Around the web (revised and updated)

As I mentioned in my last post due to some heavy workload and other matters, posting will be light till at least July. As such, I thought that I could at least scour the web (or my blogroll) for the most informative and interesting posts out there. Below is a list of these, each with a short summary for your convenience. Enjoy.

• Real Player video of Tom Barnett's C-SPAN interview discussing his new article in Esquire. The name of the article is The Americans Have Landed which looks at the Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. The interview itself is roughly 50 minutes long and Barnett addresses questions from callers to C-SPAN. As the blogger at Porkopolis bills it, it's Must See TV. As a final note, when loading the video scroll forward to the 1:11:00 mark which is when Tom makes his appearance.
  


• An update on the “third front”
  Continuing with the Africa theme, this next post comes from Ethan Zuckerman at My Heart's in Accra. It's an update on the state of our efforts on the Horn of Africa, or what Ethan aptly calls the third front in the long war. He also cites Barnett's article above recommending it for the context it provides to understanding the US's relationship with sub-Saharan Africa. Ethan focuses in part on the contradiction between the two strategies as outlined by Barnett, and which are currently being pursued in Africa;

  pound the crap out of any Al-Qaeda-connected forces in Somalia, and build long-term, trusting relationships with the people of the countries where they have bases, notably Djibouti and northern Kenya.

  
  Finally, Ethan also notes that it is interesting to see Barnett "confront the challenge of implementing his vision for military transformation."


• A planned result ?
  Badger at Missing Links has an interesting take on a recent interview given by Mohammed Dahlan (head of Fatah's security forces) who said in it that "Hamas "fell into a trap" laid by Israel." Badger ties this comment by Dahlan, to a recent post by Charles Levinson, at ConflictBlotter.com who reports from the region, that based on interviews with Fatah fighters it is clear that Fatah never fought and essentially handed over Gaza to Hamas. He theorizes that this whole thing may have been part of a larger strategy to isolate Hamas further (the trap), while allowing Fatah and Abbas to retain and gain legitimacy and support within the Arab world and beyond.
  
  Update
  
  I just came across this story in the Jerusalem Post that has the same claim but provides further context. According to the report, Hamas officials are saying that on the eve of major clashes, Abbas contacted Mashaal in Syria to let him know that Fatah would be surrendering the Gaza Strip to Hamas. Hamas is also saying that they were surprised by the victory, they claim, they were not seeking. Hamas, according to this story only sought to fight against a small element within the Fatah security forces that was causing them problems, and did not seek to eliminate Fatah from the Gaza Strip. In a Hamas official's own words, "[t]here was a conspiracy to create a crisis for Hamas," the official also denies that Hamas will seek to create a separate entity and government in the Gaza Strip (Islamic or otherwise), and stresses that they are seeking some sort of reconciliation with Fatah and a return to a unity government in the near future.


• 'Black Swans' Necessitate Resilience-Centric Strategy
  Art Hutchinson has a post citing a debate going on at mi2g on how black swan events drive organizations to "a resilient rather than an anticipatory strategic stance." The first article on the page points to the example of Cantor Fitzgerald post 9/11 and how despite loosing most of its workforce and US headquarters was able to resume market trading less than a week after the attack. Incidentally, Barnett recounts the story of how this was possible in The Pentagon's New Map. The article also talks about the main lessons to be derived from Cantor's tragedy, mainly, effective preparation and organizing corporate systems into heterarchies (decentralized) instead of hierarchies (centralized) which allowed the company to continue functioning despite its losses.


• Israel v. the US
  From Prof. Weinberg we get this post on the different approaches on dealing with the threat of terrorism. He goes from their differing perceptions of the civil liberties v. security debate to their different approaches to combating terrorism within their own soil. For example, he points to the fact that unlike the US, Israel does not have a national strategy or policy for combating terrorism which allows them more flexibility in addressing the threat. He also discusses our differing approaches to processing detainees, where Israel is more relaxed in allowing detainees (unlawful combatants) access to its court system than the US. This is not to say that Israel's approach is completely without fault, as we have seen, sometimes their more aggressive approach actually creates more problems for it than it solves. All in all a very interesting and a thought provoking post.


• "Asian Regionalism: Threat to the WTO-Based Trading System or Paper Tiger?" Mark Thoma at Economist View cites an article by Richard Pomfret at VoxEU on Regional Trade Agreements and how China has been using them to further its regional leadership aspirations, something he argues is not necessarily a bad thing, but can help further the WTO system.
  


• Why I wear the ridah
  This article is a bit more controversial from a Western point of view, particularly given the ongoing debates in Europe over Muslim women's use of the hijab. Aziz links to an article by an 18-year old Bohra woman in the UK named Tasneem bhen Yahya who argues that for some Muslim women, the veil is actually liberating. She argues in part that "It forces people to focus on the person, rather than the clothes they are wearing." She also speaks about the misperception in Western societies of what the veil represents, mainly an object of oppression of the Muslim woman. She argues that while in some instances, particularly in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and others where it is forced upon women, it can be an object of oppression, for women living in Britain, it reflects their faith, and liberates them from the focus on external appearances. In short, for her, it's her choice to wear it so to choose to do so is a liberating action. She also discusses the debate and how it affects her life and that of other Muslims in integrating into British society. It's an interesting read, one may not agree with her, but at least it provides a pretty good counterargument to the side of the debate we are all familiar with.


• IMF Report: “The Syrian economy did remarkably well in 2006″
  We get this from Joshua Landis' blog where he cites a recent IMF report on Syria's economic growth. According to the article, while government ministries remain inefficient, there is a consumer and building boom in Syria. Egyptian and Lebanese financial firms are setting up shop because due to high demand "Syrian economists are overstretched and cannot fulfill the demand for financial expertise." The post notes "Everyone is preparing for the stock market and companies are getting educated about going public."
  
  All in all a very interesting read, as it provides us with additional insight into what is going on in the region, something we sometimes miss by focusing solely on the threat of the Syrian-Iranian alliance. It sure looks like Syria is opening itself up to the global economy, that can only be a good thing.


• Black Holes Renamed 'Super High Gravity Locations'
  Finally, for a little light-hearted humor we get this from the Daily Redundancy, The Standard of Excellence in Pseudojournalism This story parodies the excesses of Political Correctness. The killer quote, referring to the need to rename the term, black hole, "the unimaginable destructive power of these super high gravity locations was giving the word 'black' a negative connotation throughout the universe."