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From the Washington Post via the SWJ Blog:

“The choices suggest that the unusual decision to put the top U.S. officer in Iraq in charge of the promotions board has generated new thinking on the qualities of a successful Army officer — and also deepened Petraeus’s imprint on the Army. Petraeus, who spent nearly four of the past five years in Iraq and has seen many of the colonels in action there, faces confirmation hearings next week to take charge of Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Army Secretary Pete Geren asked Petraeus to head the board, which convened in late 2007, and instructed it to stress innovation in selecting a new generation of one-star generals, the officers said. Several of the colonels widely expected to appear on the resulting promotion list, which has not yet been released, are considered unconventional thinkers who were effective in the Iraq campaign, in many cases because they embraced a counterinsurgency doctrine that Petraeus helped craft, the officials said.

They include Special Forces Col. Ken Tovo, a veteran of multiple Iraq tours who recently led a Special Operations task force there; Col. H.R. McMaster, a senior Petraeus adviser known for leading a successful counterinsurgency effort in the Iraqi city of Tall Afar, and Col. Sean MacFarland, who created a network of patrol bases in Ramadi that helped curb violence in the capital of Anbar Province, according to the officers. “

General Petraeus has been given an opportunity to shape the worldview of the Army in a way that is historically, quite rare. The USAF being formed out of the old Army Air Force in the aftermath of WWII with a strategic bomber, “Air Power” ethos is one example. Another would be General Marshall’s handiwork as the father of the “Benning revolution” and the architect of the mighty WWII U.S. Army, where he ruthlessly cashiered deadwood, timeservers and elderly colonels to make way for a new generation of rising talent.

The scale of Petraeus’ efforts are far smaller, of course, as the current Army is only a fraction of it’s Cold War size, to say nothing of Marshall’s gigantic force built by conscription; but it looks like Pertaeus will leave his mark on the institution of the U.S. Army as surely as did Marshall.

Aside from hosting Zenpundit, I have for some time been a member of the libertarian and conservative oriented group blog, Chicago Boyz, which has been and continues to be a very enjoyable and rewarding experience for me.  After careful consideration, I have accepted kind invitations to participate in two other, completely different, sites with sharper topical focus. They are:

Progressive Historians: The dynamic, Left of center ( occasionally way Left) history blog.  No, I’ve not made a sudden political conversion, instead I’ve been asked to join as sort of the” house conservative” in order to add a different point to view to the mix. In the words of PH founder, Jeremy Young:

Since Mark is openly politically conservative, this last choice requires some explanation. I want to make clear that the editorial stance of this site has not changed; we remain avowedly progressive and liberal and, if anything, my own personal political beliefs have become far more uniformly leftist than they were when I founded ProgressiveHistorians in September 2006. At the same time, I don’t believe the Internet should be viewed as a safe space where we’re shielded from others who disagree with our views. Back when he ran the now-defunct Tacitus.org, the conservative Josh Trevino featured an avowedly liberal poster named “Harley” on his front page, who interacted respectfully with all commenters and generally enriched the quality of the site. I’ve long been interested in doing the same sort of thing here at PH, and Mark is the perfect person to do it with — an eclectic and nontraditional conservative with real expertise in issues of great importance to America’s present predicament

Jeremy is very gracious in his praise; however, he’s definitely right that blogosphere could use a more frequent – and more civil – discourse between Left and Right than we’ve seen in recent years. No one gets any smarter from inhabiting an echo chamber, which is why I’ve always tried, despite my own right of center philosophy, to keep this blog open to all points of view and to reach out and build relationships with first rate bloggers of all kinds of political and disciplinary backgrounds. I’m also pleased to participate in an excellent site like Progressive Historians where the authors have such a widely varied set of historical research interests. I expect to challenge some assumptions there and be challenged in my turn, and learn some new things along the way.

Now for the second:

Complex Terrain Laboratory: This is a British site dedicated to the emerging field of human terrain mapping and more generally, a consilient approach to analysis and problem solving:

The Complex Terrain Laboratory is a not-for-profit digital thinklab. Founded in 2008 and based in the UK, it is equal parts research platform, virtual portal, and experimental workshop.

Its mission is to explore the conceptual problems that challenge legal and policy approaches to politically violent non-state groups.

Its approach is multidisciplinary, built around the notion that “terrain” is a security metaphor for complex physical, human, and cognitive environments.

Its goals are four-fold:

• Cross-pollinate academic, practice, industry, and policy interests
• Promote relevant concept development and communication
• Establish itself as a creative and authoritative “thinklab”
• Compile a critical mass of analytical output

CTLab culture is predicated on the vigorous pursuit of knowledge, acquired and developed through syncretic practice. It values the documentary record and the eyewitness account equally. It views intelligence as experiential and cumulative. It believes in the primacy of law in international relations. It sees technology as a tool, not an answer. It eschews solipsistic perspectives of crisis and conflict, and is committed to thick understanding. It understands that research by remote fits hand in glove with the tale well told after a long walk in harsh climes.

This is, in my view, exactly the “Think Tank 2.0” road that academia, government and civil society need to go down in order to get a grasp on evolving global problems that are increasingly interdependent, complex and transnational. When Michael Innes, CTLab’s executive director, invited me to join his roster of distinguished contributors I readily agreed to do so, starting next month. This site is one that I think is only going to grow in terms of influence and policy impact.

What does this mean for Zenpundit ? Business will continue as usual here with some pieces being cross-posted elsewhere where appropriate ( historical posts at PH, cognitive-synthesis and thought pieces at CTLabs, book reviews, economics and mil-theory at Chicago Boyz etc.) and original material posted elsewhere will be linked to here.  Should be a good way of getting different blog audiences to interact as well.

I’m with Fabius Maximus on this one, Stratfor contemplating a major military intervention in Mexico is akin to lunacy:

Two of the many benefits of subscribing to Stratfor are (1) its reporting on geopolitical trends not yet visible to the mainstream media, and (2) it provides a window into the thinking of America’s elites (Stratfor’s customers, senior business and government officials with whom it must stay in synch).

We get both in a new report:  “High Stakes South of the Border.”  This continues their excellent reporting during the past few years on the disintegration of Mexico’s polity – another “decline of the state” in progress.  Just as interesting, Stratfor’s conclusion shows its (and our) assumption of America’s unlimited power and resources.

“U.S. forces are largely preoccupied in Iraq and Afghanistan. While it would take a great deal to tip the scale toward a U.S. military intervention in Mexico, we may now be at a point where that has to be considered given what is at stake.

The last time the United States meaningfully asserted control over a deteriorating situation in Mexico was in the early 20th century during the Mexican Revolution, when the United States occupied Veracruz for six months to protect U.S. business interests. If violence on the border started hurting the bottom line, the cost of not doing anything would start to approach the cost of military action. The potential for an escalation of violence between the cartels and the government spiraling out of control could tip that balance.

It is unclear what the threshold for U.S. action in Mexico would be. But the stakes are high. If the United States sees trade flows threatened, and the security situation deteriorating, Washington might see fit to intervene. And just because it hasn’t done so in a century doesn’t mean it will not choose to do so in the future.”

Belief that we could stabilize Mexico is amazing, on several levels.  Mexico’s population is over one hundred million people, roughly one-third the size of ours.  Their long-standing hostility to us, with considerable historical basis, would make intervention potentially explosive.  But most of all, this displays no awareness of how the world has changed.

Amazing ain’t the word. Stratfor’s analysis here caters to the bipartisan Washinton elite’s view that absolutely nothing should be done to put pressure on Mexico to reform but instead that the United States ( or rather, the American middle-class and below) should shoulder all of the spillover costs of poor governance by the Mexican state. Mexico has serious social, political and economic problems but they are fixable, at this stage but most of them relate to the corruption and parasitic culture of the Mexican elite itself. Invading Mexico is a proposal that is wrong on so many levels for American national interests that I hardly know where to begin.

Tighten the “safety valves” on which Mexico’s elite rely – the borders and remittances – and then diplomatically press for improvement in the economic prospects of Mexico’s bottom third of the population. Mexico is not a poor country, it’s a middle income nation where the state is traditionally used to enrich a loose political oligarchy.

Hat tip to Fester via Twitter.

Edward De Bono is a longtime guru in the field of creativity, specializing in horizontal thinking ( De Bono prefers the older terminology he coined, “Lateral Thinking“). Hat tip to David Armano ( on Twitter).

Shooting for an eclectic mix today:

Top Billing! Bruce Kesler -“Some Praise For The NYT & Criticism of Right”

Setting aside the deconstruction of the popular culture’s “Deer Hunter” Myth about Vietnam Veterans, the section in Bruce’s post on America’s treatment of the Hmong and Montagnard tribesmen is highly instructive. Nations are judged by how they treat their allies and their enemies; the history of our reponse to the plight of the peoples who once stood shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers and CIA officers in combat and who even threw themselves in the way of bullets and grenades aimed at Americans, is little short of a disgrace.

Food for thought when policy makers consider the cases of Iraqis and Afghans helping us today. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Outside the Beltway – “Is It Time to Invade Burma?”

Nice piece by James Joyner. The horror in Burma gives the lie to much of the “Post-American multipolarity” triumphalism of late. The world is multipolar when the world no longer has to rely on the U.S. to do 85 % of the military and logistical heavy lifting in proposed interventions while everyone else sends good wishes (most), checks ( some) or token contingents ( Australia and a few NATO allies send more than “token” but they are the exceptions). Let’s start being able to realize a genuinely international Sys Admin force built around an American military core before we start going off about “multipolarity”.

SWJ Blog – “Human Terrain Team Member Killed in Afghanistan”

As with embedded journalism, academic field work in war zones does  not come without substantial risks. My condolences to the family and friends of Dr. Michael Bhatia.

Irony Department: The greedy hand of the state of “taxachusetts” is trying to put the touch on Harvard University, bastion of left-wing socioeconomic views, by taxing it’s endowment. Wonder how that’s going over with the faculty?

Evidently Chicago is the capital of bombastic behavior.

Interesting discussion at Tom Barnett’s over globalization and religion in his post -“What I think I learn at the company retreat”

A festival of mostly dead physicists at The Reference Frame. Plethora of Feynman links.

WIRED – “Dungeon Master: The Life and Legacy of Gary Gygax” ( Hat tip to Sean ” Jack Bauer” Meade)

An article that rolls a natural 20!

Are you a hub or spoke? In any event, Valdis Krebs understands John Boyd.

That’s it!