zenpundit.com

THE VIRTUAL STATE OF KURDISTAN

Steve DeAngelis of ERMB has been posting from (and about) Kurdistan in Iraq the past week while on a visit for Enterra Solutions. Collectively, Steve’s posts provide in- depth, on-site, analysis of Kurdistan’s present and future prospects with an emphasis on regional and global economic integration, security and systemic resilience; here they are in chronological order:

1. An Overview of Kurdistan

2. Resilience in Kurdistan

3. 3 days in Iraq from the Syrian/Turkish border to the Iranian border

4. Lessons from the Edge of Globalization: 3 days in Iraq from the Syrian/Turkish Border to the Iranian Border

5. Security in Kurdistan

(There were also several other Iraq-related posts “Interagency Feuding Over Iraq Reconstruction” and ” Coffee for the Troops“)

It would be difficult for me to briefly summarize in a mere paragraph what DeAngelis has impressively written about Kurdistan being on the ” Edge of Globalization” in roughly 6000 words. Therefore, I’m going to pick out a number of select excerpts that give the feel of the sum of Steve’s observations, followed by my commentary:

“We then headed further west to the border crossing checkpoint with Turkey. We entered a small U.S. military post on the border and saw how this border is managed. Completely full trucks, stretching for miles into Turkey loaded with any product you can imagine are seeking to deliver their products to buyers in Iraq. However, on the opposite side of the border another story unfolds. There is a two week wait (yes, I said two weeks!) for trucks coming from Iraq to cross into Turkey. Along the road are makeshift housing facilities equipped with satellite dishes that drivers can use during their two-week wait along a dusty and dirty road that moves trucks from one holding pen to another as they creep up to the border inspection stations in Iraq and then to their equivalent inspection stations in Turkey….

I’d be curious to know how much of this Turkish inefficiency is explicable due to legitimate security issues with the PKK, how much is due to local corruption, understaffing and incompetence and how much is calculated policy on the part of Ankara to choke Kurdish economic growth.

….Virtually all of the trucks crossing back into Turkey from Iraq are completely empty. If there were robust manufacturing and other commercial business operations in Iraq, these trucks would be full of products to be sold in Turkey and to the rest of the world as they transit through Turkey’s ports. The only kind of trucks that do cross fully loaded are 3,000 gallon tankers filled with Iraqi oil destined for a Turkish power generation facility just over the border. The electricity produced by the plant is sold back to the Iraqi’s at western market rates. What this obviously says is that Iraq has the raw materials but does not possess the production capability to turn oil into electricity and as such pays a tremendous financial and strategic price for this lack of capacity. The net result of this border crossing reality is a Current Account trade imbalance of almost 100% between Turkey and Iraq”

Steve is correct that this ad hoc mercantilist trade scenario is problematic for Kurdistan. Historically, nations that are raw commodity exporters, regardless whether it was cotton, rubber, oil, strategic minerals or foodstuffs end up in a unfavorable position vis-a-vis value-added production trading partners or merchant capital states. This applies whether we are discussing Ptolemaic Egypt and ancient Rome or the Gulf states today and the Core.

One caveat on the negative trade balance issue for Kurdistan would be the financial flows of Black Globalization. Lacking orderly markets and effective governance, ordinary Iraqis rely upon the black market for access to desired luxuries as well as necessities such as medicines or spare parts for machinery. Controlling a long border with Turkey, Iran ans Syria gives Kurdish actors the ability to become middlemen in the flow of goods and money which does not show up on the legal balance sheet. Ultimately, Barzani and Talabani’s regional Kurdish government must bring this trade above ground and normalize the economic relationships ( include taxes and customs duties).

“The Peshmerga welcomed U.S. forces and fought side-by-side with them in the effort to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It is estimated that there are between 80,000 and 100,000 active Peshmerga in Kurdistan. As the attached picture of a Peshmerga soldier taken near Dohuk shows (click to enlarge), the Peshmerga are a modern and well-equipped fighting force. The Peshmerga also allow women to serve. This tradition began when the Peshmerga were a guerilla force fighting to make the Kurdish area of Iraq a safe haven. Women also fought alongside coalition forces at the beginning of the current conflict. The attached picture shows female Peshmerga celebrating the fall of Kirkuk. “

The Peshmerga have been a coherent military force(s) far longer than I have been alive. Or Steve Deangelis for that matter. Or probably any of my readers. (The ferocious and mercurial Mustafa Barzani, sire of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish president and KPD chieftain, was once the darling of American conservatives who hated Henry Kissinger. And long before that, tribal lord Barzani was the protege of… Joseph Stalin ! History has made the Kurds the ultimate realists). Former CIA field operative in Kurdistan Robert Baer put the Peshmerga fighting credibly toe to toe with Saddam Hussein’s best Republican Guard divisions during the 1990’s. That ain’t hay folks. Even in the 1990’s decline the Republican Guard was heavily armed and well-trained, despite being hamstrung by Saddam’s increasing paranoia.

The Peshmerga are perfectly suited for 4GW warfare as they combine tight military discipline, clan networks and strong primary loyalties with concurrent conventional and guerilla warfare skills. They also benefit from American patronage and a leadership that has proven unusually adept at presenting an image and engaging in politics in the international arena.

“Another new friend, Subbas Sircar, who is the regional vice president of AIG for the Middle east, Mediterranean and South Asia, had an interesting morning meeting with local bankers. They are seeking to expand and strengthen local banks as I discussed earlier. This group craved exposure to current international banking best practices, core banking information technology and know-how that would allow them to connect to the global banking industry as well as the training and education that would allow staff members to raise themselves up to a minimal level of maturity so they can foster commerce in their region. This experience with bankers in Sulaimaniyah and in Erbil, along with the telecommunications companies seeking the same capability in their industry, are proof positive of the need for Development-in-a-Box™.”

I think Steve is identifying a critical tipping point for Kurdistan. Leapfrogging the bazaari mentality to create a financial structure that inspires enough confidence to attract and sustain legitimate foreign investment and diversify Kurdish reliance on Turkish capital and American aid would be a milestone. This probably would not mean ” best practices” in the sense of Chase Manhattan so much as ” best enough practices” relative to the region. ” Good enough” is what gets a healthy level of local economic growth going. ” Best” can wait for the day the Republic of Kurdistan applies for admission to the WTO and the EU.

Today, Kurdistan is a nation with a virtual state shepherding its interests. More than Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, the regional government in Kurdistan is less than Taiwan. But like Taipei, the Barzani-Talabani regional government seeks to negotiate or leverage de jure status and the full sovereignty of statehood over the virulent objections of a powerful neighbor and a nervous American patron. Economic development and integration with other global power centers ( EU, China, India, Japan, Russia) will be the key for the Kurds to create a scenario where Ankara can swallow – however bitterly, even with with ironclad security guarantees – Kurdish independence, because it will be in Turkey’s economic best interests to do so.

LINKS:

“Kurdistan Rebalancing the Middle-East” and “Iraq Travel Guide” by Chirol

“The Kurdistan Problem: Part I “, “The Kurdistan Problem: Part II“, “The Kurdistan Problem: Part III“ by midtowing at ProgressiveHistorians

“Response to Virtual Nations Will Shape World Order or Disorder“ by Adrienne Redd

“The Rise of the Virtual StateWealth and Power in the Coming Century” by Richard Rosecrance

“Market-state vs. Virtual State” by John Robb

COMING ANARCHY 2.0

Is here.

INTERESTING

Check out the My State Failure Blog – certainly a concept whose time is come. ( Hat tip to tequila )

EXTENDING THE CONVERSATION

One of the most pleasant aspects of blogging for me is receiving high quality feedback from readers or other bloggers. Oddly, it’s impossible to predict which post is going to produce a high volume of comments or links so it is even nicer when a post that I feel is important strikes some readers in the same way. Even moreso as the feedback came from across the political spectrum

I’d like to highlight the responses to the recent “Applied History” post:

From Art Hutchinson at Mapping Strategy:

Art is a premier strategic thinking consultant with Cartegic Group who specializes in scenario planning. He doesn’t post all that frequently, so I was very pleased to find that he had delved deeply into the topic of “Cognitive Maps of Future History“:

“What’s needed to turn the seeming surprise of today’s urgent corporate decision into an historically rooted, deeply contextualized choice?

As the saying goes: “there’s nothing new under the sun”.

From Nonpartisan, the guiding spirit of the up and coming, left of center, group blog ProgressiveHistorians in the “Friday Open Thread ” Nonpartisan welcomed Stewart Brand’s historical call to arms:

“At ProgressiveHistorians, we’ve been advocating this sort of direct policy action on the part of historians since our founding, but it’s nice to see the liberal icon who founded the Whole Earth Network taking up our cause. If there’s one thing that unites everyone at this site, I think, it’s their agreement with some portion of Brand’s thesis. It’s encouraging how many of us see the meaning in this logical extension of our profession.”

In the comments section of ” Applied History” I am indebted to Shane Deichman, Managing Director of The Institute for Technologies in Global Resilience and Federal Historian Dr. Maarja Krusten, formerly of The National Archives, for their thoughtful observations, such as:

Deichman:

“Policymaking, on the other hand, is not about asserting truths — it is about influencing action. Therefore it is an inherently social and, dare I say, “complex” phenomenon that defies linear, reductionist logic. So it is perfectly understandable (even acceptable) for the policymaker to “cherry pick” conclusions that support their objectives (e.g., yellow cake from Nigeria; hostile naval action in the Gulf of Tonkin; the fictitious “Tenth Army” in WW II). This is why I believe so few historians are apt to get involved with policymaking.”

Krusten:

“Many thanks for posting this interesting essay on a subject that deserves more attention than it usually receives among academic historians.

Since your posting centers on applied history and policy, you might find interesting this article by Victoria Harden, “What Do Federal Historians Do?”

( Note to aspiring history PhD’s – make friends with a professional archivist or academic librarian *before* you begin your dissertation. The cites they can pull off the top of their heads on the most obscure topics imaginable are stunning. They are to historians what historians are to the general public)

Thanks again for the excellent feedback!

MIL THEORY GOES MAINSTREAM

It’s rather nice to see the esoteric theory topics I kick around here in conjunction with sites like The Small Wars Council, DNI, Tom Barnett and John Robb’s blogs and the circle of related bloggers, are penetrating the mainstream press. Some recent examples:

William Lind in UPI

Max Boot citing the Small Wars Journal

“War without limits” by Christopher Shea in the Boston Globe (hat tip to Dr.Ralph Luker)

Thomas Barnett’s frequent appearances in columns by David Ignatius going back several years

This is a good thing. While there is a healthy tendency in our online alternative defense thinking community to disagree, at times caustically, there is a shared consensus that the current structure, strategy and appropriations process for America’s armed forces are ill-suited to the challenges facing the United States.

Change is required and change will only come when the ideas that we have been batting around on blogs, discussion boards and ( in a few instances ) books, penetrates the mass media and gets into the minds of the political class and the voting public. Maximizing attention on the ideas, rather than being distracted by infighting or loose cannon comments, is the route we need to go.