major source of that violence was religious wars under-taken in the name of God and Reform. Those arguments rippled right down to three modern world wars. And as recent news shows Arabs and Muslims are well aware of their challenges.

Arabs Are People Too: Good and Bad

Let me put that another way - Arabs are people too with all our faults and defects, they have a unique culture with strengths and weakeness but they are in fact trying. And truth to tell have actually made enormous progress judged fairly. If you doubt that just look at the Gapminder chart on life expectency vs per capita income; they haven't done as well as Israel but they had and have a bigger problem, not so many advantages and growing challenges. And if you doubt that they are human or that they are trying give a listen to Queen Rania of Jorden's YouTube broadcast. At the end of the day history matters, cultures persist and govern behavior for centuries and changing them is the hardest thing in the world. Be glad these folks are giving it a darn good shot. Better yet let's figure out how to support them and help them - in our own enlightened self-interest if for no other reasons !!!

Continue reading "The Next Decade's Crisis: ME, Bubbling Cauldrons & Fracture Lines" »

Posted by dblwyo at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well we've been focused on the elections, the transition and policy issues for quite a while now - and we'll come back to them since those crisii will be with us for the foreseeable future. But while we've been wrapped up with our own problems (stocking up on food, ammo and water are we ?) the rest of the world hasn't gone away. In fact having listened to many of the Davos sessions anything but. The economies of the rest of the world are headed South farther and faster than the US's, their institutions are more fragile and the risks of backlash and increased dissent leading to socio-political disruption are some of the more serious risks we all face. And the consequences in this more closely-coupled world are immense (State of the World: Crisis Metastasis, Strains and Fault Line). All we need is one more good crisis that breaks the camel's backs. Oh, wait, we have a bunch. Not least of which is Gaze and the whole ME. A friend of mine used to talk about foreign problems and compare them to driving a large (old-style anyway) American car when you hit a deer: it happened far away and you never noticed. This time we'll notice. The cartoons capture the variety of responses which are beefed up in the readings. From Hamas intransigent dedication to violence at any price to the MAD aspects to the fundamental geo-political dilemma that faces Israel to the complexities. NO where of course has anybody expressed any sympathy for Israel. Just for the record 1) the IDF performed very well and took risks to minimize civilian casualties, 2) btw Hezbollah didn't act up because even at a C-level the IDF put a serious hurt on them in '06, 3) of the guestimated 1300 Palestinian casulaties ~ 600-800 were Hamas and 4) Israel was entirely compliant with the Laws of War. In fact according to the Geneva conventions they were free to level Gaza, which they didn't do, in pursuit of Hamas.

Complexities and Consequences

Unfortunately while their incursion was a tactical and operational success it may not have been a strategic, policy or political one given the impacts on world opinion (though btw the Arab street and governments were an enormous amount less harsh this time and put a lot of the onus on Hamas). Nonetheless Israel, which does public diplomacy as badly as anyone, did create a problem for itself. Here's one terrible strategic tradeoff that wasn't on the table because of their own anger, righteous and justified as it was: the attacks appeared disproportionate. What about accepting the truly ugly tradeoffs between domestic casualties (which are serious, especially if it's personal) and the very bad impact on their stature in the world ? We could discuss that for a long time but even more unfortunately that would require a clear path toward some sort of sustainable resolution, which isn't making an appearance. Why ?

Well consider the complexities, "simply" illustrated in the accompany graphic. We've all seen the headlines, if we're at all interested, but it wasn't until (at least for us) we realized what a convoluted rat maze this was, how inter-related everything is and how difficult because there is no single magic thread to unravel. Nor any Gordian knot to sever. What we've tried to do is show some of the links, each of which breaks down into several sub-components, and something of the relative influence of the various players. Each of them deserves to be addressed separately and in a sustained, serious and committed (=resources) way. We'll come back to that. At the same time it's not just the pieces - it's all the pieces taken all together as a moving system. Which means there needs to be a framework that ties each of the pieces into a coherent and cohesive whole. One small piece of good news is that one of the fallouts from Iraq is that we're now deeply involved in the ME. If you think back to prior US efforts they've never risen to the level of sustained national policy, which they need to this time and for a long time. One of the other things that jumped out at us was the influence of Iran. Back in the old days of the Cold War we've now discovered that Russian meddling was a major source of support that kept the "old" troubles boiling over. Now Iran has taken over that role. Something we need to figure out to degrade if not stop altogether.

And We Care Because

This is all just the exact opposite of altruism though. It is in our vital and fundamental national interest for a lot of reasons. Many of which are encapsulated in the accompanying chart. Take a look at this chart very carefully because in one "simple" picture it tells us many of the converging geo-political issues. The circles are sized by how much oil everyone's got (proven reserves) and the graph shows consumption vs production. Notice that the US has been conserving but reserves aren't increasing. On the other hand Russia's been pumping but reserves aren't increasing - largely because they've emasculated themselves with regard to investment in energy development and are mining their existing fields to exhaustion. The big kahunas are Saudia Arabia and some of the other Gulf States, along with Kazahkstan. BtW if you wonder why Central Asia is the center point of the world and Russia's trying to cause troubles their you go. Let's put this real pointedly - without ME oil the world economy collapses. (Oil Industry II(Analysis): LT Supply-Demand, Outlook and Disruptions, New (Old ?) Frontiers in the Oil Markets: the Return of Geo-Politics)

 The Other Shoe: the Coming Demographic Implosion

The other set of problems is that the populations of the Arab countries and Iran [ Rhetoric and Reality: The View from Iran] are skewed badly toward the young, populations are increasing extremely rapidly, the economies are in terrible shape (it's not unlikely that Iran's is on the verge of collapse, never mind demographics) and the level of unrest is either rising or likely to. [ ME Faultlines(Readings): Values, Culture & Conflict] This is all compounded by the fact that many of the governments are NOT effective and ARE unjust - which indicts their legitimacies and threatens their stabilities. [ Peace, Stability and Prosperity: the Nature of Good Government] Put that another way - this problem isn't going away, it's getting worse rapidly and in the foreseeable future (say 10-15 years ?) the risks of a major breakdown without economic progress and better governance are very high. And as the earlier graphic shows the major world players from the US to Europe to China, India and Russia are linked to all this. We either solve this or it will solve us...and alternative energy sources, which'll take two to three decades to develop, won't come online fast enough to offset these huge fault lines.  Much of this is represented in the graphic which shows various key players (population is the circle size) graphed by income/per person vs life expectancy. There's been serious progress on the latter, which worsens the demographics, and some but no where near enough on economic development.

What the Future May Hold: Negotiation vs Worst Alternatives

 There were several sessions at Davos on the ME and Gaza which were interesting, informative and perhaps productive...if a little pollyannish. The one you heard about in the headlines was the session where the President of Turkey stormed out. What the headlines didn't tell you is that it was at the very end of the sessions, after he'd had his say and after Peres had had his and he asked for extra time to make more comments. In which he was a) repeating himself, b) insulting and c) very emotional. As he and the other speakers were. In fact this whole thing is well worth listening to to understand how much the lizard-brains are dominating this whole discussion, to the exclusion of almost everything else. The first three "statements" (= speeches) were nothing but attacks on Israel with no searching for alternatives. Benjanmin Zander (Crisis, Leadership, Leaders and Values) in his great presentation on "The Possible" had, in passing, asked what would happen if Jews and Arabs focused more on what was possible instead of hating each other. Just think about it - with Israeli technical and economic skills, that excess and growing population and oil money that whole region could be turned into one of the most prosperous in the world. Quickly and straight-forwardly judging by Israel's historical experiences.

Even Shimon Peres spent more time attacking the other speakers, though with more hard information and "righteously" than their attacks. What would have been truly statesmanlike on his part was to accept as best as possible the assaults and insults and ask then what ? How do you proposed to move forward ? What are you going to do to cut off weapons supplies to Hamas and others ? Who's going to maintain security ? Who's going to help do the necessary nation-building ? Certainly Europe for all it's piousities has chosen to give lip instead of service to the goals it claims to support, despite the fact that it's even more dependent on ME oil than anybody. It's time for people to get serious.

Over the years the Harvard Negotiation Project has worked out certain "Principles of Negotiation" (PON) based on decades of hard....hard experience and helped manage some of the most perilous and difficult negotiations in the world, from the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan to food relief in Somalia. If you listen to the video clip and compare the actions and positions of the speakers to the PONs for establishing an effective negotiation you'll likely agree that they were all violated, and by most of the participants. In fact comparing the vidclip the checklist what you hear/see is what should be described as infantile and puerile behavior driven by emotion and not INTERESTS ! Now it's entirely possible that this was posturing for the home street audience and behind the scenes more adult conversations were occurring, but is it likely ? What appears to be needed is ADULT SUPERVISION and PARTICIPATION...something that's lacking, is in our vital interests and we haven't attempted to provide on a sustained basis. A state of affairs we can no longer afford !!!

Accordingly here's my strawman proposal...a stab at the "Possible":

COIN + Nation Building + Marshall Plan = Strawman (or Scarecrow ?)

1. Put the Lid Back On - put a real international security force into Gaza to provide border security, prevent weapons but allow the importation of food and supplies. Extend it to allow Palestinians to go back to the jobs they've lost in the last decade in Israel.
2. Tamp Down the Violence - insist that Hamas stop all attacks and enforce that decisions, using international resources AND accepting responsibility instead of substituting pious mouthings. Ask Israel to accept the tradeoffs for holding off attacks, even when their "objective" position justifies retaliations. Make sure that the Public Diplomacy of all parties tells the truth and publicize it.
3. Defuse the Immediate Touch Points - beyond those start restoring services and governance, encourage economic development, make sure security gets implemented (any time this sounds like an adaptation of Kilcullen's framework from Iraq stop me [ Iraq Resartus (Readings): Stability, Progress and Will]).
4. Hold, Stabilize and Sustain - keep on doing this for years, because it'll be necessary. Ask for funding from more than the US...it's in the interests of Europe and the oil-rich countries to kick in as well.
5. Maintain and Sustain - encourage foreign investment, start joint ventures, invest in roads, power lines and other infrastructure, put in at least minimal healthcare and education.
6. Keep On - doing the above and be prepared to sustain it for at least a decade.
7. Cut Off Iran - however you can. 

Continue reading "Gaza and the ME: Flames for the Fuses" »

Posted by dblwyo at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Iran may be the fulcrul point of ME stability over the next decade, much as Iraq was in the last. I had a fascinating range of exchange last week prompted by this column by an Iranian ex-pat reporter: "On a recent afternoon, while riding a rickety bus down Teheran's main thoroughfare, I overheard two women discussing the grim state of Iranian politics. One of them had reached a rather desperate conclusion. "Let the Americans come," she said loudly. "Let them sort things out for us." The full article is excerpted more after the break along with a couple of others - including a superb David Brooks editorial that says what I've been trying to say much better, more pointedly and more clearly. Of course it's his job and gets paid a bit for it :). Anyway a friend of mine who's spent time in Iran had this to say in response:

"I had a woman beg me to take her back with me. Those people know their government is screwed up and feel almost like they are being held hostage. But it’s not our place to liberate them even though we have a deep history with Iran going all the way back to 54. It’s their job to save themselves this time no more Olie North or contra crap. But if you went to Iran and saw those people the thought of killing them and ruing their lives would totally escape your brain no matter what the hyped up false threat is. The only way to give them a democracy is to broker a deal between the reformers (mostly youth) and the regime to allow total government restructuring to take place without any American agenda (which will be impossible) because those are the allies we want in that region those are the people you lean on in that region because we can’t trust the Saudis or anyone else in that region. We are setting ourselves up for failure if we ruin that relationship and I hope the republicans understand that. I hope an accomplished scholar says the same thing soon so people can start viewing Iran as the potential great American resource it can be. We didn't have to attack Iraq to have a powerful base in that region all we had to do was help the people of Iran. I kid you not Tehran is like Manhattan."

Not sure I agree entirely with all his arguments but all of them make sense. And he raises an interesting and constructive potential - what could happen in Iran, in the ME and for the world in general if we could get Iran constructively engaged in its' own welfare. Rather than having a minority continue to export terror and develop nuclear weapons to support their own grip on power. Here's what I had to say in reply:

All that you say makes enormous sense and is consistent with my own views and understandings. In fact my first basic principle of US foreign policy is to constructively engage with the world to promote as good a government as possible locally because it is in our own long-term best interests.

 

There is a great divide, as in many times in history, between the people, what's best for the people and good governance and the power structure. In Iran that power structure is fractious, factioned, malfeasant, kleptocratic and pursuing multiple foreign policy initiatives that make it a threat to the peace and stability of the world. In the last week the UN agency responsible has issued a very harsh report on Iran's pursuit of nucs, which is something we cannot allow. And the Iranian extremists in pursuit of their domestic advantages, not I believe, as a concerted national policy, have been exporting terrorism via Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq for years. At the end of the day there is no logical reason or advantage to doing that which means something escapes me. I think their reasons are the use of the rhetoric of the Islamist revolution to keep and maintain power. Whether consciously or not. They're certainly not serving the interests of their country or people.

 

And there you have our great dilemma with regard to Iran in a nutshell. Our best strategic alternative is to contain them while trying to slowly wean the government and the polity into a more progressive stance. Hopefully encouraging them on the path toward a self-sustaining virtuous cycle of improvement. But power-seeking factions inside the government are pursuing policies that are truly disruptive and dangerous and may require more massive intervention to prevent from reaching a dangerous point - or crossing a threshold into nuclear weapons.

It will take a clever, insightful, courageous and practically skilled foreign policy to bridge this deep dilemma. We have people who have proven capable of such, including some in the government today (Zoellick, Hill, et.al.). Whether we can raise it to the level of policy is another question. But as you say if some scholar will start the ball rolling then it might slowly accumulate. And this article was a first of many small steps - being as it came from the editorial pages of the Christian Science Monitor that's not a bad starting pulpit.

  And there you have it, IOHO, in a nutshell. If we could find a way to contain and constrain Iran while constructively engaging with them and supporting the emergence of more progressive elements we'd all be better off. Especially them with their collapsing economy and increasingly frayed society. Yet in our own and others interests we may be reluctantly forced to measures that are acceptable only because they are less terrible than the consequences of a theocratic kleptocracy with nuclear weapons, a collapsing society and a posture of exporting terror in the name of an extremist religious belief that most of them no longer truly believe in. Sound like anybody else you know ? Like Russia post Stalin ?

A final and key observation - if this is really serious then it's time for the kind of narrow, self-serving posturing we discussed in yesterday's post to be put aside in the national interest. If it's not serious by all means carry the posturing into office, whomever wins, and let the games begin. As Brooks points out once you're in the seat Mr. President the campaign rhetoric must deal with realities on the ground. And we will talk to Iran however we can. And we won't be soft or forgiving either because we've, despite the public image, done a lot of talking over the years.

 But make no mistake - this is not an easy, simple nor straight-forward problem. No matter what you're told or would like to believe.

Continue reading "The Iran Dilemma: They Like Us, Not; We Like Them, Not...usw." »

Posted by dblwyo at 06:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And herein let the lessons continue...this time by looking at Israel and the rest of the ME. At least some key hot spots, which are truly getting hot. Let's start by taking a look at the chart to the right which shows the available data on Israel and some select Arab/ME countries since approx. 1960. The circle size indicates population while the horizontal axis shows income/person vs life expectancy on the vertical. As you can there have been some notable improvements in the latter thruout the region...a tribute to the wider availability of more modern healthcare. And among the Arab countries there have even been some relatively significant improvements in income. Nonetheless Israel has enormously outdistanced them all. That's not just a tribute to Israel per se, as it crosses the 60th anniversary of its' founding, but a tribute to what an educated, hard-working populace can do when provided with decent, if not great government.

On the other hand you have things like the retrograde motion of Saudi Arabia as oil revenues dropped in the '90s. Didn't know that ? Well prior to the recent burst of oil price increases the Saudi's and other oil rich nations were beginning to face severe problems with rapidly growing populations, growing disaffection among the unemployed and unemployable young (who are an increasing portion) and rapidly growing risks of severe instability leading to implosion. With all the attendant dangers that leads to. Yet at the same time one has to give credit where credit is due. The Arab countries have made great strides from where they started. The question is can they find it within themselves to bridge the next big chasm in development ?

That gap is largely built on the same cultural barriers that led to prior surges in oil revenues not resulting in the development of native infrastructure, changes in attitudes and a severe lack of organic capabilities. Now this new surge of oil revenues offers a bridge over which they, and we, may be able to walk. If the lid isn't blown off in the meantime. Judging from other news, e.g. continuing CNBC coverage, there are a lot of bright, competent and knowledgeable rulers in some of the key countries who get it. Again it's the runway vs the airspeed problem - can they get going fast enough with the plane they've got before running out of room. For all these reasons we reiterate our earlier argument - the ME will be the riskiest and most severe foreign policy problem facing the next administration. For decades we've largely taken the ME for granted and done whatever was necessary to keep the oil flowing (the Spice MUST flow !).

Well we're at a cusp point where the Spice won't flow if better government doesn't begining to take hold on a widespread basis. And judging from some of the readings below on Lebanon, Hezzbullah and Pakistan the old troubles are metastasizing yet again. In fact today's news about a new "truce" in Lebanon that effectively give the Hizzies control without saying so could be the beginnings of really serious trouble. With which our dear friends in Iran are being anything but helpful. Oddly in a way given their own escalating problems. But as a deeply divided oligarchic kleptocracy facing wide divisions inside the country there remains an uncontrollable part of the power structure which sees their own salvation in continuing to export turbulence. With all this in mind you might pay particular attention to the last reading on a very non-PC assessment of tribalism and Arab cultural barriers to change (ME Faultlines(Readings): Values, Culture & Conflict).

Welcome to the real world. By the way try looking up the Battle of Megiddo in Wikipedia. You may be surprised to learn that another ancient name for that critical juncture on the early ME trade routes was Armageddon. Hint, hint. 

Continue reading "SoW IV(the Ugly): Israel, the ME and Good vs Bad Government" »

Posted by dblwyo at 05:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's weave a couple or three things together. We've argued that the ME is potentially the most serious and challenging foreign policy issue that will face the next President, over and above Iraq. Largely for two fundamental reasons - one without ME oil the world economy collapses. And two without a stable set of ME regimes they're likely to collapse - if nothing else from internal socio-economic and demographic pressures. That's one braid.

The other is values - last post we took a deep dive on values, or at least from the perspective of the evolution of religion over the last several millenia and the common challenges we've faced collectively and individually wrestling with inescapable challenges. Where those two braids come together is in culture - which too many dismiss too lightly though we've all been getting some rough lessons in the last several years. Primarily in the ME.

"Customs tell a person who they are, where they belong, what they must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them. From an anthropoligist's view, "justice" is a search for workable customs."

Dr. Margaret Mader, Citizen of the Galaxy

If you think that's all gobble-de-gook consider last week's news that Syria was working with North Korea to build a nuclear reactor who's only purpose was breeding materials for nuclear bombs. Which explains the mystery of the Israeli attack last Fall that everyone was puzzling over. Prior to the announcement StratFor, the private int'l intelligence provider put out a very scary little report about  growing escalating war pressures thruout the ME. Stop and think about that for minute. Who knows exactly what was going on, I'm suspect there was a lot of underwear-changing going on in certain buildings and agencies. And there should have been !

Fortunately some folks are beginning to re-discover the importance of culture. Probably one of the most critical applications is understanding tribal culture in the ME. Before we dive into that though let's refer you to some interesting work on modeling culture - which comes from the work of Prof. Richard Lewis and put a little more formally than Dr. Mader puts it:

• Cultural behavior is the end product of collected wisdom, filtered and passed down through hundreds of generations as shared core beliefs, values, assumptions, notions, and persistent action patterns.
• Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from another

One of the best short on-line explanations of culture is on the site of the firm he started to work with businesses for understanding culture and you'll find some more links below. But before going on we strongly urge you to spend a very few minutes looking at this short demo. We found it eye-opening - not just for pointing out that most of people's reactions are based on subconscious responses programmed into them and representing inheritances from thousands of years. But also for making very clear the vast differences in the deepest attitudes between the major politco-economic cultures, e.g. the US, Europe, China, et.al. NOW....how much different are those attitudes than those of tribal societies where the old biblical, "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" are not only business as usual but make sense in context.

Below you'll find readings and excerpts, in addition to the introduction to WWIV in the ME, on specific countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Israel. All of whom are serious candidates for cultural analysis and many of whom need to be understood with an awareness of tribal culture, its' violence and conflict and the role it plays in these societies. But the real recommendation is to the several readings on tribalism, culture, values and conflict, particularly Jared Diamond's long Edge essay on tribal vengeance in New Guinea. Even more important is the long review of Salzman's new book on Culture and Conflict in the ME which points out we've been thinking that much of the violence is religious when in fact it is tribal and an artifact of thousands of years of behavioral patterns that we've been completely ignoring up until now. If you'd like to understand one of the major drivers in the ME these two are particularly worth reading.

But we'll give Dr. Mader the last word here:

"Human customs that help people live together are almost never planned. But they are useful or they don't survive".

 In other words cultural values make sense in their context because they help a society survive and prosper; they are fundamentally essential to social cohesion. Without them society devolves and dissolves. IF you want to work with a particular society you have to understand their value systems, the forces that brought them into existence and how they make their decisions. You may not agree but you MUST work with them, or not deal with them at all. As we're learning around the world, every day, in every way.

Continue reading "ME Faultlines(Readings): Values, Culture & Conflict" »

Posted by dblwyo at 05:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the last couple of weeks there's been a bunch of ME news, much of it as "blood leads" variety. We try and put a context around those sorts of stories as well as find ones that try and dig deeper so you can get a sense of the currents that drive things. In an earlier post (WRFest 16Mar08(Middle East):Diversity, Complexity & Confusions) where we reviewed the situation we also argued that overall ME policy, strategy, tactics and execution was going to be the #1 foreign policy challenge for the next president. And we didn't just mean Iraq by any means. Given the fundamental importance of ME oil to our own daily existence either we figure out how to cope or face serious consequences.

We're not going to be able to cope on our own of course but only in cooperation with the local countries and the folks in charge. And we can't cope if we continue to view the ME as another late term opportunity for headlines, as all recent Presidents seem to have done. Nor can we continue to do business as usual, ala Syrianna, which we've used as our bad example of short-sighted, self-interested and blind policy many times before. Just to put a point on it the movie, IOHO, perfectly captures the "just handle it" thrust of most Americans concerns. For example the ones driving large SUVs to soccer practice and then stopping off at the local church for another anti-war rally. You don't get steaks without killing the cow and you don't get our lifestyles without...well you get the drift. Human nature being what it is we'd all prefer to continue pretending that nice steaks just show up neatly wrapped at the meat counter of course. BtW - before we go down that path did you know that beef cattle are a) about as efficient a use of bad land where farming is both uneconomic, hasn't enough water and environmentally disruptive. And b) that meat protein is the best source of essential dietary elements. At the end of the day you make the best choices you can and pay the piper accordingly.

By way of encouraging you to keep reading here's the money quote from the lead excerpt on Shariah as it was/is really intended to be:

"At its core, Shariah represents the idea that all human beings — and all human governments — are subject to justice under the law. For many Muslims today, living in corrupt autocracies, the call for Shariah is not a call for sexism, obscurantism or savage punishment but for an Islamic version of what the West considers its most prized principle of political justice: the rule of law."

Continue reading "WRFest 30Mar08(Middle East): Progress, Reform, Stability, Devolution" »

Posted by dblwyo at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ME policy and events continue to be challenging for us all. Just because Iraq, and by extension, the ME have come off the front-page doesn't mean any of those challenges have gone away or been lessened. They continue as bad as ever and will be the #1 foreign policy challenge facing a new president. Not just because they are important but because they are also urgent. There are, of course, many other important problems who's long-term implications are even more profound. Primarily finding a way to involve the BRICs as contributing and supporting stakeholders in the new world structure that must emerge to provide a stable int'l framework. But before we get to that point, on which we a) aren't doing badly but b) which will have major up/downs and crisis, we have to pass thru the bottleneck of the ME. The graphic at right is borrowed from an earlier posting on Iraq's strategic consequence and context but will serve here to illustrate the complexities, puzzles and conundrums facing us.

Because the ME controls the available supply of swing oil reserves and production capacity the economies of the rest of the world cannot get by without secure and stable access to it. Anybody who thinks we can just walk away is dreaming. Aside from the minor detail of requiring a national energy policy that would be an effort on a par with the Space program in its' heyday, or perhaps the Manhattan project (& concievabley as important) there's the other DLS (dirty little secret). Changing from where we're at to where we should be, whatever that is, will take decades and $T's of investment. Our last real chance at this was in the '70s and early '80s but when the price of oil dropped people let it slide. So we're trapped in this box for the lifetime of your children.

How will we cope ?

Continue reading "WRFest 16Mar08(Middle East):Diversity, Complexity & Confusions" »

Posted by dblwyo at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next up is some variant readings from around the world on the outlook and status for the ME. Interestingly but hopefully not surprisingly they care as much or more about our elections than we do. In fact, just as a sidebar, an online poll at the Singapore Straits Times found 55%+ of the respondents were more concerned with the US elections than the ones across the Strait in Malaysis. Unfortunately the reverse, or obverse ain't true. That is we don't pay much attention to what they think about things. I started out to put some context around the readings after the break - to wit, why we really....really should care about the ME - but ended up with so much that they'll become seperate posts.

Briefly though 1) the ME is the major source of oil for the world economy and will be more important in the future, 2) the ME has been under growing socio-demographic pressures from rising populations and a lack of development which is escalating exponentially, and 3) US policy continues to be self-interested, quasi-benign neglect but uninformed, un-sophisticated and too short-term to serve our own interests. Put that all together and you have the ingredients for a major implosion which could be catastrophic if not addressed. Which makes resolving these challenges favorably is probably THE major short- to intermediate-term US foreign policy requirement.

Continue reading "WRFest 1Mar08(Middle East): Some Different Perspectives" »

Posted by dblwyo at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Continuing our Readfest postings we'll focus on the sudden emergence of concerns with Afghanistan and NATO's extremely poor performance with its' commitments there. In a nutshell the European militaries have failed most of the obligations they assummed post-911. They've failed because they lack the infrastructure of transportation, intelligence and logistics. Another problem has been that as a result of drastic cutbacks in troop levels as well as using their military forces as not-so-disguised jobs programs instead of focusing on national security they also don't have enough troops qualified to serve in either a combat or nation-building role. Finally many of these countries lack the domestic political support necessary to assume a combat role; i.e. meet their commitments.

Continue reading "Europe, NATO and Afghanistan" »

Posted by dblwyo at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)