The Current Crop of Candidates

[Urbane Guerrilla]

What Thomas P.M. Barnett thinks future Presidents should be doing: Recasting the Long War as a Joint Sino-American Venture.

Exerpted:

In this so-called long war against the global jihadist movement, the Bush administration’s greatest failure has been its lack of strategic imagination. It has added the right enemies to our to-do list, but failed to enlist the necessary new allies, giving our people the misperception that it’s America against the world.

This need not be the case. Our natural allies are now located on the frontiers of globalization, or among the three billion-plus new capitalists who joined global markets over the last generation, chiefly among them the Chinese.

The integrating core of globalization—namely the old West plus the emerging markets of the East and South—have effectively outsourced the global policing function to the United States by refusing to balance our immense warfighting and power projection capabilities with their own. Instead, Western Europe focuses on economically integrating the former Soviet bloc, while rising titans like China and India, for reasons of rising energy requirements, focus overwhelmingly on integrating—on relatively narrow terms—resource providers located in those regions least connected to the global economy, or what I call globalization’s non-integrating gap (e.g., the Caribbean rim, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the southeast Asian littoral states).

Not surprisingly, the Pentagon’s new map in this long war corresponds greatly to those gap regions, for there we find the preponderance of “moderate” dictators, rogue regimes, and failed states, all of whom either attract the attention of transnational terrorists or support their activities for their own nefarious reasons. Viewed in this light, our victory is logically defined as the successful building out of globalization’s core and the simultaneous shrinking—or successful economic integration—of those gap regions. As we’ve seen in Afghanistan
and Iraq, this is no mean task and one that generates significant labor requirements.

So I say, locate the labor where the problem is.

This isn't new stuff from Barnett, but the whole article is a concise summing up.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by classicman

Just thought we might revive this with a lil update

Obama, Huckabee lead new Iowa poll

Who'd a thunk it?

It would be an interesting matchup. When they brought in Alan Keyes, Obama said "I'm not running to be minister of Illinois". For all of his denials, it appears that Huckabee is running for "minister of the US" to at least a portion of the Republican party.

I can guarantee that there would be at least one quote from the bible from each of them in any one-on-one debate. Personally, I think Obama is just as articulate as Huckabee and a bit smarter. I'd give him the odds in any debate since Huckabee would be loath to drop his 'nice guy' image and go for a kill. This would make it an issues debate which I think Obama would win.

Of course there would be 'swift-boaters' from all sides and you never know what will stick.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Thomas P.M. Barnett

Viewed in this light, our victory is logically defined as the successful building out of globalization’s core and the simultaneous shrinking—or successful economic integration—of those gap regions.

This is where the problem begins. nothing after that initial comma matters.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Actually, I see the fined print as the part that matters.

[classicman]

Don A. Rich (M.A. SAIS 1987) ABD Political Science and Economics UCI
Instructor of Poltical Science
Montgomery County Community College

I enjoyed your book, and your blog, even though I now realize that you are dead wrong. Was too, so don't take it personally. You will not listen for the same reason no one else does, namely the Commuinity College label, the degree, style vs substance. But I am never wrong about macro calls. Not once. I don't buy conventional wisdom.
I write because those in power listen to you, which makes you responsible to a certain extent for what they do.
Thucydides told us the reality of things, as a warning.
As it stands right now, if the United States does not dramtically change course, it is going to provoke a general system war by aligning Russia and China together against us, and it will be our own arrogance of power in the wake of the "victory" in the Cold War that will be the cause. The decline in the national savings rate from 1985 marked the beginning of the fall of U.S. power. The 1991-2007 period was a chimera based on monetary policy. That chimera is no coming to an end with the housing Bubble and the loss of dynamic price stability. Beranke will take rates down, generate a hyperinflation, then take them back up, creating a depression.
We "won" the Cold War because we created a military industrial complex somewhat more efficient than the Russians, but we only barely won, and won in the context of the decline of European civilization per Spengler. This analysis is based on study of cycles, in particular Kondratieff wave theory and the Long War cycle. If the military industrial classes do not turn back, they are blundering ever more rapidly into a general system war. Watch stocks and see when they retrace DOW 7000 within one year. we have been borrowing money to conceal our decline, and the bill is coming due and it is immoral to wage war to preserve the elites power, in which you would become an accoplice to mass murder. No offense. And you are good writer.

I found this response to the article you posted UG - I think its a rather well written and insightful reply. Says some things much better than l could.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I suppose the disadvantage of Swift-boats is they make the water all foamy.

[classicman]

annywaaaaayyyy - Anybody excited about Hillary? Or any other candidate for that matter? I am so undecided...

[DanaC]

I like Edwards. Shame he doesn't stand much of a chance (unless I misunderstand your system).

[classicman]

figures one of the few who isn't from/in the us has an opinion.

I'm beginning to wonder if its a grand conspiracy to get her elected. At least this has been an historic election year so far. With O8ama and Hillary both winning the first two primaries

[Spexxvet]

I have finally made an initial decision (subject to change, void where prohibited). John Edwards espouses the values that I hold dear. He endorses ideas that will help THE MIDDLE CLASS. Let's face it - the rich are in a good position these days (thanks in part to Bush's tax cuts), and there are already programs in place that help the poor. It's we middle class folks who are getting pinched. The pinch is mainly coming from the high costs of energy and health care. Edwards has come out strongly that he will side with the middle class in this conflict. He has my vote.

[warch]

I'm liking Obama...

[classicman]

We should do a cellar poll!

[Griff]

I want Obama v Paul. It'd get my whole scizoid thing out in the open for honest debate.

[Ibby]

I adore Edwards still, but hes starting to look like a longer and longer longshot, so... I'm gonna say Obama with Edwards as veep

[Happy Monkey]

I'll vote for Edwards, not that it'll make much difference, in DC a week after super Tuesday.