zenpundit.com

The Obama administration has been strikingly inept in the last few days in foreign policy, making a series of gaffes and counterproductive gestures that, had George W. Bush made them, would be igniting howls of anger and ridicule from the New York Times and the Left blogosphere. Now the crickets are chirping.

In a short span of time, the White House has managed to 1) embarrass visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown; 2) enrage Jerusalem by offering Gaza almost  $ 1 billion ( in return for….?) while HAMAS is still firing rockets at Israelis ;and 3) pull the rug out from under our NATO allies Poland and the Czech Republic with of a give-away-the-store offer to Moscow on missile defense, while pleading for help with Iran. A clumsy and premature gesture that President Medvedev treated with contempt and left Prague and Warsaw, which stuck their necks out in agreeing to host the missile systems, scrambling for diplomatic fig leaves. I wonder to what degree the Czechs and Poles had been consulted beforehand?  None of these actions appear to have been properly vetted and they left the new administration looking very green, slightly impulsive, indifferent toward America’s allies and fairly arrogant.

In fairness, almost every new administration makes first and second year blunders in foreign policy, most of which are completely forgettable in the long run. For example, as a student, an old professor of mine who was an eminent authority in Southeast Asian studies, once recounted to me LBJ giving ” the Johnson Treatment” to the King of Thailand, whose person is considered sacred to Thais and was, probably, in any event, unprepared for being put into a giant Texas bear hug.  Ronald Reagan did not give Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher prior notice of the invasion of Grenada and had initially waffled in the early days of the Falklands War. At other times, the early mistakes prove decisive, such as John F. Kennedy’s failure of nerve during the Bay of Pigs ( or alternatively, approving a cocked-up covert-op plan in the first place) which helped precipitate the later Cuban Missile Crisis.

The one bright spot in foreign policy was the unveiling of the Obama administration’s new National Security Council structure which seems to have been judiciciously considered with an eye toward improving interagency DIME integration in policy formation and enforcing real discipline in execution. On paper, it’s a very good plan with some important changes for improving the national security community’s performance.

Now they need to put it into practice.

This is good, once you get past the pedestrian observations about the economic crisis:

The New York Times had a major and significantly positive profile of former Speaker of the House Newt Gincrich the other day ( Hat tip to Nate). It’s worth reading. The NYT gets many things right about Gingrich and Gingrich nails many of the problems currently bedeviling the Republican Party:

Newt. Again.

 …..Now, as Republicans on the Hill begin to awaken from a November beating that left them semiconscious, Gingrich finds himself, once again, at the zenith of influence in conservative Washington. It is a fortuitous collision of man and moment. Having ceded the agenda to a Republican president for the past eight years (and having mostly obsessed over White House scandals for much of the decade before that), Republicans now find that they have strikingly little to say that isn’t entirely reactive – or reactionary. “It was like ‘The Matrix,’ when Keanu Reeves wakes up and his eyes hurt because he hasn’t used them,” David Winston, a pollster for House Republicans, told me recently, talking about the 2006 election that relegated Republicans to the minority for the first time since 1994. “We just didn’t know how to do ideas anymore.” Whatever else you think of Gingrich, he has always been considered a prospector in bold and counterintuitive thinking – floating ideas, throughout his career, that have ranged from giving every poor child a laptop to abolishing the entire concept of adolescence.

….Gingrich is all about offering, as he puts it, a “better value” for the American customer – constructive solutions Republicans can take on the road during the next midterm election season and beyond. “Most Republicans are not entrepreneurial,” he lamented to me. “They’re corporatists. They like the security and the comfort of a well-thought-out, highly boring boardroom meeting in which they do a PowerPoint once. And it worries them to have ideas, because ideas have edges, and they’re not totally formed, and you’ve got to prove them, and they sound strange because they’re new, and if it’s new how do you know it’s any good, because, after all, it’s new and you’ve never heard it before.”

Newt is a horizontal thinker with a high level of expertise in a number of fields and a considerable degree of creativity. As a political figure, he does several important things exceptionally well:

• First Newt conceives of politics in strategic, structural, longitudinal, terms.
• Secondly, Newt is an idea merchant. He has them and he is quick to recognize the potential of ideas generated by others. Often, Newt’s capacity for horizontal thinking leads him to appropriate attractive concepts or proposals that are neither “conservative” or even “political” and make them conservative Republican signature policies.
• Third, Newt excels at crafting and framing tactical messages. He regularly comes up with phrases  that have strong memetic “pull” or “hooks” to them and distill the essential idea out of a complicated policy and he can use this ability to punish enemies or promote his own side. This is not the same thing as being a great tactician. Arguably, when Newt as Speaker had to juggle managing the House, formulating strategy and tactics, the latter consistently suffered to Newt’s personal disadvantage. Gingrich demonstrated better tactical skills as a Minority Leader and especially as a Whip but he had far fewer distractions at that time.
• Fourth, Newt cultivates leadership in others. He makes connections. He educates. He gives his assistance freely and promotes the careers of proteges and allies.

This is not to say Newt is without flaws. Politically, for the Democratic Party, Newt is a “target rich environment” whose unpredictability in the public spotlight can generate incidents that become the story rather than the message Newt was trying to get across. However, lacking any official position, it is much harder for Democrats to represent any gaffe by Newt as coming from the Pope of the GOP. In fact, engaging Newt directly in public debate at this time, especially by a senior member of the Democratic Party leadership or President Obama, will superempower Gingrich politically and increase his influence and profile regardless of what they say. The mere fact they are saying anything confirms Gingrich’s status as a major “player”. Nor can they ignore him forever if his advice permits the Republicans to score significant victories.

Gingrich has his opponents in a familiar bind and I’m sure he likes it that way.

Top Billing! Dave Dilegge at SWJ – Thoughts on the “New Media”

Quite a collection that Dave has compiled on the role Web 2.0/New media have “revolutionized” the “lessons learned” process for the U.S. military, featuring commentary from Spencer Ackerman, Tom Barnett, Janine Davidson, Andrew Exum, Grim, Judah Grunstein, Dave Kilcullen, Raymond Pritchett, Mark Safranski, Herschel Smith, Starbuck, Michael Tanji, and Michael Yon. An honor for me to be included in such a group. 

UPDATED !!: As many people read this post on Monday rather than Sunday, I am adding a few more items:

Whirledview (CKR ) –  Great Powers

Red Herrings – the bookshelf: great powers by thomas p.m. barnett

Reviews of Great Powers: America and the World After Bush by two blogfriends and co-authors who differ on the merits of Tom’s work. Cheryl is the more critical and likes certain aspects or concepts much more than the overall book. Adrian calls the book ” Outstanding” but takes great issue with the title itself.

MountainRunner – It is time to create a center for public diplomacy discourse and research  and PD20.org  and Comparing the Areas of Responsibility of State and Defense (Updated)

 Matt Armstrong’s efforts to upgrade the status and practice of public diplomacy – as well as to drag it into the 21st century – have been sustained and increasingly impressive. For all the complaining about bloggers just talking, Matt is an example of making the jump to real world action, from educating the media and members of Congress about Smith-Mundt to the recent White Oak Recommendations. I’m certain that PD2O.org will become, in time, the Small Wars Journal of public diplomacy, as Matt intends. And I will be an early member there, when the forum opens, just as I was at the SWC. I encourage you to be there as well and turbo-charge the launch.

Project White Horse – RC#25 Resilient Communities and Actionable Intelligence (Part 1) 

I should have brought this forum to the attention of readers earlier when I was first contacted by Ed Beakley of Project White Horse, unfortunately I was totally buried at the time at work, school,  and with side projects and I never attended to it. Some important thinkers are involved in the discussions there on resilient communities and related subjects, including Col. GI Wilson, Lt. John Sullivan, Fabius Maximus and senior officers from several militaries.

Opposed Systems Design – Biddle on Future Warfare

Dr. Steven Biddle, who was in discussion with Col. TX Hammes, comes out in favor of Frank Hoffman’s “Hybrid War” scenario as a basis for planning assumptions.

Zero Intelligence Agents – Networks and ‘Implication for Network Centric Warfare’

Drew Conway on the further evolution of the Big Cebrowski’s theoretical legacy in a paper by Dr. Jessica Glicken Turnley on NCW.

Futurejacked – The Elites Must Be Brain Dead

A very intriguing story from the perspective of societal legitimacy and elite behavior.

Don Vandergriff – On linear Education by Gary Gagliardi of The Science of Strategy Institute

I disagree with some of Gary’s characterization of Dewey but his larger point regarding linearity in publlic education is correct. If anything, he could have expanded further.

Historyguy99 – Afghanistan and Failed States

On failed state repair moreso than Afghanistan, whose natural condition is a weak, legitimist, Pushtun state and the inhabitants like it that way. We should have just restored  Zahir Shah.

NewScientist.com – Did aversion to bitter tastes evolve into moral disgust?

A little Ev-psych.

That’s it !

Have an article in the works for Pajamas Media, not sure when it will appear and some unrelated irons in the fire. Normal blogging will resume today.