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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td colspan="3" class="graytimes18" align="left" valign="center"><table align="left" background="/img/w.gif" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="graytimes18" align="left">EDITORIAL COMMENTARY </td></tr> </tbody></table></td> </tr> <tr><td height="14">
</td></tr> </tbody></table> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2"> <!-- var digg_bodytext = 'Times+look+bad+--+but+consider+the+possibilities.'; var digg_url = 'http://online.barrons.com/article/SB123638336023557987.html'; // --> </script> <!-- ID: SB123638336023557987 --> <!-- TYPE: Editorial Commentary --> <!-- DISPLAY-NAME: Editorial Commentary --> <!-- PUBLICATION: Barron's Online --> <!-- DATE: 2009-03-09 00:01 --> <!-- COPYRIGHT: Dow Jones & Company, Inc. --> <!-- ORIGINAL-ID: --> <!-- article start --> Disturbing Visions <dateandtimestampwithbr></dateandtimestampwithbr>
By THOMAS G. DONLAN
<dateandtimestampwithbr></dateandtimestampwithbr>
Times look bad -- but consider the possibilities.
DO YOU THINK WE HAVE PROBLEMS NOW, with a banking system supported by government, a government supported by debt, and debt supported by Chinese and Japanese central banks? Wait until you see the problems presented by a "military futurist" named Andrew F. Krepinevich.
We almost said, "the problems dreamed up" by this West Point grad and Harvard Ph.D., who served 21 years in the Army and now is a consultant. But he didn't dream up these nightmares. We all know they could happen, but we are looking the other way.
Krepinevich's book, Seven Deadly Scenarios, leaves the reader with a very bad feeling about the future. America had better cure its financial problems soon, because any of the catastrophes imagined in the book would be very expensive to repair.
Looking for Trouble
"The Collapse of Pakistan" scenario takes almost no imagination. Pakistan is not far from civil war now, with a divided army, ethnic fragmentation, anarchy in the tribal areas, a collapsing export economy failing to earn payments for imported food and, of course, nuclear weapons. Into whose hands will the bombs fall, and onto whose heads? Iraq and Afghanistan illustrated the difficulty of an American military venture in Asia; Pakistan is bigger, with more people.
"War Comes to America" reads like an episode of the TV serial 24, with atomic bombs destroying downtowns in San Antonio, Chicago, San Diego and Boston over a period of two months. Other bombs are discovered and neutralized, but 75,000 Americans are killed and five times as many injured. The cleanup taxes the resources of the whole nation. The nation braces for further attacks, but none come -- until one night in the fall, when the president gets a threatening phone call.
"Pandemic" presumes that the worst fears about the bird flu come true; we lack an effective treatment or adequate vaccine for a virus as transmissible and deadly as that of the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Economic effects of a worldwide refusal to go out in public are nearly as disastrous as the medical effects. World trade seems like an enemy. Advanced countries struggle with a 1% fatality rate. Many countries have much higher rates of fatality, and they simply collapse. These include Mexico, where hundreds of thousands of frightened people head for the U.S. border, hoping for a better chance at survival.
A 1% CFR, while certainly frightful, I wouldn't classify it as "worst fears". SZ
The "Armageddon" scenario does not take us to the Book of Revelation, which pictures the last battle between good and evil. This Armageddon involves a new war between Iranian-backed Palestinians and the Israeli defense forces. The battle resembles the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza in recent years, only with bigger and better rockets on the Palestinian side and a new sense of desperate urgency on the Israeli side. The Israelis consider a major ground offensive to push the rockets out of range, or an aerial bombardment and blockade of the front-line Arab states, or a direct attack on Iran. Iran prepares to blockade the Strait of Hormuz and aims its own missiles at oil facilities in neighboring countries.
"China's 'Assassin's Mace'" propounds a gross misunderstanding of intentions and interests over Taiwan, with a blockade and counter-blockade. It's not at all clear how military action against Taiwan would help Chinese problems outlined in the scenario, such as economic stress on an aging society, inability to pay for energy imports, popular dissatisfaction with environmental problems, and so on. But it happens in this scenario, and it turns out that China has been preparing cyberwar capabilities against the world's computer networks and submarine warfare against the U.S. Navy. Can Taiwan be rescued? Not without full-scale war.
"Just-Not-In-Time" is a scenario directly focused on economic disruption. Local militants disrupt oil production in Nigeria. Others sink a supertanker and block the Strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia, and destroy offshore oil platforms in Indonesia. In this scenario, China and the U.S. cooperate to secure freedom of the seas, but terrorists strike at the head of the oil-supply line -- the Saudi Arabian port of Ras Turana on the Persian Gulf. Worse, a dirty bomb aboard a cargo container makes all freight suspect. World trade creeps toward a halt, and lack of inventories finishes the job.
"Who Lost Iraq?" postulates a breakup of Iraq after U.S. forces leave, involving not only Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds, but also Turks and Iranians. This time, Iranian oil production is destroyed, driving up the price of oil, but the big change in world affairs is a joint offer by China and Russia to perform peacekeeping services in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Smothered by a post-Iraq loss of will, the U.S. is on the outside looking in at the new world order.
Through A Glass Darkly
Wise men as different as Niels Bohr and Yogi Berra have said that predictions are difficult, especially about the future. Unfortunately, predictions are too easy. Things that are inevitable eventually happen. Some things that are possible become reality.
These seven deadly scenarios are extrapolations from problems we already have. If written in the 1990s, a book of scenarios might well have mentioned the threat of another terror attack on the World Trade Center, more effective than the one in 1993, or the threat of financial instability raised by the global market for derivative securities. There was no shortage of source material.
Dealing with the future requires imagination and preparation. No one, no party can see the future so well as to avoid all the most likely disasters, and no government can afford perfect protection from every scenario.
In this disturbing book, the most disturbing thing is how little caution the imaginary U.S. politicians display, until it's almost too late. The scenarios have that out-of-control feeling that so scared the participants in the Cuban Missile Crisis. What if the other fellow won't blink?
We should understand that history has not ended and will not end with a permanent American triumph. True to Thomas Jefferson's words, the tree of liberty does not refresh itself. And much of the world does not admire America as much as America admires itself.
Our new administration is wrapped up in today's problems. It should find time to prepare for the future's problems.
As Krepinevich quotes Sir Francis Bacon: "He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils."
</td></tr> </tbody></table> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2"> <!-- var digg_bodytext = 'Times+look+bad+--+but+consider+the+possibilities.'; var digg_url = 'http://online.barrons.com/article/SB123638336023557987.html'; // --> </script> <!-- ID: SB123638336023557987 --> <!-- TYPE: Editorial Commentary --> <!-- DISPLAY-NAME: Editorial Commentary --> <!-- PUBLICATION: Barron's Online --> <!-- DATE: 2009-03-09 00:01 --> <!-- COPYRIGHT: Dow Jones & Company, Inc. --> <!-- ORIGINAL-ID: --> <!-- article start --> Disturbing Visions <dateandtimestampwithbr></dateandtimestampwithbr>By THOMAS G. DONLAN
<dateandtimestampwithbr></dateandtimestampwithbr>
Times look bad -- but consider the possibilities.
DO YOU THINK WE HAVE PROBLEMS NOW, with a banking system supported by government, a government supported by debt, and debt supported by Chinese and Japanese central banks? Wait until you see the problems presented by a "military futurist" named Andrew F. Krepinevich.
We almost said, "the problems dreamed up" by this West Point grad and Harvard Ph.D., who served 21 years in the Army and now is a consultant. But he didn't dream up these nightmares. We all know they could happen, but we are looking the other way.
Krepinevich's book, Seven Deadly Scenarios, leaves the reader with a very bad feeling about the future. America had better cure its financial problems soon, because any of the catastrophes imagined in the book would be very expensive to repair.
Looking for Trouble
"The Collapse of Pakistan" scenario takes almost no imagination. Pakistan is not far from civil war now, with a divided army, ethnic fragmentation, anarchy in the tribal areas, a collapsing export economy failing to earn payments for imported food and, of course, nuclear weapons. Into whose hands will the bombs fall, and onto whose heads? Iraq and Afghanistan illustrated the difficulty of an American military venture in Asia; Pakistan is bigger, with more people.
"War Comes to America" reads like an episode of the TV serial 24, with atomic bombs destroying downtowns in San Antonio, Chicago, San Diego and Boston over a period of two months. Other bombs are discovered and neutralized, but 75,000 Americans are killed and five times as many injured. The cleanup taxes the resources of the whole nation. The nation braces for further attacks, but none come -- until one night in the fall, when the president gets a threatening phone call.
"Pandemic" presumes that the worst fears about the bird flu come true; we lack an effective treatment or adequate vaccine for a virus as transmissible and deadly as that of the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Economic effects of a worldwide refusal to go out in public are nearly as disastrous as the medical effects. World trade seems like an enemy. Advanced countries struggle with a 1% fatality rate. Many countries have much higher rates of fatality, and they simply collapse. These include Mexico, where hundreds of thousands of frightened people head for the U.S. border, hoping for a better chance at survival.
A 1% CFR, while certainly frightful, I wouldn't classify it as "worst fears". SZ
The "Armageddon" scenario does not take us to the Book of Revelation, which pictures the last battle between good and evil. This Armageddon involves a new war between Iranian-backed Palestinians and the Israeli defense forces. The battle resembles the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza in recent years, only with bigger and better rockets on the Palestinian side and a new sense of desperate urgency on the Israeli side. The Israelis consider a major ground offensive to push the rockets out of range, or an aerial bombardment and blockade of the front-line Arab states, or a direct attack on Iran. Iran prepares to blockade the Strait of Hormuz and aims its own missiles at oil facilities in neighboring countries.
"China's 'Assassin's Mace'" propounds a gross misunderstanding of intentions and interests over Taiwan, with a blockade and counter-blockade. It's not at all clear how military action against Taiwan would help Chinese problems outlined in the scenario, such as economic stress on an aging society, inability to pay for energy imports, popular dissatisfaction with environmental problems, and so on. But it happens in this scenario, and it turns out that China has been preparing cyberwar capabilities against the world's computer networks and submarine warfare against the U.S. Navy. Can Taiwan be rescued? Not without full-scale war.
"Just-Not-In-Time" is a scenario directly focused on economic disruption. Local militants disrupt oil production in Nigeria. Others sink a supertanker and block the Strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia, and destroy offshore oil platforms in Indonesia. In this scenario, China and the U.S. cooperate to secure freedom of the seas, but terrorists strike at the head of the oil-supply line -- the Saudi Arabian port of Ras Turana on the Persian Gulf. Worse, a dirty bomb aboard a cargo container makes all freight suspect. World trade creeps toward a halt, and lack of inventories finishes the job.
"Who Lost Iraq?" postulates a breakup of Iraq after U.S. forces leave, involving not only Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds, but also Turks and Iranians. This time, Iranian oil production is destroyed, driving up the price of oil, but the big change in world affairs is a joint offer by China and Russia to perform peacekeeping services in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Smothered by a post-Iraq loss of will, the U.S. is on the outside looking in at the new world order.
Through A Glass Darkly
Wise men as different as Niels Bohr and Yogi Berra have said that predictions are difficult, especially about the future. Unfortunately, predictions are too easy. Things that are inevitable eventually happen. Some things that are possible become reality.
These seven deadly scenarios are extrapolations from problems we already have. If written in the 1990s, a book of scenarios might well have mentioned the threat of another terror attack on the World Trade Center, more effective than the one in 1993, or the threat of financial instability raised by the global market for derivative securities. There was no shortage of source material.
Dealing with the future requires imagination and preparation. No one, no party can see the future so well as to avoid all the most likely disasters, and no government can afford perfect protection from every scenario.
In this disturbing book, the most disturbing thing is how little caution the imaginary U.S. politicians display, until it's almost too late. The scenarios have that out-of-control feeling that so scared the participants in the Cuban Missile Crisis. What if the other fellow won't blink?
We should understand that history has not ended and will not end with a permanent American triumph. True to Thomas Jefferson's words, the tree of liberty does not refresh itself. And much of the world does not admire America as much as America admires itself.
Our new administration is wrapped up in today's problems. It should find time to prepare for the future's problems.
As Krepinevich quotes Sir Francis Bacon: "He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils."
