Take me to your Dear Leader….

Last September, after visiting the DPRK for their 60th Anniversary extravaganza, I made a covert landing on DPRK soil from the Chinese side of the Yalu River.

We were outside Dandong, on the Yalu. We boarded a rickety, old Chinese tour boat for a short ride to view the Great Wall from the river.

The photos look very far away because I had to take them from seat level. We were told not to take photos. I have authority issues….

In both the photos below you will see a DPRK border soldier. He clearly was not supervised very often. He was shirtless, and appeared very hungry.

We actaully landed on DPRK soil. The soldier boarded the small vessel and looked us over. He was interested in making this transaction as quick as possible.

We gave him a carton of Chinese cigarettes, and some yuan. He smiled, shook our hands and jumped off the boat. We shoved off and went about our tour.

 

North Korea - China Border - Yalu River - September 2008

In this photo we are approaching the DPRK shoreline. You can see the soldier in the left – middle of the photo.

Landing in DPRK - Sept. 2008

In this photo he is crouching down, preparing to grab hold of our small boat as it approached the shore.

Each time you interact with someone from there, and they realize we aren’t the monsters they’ve been taught; you are changing a mindset. Diplomacy one person at a time…

Phenom Obama

America's New First Family

When I first became aware of Barack Obama he reminded me of Bobby Kennedy. Young, energetic, very bright. More than that, they both seem to me to have been men supremely suited to their times. The assassination of RFK robbed us of the man with the best opportunity to bridge the racial divide in 1968. His impassioned speech to the crowd in Indianapolis on the night Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated cemented his singular ability to bring us together. He shared the pain of losing a brother to a white assassin’s bullet. He urged the crowd not to give in to revenge and hatred. In just two months, he himself would lie mortally wounded in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel. His life’s blood flowing from a gun shot wound to the head.

President-Elect Barack Obama is a man suited for his time. He has always superbly handled opportunity. When given one he has consistently knocked it out of the park. He has done so at Harvard, in the race for the Senate, his 2004 convention speech, the presidential election, and as a father (his daughters are by all accounts little gems).

It would be a tragedy of incomprehensible proportions for the United States were something to happen to this man before he has the chance to apply his many talents to the troubles we face domestically and abroad. Knowing the training and professionalism of the United States Secret Service personnel charged with his safety; I rest easier, knowing how hard they will work to ensure he has the opportunity to do so.

I began to think about the 2008 election. How historic it was. Hillary, Barack, and Sarah. All firsts of one sort or another. How in the hell did a black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama not only obtain his party’s nomination, but actually get elected to the highest office in the land? Some say the most powerful office in the world.

Now, I don’t profess to have insider information. There will be books written for years on this election. On Obama’s campaign. I would like to point out my thoughts on why, in 2008, Barack Obama was deemed electable by a majority of American voters.

First some background. I was born on the South Side of Chicago. The “South Side Irish” from a neighborhood called Roseland. It lies more than one hundred city blocks south of The Loop, or downtown Chicago. In 1970, when black people began moving into Roseland, my parents, and their parents, moved from the city to the south suburbs of Chicago.

Blacks brought crime and drugs, we were told. Black kids beat up my brother and stole his bicycle, I was told. Blacks meant our home would sell for less if we waited too long, we were told.

The N-word was not something we thought about much. It was used all the time. From my earliest memories that is how people in my life described black people to me. That N-word at work. The N-word on the corner. Those N-words on welfare…. I truly believed all black people were on welfare when I was a child.

These migrations, or emigrations from the city to the suburbs became known as “White Flight”. When the first black family bought a home in the neighborhood the stampede began. You didn’t want to be the last person to sell your house. It was kind of like being the one left without a chair when the music stopped. My parents would take flight again just thirteen years later. Relocating from the South Suburbs to the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago.

This is the background in which I developed. When I went to high school black kids were bussed from other towns into our school. White kids from our school were sent out of town to their school. Neither wanted to be relocated. Being at the sharp end of a social experiment created friction. Friction led to fighting. These situations played out across many suburbs of America in the late seventies and early eighties.

I graduated High School and joined the United States Army. I was immediately thrown into a world where black and white blurred. You didn’t care what color the guy was that had your back, as long as he was Army green. I was led by black soldiers, and I was given the opportunity to lead. In short, I was freed from the ignorance of the environment I was brought up in.

I had children very young. I consciously brought them up not to see color. They lived in multi-cultural environments with military families of all types. They had white friends, black friends, and Hispanic friends. The N-word was not used in our home.

How did Barack become electable? He became electable because people in America changed their mindset. Over a period of a generation or so, Gen X’ers became educated and rejected the institutional racism of previous generations. They also raised their children, who became of voting age in the 2008 election, not to see color first. We did not indoctrinate our children into a culture of racial distrust or hatred.

So the question becomes; How in the hell does this apply to China? Well, I believe it does in a very big way. I believe we need to change the mindset of the American public on their views on China. I believe we need to do this quickly before the United States and China get themselves on a collision course with destiny.

So how do we change this mindset? We do it in the same way we did it on race. Expose your children to Chinese people and culture. Replace stereotypes with positive experiences. Teach your children not to distrust. GlobalWonk will be focusing on opportunities to educate Chinese and American people, particularly our youth, on the many positive aspects of our respective cultures.

You can start today with your own family. Read your child a book about China. Take them on a trip to Chinatown in a city near you. Introduce them to Chinese friends and associates. Get involved with their school and get culture on the curriculum. Talk to your local representatives of government and share your concerns with them.

The opportunity to prevent these same children, our children, from fighting a war with the Chinese twenty years from now, presents itself now. What are you going to do to make a difference?

China’s Peaceful Rise?

Peaceful rise. We hear that term a lot nowadays to describe China’s economic development ambitions. What does it mean? Is this possible? How will the world be different in thirty years? Twenty? Ten? Will it be more, or less peaceful? Will our children and grandchildren enjoy the freedoms many now take for granted. Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. Free to live where you want. To pursue happiness.

Deng Xiaoping understood what the communists in the Soviet Union did not. He believed the best way to move his country forward was to encourage economic growth. He knew that continuing a state controlled economy would keep his people impoverished for many generations. In 1978 Deng gambled when he opened up the Chinese economy and allowed the provinces relative economic autonomy. His gamble has certainly paid off handsomely. Foreign direct investment combined with an indigenious economy that has been exposed to, and is competing with, the fiercest of global competition has built an economic juggernaut of historic proportions.

As China grows stronger economically, it is natural that it will want to protect its interests, as we do. To do this, the Chinese military will have to become larger, and increasingly forward deployed. It will require a blue water Navy to secure trade routes. It may garrison forces in places like Africa, the Middle East, perhaps even South America, to protect strategic relationships with suppliers of key energy resources and raw materials.

How will America respond to this? These are steps nations, such as ourselves, took in the early, rapidly developing stages of our development. Will we welcome a new near peer, and potentially (eventually?) peer power? Or will we be fearful and self-fulfill the doomsday prophecy of a New Cold War, or worse?

Here is what today’s thought leaders think about the topic;

• In the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Thomas Barnett’s 2004 book The Pentagon’s New Map became an extremely popular read. He divides the world’s countries into the Functioning Core, and The Non-Integrating Gap. Barnett tells the story of making the rounds at the Pentagon presenting what he began to call “The Brief'”, to ever more senior levels of military and political leadership. Barnett theorizes that nation states no longer need to wage war with one another. As members of the ‘functioning core’, they are too economically integrated to consider attacking one another. Everybody loses when the apple cart is upset. War is relegated to Functioning Corers cleaning up zealots in the Non-Integrating Gap. 
•  Dr. John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, on the other hand believes the U.S. and China are destined for conflict as an ever more powerful China attempts to establish regional hegemony and push the United States out of Asia.
• Dr. Susan Shirk, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Professor, University of California, San Diego wrote a book in 2007 titled China; Fragile Superpower. In it she claims the U.S. has more to fear from a weak China.

Although China looks like a powerhouse from the outside, to its leaders it looks fragile, poor, and overwhelmed by internal problems. But China’s massive problems, instead of reassuring us, should worry us. It is China’s internal fragility, not its growing strength that presents the greatest danger. The weak legitimacy of the Communist Party and its leaders’ sense of vulnerability could cause China to behave rashly in a crisis involving Japan or Taiwan, and bring it into a military conflict with the United States.

If economic growth slows and problems multiply, there is a possibility that China’s leaders could be tempted to “Wag the Dog” – mobilize domestic support by creating an international crisis. More likely, however, is that when confronted with a crisis, the leaders make threats they can’t back away from because of their fear of appearing weak to the domestic audience. Only by understanding the dangers of China’s domestic tranquility and incorporating this understanding into their policies can Chinese and American decision makers avoid a catastrophic war

• Dr. Suisheng “Sam” Zhao, Professor and Executive Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the University of Denver, is concerned that domestic chaos could cause China’s Communist Party (CCP) leadership to pursue an aggressive foreign policy to stir nationalistic enthusiasm and deflect attention from the CCP. Further, Dr. Zhao believes these domestic forces could begin to fester if economic growth slows below 6% – 7% per year. American’s can only dream of that pace of growth today. If China slows to this level, Dr. Zhao believes their economy will no longer be able to absorb the historic migration of population from farms to cities. This will cause large numbers of young, unemployed people, to begin to question the CCP’s decisions that brought their country to this point. Aggressive foreign policy could take the form of flexing their newly enhanced military muscle to further intimidate Taiwan, clash with the Japanese over oil drilling rights in the East China Sea, or challenge U.S. dominance in their backyard.

I highly respect each of the scholars I’ve mentioned above. With these, and many other disparate voices out there; what are we to believe? How do we prevent ourselves from being acted upon? What can we do to influence positive outcomes? I do not profess to have the answers to these big questions. I have many, many more questions than I do answers.

 GlobalWonk intends to convene a “No New Cold War” conference within the next eighteen months. We will bring together today’s thought leaders to discuss key issues in the U.S./China relationship. We’ll work together to develop meaningful steps that individuals and communities can take to have a positive impact on this most important of relationships.

Where was General Marshall when we needed him?

 

It is the summer of 1992.

In the previous three years:

1. Eastern Europe has become democratic.
2. The Berlin Wall fell.
3. Germany reunited.
4. President George H.W. Bush grounded Looking Glass.
5. Hardliners attempted to overthrow Gorbachev.
6. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) ceased to exist.
7. The Cold War ended.
8. The United States military dealt a stunning defeat to Saddam’s vaunted military

The United States stood at a moment of singularity. Our power and prestige were at their pinnacle. Unchallenged.

Did we use this unprecedented position and influence to help shape the future of the world for the betterment of all mankind? Did we help Russia, and the other former Soviet republics, assimilate into the world economy? Did we work hard enough to understand the internal dynamics of Chinese society in order to nuture a positive orientation to the United States during their economic resurgence?

Did we wage peace?

After forty years of conflict with the Soviet Union in an epic battle of ideologies; why did we have no Marshall Plan to secure the peace and rebuild regions of the world that had stagnated and fallen behind under the grip of communism?

The only screams I remember hearing out of Congress were from narrow-minded members seeking a “peace dividend”. The United States Army, the same force that performed so brilliantly in the Gulf War, was cut in half.

All of the finger pointing now about overtaxing Guard and Reserve troops is a direct result of this demand by Congress for a peace dividend in 1992. Congress knowingly cut the Army’s troop strength in half. They burdened the Guard and Reserve with missions formerly assigned to active duty units. Fast forward nine years to the Summer of 2001. Enter your local high school kid looking to serve their country for a few years locally while finishing school or working to save enough money to do so. If he has been lucky enough to not have been injured, that kid has just served two extended tours in Iraq within three years.

The term ‘You reap what you sow.’ comes to mind. We failed to take advantage of our unprecedented opportunity in the early nineties. We were all too enamored with Windows, and our Internet stock portfolios. Many of the issues we are facing now, and into the foreseeable future, are the direct result of neglecting key strategic relationships throughout the nineties.

This is not a partisan slap at any one party or administration. Both parties failed us. We need leadership at all levels of our government that are willing to plant seeds and nurture our global relationships. We can not afford to fail now. Me must use all of our hard and soft power to wage peace and secure a future for all the world’s children.