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I did not have much time for blogging the other day when the good news of General Petraeus’ nomination to CENTCOM broke. However, blogfriend Pundita, who specializes in the political and economic nuances of the  inside-the-beltway shaping of American foreign policy, was kind enough to inquire of my opinion yesterday via email. Even kinder on Pundita’s part to use it in a post:

“Mark, What do you think of the nomination? Good move, or is it kicking Petraeus upstairs?
Pundita”“Miss P:
This is excellent news and yet more confirmation of the competence and vision of SecDef Robert Gates – as well as his political clout. General Petraeus was due for consideration for a significant posting after his tour of duty in Iraq and CENTCOM chief is among the best options.

Had Petraeus been sent to NATO or the Pentagon, that might have indicated an institutional retreat from the current, evolving COIN [counterinsurgency] strategy on the part of the Army’s old guard, just as they did in the wind-down of Vietnam.Moreover, the appointment of a traditional, conventional warfare advocate at CENTCOM instead of Petraeus could easily have been taken as a signal that the Bush administration was gearing up in it’s waning days to “broaden the war” by initiating a major conflict with Iran.

I expect that Petraeus is also the most ‘confirmable’ candidate, given the rhetoric of Democratic candidates on Afghanistan. And given that NATO is struggling in executing COIN consistently against the Taliban, Petraeus’ skill and experience will be needed to get things back on track without antagonizing our European allies.

On a related matter I’m very, very happy with Robert Gates. I think he just gave a ‘shape up or ship out’ warning to the senior brass.[1] What he said the other day to the cadets regarding John Boyd was akin to a Soviet General-Secretary giving a speech to the Supreme Soviet on the virtues of Milton Friedman. Or Pope Benedict praising Martin Luther.

….Dear Mark:
Thank you for your observations. I was not happy when I first heard Gates was on track for SecDef. Your analyses suggest I should stop sticking pins in his effigy — er, wait a minute, maybe it’s been working. Also, I note that you’re recommending John McCain signal that if he wins the White House he’s going to keep Gates as SecDef.Interesting points. And Gates in that position might dissuade President McCain from his views on Russia, which deeply trouble me”

Me too. I hope that Senator McCain broadens and deepens his foreign policy and defense teams in the coming months.  Russia and China are not our allies by any means but it makes little sense to try and provoke each of them into an active, anti-American, partnership. Let’s deal with these powers pragmatically when and where they are willing to get down to business and quietly but firmly pushback where they are negatively impacting our interests.

If some segments of the American Left can’t stop being apologists for the long expired Soviets then there are some on the Right who need to accept that America won the Cold War and that it’s time to move on.

PETRAEUS UPDATE:

Tom is already irritated.

SWJ BLog has the uber-round-up.

Through Twitter, I’ve become familiar with Jeffrey Carr’s excellent blog IntelFusion which covers a range of topics of great interest to readers here. Several recent posts that have caught my eye:

Unrestricted Warfare, the Chinese Box, and the game of Go

In 1999, a seminal work on Chinese military strategy was published by two Senior Colonels of the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), SrCol Qiao Liang and SrCol Wang Xiangsui, entitled Chaoxian zhan (translated as “Warfare that exceeds boundaries”).

….In July, 2002, the Asia Times printed a new article by the two Colonels “Chinese box approach to international conflict“. In it, they discuss China’s uber strategy in dealing with specific international issues:

“It is Chinese practice to attack an issue with a framework larger than the issue itself. When a crisis occurs, Chinese leaders first detach from it temporally and spacially. They spend time thinking about the issue before action, thus allowing more room for maneuver in the future. This is somewhat like playing with a magic box: first you pack the specific problem and related factors into a box and then fit it into larger boxes with related problems in different levels. Finally, you come up with a framework of highest generality to harness the whole situation.”

In this article, the authors later allude to the Chinese game of Weiqi (more commonly called by its Japanese name “Go”) and the strategy of the “idle piece”.

Nuclear black market still operating in the DRC

Ever since WWII, when the Democratic Republic of the Congo provided the raw uranium ore for U.S. production of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, various States interested in acquiring nuclear weapons have been attracted to the Congo’s relatively lax export controls for uranium found in its Cobalt and Copper ore. The most recent incident just occured a few days ago :

Security forces in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga province have intercepted a truck transporting radioactive mineral ore bound for export, local authorities said on Friday. The truck, carrying 30 tonnes of copper and cobalt ore for Chinese-run firm Hua-Shin Mining, was stopped at an inspection checkpoint near Kolwezi, one of Congo’s biggest copper belt mining towns, on Wednesday.

Last November, another attempt to smuggle uranium resulted in the radioactive ore being dumped into a river causing serious health concerns for the surrounding population.

Read these posts in full at IntelFusion.

To Andrew Sullivan for the link yesterday. New traffic from a major blogger is always much appreciated!

For readers who are not aware, blogfriend Shlok Vaidya also publishes the excellent Naxalite Rage site dedicated to the analysis of that particular insurgency in India. Shloky has been getting well-deserved VIP attention of late – check out Naxalite Rage and find out why.

Intelfusion posts on the Harvard study of the Persian blogosphere.  Found at Jeffreycarr on Twitter.

(I figured that so long as my margin was temporarily messed up on Explorer from Cameron’s text file – why not go with a big visual? In for a penny, in for a pound! Should be ok on Firefox etc.)