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A few comments on the proposed Whyte-Min-Barnett Grand Strategy Executive Agreement for a Sino-American partnership that Dr. Barnett has been deeply engaged with the past few months.

First, a caveat: while Tom has involved me in aa few of his past projects, I was not involved in this one and know only what I have read recently. Secondly, while I know a bit about China in an academic sense, it is not an area of research for me nor am I up to speed on the  current politics of China’s generational transfer of power/power struggle. Those readers who are avid China watchers should chime in with comments.

As an overview, I think the proposal’s specific terms should be viewed less seriously individually than the gesture itself, which represents in my view a very significant trial balloon signal from China’s leadership that they see a need to negotiate a successor to the long outgrown cornerstone of Chinese-American relations, the Shanghai Communique, signed during Nixon’s historic summit with Mao. A new agreement would provide some updated “rules of the road” that would defuse potential and existing tensions and allow the US and China to tackle some urgent problems in the global economy. By using a semi-official independent set of pundits ( Whyte and Min) and a maverick private sector American geostrategist ( Tom) with close ties to the Pentagon, China can advance it’s talking points and interest in negotiating without any loss of face that an official inquiry risks as a result of America’s fractious domestic partisan politics.

Read up on the secret diplomatic minuet that ensued between the US and China 1969-1972.

China’s leadership seems to have invested a sizable heavyweight participation in this proposal, Tom cites:

– Former Minister of Foreign Affairs;
  – Former UN ambassador,
  – Former U.S. ambassador,
  – Former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the PLA,
  – Former Military Attaché to North Korea and Israel,
  – Former Vice Minister of Commerce,
  – President of Shanghai Institutes of International Studies,
  – China’s Central Party School Institute of International Strategic Studies,
  – Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs,
  – China Center for International Economic Exchanges,
  – China Institute For International Strategic Studies,
  – China Foundation for International & Strategic Studies,
  – Boao Forum,
  – China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

This has resulted in a document that unsurprisingly leans strongly towards China’s interpretation of a good Sino-American partnership but this proposal is not holy writ, it is a red flag ( pun intended) for bargaining to begin. A plea, really by a leadership craving greater certainty, medium term security and “recognition” ( i.e. “face” or “respect” – this is very much like Brezhnev and Kosygin deeply desiring that the USSR be seen as an equal to the US, except unlike the Soviets, China actually has a productive economy) Imagine a US doc shepherded by a comparable set of former and current powerbrokers, the Council of Foreign Relations, CNAS, Carnegie, CNA, SSI, Brookings, AEI, Hoover, the chairmen of the Republican and Democratic Parties and the president of Harvard. Would that catch the attention of foreign observers?

I am not sure if it is being received that way over here. My perception – and I freely admit to having large gaps of knowledge – is that US policy toward China is determined below the NSC level and not in a strategic fashion by a) Treasury b) the Fed c) PACOM in that order , pursuing contradictory policy goals and without proper coordination while State, which should be taking a lead role, is a quiet secondary voice relegated to managing lower level, day to day, routine problems in ad hoc fashion. Some carping and special pleading from Congress is erratically inserted into the mix. If someone in the Obama administration is the China policy “czar” it is obscure to me. It must be obscure to Beijing as well or they would be having their ambassador or foreign minister pushing these proposals to their American counterparts in a normal fashion instead of Tom.

Barnett, Whyte and Min devote a great deal of space to bilateral and global economics relationships. They should. The magnitude of the Sino-American monetary and trade relationship and it’s evolved distortions between two nations that are radically dissimilar, understand one another poorly and are not allied are actually scary. Immense quanties of locked up capital – and we are talking epic figures  that dwarf the interwar period European “dollar gap” or even that of the postwar era remedied by the Marshall Plan – ultimately create money scarcity elsewhere in the global economy until trade breaks down in political reaction or the ebb of a medium of mutual exchange.  That money needs to begin circulating via productive investment and Chinese policies creating this structural imbalance need to be phased out. How exactly this should be done is beyond my ken, but that something needs to be done is obvious.

Dr. Barnett, as I understand his strategic thinking, takes the long view and is willing to concede in the short term what would be impossible to sustain in the long term anyway (“locking in tomorrow’s China at today’s prices” ) and is concerned about defense contractors eager to make China the justification for hyperexpensive weapons mega-platforms ultimately inculcating over time thinking that carelessly slides the United States toward a needless great power war with China. A position mirrored by China’s own ambitious self-dealing military asshats.

Is Tom’s view the last word? No. but it is disturbing to me that a strategic relationship as we have with China is not being handled by American officials with the same attention and degree long term focus we give to Europe.

What do the Sinologists out there say?

J. Scott Shipman is the owner of a boutique consulting firm in the Metro DC area that is putting Boyd’s ideas into action.

Boyd and Beyond, 2010

by J. Scott Shipman

Boyd & Beyond 2010, 15-16 October 2010

Mr. Stan Coerr (GS-15 Marine Corps, LtCol, USMCR), coordinator. Hosted by the USMC Command and Staff College at the Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA.

This was my first Boyd conference. I discovered Boyd in early 2005 through Robert Coram’s book, BOYD, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. I did not know what to expect of the conference, and was anxious to meet guys I’d corresponded with over the last couple of years (the ones who made it: Robert Coram, Fred Leland, Don Vandergriff, and Adam Elkus); so my thinking going in was at least I’d get to meet these guys regardless, and besides Quantico is right down I-95 from my home.

As others have already observed, Boyd 2010 exceeded any expectation. It was a pleasure to be in the same room with such an impressive collection of talent and intellect and listen to what they have done and continue to do with Boyd’s work and ideas. At the end of the first day, I felt my head was going to explode—and heard many others echoing similar sentiment. I told a friend, those two days were like drinking from a fire hydrant.

As many readers are probably already aware, the reaction to the conference has been universally positive, and calls for a 2011 event have been heard and is scheduled for 14-15 October 2011 at Quantico, same location. Stan Coerr and the USMC University deserve our gratitude for this recent event and the opportunity to reconvene next year. The bar, has indeed been set high.

What follows is from my notes, and I apologize in advance if I leave out something I should have remembered. I will try and avoid repeating too much of Adam Elkus’ excellent review, so all presenters are not covered—while all presenters provided valuable and enlightening insights. At the conclusion, I’ve added the references of books and online links that I heard (there were many more) recommended, and books and articles I recommended during the conference.

The day began with a colorful introduction to Boyd by Robert Coram. He related the circumstances of how he came to write BOYD, and shared several stories of the evolution of the book and the people he met. Coram reported that as of the conference, 73,000 copies of BOYD are in print—not bad for a book about someone most people have never heard of.

Ray Leopold, PhD, (the third acolyte) gave a touching and penetrating retrospective of how he came to be associated with John Boyd, and how that association changed his life for the better. Of interest, Ray shared a common introduction that he and Boyd used when they visited other Air Force officers. They would write the following on the blackboard:

DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY

They would then cross these familiar words out, and replace with:

Pride, Power, Greed

From Boyd’s perspective, the military industrial complex and the inherent bureaucracy had (and in my humble opinion, continues) corrupted the original intent of those core principles military members are taught to embrace.

Don Vandergriff followed with a fast-paced explanation of his continuing efforts within the US Army to advocate Outcome Based Training and Education (T&E). He follows with successful practical examples of allowing his student to think and adapt-“off-script.” Vandergriff also recommended the work of Dr. Robert Bjork, Dean of the School of Psychology at UCLA, particularly his presentation “How We Learn Versus How We Think We Learn: Implications for the Organization of Army Training.”

General Paul Van Riper (LtGen, USMC, Ret) was the keynote and gave a compelling address on mental models and systems theory. Throughout his talk, he added insight into how John Boyd’s ideas found a home in the USMC. Gen Van Riper made the distinction between informational knowledge and transformational knowledge, and the “eloquent schema” that is OODA. He also discussed systems theory, and distinguished between linear systems (cause & effect), complex systems, and interactive complex systems. Of the later, he reminded that these systems are non-linear and unknowable using a deductive approach, and one output is emergent behavior(s).

Marcus Mainz (Major, USMC) provided insight into how he is using Boyd’s ideas in the training and development of young Marine officers and how he and his colleagues are creating the desire to learn. LtCol Mike Grice (USMC) provided our group with insight into how Boyd’s ideas translate in the field—having just returned from Afghanistan and a tour in one of Iraq’s more dangerous provinces. Both of these officers reflect well on the USMC—and if this caliber of leadership and thought is any indication, the USMC is in good hands in the years to come.

On the second day, Linton Wells, PhD, (CAPT, USN, Ret) gave a talk on naval maneuver warfare. Dr. Wells was providing a preview of his update to a seminal article of the same title he wrote for Proceedings in December 1980. Dr. Wells also provided one of the best quotes of the two days: “make knowledge accidents happen.”

Fred Leland’s presentation revolved on how he has used Boyd’s work to teach law enforcement personnel how to make good decisions. Fred began his talk with an absolutely frighteningly disturbing video from the dash-cam of a young police officer caught in a dangerous place. Fred lives his curricula, as he is an active duty police lieutenant, so his presentation had a resonance unique to our gathering.

Terry Barnhart, PhD, (Pfizer R&D) provided unique insight into how he is using Boyd’s ideas (OODA, to be specific) in his company’s R&D efforts. Barnhart, in my estimation, is onto something very powerful. He repurposed Boyd’s OODA from the traditional vernacular into: See, Reframe, Experience, Grow—but the intent remains. Dr. Barnhart placed great emphasis on “SEE” where his definition is: “assume it is wrong” and see without prejudice. He reported exciting results from using this and another model derived from Boyd’s work.

Chip Pearson, Managing Partner of a software company in Minnesota, gave an impassioned recounting of how he used/uses Boyd’s concepts to start and successfully operate his software company. His philosophy, “we make meaning, not money.” Chip focused on values, capability, and objectives. On his management philosophy, he remarked, “complete independent action scares the hell out of people”—which is how he wants his organization to operate.

Jussi Jaakonahon, from Nokia, travelled the furthest, coming from Norway, to give his talk on his experience using OODA in IT security exercises. He confirmed Boyd’s emphasis on sharing information of validity and integrity, and adapting on the fly to the mission. During this exchange someone remarked: “companies die because they do the right thing too long.” We hope he will be able to join us for both days next year.

CORRECTION:

I was contacted by Jussi Jaakonaho, I misspelled his name—this is the correct spelling. He came from Finland, not Norway. This quote should be attributed to Jussi: “companies won’t die because of their false actions. they die because of the continuing of the same actions for too long (which once were right).”

My sincere apologies for the inaccuracies. 
There was a language barrier, and as a Southerner, English is my second language:))

Dave Foster provided an introduction to his draft paper on portfolio complexities in the fog of war. One goal of his paper is helping to shrink the knowledge-doing gap. Foster is on to something, and I’m guessing this forum will help him advance his ideas.

TJ Jankowski (Col, USMCR) was the anchor man for our two days. His talk, COIN Technology and Universal Structures of Technical Knowledge, dealt with emerging theories of a taxonomy of technologies. His ideas are based on the work of Dr. Rias van Wyk which advances the idea of “a fundamental structure of technological knowledge, based in part on a very precise definition of technology and a functional  classification of all technological knowledge.” (TJ Jankowski follow-up email) The implications of these ideas could be revolutionary in our ability to conduct macro technology analysis.

Alan D. Beyerchen, Clausewitz, Nonlinearity ?and the Unpredictability of War http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/Beyerchen/CWZandNonlinearity.htm

DoD Command and Control Research Program (CCRP) by Tom Czerwinski: http://www.dodccrp.org/events/13th_iccrts_2008/CD/library/html/pdf/Czerwinski_Coping.pdf

Hew Strachan, Clausewitz’s On War: A Biography

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802143636/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

John Shook, Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process

http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Learn-Using-Management-Process/dp/1934109207/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287607276&sr=8-1

Nik Gowing, “Sky Full of Lies and Black Swans” (free registration required to access whole article)

http://www.bbcworldnews.com/Pages/Programme.aspx?id=362

Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Time-Uses-History-Decision-Makers/dp/0029227917/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287610406&sr=8-1

A few titles I recommended:

Seen recently here at Zenpundit comes with a hearty recommendation:

Magic and Mayhen, The Delusions American Foreign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan by Derek Leebaert

http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Mayhem-Delusions-American-Afghanistan/dp/1439125694/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287610785&sr=1-1

Jim Storr, The Human Face of War. Storr does not hold Boyd and OODA in high regard, however there is much in this excellent book to admire and much to learn—it is worth the $100 price tag.

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Face-War-Birmingham-Studies/dp/1847065236/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287611995&sr=1-1

Robert Leonhard, The Principles of War For the Information Age. Again, Leonhard is not a Boyd fan, but an important contribution to how we think—his IT ideas are dated, but the core is thought-provoking.

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-War-Information-Age/dp/0891417133/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287612234&sr=1-1

Michael Van Nooten, The Law of the Somalis. The late Mr. Van Nooten married into a Somali tribe and used his training as an attorney to propose innovative ideas for the peaceful coexistence of Western jurisprudence with systems based on tribes or clans.

http://www.amazon.com/Law-Somalis-Foundation-Economic-Development/dp/156902250X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287612336&sr=1-1

Fredrich Hayek, Economics and Knowledge.

http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Economics/HayekEconomicsAndKnowledge.html

Fredrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society.

http://home.uchicago.edu/~vlima/courses/econ200/spring01/hayek.pdf

Many thanks to Mark for making this venue available, and I hope to see you next year at Boyd & Beyond 2011.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, the famous Reagan administration economist and now an embittered and cranky paleoconservative social critic, penned a short but intriguing American “collapse” scenario set in the near future. Some of what Roberts writes fits neatly with the thesis in Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies:

The Year America Dissolved

….As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.

The dollar had collapsed as world reserve currency in 2012 when the worsening economic depression made it clear to Washington’s creditors that the federal budget deficit was too large to be financed except by the printing of money. With the dollar’s demise, import prices skyrocketed. As Americans were unable to afford foreign-made goods, the transnational corporations that were producing offshore for US markets were bankrupted, further eroding the government’s revenue base.

The government was forced to print money in order to pay its bills, causing domestic prices to rise rapidly. Faced with hyperinflation, Washington took recourse in terminating Social Security and Medicare and followed up by confiscating the remnants of private pensions. This provided a one-year respite, but with no more resources to confiscate, money creation and hyperinflation resumed.

Organized food deliveries broke down when the government fought hyperinflation with fixed prices and the mandate that all purchases and sales had to be in US paper currency. Unwilling to trade appreciating goods for depreciating paper, goods disappeared from stores.

Several interesting things here. First, the demagogic front men who are currently engaging in op-ed tirades against public pensions in order to loot them to ostensibly plug state budget deficits will, if successful, use that precedent to go after private pensions, IRAs, 401(k), mutual funds, Social Security, Medicare, Home mortgage interest deduction – any remaining big pot of money in the hands of the middle-class has a big target on it. Secondly, food shortages historically were the spark that set off the French and Russian Revolutions.

When hubris sent America in pursuit of overseas empire, the venture coincided with the offshoring of American manufacturing, industrial, and professional service jobs and the corresponding erosion of the government’s tax base, with the advent of massive budget and trade deficits, with the erosion of the fiat paper currency’s value, and with America’s dependence on foreign creditors and puppet rulers.

The Roman Empire lasted for centuries. The American one collapsed overnight.

Rome’s corruption became the strength of her enemies, and the Western Empire was overrun.

America’s collapse occurred when government ceased to represent the people and became the instrument of a private oligarchy. Decisions were made in behalf of short-term profits for the few at the expense of unmanageable liabilities for the many.

Overwhelmed by liabilities, the government collapsed.

Connectivity, contra Roberts, is good. Corruption, on the other hand, is not. Free markets are generally efficient, so long as you do not expect them to automatically create public goods of a certain scale or be perfectly self-regulating. They require a scrupulously impartial rule of law in order to not become corrupted by abusive players seeking rents. Unfortunately, a scrupulously impartial rule of law is incompatible with technocracy, where expert administrators are granted arbitrary discretion without democratic accountability, the prevailing ethos in the EU supranational bureaucracy, to cite a real world example. The late, unlamented, Soviet nomenklatura would be another, more sinister, historical one.

The primary problem with the American political economy is that in the last 10-15 years, elite, moderately liberal technocrats have made common cause with the elite, moderately conservative rentiers of the financial and corporate world to form an incipient oligarchy. One sees their fellow Americans paternalistically as children. The other sees us as sheep to be sheared. It’s a common enough ground on which to unite and it is the reason you see a very liberal Democratic Obama administration and a Pelosi-Reid Congressional leadership counterintuitively putting corporate regulation in impenetrable shadows not seen since before the Stock Market Crash of 1929 as if they were the minions of Jay Gould and J.P. Morgan.

Don’t expect mainstream Republicans in Congress to die on any hills fighting for the free market either – they aspire to be the party of no-bid contracts to the Democratic party of government by clout.

Alderman Paddy Bauler would be proud.

“Welcome to the Desert of the Real….”

Dr. Thomas Rid, at the excellent Kings of War blog, had a sharp historical observation:

The State of Strategy

Who produced the greatest strategists of all time, dead and alive? America or Europe?

Before wading into that minefield, we need some criteria, some points of orientation. The key should be a body of strategic theory, writings of general nature. Just making history or writing about it doesn’t count here. That excludes two sets of people who might otherwise be considered strategists or military writers: great military historians – like Hans Delbrück or Douglas Porch – and exceptionally gifted commanders, such as Napoleon or perhaps Petraeus.

First the old strategists of Europe. Most would go by one name only: Clausewitz, Jomini, Ardant du Picq, Hubert Lyautey, Joseph-Simon Gallieni, Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, Frank Kitson, Basil Liddell Hart, Robert Thompson, C.E. Callwell, Roger Trinquier, André Beaufre, David Galula, T.E. Lawrence, Giulio Douhet, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Helmuth von Moltke, Engels, Lenin – to be fair in this little contest, we should not include those thinkers who predate the United States, such as Thucydides or Machiavelli.

Contrast this with America’s greatest classic writers of strategy: Alfred Thayer Mahan, Albert Wohlstetter, Herman Kahn, Bernard Brodie, and Samuel Huntington. (I hesitate to count John Boyd; he really didn’t write enough.)

….So how about living strategists? Given that America eclipsed Europe in terms of geostrategic weight some time in the first half of the 20th century, and given that the United States attracts the best brains in all fields, you would expect strategic tomes adorned with stars and stripes all over the place. But no.

….But whatever the metric, Europe is doing pretty well, then and now. Although it clearly seems we’re past our prime. The same cannot be said about the United States, which is probably still near the height of its power. For that, the strategic record is surprisingly thin

Let’s set aside the question of Sun-Tzu, Musashi,  Kautilya and other Asian strategists. Also the subject of John Boyd as Col. Boyd did not lack for kind words in the KoW comments section. We’ll just concentrate on Rid’s query of “Why so few American strategists of great stature?”. It’s a very good historical question.

I think there are a number of possibilities:

• DEFINITION: Rid is talking about military strategists, however that is not the only domain in which strategic thinking can take place. If you look at strategic thinking in politics ( which fits well with including Machiavelli as a strategist), diplomacy or business then the claim for American strategists becomes much stronger. For most of our history, our standing Army was small and poorly trained, so our natural strategic genius found outlets elsewhere as captains of industry and statesmen. Hard to see Abraham Lincoln, John D. Rockefeller, Mark Hanna, J.P. Morgan, John Hay, Frederick W. Taylor, FDR, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, Kevin Philips, Richard Nixon and Bill Gates as lacking in a capacity for strategic thinking.
• ABUNDANCE vs. SCARCITY: American conditions in terms of geography, political economy, population density and governance were historically radically different from those prevailing during most of European civilization. Strategy fundamentally involves choices and material abundance – such as a frontier with free or exceptionally inexpensive land- mitigates the need for hard choices. The US, for example, in contrast to European nations or Russia, never experienced real famine, shortages of vital raw materials or a stark dependency upon export markets for survival. If anything, material abundance presents too many rather than too few options, leading to a willingness to compromise on a mutually agreeable rather than a “best” choice because the sense of existential threat is absent.
• IRREGULAR WARFARE: The Indian wars took 300 + years of tribal insurgency to subdue Native Americans. Conventional battle, by comparison was a relative and episodic rarity in American history until the 20th century.
• DEMOCRACY vs. ARISTOCRACY-OLIGARCHY: American military history, until WWI at least, is dominated by a political cult of military amateurism, state and local militia as a safe “democratic” alternative to potentially “tyrannical” professional standing armies. European strategists were usually aristocrats enjoying rentier positions as absentee landlords or the patronage of court sinecures, which permitted them the luxury of unearned or nominally earned income on which to study and write. American officers were not so lavishly funded by Congress and many of our best military officers, at least in the antebellum period, were Southerners who were the sons of planter gentility. Postbellum military thought is not much to brag about until Mahan.

What other reasons do you see ?

 

“The only people celebrating at the Pentagon last week were the Mexicans working on renovating the building.”                               –  Dr. Loren Thompson

It takes a rare class of wit to combine an allusion to an ethnic minority group while shilling for a fabulously overpaid and notoriously dysfunctional industry that is anxious that we are spending too much money on the war wounded. Full story at Danger Room.

Remember people, every dollar wasted on caring for a critically injured combat veteran, or on a pay raise that keeps a private’s family off of food stamps is a dollar that could have gone to cost overruns or a desperately needed executive bonus.