Stuff from Tom

Since Thomas Barnett was kind enough to answer a question I emailed to him (regarding whether the bridge collapse might signify what he terms a rule set reset, after which priorities and outlook dramatically shifts), I'll be kind enough to link to some of his better stuff from the blog. Okay, it's not really out of kindness, but more out of my desire to post good info...

For starters, here's his bridge post, which I commented on. He doesn't think this will trigger any kind of significant response on a federal level, and I tend to agree with that...unless infrastructure starts failing across the board, of course. And I'm not talking just highways, but also electricity grids, dams, sewer, etc.

He also links to his Enterra teammate, whom I really need to link to on my sidebar soon, as he also comes up with good stuff on a consistent basis. Discusses seam states, as well as this little blurb on China which I agree with:

Don't believe? Then continue watching China's response to the tainted products scandals. China's response to that will do more to reform its system than probably every diplomatic initiative our government's collectively launched with Beijing over the past 20 years.

There is this constant bias within the national security community that we're the dog that wags the government tail and the government is the dog that wags the private-sector's tail when reality is exactly the opposite: the private-sector sets rules far more than the government (which works mostly the areas where conflicting rules bump into one another and harm society's collective goods as a result) and the national security community (whose rule sets take precedence in even fewer scenarios than the gover) is more a response to the government's response to private-sector initiatives than anything approaching a "driver." My community's megalomaniacal assumptions in this regard continue to stun me this deep into my career.

And just because it's good, here's a link to Tom's article in US News and World Report, entitled Managing China's Ascent. And here I thought we were a near-peer competitor!

Anyway, it was all good stuff to read, especially considering the amount of reading I've been doing on other stuff recently (slashdot, other geeky copyright stuff plus Britt's Wolves blog)