I am not sure what political forces you think would prevent the US from taking over Zimbabawe and handing it over to the Chinese or Indians to administer.

The UN? Who cares?

The American electorate are willing to fight a war if they believe it can be won. That is why Democrats have been consistent in pushing the meme that we are losing the war in Iraq and that it cannot be won. Some examples, like the doomsday reporting during the pause to let supplies catch up during the sandstorm in the three week sprint to Bagdahd are kind of amusing but the message has been consistent, “we are losing and we can never win.”

What the American electorate is very bad at is sustained effort. If there had been polling in the spring of 1864, Abraham Lincoln’s numbers would have been in the toilet. It was only Sherman’s capture of Atlanta and march to the sea that turned around the voters.

While I would personally prefer to send American forces into Iran to destroy the Iranian military and secure the oil and nuclear facilities while simultaneously ferrying in Chinese divisions to run the country after we pull out, Zimbabawe might make a nice test case and training mission for both American and Chinese forces. It would also make a nice warning for Iran.

a) How, practically, do we stand up a a large money-spending DSYADM? Do we just keep doing what we want to and hope for a miracle? Or are there specific areas we can focus on that make this large money-spending pork-distributing agency more likely to develop?

Short answer: We have to get as many unionized, mid management pencil pusher types involved in the process as possible. Barnett calls it the bureaucratic center of gravity or The Department of Everything Else. John Edwards had an idea called the Marshall Corps. Rudy had another name for it but the point was the same. We have to get a cabinet level position that lobbies for this stuff all day long like we did with DOD.

Once the cabinet post is up and running the other two legs fall into place. Bechtel, Blackwater, Verizon Wireless, KBR, there are plenty American businesses poised to make a mint off shrinking the Gap and if we get a secretary in charge of requisitioning gear the industries will know where to send their lobbyists. The moral leg is already in place, made up of everyone from Angelina Jolie to Bill Gates.

One major difference between Sys Admin and DOD is that DOD, by design, was suppose to sit at home and buy stuff (can’t give the military a blank check to go around the globe and do whatever it wants; better they head out to the desert to play with their high tech toys). So they budget for acquisitions and receive supplemental for operations. I’d want Sys Admin set up exactly the opposite. I want them budgeting to go shrink the Gap and we’ll get them their toys on a supplemental. This gives the SECSYADM every reason to push for more American involvement overseas, even if we wind up with a SECDEF who wants to sit home and train a war with China.

Exactly!

So how do we build a structure that keeps up this important work. There were times in the Cold War, for instance, when there was bipartisan exasperation with the whole effort. However, the Iron Triangle of the Military-Industrial Complex kept the effort going. How can we similarly bullet-proof the SysAdmin to safeguard shrinking the Gap?

And I think the solution is the same: Offer a premium service that is not easily duplicated by cheaper, less skilled and/or less educated labor while simultaneously outsourcing the most labor intense work to the lowest bidder.

We already have one skill set (Leviathan) that would be difficult to replicate on the cheap. Unfortunately, I think politics, at this time, prevent America from offering China or India an overt bargain (I.E. We’ll smash Zimbabwe’s military and snatch Mugabe out of his spider hole; you guys rush in put the country back together). But since I know there are smart people in the U.S. dreaming of that scenario, I would assume there are smart people in India and China also hoping for the day such explicit cooperation is possible.

Another premium service we offer is training foreign militaries. As I understand it, this will be one of the first priorities of Africom and besides building up local capacity to provide security it also provides the U.S. with an invaluable source of local knowledge. And India and China should want us to succeed at this mission; because the secure space created by U.S. trained local forces will provide great opportunities for Chinese businesses to move in.

Along with that, I’d be all for inviting the Chinese military to participate in training local militaries but I’m not sure if politics (mostly on our side but a probably more than a few on their side) allows for any large scale cooperation yet.

Based on what I’ve read about Iraq, another premium service America is developing is “human terrain mapping”. This could make America’s system admin eventually the most “culturally sensitive”, which could make America’s light footprint sys admin the logical precursor to China’s large footprint infrastructure projects in the most underdeveloped and disconnected parts of the continent.

Going along with HTM and cultural sensitivity is America’s ongoing commitment to humanitarian work. President Bush has been widely praised for pushing for greater funding to fight HIV/AIDS and the next President could go give our sys admin a boost by pushing for an international effort to wipe out malaria within ten years. This is both a “hearts and minds” public affairs boost, and, because sick people can’t work as hard, should lead to real gains in GDP in the regions currently most afflicted.

Ultimately, I think the U.S. military is poised to build the premier light footprint systems admin force with a primary focus on humanitarian aid, training local security forces, and generally “priming the pump” for large scale state building. This contrasts with the Chinese, who seem to operating a large footprint infrastructure building force. Neither model offers a complete solution to shrinking the Gap in Africa on its own, but each is an important part of the process that allows both parties use their respective comparative advantages.

Maybe the model is the American West, where a relatively small # of American soldiers would build a small fort to keep the Indians at bay and make space for the settlers (mostly recent immigrants).

Excellent comment! Empire was a great book.

If there is large-scale movement of colonists this time around, it will probably come from China and India [1], not from Europe or America.

How can we make China and India’s pain our pain? How can we arrange things so that an American-involved SysAdmin is justified on grounds of protecting Chinese and Indian settlers?

[1] http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/12/africa_as_chinas_new_world.html