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NEW CORE RISING…”NOW THEY’VE GOT A PIECE OF THE PIE…”

Fareed Zakaria, using a somewhat ill-fitting historical analogy with late 19th century Great Britain, muses on the impact that the rise of India and China as global economic players will have on the United States.

REVIEWING THE DELETED SCENE ON SYSTEM PERTURBATION – PART II.

The previous post dealt with the concepts of Horizontal and Vertical scenarios from Dr. Barnett’s Deleted Scene on System Perturbation. Today I’m commenting on the first three rules that his workshop produced but ended up being cut from The Pentagon’s New Map. Originally, I had intended to do the whole rule set in one shot but the amount of text would probably be of burdensome length to the average blog reader so I’m going to tackle it in a series of smaller bites. Again, Dr. Barnett’s prose is in bold and my remarks are in standard text:

Continued……

“Who’s really in charge during a System Perturbation?

Rule #1: Super-empowered individuals may rule vertical scenarios, but nation-states still rule horizontal scenarios.



I got this one from a senior personal aide to the Secretary of Defense, who made the observation during a brief I gave him and a slew of his colleagues. His point was simple: a terrorist like Osama bin Laden can put together the people, money, and logistics to hijack three planes and fly them into buildings, but that vertical shock will trigger significant long-term responses from the threatened nation-states. The responses from these states are true horizontal scenarios that stretch on for years, like the global war on terrorism. A serious campaign like that takes an enormous amount of resources, which really only nation-states can muster. So, a super-empowered individual like Bin Laden can certainly pull off a “heist” here and there, but the “police” are able to spend years hunting him down. As my old boss Art Cebrowski likes to say, the terrorist has few resources, but lots of will, whereas the state tends to have lots of resources, but difficulty maintaining will, or vigilance. So it is a cat-and-mouse sort of game over the long run: he has to be shifty, we have to be relentless”

I’m generally in agreement here with a significant caveat.

Governments of great power nation-states are like ocean liners. Once bureaucratic resistance to a policy is overcome and a new policy direction is set a tremendous power of institutional momentum develops that future officeholders can stop or reverse course only with the greatest difficulty and even that over a period of time. Stalin, allegedly, is once said to have asked of one of his henchmen ” How much does the state weigh ? ” – it weighs one hell of a lot if it comes breathing down your neck ! Just ask Saddam. So I do agree, horizontal scenarios keep unfolding for years after the System Perturbation that triggered the response.

My caveat is the concept of ” marginality “. All systems have tipping points where the accumulated stress is too much to bear and the ability of the system or state to self-regulate, enforce rule-sets and reproduce their core values is exceeded. Suddenly, a once formidible regime like the USSR finds it’s own elite security troops unreliable and long-dormant regions have sprung to life and begun pulling away from the center. While it is unlikely that a superempowered individual on their own could spark such a crisis, a System Perturbation could, at the right time, push an already strained system over the edge.

Rule #2: Vertical scenarios choose us, but we choose horizontal scenarios.



This concept stems from an observation made by an historian of millenarian movements, or groups with apocalyptic agendas. Richard Landes of Boston University says, look back through any nation’s history and you will find defining moments, or what he calls “chosen trauma.” These events shape the ethos of the society because people there have chosen to mark them as key turning points in their collective history. In the United States, our chosen trauma include the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Gettysburg, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and now 9/11. Not every bad thing that happens triggers this response. America could have chosen to respond to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center to launch a global war on terrorism, but we did not. In general, a chosen trauma can be summarized by the phrase, “Remember the ______!” So Americans “Remember the Alamo!” and “Remember the Maine!” But we do not really chose to remember Columbine or Oklahoma City in the same way. The point of this rule is simply to remind us that we have the ability to say no to responding to a vertical scenario, and that when we do decide to respond, like with a global war on terrorism, that is not a choice forced upon us, but one we make freely — thus signifying control. It is one of those things we all learned in kindergarten: anyone can hurl an insult or a rock, but you only have to fight when you want to.”

With all due respect to Dr. Landes, he’s wrong. Or at least he’s not counting the costs of *not acting* when he argues for a completely free choice in responding to vertical scenario attacks.

The difference between 9/11 and the car-bombing of the WTC in 1993 and Pearl Harbor and, say, the Panay incident or Gettysburg and Bull Run is that all the former cases involve a mass psychological crossing of the Rubicon. Our collective attention is grabbed not merely by death tolls but by the gravity of the situation with the implied costs. Pearl Harbor buried peace negotiations with Japan. Gettysburg buried reconciliation with a Slave power South and 9/11 to most Americans buried the law enforcement view of Islamist terrorism. Yes, we could have chosen *not* to go to war ( or up the ante to total war against the Confederacy) but not acting after Pearl Harbor or 9/11 carried serious costs that were universally evident to everyone – a serious defeat for America and a possible slippery slope decline when friends and enemies change their risk calculations on a host of unrelated problems to adjust for our non-action.

A System Perturbation by definition, provokes a response.

Rule #3: Once the vertical scenario plays itself out, control reverts back to nation-states, so long as they stay on the offensive.



You could say this one also comes from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, because that has been the basic philosophy they have advocated in America’s global war on terrorism. In other words, once the dust cleared after 9/11, it was America’s task to keep hounding Bin Laden and Al Qaeda until they are completely destroyed as a threat. Our enemy’s goal is clear: they need to keep hitting us with vertical shocks that cumulatively depress our stock of rules, our collective sense of individual security, and our belief in the stability of our system. A vertical shock like 9/11 immediately creates a sense of rule-set void: people are thinking, “We are clearly short of the right rules because if we had had them, this disaster never would have happened in this way.” If an Al Qaeda can maintain a certain frequency of shocks, America never really fills that void back in with new rules, because we would be constantly scrambling to understand — yet again — “how something like this could happen?” But if we maintain a constant pressure on the enemy, those vertical shocks are few and far between, allowing us to fill in any voids created by our original sense of shock and horror. This is the essential difference between America and Israel since 9/11: we have never been hit again, but Israel keeps suffering the vertical shocks of suicide bombings, thus Israeli society suffers systematic brutalization and thus responds more brutally with time. My point: you take the offensive, you limit the need for brutality in your response. You get the bad stuff over as quickly as possible

I could not be more in agreement. In fact I’ve harped upon this point time and time again that retaining control of the initiative is critical in an unconventional, asymmetric war like the War on Terror. Smart, creative, ever evolving tactics within a larger strategy keeps the enemy off-balance but forces him to evolve to an extent, organizationally-speaking, in a direction we determine by our setting of the conflict parameters. This is why it is critical that the United States government – not the UN, not the Red Cross, not the EU, not professional NGO activists or media blowhards – determine the rules of engagement against a foe whose only rule in this war is that they will honor no rules whatsoever. Beslan is their paradigm, not the Geneva Convention.

Attempts to force the post-Kantian ” police model ” rule-set of warfare, adhered to by most European powers, on the United States military, is an attempt to hobble our response to al Qaida. Not an *effect* of applying such standards but the *intent* for applying them. Not all of our friends are really our friends in this war and not all of our usual or logical enemies are against us either, as they each pursue their own best interests.

In Part III. we will investigate rules # 4-6 which answer “What’s really at risk in a System Perturbation? ”

BLOGOSPHERIC ENDORSEMENTS FOR THE PRESIDENCY

Dan Drezner, as is the rule with professors at the University of Chicago, an exceptionally bright person. However his recent post, hemming and hawing over his decision to vote for John Kerry was too lame for words – being 60 % there ( or whatever figure) unless his readers can convince him to go one way or the other. Good grief. This is an expert in political science ! If getting paid to think, read , write and teach about politics at one of the finest universities in the world doesn’t provide you with ample time to find for either George W. Bush or John F. Kerry without help from the peanut gallery, you’re not really trying.

(Parenthetical aside, Drezner’s follow-up post to his responses is much better – though even less decisive – than his first. Make up your mind already Professor !)

I much prefer clarity. Here are two bloggers who know their minds without recourse to polling the masses. First, for the incumbent:

Dave Schuyler of The Glittering Eye had a thoughtful, concise post on the crypto-liberal, nominally Republican, Chicago Tribune’s endorsement of George W. Bush.

“The endorsements

Now that the presidential debates are over and there are just two weeks until the election the endorsements are starting to fly fast and thick. Yesterday The New York Times endorsed Kerry which surprised no one. The Chicago Tribune endorsed Bush which surprised me, anyway.



Bloggers are starting to endorse candidates, too. Or at least post strong statements of support for the candidates they’ve supported all along.

Greg Djerejian of Belgravia Dispatch explains why he supports Bush. He doesn’t think that Kerry gets it:



I don’t believe, in his gut, Kerry believes that we face an existential challenge with regard to the war on terror.



Edward_ of the group blog Obsidian Wings is a blogger whose thoughts and work I’ve come to admire greatly. I think that Edward’s heart is definitely in the right place and his head is screwed on pretty well, too. After a litany of the mistakes that Mr. Bush has made in his handling of U. S. security, he concludes a fine post, WWKD (What Would Kerry Do) with:

Really, what are these people worried Kerry would do as Commander-in-Chief that would put us in a worse position than we find ourselves under Bush? He’s assured us he won’t cut and run in Iraq, as some continue to insist. He’s assured us he won’t give any outside body a veto over his decision to take action, as some continue to insist. He’s demonstrated personally, in battle, that he remains cool, collected, and focused…valuing his fellow Americans’ lives above all, even when there’s personal danger to himself.

What do they fear he’d do? Seriously, I just don’t get it.

I’d describe myself as Bush-leaning. I’ve never been an ardent Bush supporter. I didn’t vote for Bush last time around. I’m more in the hold-your-nose-and-vote-for-Bush camp. But I find it hard to bring myself to support Mr. Kerry.



In order to answer Edward’s question I think you have to consider the circumstances under which a President Kerry would come to power and what motivates men who have the ego and ambition to seek the presidency. Foretelling the future is a chancy thing. I frequently have problems in figuring out what went on in the past. But here’s my half-hearted (pick your item of anatomy) prediction. One of the following will happen:



Kerry wins by a narrow margin (40%).



This alternative assumes that Kerry takes the states that Gore took in 2000 plus Florida (or some other good-sized state that Gore didn’t take).



Bush wins by a narrow margin (45%).



This alternative assumes that Bush takes the states he took in 2000 (or the equivalent). Changes in apportionment after the 2000 census would give Bush a more substantial victory than last time around. Hence the 45%.



Bush wins by a lot (15%).



This alternative assumes that Bush takes the states he took in 2000 plus several of the swing states that went for Gore last time around. That plus the apportionment point I mention above would give Bush a major victory.



I just can’t envision a major victory for Kerry. It doesn’t look to me like the numbers are there.



The Kerry Administration would come into power with an angry Republican opposition still in control of the House and in all likelihood in control of the Senate. The divisions within his own party suggest a situation not unlike herding cats, likely to turn on him as they did on Carter under similar circumstances.

Now presidents seek power. They want to hold onto their office and get re-elected. If they didn’t they wouldn’t seek the office to begin with.



So what would he do—under those circumstances—if another crisis materializes? If he refuses to react or dithers in Hamlet-like indecision, he would confirm the worst fears of his political opponents and of his moderate supporters as well. No one would cut him any slack. How strong would arguments that politics stopped at the water’s edge or that you shouldn’t change horses in midstream be? Kerry has campaigned against both of those propositions so they won’t be available to him. There would be an immediate movement to remove him.



So what would Kerry do? I think he’d be likely to over-react in self defense. He doesn’t really have any other option.



Bush doesn’t have anything to prove. But Kerry does. “



Well said, Mr. Schuyler ! A fine discernment of the political realities that will govern the electoral outcomes.

On the other side of the question is Tom Barnett, whose analytical prowess I respect a great deal as well as his ability as a DoD strategist to separate the nation’s interests from purely partisan ones. Dr. Barnett is the rare breed, a Democratic Hawk and his professional life has been given over to musing on the implications for American foreign, defense and national security policies when really, really, bad things happen. Here is his rationale for choosing Mr. Kerry ( slightly truncated by me):

“I have compared George Bush to Harry Truman. I liked his certainty at an uncertain time. I admired his courage in forging new rule sets at a time when they were desperately needed. He knew he was starting something for the long haul, and he was committed to seeing it begun and set on its irrevocable path.



Like Truman, Bush is facing a very difficult election, with his Dewey being John Kerry. People wonder about Kerry like they did about Dewey: Will he follow through on what’s been started? Can he stay the course while somehow making it better? Can we risk the change in leadership at this dangerous time?…..



…Bush is beat up. He’s looking like Carter near the end. He sees what he sees and he knows what he knows–and neither are good enough for the tasks that we face over the next four years.



America will need to listen more in the future than speak. We will need to lead more by example of change than by example of continuity. We will need to make deals all over the dial that draw the rest of the Core into the long-term struggle which we have so correctly begun in the Middle East. We will need to revamp an international security architecture much like the Clinton team did with the international financial architecture in the 1990s. In short, we need a Clinton on national security. Not the Clinton we had on national security in the 1990s, but the one we had on the economic side of globalization in the 1990s. We need that sort of visionary deal-making applied to the security side of the house now, and Bush is not by nature nor current outlook that leader.



Nor are those around him ready to lead in that manner. When you think of the key foreign policy players (Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz), all seems used up and bereft of new ideas. They seem past their prime. Like a General Manager looking over his NFL team roster for the next season, I scan this list and can’t spot anyone who’s likely to improve the next time around. In fact, all seem on a downward slope, meaning we are extremely unlikely to do better if we keep them on the roster–no matter how they get switched around (all of those ideas being complete losers in my mind). If they were to be replaced, it’s hard to see Bush picking the GOP talent (e.g., McCain, Lugar) that could really reverse this downward slope, simply because these individuals would not be attracted to his certitude and faith. In other words, they would want to wheel and deal and they’d know their hands would be tied in a second Bush administration–if not by Bush then by Cheney.



Let me be perfectly clear: we are near a variety of breaking points in our foreign policy right now. We cannot continue this go-it-largely-alone path in Iraq. Our people are burning out. When you get troops balking in numbers at orders, that’s not just a bad sign, that’s the beginning of a very ugly pathway. And there is nothing coming along that will make this situation any better any time soon. Our rotation schedule for troops in Iraq is heading for a trainwreck. We have units go back for a second time and their impressions are near universal: this situation is much worse now than when they left it.



Moreover, no one else in the Core sees a happy ending, and thus they’re not eager to come to our aid, knowing we are unwilling to pay the prices necessary to gain their help. So they promise help but send only small shares of it. At the same time, our bills pile up under the supposition that the rest of the Core will finance our ruinous budgetary situation ad infinitum, which is a dangerous belief at best….



…This whole global war on terrorism, not to mention the transformation of the Middle East, has all been cast primarily in terms of what America needs from the world in order to feel safer after 9/11. What 9/11 said to us was that the global security order was in deep bifurcation: between a world that felt secure and was moving ahead on globalization and a world that felt great insecurity and was feeling left behind on globalization.



The solution set that America must push over the next four years cannot be the same one we pushed over the last four years. Over the last four years we concentrated largely on getting our house in order and projecting that new order on the rest of the world. The next four years must be all about getting the Gap in order by enlisting the entire Core’s aid in making that happen, and that unity won’t come until we assure the rest of the Core that the new rules we’re pushing in security will not only make America more secure, but them as well.



In short, the happy ending we sell over the next four years needs to be about security elsewhere, not at home, and that message is unlikely to be delivered by a second Bush Administration, simply because they’re not genetically predisposed to those sorts of “humble” interactions, despite Bush’s promise of four years ago. Simply put, any “Marshall Plan” for the Gap will be looked upon as a bailout for those crazy, war-happy Americans at this point, and not viewed in terms of its real motivation of making globalization truly global.



Again, I credit the Bush Administration with many great decisions and actions over the past four years, but their success in moving America off the old rule set and onto a new one puts us in far different territory than we found ourselves in following 9/11. We have laid down the bulk of the necessary new rule sets in global security over the past three years, but without the buy-in from the rest of the Core over the next four years, we may end up doing more to damage globalization’s future than to secure it. For the rule set that has no widespread buy-in is not a rule set, just the proposal for one–or a rallying cry for its opposition.



So yes, it’s time for nuance. It’s time for deal-making. It’s time for splitting differences and moving the pile. It’s time for achieving progress over perfection, for compromise over certitude, for real global vision over personal belief.



It’s time for war to be put back in the context of everything else, and that’s not going to happen with a self-declared “war president.”



All you have to do after reading this post is ask yourself: Is Bush more likely to grow out of his myopic view of this war and into the direction of “everything else,” or is Kerry more likely to be forced into factoring war into his preferred definition of “everything else”?



Events tend to harden presidents, not soften them. Bush is about as hard as he can get with his certitude and his baggage, as are the major players in his administration. It’s time to reset the political rule set known as party control of the Executive Branch.



That’s why I voting for Kerry. Not because I’m a Democrat, but because that is what both America and the world really need right now.”



I’d really like to believe that a President-elect Kerry would bring in the Democratic Party’s heavy-hitters on foreign policy – the Lee Hamiltons, Sam Nunns, Zbigniew Brzezinskis, the Holbrookes, Fuerths, Bergers and Galbraiths – and listen to a wise, old, Republican or two. Except right now I don’t see it. I see a Senator who talks like he hangs around too many committed partisan ideologues who think the War on Terror is simply a P.R. exercise to re-elect George Bush, masterminded by Karl Rove.

Hopefully, if Senator Kerry wins, Tom will be right and I’ll be proven wrong. Hopefully President Kerry will react the way Dave has predicted. I’d be delighted because the war really is the overriding issue – no one who thinks that Mr. Bush should be ousted for spending money like a drunken sailor – which he has – will naturally gravitate to a Massachusetts liberal for comfort on fiscal discipline. Even the traditional third rails of American politics – Social Security, Race and Abortion – are faint apparitions compared with the war. The sense that our country’s future well-being hangs in the balance isn’t omnipresent but it’s in the shadows, lurking unquietly. The rest of the world is watching too, our friends and our enemies alike – enemies who will hate us not one iota less for our electing Mr. Kerry than for re-electing Mr. Bush.

I will be voting for Mr. Bush, I believe he is the better choice and for that I make no apologies. If George W. Bush wins, I will do a jig of neoconservative glee. However, if Mr. Kerry is the winner he deserves a clean slate and a fair chance on handling the war without the Clinton-bashing, Bush-hating orgy of ridiculous partisan venom commencing the instant the polls close.

The nation is at war and he will need our help.

UPDATE: Apparently Dr. Barnett’s biggest fans are uniting to take him to task on endorsing John Kerry.

WHY POLITICALLY MONOCHROMATIC BLOGGING IS BAD FOR YOUR BRAIN

Surfing the blogosphere I’ve noted that a lot of bloggers have a tendency to primarily link, blogroll and read only those other bloggers or pundits with whom they already agree. If they are on the Right they end up ingesting information on a daily basis that ranges from moderately Right to Far Right to…well… Reich. Lefty bloggers usually do the same thing and end up reviewing all the opinion that fits neatly between Matthew Yglesias and some obscure America-hating, ANSWER rally attending, Chomsky-Zinn-Said quoting blockhead.

I really don’t think that’s wise. Seeking out like political opinions is natural enough – we get the whole concept of the political spectrum from French Revolutionaries sorting themselves out into Jacobins and Girondins in the National Assembly – but reading only to confirm one’s prejudices only enlarges the lacunae we all carry around and filter life’s events through. My own bias is toward libertarianism in economic and personal matters and a mix of realism and neoconservatism in foreign policy.

My blogroll reflects that to an extent but I try to find smart progressives, anti-war libertarians and other contrarians who will pose arguments and criticisms about ” my side ” that will keep me sharp and prevent a sense of complacency ( or worse, moral self-righteousness) from setting in. I try to scan The Nation and lefty E-zines and read even those people – Bob Scheer comes to mind – who as a rule set my teeth on edge. Anatol Lieven is another good example. I find Dr. Lieven to be – in his arguments – extremely irritating, smug and condescending. Lieven is worth the time to read though because he is also very smart and always does his homework. I can usually walk away from one of his articles knowing at least one or two pieces of information I did not know before – sometimes a good deal more than that. While I avoid the invective-spewing Bush-hating troll type bloggers, I find I learn a great deal more wrestling with the arguments of people with whom I disagree than I would from finding a right-wing echo chamber in which to spend my websurfing time.

Sometimes reading something that makes you feel good is a sign to re-read it with a critical eye.

REGIONS OF MIND ON HIATUS

Geitner Simmons, proprietor of the highly-regarded blog Regions of Mind that specialized in regional history and culture as well as contemporary politics, has gone on hiatus to finish his book project. For those who are not familiar with Geitner, his blog is known not only for clear writing but also for beautiful photographic and art layouts that demonstrated Geitner’s expertise as an editor at the Omaha World Herald.

Regions of Mind was one of the very first blogs to link to ZenPundit and Geitner has, over the last couple of years, sent many visitors my way. There were days initially where I think Geitner may have been my only visitor other than a few personal or professional friends and I’m grateful for his helping ZenPundit achieve some notoriety as well as Geitner’s always interesting emails and suggestions.

Here’s wishing Mr. Simmons every success with his forthcoming book and a speedy return to the blogosphere !