Blogbat

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February 14, 2007

Blogbat Publicitus: World Affairs Council

Lieber at Georgetown and Friedman at Stratfor.com

 

 

For the gentle reader inquisitive about my absence from this hallowed blog of late, I think I should pause to acknowledge my appreciation for your continued readership nonetheless, as well as offer some insight into the various projects and such which have consumed so much of my time; to wit, exactly why the cat got my tongue and where he hid it.

 

First of all, the cat has been going busily to and fro attending various gatherings of interest to those interested in international interests. Generally on the list among these are The World Affairs Council, UNA-USA, Greater Dallas Chamber, the Dallas Fed, and other speaking events, lectures, awards, charity auctions, volunteer events, and so forth. This time of year seems to offer an endless list of such, too.

 

Second after that is that the cat has been doing his part to ensure my continued faithful execution of my duties as devoted student. Those duties presently include intensive studies in international terrorism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and of course various aspects of international law; the latter both how we see it and how the UN sees it (I’ll leave the details of this to the vivid faculties of an active and politically astute imagination). My instructors are nothing less than world-class, and you may even have seen them on the news and talk show circuit at some point. That, by the way, is not to brag, but quite the opposite: for me it's both greatly humbling and gratifying. Because the cat knows the mice will play while he’s away, he had no choice but to take my tongue so I wouldn’t be rattling on copiously concerning world events about which I should be writing more seriously for academic credit. So in other words, the writing continues, just more often for a more highly specialized audience that also happens to have the power over life or death.

 

All of this then to share two interesting luncheons I’ve attended these past two weeks, the first featuring as speaker Dr. Robert J. Lieber, Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University and author. In an engagement held at the Park City Club in Dallas and sponsored by the DFW World Affairs Council, Dr. Lieber was present to discuss the role of the US and her allies, particularly within the context of their various co-signatory IGOs (NATO, the UN, and so on). The presentation was interesting, but not entirely new in any sense; however, Dr. Lieber is fighting the good fight in many respects, particularly against the illogical and guiltist worldview of the far-left members among his fellow academics. The lunch was mediocre, but the table was colorful; this is something that is bound to happen with three very energetic little old ladies, one senior international correspondent for the Dallas Morning News who was fluent in Arabic and Spanish, two Air Force colonels, and two Barnes-Kondracke-type senior lawyers off in their own world discussing the merits of a NASDAQ-NYSE merger. The correspondent, who was sitting to my left, was a kindly fellow who had recently returned from London after the failing left-leaning paper was forced to do cutbacks, as most left-leaning papers are doing these days thanks to the alternative media. While he was present as a journalist, he had a secondary reason for attending, which was that Dr. Lieber had been a professor of his while attending Georgetown some years ago. The only real hint of his leftward leaning came during the question and answer session, when someone on the lunatic left fringe asked Dr. Lieber to comment on... get ready… the danger posed by the military-industrial complex (I know, how 70s). At this point the good natured journalist emphatically and without even being able to help himself mumbled loudly to himself, “GOOD QUESTION!!!” – to which a few of us tried to stifle a chuckle.

 

Yesterday’s speaker Dr. George Friedman is founder and chief executive officer of Strategic Forecasting Inc. (STRATFOR). He has been among the most interesting so far this year. The event was held at the Crescent Hotel ballroom and was sponsored by the Institute for Interesting People and the DFW World Affairs Council (now the largest such group in the nation). Friedman is a man after my own heart displaying prominently his ability to fly above the fray while looking down on and seeing the chess board for exactly what it is, tearing the veneer away to expose the naked grid and gears that lay out in plain text what almost certainly must happen next. The world geography, he noted, is much like a chess board, in which one finds that while he has several moves, he usually only has one or two decent moves, and only rarely has a really spectacular move. While his discussion of specific strategic issues was also interesting, the gem was his sharing of his understanding of human behavior, and how it on the micro level influences that of the macro as well as the reverse, how the confluence of various sets of realities confines the options among even the most powerful of national leaders, and something many often overlook: the idea of "empathetic analysis". Empathetic analysis is where one simply sees a particular event through the eyes of someone else, putting on their fears, concerns, quirks, logistical, and political realities. When applied to world leaders, it becomes far more likely to help in predicting what cards might be played, even when specific knowledge of particular cards may be somewhat lacking. One can then create a set of possible scenarios based on the cards he might have with some confidence. For instance, it’s good to know that many Iranian leaders believe that Americans are sneaky, clever, and, as Friedman noted, tend to become unpredictable when “on the ropes”. Such information, when true, could benefit the US in smartly playing to those assumptions, even as the Reagan administration often did with states around the world, most notably the Soviet Union. Naturally, such savvy chessmanship is often criticized by academia for being somehow unfair. Aside from making light several times of the French (which was roundly applauded, of course), Friedman also drew the stinging distinction between academicians and leaders. He said that while academicians may say things like, “if given the opportunity and I were president then…”, those who are among those who are and become presidents take the opportunity, and that is without question a most profound distinction.

 

An interesting theme that emerged from both venues was that we are currently (to various degrees) ignoring Russia and China at our own risk, and that these countries are actively seeking paradigms which are harmful to US and democratic interests, while threatening to become increasingly more so. While those within the intelligence community (including my own sources) seem to get this, it still seems of little interest to those inside the US State Department, some within the Pentagon, and other areas of the Bush administration. Certainly also for that matter much of mainstream media. Friedman also dispelled a popular myth about China: its economy. In point of fact, Friedman comments, China’s nonperforming loans account for about 40% of its GDP. By contrast, Japan during the worst part of its slump last decade was at an almost miniscule number. Yet China presses on, largely thanks to a reckless and morally bankrupt international investment community.

 

Both of these events, along with the one I wrote about two weeks ago, have indeed taken some of my time away from this blog, but hopefully they will help to enrich it when updates are posted.

 

Posted by Martin at February 14, 2007 02:37 AM

Comments

Posted by: Angel at February 14, 2007 04:19 PM

Posted by: Debbie at February 14, 2007 06:08 PM