Country/Regional – Page 14 – Public Intelligence Blog

Foundation Stone for Serious Global Understanding,

May 30, 2009

John W. Garver

This is a sensational book, dry as only a serious academic can be, but so absolutely original and fundamental as to make me smile and cheer. This is what a book should be–original, properly sourced, wonderful appendix that is a chronology of Chinese and Iranian substantive state-level contacts, and so on.

Although the author cannot cover it all, the length of the book and the totality of this work move the book from four stars to five. This is a VERY important book for anyone who wants to move beyond the failed analytic frameworks and corrupt policy frameworks of the past and into reality in the 21st Century.

The bottom line up front: when it gets down to “either or” China will favor its desire for US comity over its respect for Iranian anti-hegemonism, but over time, China has executed a very skillful balancing act that has helped Iran restore its role as the central power in the Persian-Middle East region.

For me the huge eye-opener–I actually have goosebumps and am posting a variation of the map on page 292 of this book to share my appreciation–was the role that Pakistan and Iran play in giving China access to the sea and Middle Eastern energy as well as African natural resources.

Although India is not discussed in this book, I learn that the author has written Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century and that will be in my stack for my next long trip. This book is vitally important and as I reflect on all the books that I have absorbed over the years, this one stands out as “the way it should be done.” This is a perfect book at the strategic level. It could be complemented by others writing companion books, for example, I would love to see a book studying both Chinese and Iranian inroads into Africa and Latin America, illuminating both the processes and the cross-overs. The kind of thing CIA should be doing but does not, for at least four reasons: children as analysts; security obstacles to outreach; lack of a holistic analytic model; and lack of access to open sources that are not online, in English, and easily processed.

There are chapters on Iran and China in relation to Xinjiang Muslims; Chinese support to the Iranian nuclear program both directly and via Pakistan (siginficantly, China stood down on support related to weaponizing nuclear and also stopped Iranian use of Silkworm missiles from China against shipping). The three page chronology on this aspect is fine detail. The chapter on Chinese-Iranian military exchanges draws heavily on the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and I am reminded of that organization's priceless contributions. The last three chapters cover US-Taiwan in relation to China-Iran; economy, and energy.

The 1000 word limit is a good one for reviewers, so I will be concise in the sharing of my other flyleaf notes:

1. PRIMAL FACTORS. The Chinese-Iranian relationship can be traced back and has been active since centuries before Christ. At the same time, China and Iran represent the apex of regional powers who have not been co-opted or corrupted by Western colonial hegemony backed by unilateral militarism. I can only anticipate they will be the “last man standing” on their home ground.

2. Iranian Constancy. Both Shah and Post-Shah have played US and Russians consistently, and both have been concerned about US and Russian incursions into the Indian Ocean.

3. Pakistan. Both China and Iran have convergent interests in Pakistan, and Pakistan is a key player on many fronts–a book by this author on Pakistan in relation to China, Iran India, Central Asia would be phenomenal.

4. China Core Concept. The strategic core concept that China pursues is “Unified Front.” The author elaborates. I note the contrast with US core concept of “American exceptionalism” and unilateralism (Obama is Empire as usual, I have sponsored a new meme, “Free Obama.” Between the two corrupt parties working for Wall Street, and the persistent special interests and Versailles bureaucracy, nothing has changed). At the operational level, the author discusses Chinese “Realistic Prudence.”

5. China-Iran Geopolitical. The map with embedded text on page 46 is so very good I am uploading that at well. This book is well illustrated, well-documented–a pure pleasure.

6. Civilizational Rhetoric. The author opens with this, and I love it. The author makes it clear that this matters [for decades I have called for historical intelligence, i.e. show me every Chinese, Vietnamese, Philippine, and Malaysian statement on the Spratley Islands going back 200 years, but to no avail–CIA does not do history or culture in any meaningful sense of the word, partly because they cannot read in the original languages and do not access ofline original books.]

7. Concerns About Iran. The author enumerates Chinese concerns about Iran, one wonders if any US policy bubbas have pursued this aspect of US-Chinese relations. See page 28.

8. End of the Shah. The author documents how China missed the rise of the Khomeini regime as did the USA. The clerics did not know China had 20 million Muslims, and this ultimately helped the dialog.

9. Stage Two. The author provides a lovely review of how China ramped up its relations with Iran in the aftermath of negative global opinion over its repression of demonstrations, the collapse of the USSR, and the unilateral aggressiveness of the USA in the Middle East.

10. Iranian Roadmap. The author outlines how Iran's strategic plan began with Lebanon, then moved over to Afghanistan, and next plans to focus on Central Asia and Xinjiang in China, the latter in the face of Chinese resistance. Pakistan needs its own book.

11. Gulf I and Gulf II. The public record available to the author suggests that both Iran and China opposed both US invasions (Gulf I and Gulf II) because they put a US armed presence or footprint in the area. My personal view is that Iran played the US for a sucker with Chalabi as an agent of influence, and got the US to knock of Hussein and displace the Taliban.

I have to stop here. This is a wonderful book, a deep serious contribution, a real original, absolutely essential for both undergraduate and graduate students as well as policy and business adults.

Other strategic books I admire that are top down in nature (this is a bottom up strategic book. You have to search for my summary reviews, Amazon buries serious reviews with any negative votes:
The Lessons of History
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War
Global Values 101: A Short Course
Modern Strategy

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2008/10/252009/12/04

Review: Charm Offensive–How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World

5 Star, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Strategy

Extremely Good Effort for One Mind–Missing Some Links, October 25, 2008

Joshua Kurlantzick

I first studied China, the “Middle Kingdom,” in 1975 when I found Mao relevant to my primary interest, understanding and addressing revolution in all its forms. The image above is the heart of my graduate-level quick look at how the PRC exercised foreign influence back then. In addition, my father was a Chinese “guest” in 1967-1968 after pirate militia sank his trimaran enroute from Saigon to Hong Kong, a story told in Yachtsman in Red China.

The author has done a superb job of observing, interpreting, and documenting. I take away one star for a certain amount of naiveté and incompleteness–the book ends somewhat weakly–but I totally disagree with those who consider this book disorganized or less than four stars in merit. I found the book absorbing, consistent with my own recent observations tracking Chinese irregular warfare including both electronic warfare and waging peace in Africa and South America, and over-all, I cannot think of a finer book for American diplomats, politicians, and students of serious mien.

The author opens with a very personal and relevant account of how he watched the fall of US influence and the rise of Chinese influence in Thailand, marking the late 1990's as the time of change. To his surprise, when he asked US diplomats about this, he found them unaware. Today, they are aware, but powerless in the face of a White House that under Dick Cheney has totally destroyed the policy process (for an account of how this was done, see The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill.

He follows the 1990's in Thailand with a very compelling comparison of how George Bush was heckled by Australian senators and booed by the Australian public in 2003, while a few days later the Chinese leader Hu Jin Tao was welcomed as a hero. He points out that Australians now see US unilateral militarism as a threat to Australian peace and prosperity fully co-equal to the threat of radical Islam. For one balanced take on foreign public perceptions on America, see The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World

He properly credits Joe Nye with the term “soft power” but I am in agreement with the anthropologists and others who now choose not to use that term because global presence has to be managed as a Whole of Government/Whole Earth enterprise, something Stewart Brand and others understood decades before the rest of us. Of all Stewart's books, my favorite remains Clock Of The Long Now: Time And Responsibility: The Ideas Behind The World's Slowest Computer, a book I fear the Chinese appreciate vastly more than the two idiot parties now looting the US commonwealth on behalf of their Wall Street masters.

The author says that the Chinese think of their primary power as everything outside the military and security realm. See my image above for a nuanced understanding that is still valid–the names have changed, but the Chinese are simply playing a modern version of Middle Kingdom ubber alles.

The author reviews the mis-steps under Mao (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, export of revolution), and then gives proper credit to Deng Xiao Ping as the transitional and transformational leader who adopted pragmatic reforms. The deal China made, in substituting enhanced nationalism for absolute communism, was “make money, not trouble” and all would be allowed.

The new leaders are college graduates and in many cases have graduate degrees. The end of the Cold War freed China from fear of Russia, and now China is focusing on the Second World. For good reasons why, see
The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order

The new era leaders clearly understand that global problems impact on them, and they must pursue global solutions.

Here are the 20 elements of China's global strategy as I understood them from the author's excellent account.

01 Stability in the 14 countries on its borders
02 Cease military confrontation (e.g. Spratleys), use non-military assets
03 Go after resources all over the world
04 Create ring of allies as buffer against US and other interventionists
05 Non-interference in affairs of others
06 “Born-again Multinationalism” (Susan Shirk)
07 Cooperative agreements (7 with Mexico, 14 with Venezuela, etc)
08 Help those the US shirks or slights (Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia, Uzbeckistan…)
09 Offer socio-economic model in which state, not market, is steering
10 Focus on small nations ignored by US and others
11 Cultural and public diplomacy ****needs its own book****
12 Direct recruitment of overseas Chinese in 1980's, used their wealth, $30B or 7% of external investment, as seed crystal for 1990's boom
13 Aid, trade, easy loans, investment (a fraction of what US does, but they get more mileage out of theirs by how and when and why they do)
14 Easy fit with corruption and deals outside the rule of law
15 Lots of construction including free buildings for headquarters (the author does not say this, I do: “no extra charge for the electronic bugs”)
16 Junkets to China, junkets with issue training for the staffs
17 Exporting men (this could have used more attention–Argentina will be majority Chinese by 2020 or so)
18 Exporting visual media (#2 in the world right now)
19 Rolling Taiwan back, everyone withdrawing recognition
20 Direct influence both good and bad (good: anti-drugs, some effort on human trafficking, on disease; bad: illegal lumber harvests in Myanmar, Indonesia)

The last three chapters are not as arresting, but still good:
IX: America's soft power goes soft, both Clinton and Bush killed us overseas
X: Shanghai Cooperation Organization, giving US “wedgies” all over the world
XI: Rest of World waiting for two things from USA: live up to our values and stop our bad policies

The author is a big naïve (or less informed) when he lambasts the Chinese for supporting dictators and fails to realize that our two corrupt political parties love 42 of the 44 dictators as their best pals (see Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025).

Serious book by a serious person for serious people. Well done.

My last four allowed links:
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography)
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2008/09/272009/12/04

Review: The Secret War with Iran–The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Power

3 Star, Country/Regional, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), War & Face of Battle

Four on one side as useful propaganda, three in larger context, September 27, 2008

Ronen Bergman Ph.D.

I was torn between three stars (the book is terribly flawed in the larger scheme of things) and four stars for the very interesting and well-presented details that while they are strictly from an Israeli perspective and the book is almost certainly an Israeli propaganda operation against the US public in general and US Congress and generals more specificially, are in and of themselves correct.

The author focuses exclusively on painting the Iranians in the worst possible light, while ignoring the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian misdeeds, and never mentioning the 42 of the 44 dictators that the US Government regards as its best pals because they pretend to support the Global War on Terror (GWOT) which is the ninth high level threat to mankind.

I settled for three because this book is completely out of context, grossly exaggerates the Iranian threat, and fails to demonstrate any semblance of the relative costs and benefits of waging peace. Just prior to sitting down with this book for a few hours I read a much shorter monograph (free online), “U.S. Counterterrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Understanding Costs, Cultures, and Conflicts” by Donovan C. Chau. His top-level premises are instructive, and condemn the book on Iran to three stars: Dr. Chau suggests that our three priorities for defeating sub-saharan terrorism must be:

1. Seizing and holding the moral high ground

2. Winning the stuggle for perceived legitimacy

3. Pursuing restrained counterterrorism responses

I will not belabor the point further–it is flat out NUTS for the USA to be spending $60 billion a year on the 4% it can steal with largely worthless technology and largely incompetent human spies; and $600-900 billion a year on a heavy metal military that is next to useless in 90% of the situations we face into the future.

Israel, the US neocons that were party to the 935 lies that led America to war in Iraq, now an occupation, and both of the political parties in the USA that share the spoils while looting the US taxpayers, have become cancers on humanity. In no way does this condone terrorism or excuse the terrible depravity and dereliction of the Arab regimes, but in the larger context, I see very clearly that the US and Israel are pursuing their own terrorist tactics “in our name,” while completely abandoning the much more sensible and much more likely to succeed grand strategy (neither country has a strategy, only campaigns of tactics) of striving for a prosperous world at peace.

For the single stupidest book ever created by US Generals that totally agrees with this book:
Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

For additional information helpful to those who wish to be fully informed and not be held hostage to one point of view:
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change [this book is free online search for title]
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography) [This book is free online search for title.]
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
The Lessons of History
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude

2008/05/042010/01/05

Review: New Turkish Republic–Turkey As a Pivotal State in the Muslim World

5 Star, Country/Regional, Diplomacy

Undergraduate Overview, Superb Price, a Real Value, May 4, 2008

Graham Fuller

I might have made this a four star since it is missing a couple of big pieces, but the overall book is so well presented in summary form, and the publisher has made it so reasonably priced, this would appear to be exactly the kind of book that is ideal for both the undergraduate and the graduate whom might be beginning a more intensive look at Turkey in its new “360 degrees” or Ankara-centric re-emergence as both a regional power and a continental power.

No Turks in, of, and for Turkey are on the credits, which confirms my first impression that this is a superb primer of, by, and for American students, but the US Institute of Peace is the publisher, so I get over it. Still, the book does not address the Muslim world outside the immediate region, and I am immediately irritated by the early depiction of Paul Wolfowitz as a proponent of democracy in Iraq–Wolfowitz lied to Congress and the public, and is no more a proponent of democracy anywhere than I am in favor of making Islam the ruling religion in America.

Having said that, the author's commitment and knowledge cannot be denied, and I found this book totally worthy of my time. I learned from it.

+ Turkey *is* a part of the Middle East, but ignored it up through the 1990's and did not settle its border with Syria until 2004.

+ Turkey, not Saudi Arabia or any other pretender, has been the center of the Muslim world (the Caliphate) for six centuries, and as the center of the Ottoman empire was the protector of the Holy Places.

+ The author asserts that Turkey is the most advanced secular and democratic state in the Muslim world. Huh? Coming out of an era of military dictatorships, and never mind Malaysia, Indonesia, or India (second largest Muslim population after Indonesia)? Not so fast!

+ While the author sets forth a key question, will Muslims embrace democracy, I point the reader to Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think and the finding in that book that most Muslims consider democracy to be a FOREIGN concept.

+ The author shocks early on in pointing out that Turks consider the USA to be the TOP THREAT to Turkey. I begin to realize the author has delicately folded major truths in, with a minimalist pandering to the jerks that are still in power (or seeking power one last time before they run out of Depends diapers for adults).

+ No one in the White House or anywhere else in the USG is likely to read this book (less well-intentioned Foreign Area Officers on their way there) so I regard the book as a useful cautionary tale for all of us. The neoconservatives took Turkey for granted, offended Turkey, and are so visibly amoral and inept as to inspire contempt from Turkey, a contempt I certainly share. As the author puts it, we are “treading water” with Turkey (as a time when they should be one of our “top ten” for deep engagement).

+ The author tells us that Turkey abolished the Caliphate in 1924, and that this was a body blow to Islam. In a brilliant analogy, he says that this would be the equivalent of an Italian Prime Minister abolishing the Papacy without consulting Catholics worldwide, and doing so as a snap decision.

+ The author illuminated the Turkish intellectual vision of state, faith, and modernity being compatible, and provides two very valuable pages on t he Abant Forum for intellectual tolerance and inquiry.

+ A great deal of the book is undergraduate level brevity (e.g. the Iran-Iraq war gets one paragraph at a time when Turkey was a major adjacent party).

+ Among the prices of the Cold War (see my review of The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World was the disconnection of Turkey from the Middle East and the Arabs, making is a client state of the USA in unwelcome and ultimately unwise ways.

+ The author teaches me that the Kurdish revolutionaries and separatists, the PKK (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan, or Kurdish Workers Party) are a problem in Syria and Iran as well as Iraq and Turkey. I gain the impression that Turkey will do just about anything to prevent a free Kurdistan, but I also wonder in Kurdistan and Palestine are two areas that could be turned into zones of peace and development.

+ On that note, I learn that Palestine was part of the Ottoman empire, and that the Sultan was the Protector of Holy Places.

+ I am deeply engaged by the author's discussion of Islamic banking, and Turkish concerns that the Saudi regime is using increased focus on this as a means of reinforcing Islamic forces within Turkey.

+ I learn that Turkey is pursuing a regional strategy of “no enemies” and has a foreign policy strategy of “proactive peace.” Wow. This is seriously good stuff, and it shames me that America cannot rise to this level of sophistication and future-focus.

+ I learn that four of the five Central Asian states are Turkic, and that after the USA and Russia, China is Turkey's major concern, in part because the Uyghurs are Turkic. Has the USA ever had a Turkic strategy or a Caliphate strategy? Highly doubtful.

+ The author states that the Turks are suspicious of Saudi international policies, and I wonder why there is no deeper discussion, especially since it is now widely known that the Saudi dictatorship has been funding Bin Laden, rote-learning madrasses, and total hate crimes against Shi'ites (15%, with Iran as the only state).

+ He says that Turkey has a strong commitment to Afghanistan, but here I have a note, “too much avoidance.” This is an excellent book and easily understandable by an undergrad, but it needs a couple more chapters (one on Saudis as enemies of Muslim stability world-wide, another on Turkey and the non-Arab Muslim states), and a decent bibliography with a 360 view of competing authorities.

+ He tells us the Kurds have entered mainstream Turkish politics, including election to their Parliament, but I am skeptical and wondering if there is not a really big deal to be cut that runs from Turkey to Kurdistan and Lebanon to Palestine–the three trillion we have wasted in Iraq could have resurrected America AND paid for a massive Marshall Plan for the region.

+ The US chapter is vital. It will never be read by those that make their own idiotic reality, but for the rest of us, it is a fine tale of friction, opportunity lost, a lack of sufficient respect, and more. This is a really good and really important chapter.

The book concludes that Turkey has three choices: continue to be US centric, become Europe centric and join the European Union, or return to Ankara centric, with 360 interests and responsibilities in all directions. I am truly inspired by this book, and in the future will factor Turkey in as co-equal to Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.

Bottom line: this book was a real pleasure to read as an adult hooked on respecting reality, and I strongly recommend it for both teaching at any level, and for anyone interested in what is clearly a major player in the 21st Century. On balance, this book respects Turkey in a very sincere and useful way, while delicately calling out the USA (under all recent Administrations of either party) for being distant, dumb, inattentive, and generally stupid. I am reminded of Daniel Elsberg lecturing Kissinger on how one becomes like a moron the higher up the secret classification scale you go, thinking you know more secret, and becoming unwilling to listen to those with their feet on the ground and decades of eyes and ears on and in place. See my review of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.

2008/05/022009/10/30

Review: The Porto Alegre Alternative–Direct Democracy in Action

5 Star, Country/Regional, Culture, DVD - Light, Democracy

Important Book with Deep Insights, May 2, 2008

Iain Bruce

I read this book along with Design and Landscape for People: New Approaches to Renewal and A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World and in an odd sort of way they hang together.

I am stunned that it has not been reviewed by anyone else. This is a first class edited work, easy to understand, with very important lessons.

Here's what I got out of this book:

+ Progressives facing ambiguity have lost sight of the objectives

+ Participatory budgeting is completely different from consultative budgeting, and should eventually be joined by participatory planning.

+ Progressives are not likely to succeed any time soon (UNLESS we can mount a mass movement with teeth–Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World. We are all trapped in a strait-jacket of existing legal, constitutional and fiscal frameworks. I agree. Both Jean-Francouis Nouble and Jim Rough speak to the pyramidal organization (top down command and control) and its struggle to avoid being displaced by the circle organization. See their work in Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace which is also free online as a PDF of the whole book in or individual chapters as documents easy bound together for more selective study.

+ The bottom line on this book is that the Brazilian state chose to ignore the lessons of Porto Alegre, and chose to neglect its population while agreeing to externally imposed conditions that have ultimately made Brazil weaker than stronger. I cannot judge–that's the message I got.

+ The World Social Forum keeps coming up as I scan the horizon for early warning.

+ Local governments are going to become at least as important as national governments as they strive to deal with very large scale challenges characteristic of urban areas with large concentrations of both the poor and the young.

The book ends on a note in favor of socialism which leaves me uncomfortable. I believe that moral capitalism, combined with honest participatory government, strikes a better balance. Corruption, though, is the killer.

If you are interested in this area, I recommend this book as a very high value reading, and one that could merit several returns.

Other books I favor:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

2008/03/202010/01/05

Review: The Nine Nations of North America

5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Complexity & Catastrophe, Country/Regional, Democracy, Future, Geography & Mapping, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Secession & Nullification

Merits Reprinting and Slight Updating, March 20, 2008

Joel Garreau

I thought I had reviewed this long ago, but evidently not. It is still very relevant to understanding and nurturing America today, and I would be very glad to see the publisher commission a slight update and then reprint this superb work.

As America strives to migrate from a disasterous and nearly fatal two-party spoils system and an Executive that is both corrupt and delusional, those who seek to lead America into a brighter future need to understand America in a new and more nuanced way. It is not about left or right. This book has been on continuing value to me as a point of reference, and I recommend it very highly in its existing state, more so if renewed.

The nine nations, each unique, are:

1. The empty quarter (which global warming will open up)
2. Quebec
3. Ecotopia (a model for the rest of us)
4. The breadbasket (which wastes water on excess foot and grows corn for fuel and cattle that is inedible and wastes more water)
5. New England
6. The Foundry (mid-Atlantic coast)
7. Dixie
8. MexAmerica
9. The Islands (of the Caribbean, where Cuban sugar cane sap could power 30-35 million cars, while Cuban health care would inform our own).

This book is one of my top eleven essential references for understanding America and the Americas. Here are the other ten:
The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character Since the 1880's
What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States
The Clustering of America
Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2008/03/092010/12/26

Review: Biocapital–The Constitution of Postgenomic Life

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Country/Regional, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Kaushik Sunder Rajan

5 of 5 stars. Treasure Trove that Ends with USA-India Axis of Good

March 9, 2008

I've been struggling with this book, published in 2006, for months. Today I realized I could combine my notes with a handful of key index entries to create a more useful synthesis. I end with ten other books I have reviewed that augment this one.

My first impression of the book was soured by the absence of any mention of green chemistry, ecological economics, or ecology of commerce. I've known about citation analysis clusters since 1970, but I grow increasingly frustrated by the fragmentation of knowledge and the constantly growing barriers between schools of thought within political-legal, socio-economic, ideo-cultural, techno-demographic, and natural-geographic.

An important early distinction is between industrial-cost for profit capitalism and commercial speculative capitalism. Toward the end of the book I finally encountered the author's emphasis on national priorities, and I for one condemn all seeds that do not reproduce naturally. In agriculture, economy, energy, health, my bottom line is that anything that retards the eradication of hunger, poverty, sustainment, or individual and social health gains, is inherent against the laws of God and man.

Early notes include:

+ Information science plays huge role in genomics. I am reminded of the convergence in the 1990's among cognitive and information science, nano-technology, bio-technology, and earth science. I have a later note, “life sciences becoming information sciences.”

+ Although E. O. Wilson is not cited, the author is on a clear convergence in taking about how valuation is a vital aspect of getting it right. I think of India as IT rich and farm poor–they are allowing the aquifers to drop a meter a year because farmers can sell a tanker-full of water for $4, which is insane, and 2,000 farmers a year commit suicide in the face of drought and debt. Valuation is a critical national function.

+ This work falls within a new category of reading that I have been increasingly impressed by, “ethnographic,” or the study of localities and particularities to map global system that is not generic, homogenized, or blurred..

+ As the author does not cite Paul Hawken or Herman Daly, I draw the distinction between the author's focus on “natural capitalism” as of the privatization of biocapital and the patenting of gnomes, and the purer definition, of natural capitalism as one that understands the true costs over the lifetime of the materials being used including water (4000 liters of water Bangladesh cannot afford to export in a designer cotton shirt), and that makes the case for going green to create gold.

+ The author views biocapital as a combination of circuits of land, labor, and value; and biopolitics.

+ Life sciences are being “overdetermined” by speculative capitalism. I agree, and apart from India's symbiotic relationship with the US, I would like to see India develop a special relationship with Cuba and with the global academic community to take patents away from speculators and carpet bagging profiteers with no morality.

+ Technoscience changing laws (I am reminded that Google is now a suprnational entity that no government understands or regulates, something similar is happening in technoscience where Recombinant DNA technology is undermining the future of life.

+ Political economy is an epistemology.

+ Life, labor, & language–biology, political economy, philology central to the knowledge of and management of humanity.

+ VERY IMPORTANT: Game requires playing in FUTURE in order to stimulate and guide present. Visit Earth Intelligence Network to read about Medard Gabel's EarthGame that for $2M a year can offer this up across the ten threats, twelve policies, and eight challengers, with embedded budgets of all organizations (governments, corporations, international and non-governmental, and charitable foundations).

+ Market valuation buries ethics, defines “allowable” ethics. Author touches, and I really respect this, on the moral value of information. Later on in the book the author cites Michael Fischer on “ethical plateaus.”

+ The author addresses the “social lives” of biological materials and biological information (note: I violently oppose Google's biomedical information initiative–we may as well become their zombies). In this vein, “ownership” of any of the bio-information constrains seamless sharing, enhancement, and I would add privacy. [Easy answer: CISCO AON on individual recyclable server-routers so individuals control all the information–medical, financial, etc. at their point of creation.] If CISCO will not do this, then India needs to.

+ Useful detailed discussion of conflicts & costs of privatized information versus information as a public good. The author makes case for blurring of lines and avoidance of either/or binary approach. I've already solved this: information in the aggregate should be public, while individual instances are private. Simple example: average spare parts costs can be derived from the aggregate while protecting the individual prices paid by any one of the contributors. AON, not Google, is the key.

+ The author emphasizes that the genome data demands robust detailed medical history to be valued. He contrasts India bio-ethics versus US. Sidenote: computational ethics are just as crucial.

+ I like, very much, the India public sector laboratories. I firmly believe that all health and education should be free, a public good similar to public safety.

+ Biocapital is complicated by context, distance, culture, financial, and technical variances among the competing parties.

+ I credit the author with this but I may have drawn it out: if we now see the value of collective intelligence, why are we having so much trouble seeing the value of collective intellectual property (the Creative Commons not-with-standing)?

+ Biopolitics centers of life (citing Foucault), accounting for and taking care of the population at large are central.

+ Political ecologies at all levels, gifting versus indebtedness, unions as a factor. UNIONS as a major factor. Vision fundamental. Direct links among ideology, capital, and locality.

+ Excluded populations (e.g. HIV not eligible…) can cause them to be consumed populations.

This is a deep complicated book hard for the lay reader (which I am), so to do it justice, I am resorting for the first time to a short list of key terms from the index that more represent the content:

belief systems
bioethical issues
biopolitics
biotechnology industry
capitalism, biocapital as new phase
diseases and illnesses
drug development marketplace
economic issues, multiple forms of currency
ethnographic research
genomics bioethics and industry
global market terrains
hype, capitalism
information ownership
intellectual property
life sciences
market value and non-market value
patient-in-waiting
populations, classification of
production issues
promissory biocapitalist futures
public domain issues
research issues
social issues
speed issues
temporality issues
therapeutic development
value access to
vision, commercial value

This is a pretty spectacular book, and someone did a great job across the board in presenting it.

Other books I would recommend:
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
The Ecology of Commerce
The Future of Life
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Category: Country/Regional

Review: China and Iran–Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World