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RECOMMENDED READING

Being very harried today and having to be at work until the late evening I am unlikely to be posting much or commenting tonight…BUT, these are a fine selection !

Simon at Simon World directs us to the IMF magazine’s ” Next Steps For China” and also to The Jamestown Foundation’s look at the influential maverick General Liu Yazhou.

Bruce Kesler at The Democracy Project, takes President Bush to task.

Curtis Gale Weeks at Phatic Communion weighs in on the future of Sino-American
relations.

Dave at The Glittering Eye on System Reliability and Disaster Planning

Razib at Gene Expression has a long and well-considered piece on why Mitt Romney’s Mormonism will be his undoing in the G.O.P. at the hands of the Religious Right.

Marc at The American Future on Europe’s creeping dictatorship. If you wonder why I don’t trust transnational institutions like the poorly-designed ICC, Marc’s post sheds some light.

Back to the grind. for me…….

UPDATE:

In order to fulfill a special request from overseas and provide readers with some timely information that I know will be of interest to most of you, CENTCOM.mil is now added to the blogroll. Check it out !

INSTITUTIONAL MYOPIA AT STATE

Paul D. Kretkowski of Beacon – a fine blog devoted to exploring the parameters of Joseph Nye’s ” soft power” concept – had a post today that touched on what would seem initially to be a small mattter; the recommended reading list of the State Department for prospective members of the Foreign Service. Mr. Kretkowski expressed bewilderment that the famous novel, The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, did not make the cut:

“The novel (really a collection of interconnected short stories) takes place around and immediately after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam in 1954, an event that underlined the difficulty a Western army had in fighting what were then called the Viet Minh. In fictional Sarkhan, some American diplomats and businessmen win local hearts and minds with their can-do spirit and willingness to get their hands dirty, while others stay isolated at the embassy by language, casual racism or bureaucracy, ignorant of the country’s growing Communist insurgency.

…So who is reading it? Apparently it’s a required text in the Army’s special forces, which is no surprise because the book is practically a billboard for the Green Beret counterinsurgency model”

I took a look at State’s reading list and I find myself equally perplexed by the absence of a number of texts to for which the inclusion should be a no-brainer. Present at the Creation and the memoirs of George Kennan, Charles Murphy,Walter Bedell Smith are all AWOL. Nothing by Henry Kissinger, including his classic Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. In fact, no classics of any kind, even in diplomatic history where I expected to see William Appleman Williams, Robert B. Tucker, John Lewis Gaddis or Walter LeFeber, none of whom were on the list. Nor are foreign statesmen who dealt extensively with American diplomats included – you can find a lot to read on women and American multiculturalism issues but don’t bother looking for Anthony Eden or Anatoly Dobrynin; evidently what they had to say was less important to future FSO’s than what was offered by the authors of Asian American Women and Men: Labor, Laws, and Love.

George Kennan’s ” X” article – the single most influential document in the history of American diplomacy – was omitted. Why ?

There are some decent survey-type history books on State’s list and an eclectic though not insubstantial selection of books on economics – most of which however date from the 1970’s, 1980’s and early 1990’s. Nothing, however on on leadership. Nothing on strategy. No biographies. Nothing on technology, espionage or military affairs. A couple of books on terrorism from the mid-1990’s and a few books on countries that no longer exist ( note to State, Yugoslavia… kaput!) . It reads a lot like a list calculated not to offend irascible Congressmen.

When our prospective diplomats are given more books about office accounting and The Americans with Disabilities Act than they are about critical subjects that tie directly into foreign policy, State is sending a message loud and clear.

And it’s the wrong one.

THE POWER ARC OF THE CHINESE NAVY

Power and Interest News Report takes a look at the much debated rise of Chinese naval might and comes away…not terribly impressed:

“The submarine fleet will have the same duties as surface vessels, but is also expected to be assigned the hard task of facing the “traditional” Taiwanese adversary and, supposedly, coping with U.S. battle groups. In fact, it appears that Beijing discarded the possibility of deploying a limited number of aircraft carriers (which would appear excessive in relation to other regional navies) since they would have little hope of prevailing in an engagement with U.S. naval forces. This explains why China’s aircraft carrier planning and construction is slowing in pace. Indeed, Beijing now prefers a well-stocked fleet of diesel submarines and nuclear powered submarines to have the difficult role of exerting some deterrence against American ships in case of a crisis.

Following this path, China will rise to a respectable level of underwater power, partially repeating the Soviet strategy during the Cold War. However, unlike the past Soviet submarine fleet (essentially dedicated to attacking N.A.T.O. forces and protecting bastions full of SSBNs), Chinese submarine forces seem to be assigned the role of supporting surface forces — in their attempts to control sea lines of communication, with the additional mission of trying to exert some form of counter-power against U.S. forces.”

What would be a feasible and economical naval deterrent to American intervention in the Taiwan Strait in the eyes of China’s Politburo ? My guess, is the ability to sink the smaller PACOM ships and inflict multithousand casualties before going down ( literally) to defeat. Nailing a destroyer or carrier would be key to Beijing’s internal political calculus- to do enough damage to claim “victory” the way the Egyptians parlayed their better than expected military performance in the Yom Kippur War into a ” win”. Ideally, the Chinese would like to leverage land based assets in combination with their upgraded fleet to maximize the force they could bring to bear against the Navy but they will settle for simply causing any American president to think twice before engaging China over Taiwan.

In reality, these new ships are simply political chips for raising stakes. Should the status of Taiwan get pushed to the point of war then China has lost the game and its leadership will be trying desperately to save enough face to ride out the crisis without a revolution breaking out. Not that we should cheer because even a brief, low-casualty, Sino-American war will rock the global economy like nothing we have seen since 1929

RECOMMENDED READING

Sort of a potpourri day:

First, Kevin Drum is letting Democratic foreign policy guru Leon Fuerth blog at Political Animal. Fuerth is a well-informed and sober voice of reason inside his party and hopefully he’ll have some positive influence in the future. Fuerth’s first post however is pedestrian though his last paragraph shows promise; when he gets his blogging legs under him there might be some stimulating ideas forthcoming. Worth monitoring closely.

Information Processing tries to enlighten on the geoeconomically important financial instrument known as credit derivatives. Anyone with more qualifications to sound off on this one than me, feel free.

Speaking of geoeconomic effects, Curzon of Coming Anarchy is posting on P.M. Koizumi’s crushing electoral victory that gives him the power to privatize Japan’s venerable Post Office, which is a government run national superbank of sorts in addition to delivering mail.

John Robb of Global Guerillas discusses ” Long Tail Counterinsurgency “

More to come……

IN MEMORIAM SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

The Eagle That is Forgotten

– Vachel Lindsay

Zenpundit wishes to offer a special thanks today to all U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel serving overseas in posts under conditions of danger, hardship and privation.

LINKS TO COMMEMORATIVE POSTS:

Marc Schulman at The American Future ” 9/11 Remembered too Well“

Vanderleun at American Digest ” Wind in the Heights“

PLS at Whirledview ” The Shadow Since 9/11“

Eddie at Live from the FDNF ” Heroism“

Younghusband at Coming Anarchy ” Remembrance“

Stuart Berman at My Kid’s Dad “ Four Years Ago Today“