Steve Clemons

For the next couple of days, some of the world's leading thinkers will be spending time in Aix-en-Provence wrestling through "The State of the World" organized by Le Cercle des Economistes. 

I arrived late yesterday and have missed some of the headliners including Francis Fukuyama, now of Stanford and author of the recently published The Origins of Political Order: From Pre-Human Times to the French Revolution; former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine; and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov.

But I did catch a sliver of a session exploring the growing tension between political rather than economic zones and whether 'states' were back or still getting fuzzed up by various transnational saboteurs.

The most interesting moments of this panel came from my New America Foundation colleague and friend Parag Khanna as well as McKinsey & Co. Managing Director (the top one) Dominic Barton.

Khanna said that globalization is not a trend that can just be quickly turned on and off.  He thinks globalization is a much, longer deeper process stretching back a thousand years in which the Silk Road was an early part of the platform.  Khanna said we are "now entering a phase in which globalization is really global" and that it can't be slowed by the fiscal straits of a few of the larger developed countries.

Khanna also said that nation states as the term of unit in the international system was being undermined by "Four C's" -- Countries, Cities, Companies, and Communities.  He believes that these groupings will share authorities, overlap, and intensify their communication and coordination in ways that don't depend on the state for intermediation.

McKinsey's Dominic Barton, the most fun of all the speakers on the panel which included former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda and Asian Development Bank Chief Economist Changyong Rhee among others, said that the best depiction of world affairs was not a "cube" or "globe" -- but rather a "bowl of spaghetti."  (I wanted to slip him a note that while Wednesday might have been Italy in his schedule, that he was now in France. . .)

But building on Khanna's offering on the rise of cities and communities as new global building blocks, Barton said that there is more intense interaction between the world's 600 largest cities than ever before.

Barton also said that there are now 2 billion people on the internet; that China added 150 million internet users last year alone.  There are 600 million Facebook users and 190 million on Twitter.  He said that many in China believe that "Crest" (the toothpaste) is a Chinese company.

He also made an appeal to the world's bloggers and writers to focus on the important issues of our time -- and said that everything is changing.  He lampooned 800,000 bloggers out there in the world who apparently write about their shampoo -- that's right, shampoo.  He basically said that was a waste of bloggage and that these folks needed to get into discussions about what mattered.  (perhaps some of the Tea Party crowd are listening. . .)

But the most provocative thing that Dominic Barton put on the table -- really shocked me actually -- was his reflection that American multinationals are ready to chat about industrial policy.  He stated that while these firms have for decades had a strong allergy to any discussion of "industrial policy" that they now see many factors amiss when both corporate profitability and unemployment are very high.  Barton said unequivocally that leaders of these firms are now willing to entertain serious discussion about a "new American industrial policy."

If true, that is striking -- and the Obama administration should listen in on the conversation.  I know from my own discussions with leading White House economic advisers to the President, the term "industrial policy" is the policy that cannot be uttered.

I'll be speaking on the US panel this morning and whether or not America is a "tangled up Gulliver" or not along with former Chief of Staff to Vice President Biden Ron Klain, former House Member from Minnesota James Oberstar, Harvard's Jeffrey Frieden, IFRI's Jacques Mistral and others.

West Point now has its first "openly gay" member on its Board of Visitors thanks to the appointment of former Army captain Sue Fulton, a founding Board Member of OutServe, by President Obama. 

That checks off a federal military academy box in the New York -- which as a state just made same sex marriage legal.

But a second recent appointment at a major American university in a much less gay-tolerant climate just occurred in Virginia.

Announced on July 1st, the well-known DC lobbyist and Democratic gay political poobah Jeffrey Trammell was 'unanimously' elected the new Rector of the College of William & Mary.  The Rector serves as chair of the College's Board of Visitors.  Trammell is the 79th Rector at William & Mary, which was founded in 1693 and is America's second oldest college.

There is a lot of resistance still throughout the country in crunching down the discriminatory laws that inhibit the normalization of gays into regular life -- but the appointments of Fulton and Trammell move this forward a couple of key notches.

Congrats to both and all of us.

I recently had breakfast with FrumForum proprietor and smart issues strategist David Frum who said that if the GOP was really an oligarchy, then Mitt Romney would come out on top. If the party was a democracy, the someone else -- anyone else -- would get the Republican presidential nod because the rank-and-file viscerally disliked Romney.

I think that Frum is correct -- as I keep running into top tier, propertied Republicans who think Romney is the only choice and have disdain for the rough and tough, populist currents that are gaining attention and perhaps a political edge in defining the GOP.

And now David Brooks has framed the divide in the GOP as not between oligarchs and the rank-and file, but rather between those who are civic-minded and love the United States and those who have become ideologically fixated on doing harm to the country.

Here are some of the key lines of his powerful, provocative essay, "The Mother of All No-Brainers" in which he commends the Republicans for setting up the foundation for a historic, epic deal with Dems on tax cuts with minor revenue increases -- and then ridicules the base for its fanaticism:

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That's because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. . .

The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. . .

The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation's honor.

The members of this movement have no economic theory worthy of the name. . .

Members of this tendency have taken a small piece of economic policy and turned it into a sacred fixation. . .

This is one of the strongest indictments of current trends inside the GOP that I have read from a leading Republican commentator.

Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and others fought ferociously amongst themselves as the nation was being set up over the balance to be achieved between those who had the capacity to understand the stakes in policy and government and those who reflected an uninformed, passionate mob.

Seems like the same debate is back, and it sounds like Frum and Brooks feel that real democracy inside the GOP could be a dangerous thing.

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A semi-occasional feature of The Washington Note, which is in process of moving to this new spot at The Atlantic is a snapshot now and then of three awesome pups.

Meet Annie (on left) and her two brothers, Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner, and Buddy.

More soon.

I enjoyed this ten minute discussion with ThomsonReuters Global Editor-at-Large Chrystia Freeland at this year's Aspen Ideas Festival, organized each year by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute.

Our discussion ranged from the high stakes political standoff over raising the federal debt limit as well as jobs and economic policies to the new Obama course on the Afghanistan War.

(photo credit: Gary Burke)

"Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be," General Douglas MacArthur said in August 1962.

I've often thought about these words and whom we owe for our nationhood. Do we owe those who put their lives on the line by signing the Declaration of Independence? The many who joined military service in the various wars America has engaged in or had to fight? Of course - but the picture is much bigger than veterans and founding fathers.

Regular Americans who vote, who pay taxes, who respect the rights of those who lose in contests, who pursue their passions without harming others, who support a system that constrains the power of the presidency, who contribute money to their local playhouse or little league, who get involved in their children's education, who volunteer, or who just become part of the glue holding together a complex society are those who we owe thanks to for supporting the country. And going a bit further, we owe these folks whether they are straight, gay, or any other complexion. There's a lot of diversity in our society -- and the straight crowd never gets things done on their own, whether they are conscious of it or not.

Speaking of the military though -- and the military in my view do deserve our respect, particularly enlisted men and women who don't get the officer perks -- the services are finally becoming an inclusive big tent operation.

This past year, President Obama started the process of dismantling Don't Ask Don't Tell - and thus is shrinking the gap between the norms of the military and the more tolerant and inclusive norms that are increasingly becoming the law of the land throughout the country. Gays and lesbians have always been in the military services, just hidden. I even had the privilege of getting to know Faubion Bowers, one of the gay but when serving closeted staff assistants in Japan to General Douglas MacArthur, some years ago.

But gay soldiers, gay janitors, gay think tank types, gay race car drivers and baseball players, gay writers and cops and firemen and architects, gay teachers, gay boy scouts, accountants, and gay chamber of commerce members all can feel the drama of "duty, honor, country" pulse through their hearts and minds as much as any other person - and America seems to be getting just to the edge of being able to respect this.

A year and a half ago when President Obama spoke at the annual Human Rights Campaign gala, the room was full of soldiers - some in uniform and some not. I advised a close friend who is a captain in the Air Force to think through the consequences of being outed if he wore his mess dress to that dinner. Wherever the President went, there was a ton of media - and that media is not required to respect the private rights of people at a public event. He ended up going in civvies - and leaving his uniform at home. We took pics of it hanging on my wall.

Because of the absurdity and immorality of Don't Ask Don't Tell, my friend could not honorably and without threat to himself salute his Commander in Chief in uniform at a DC dinner.

This idiocy is soon coming to an end. Obama delivered - with enormous assistance from Defense Secretary Bob Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen, Senators Carl Levin and Joseph Lieberman, former House Member Patrick Murphy, among others.

President Obama should consider speaking at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in the spring of 2012 so that those soldiers who had to lurk in the audience as someone other than who they were can wear their uniforms and be proud of serving the nation and showing that straight or gay, they are as committed to duty, honor and country as any other soldier - or any other member of society.

It used to be in vogue to study and chat about "the civil-military gap" in DC think tanks. I remember senior fellow John Hillen, then of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, arguing about thirteen years ago that the esprit de corps of the US military would be seriously wounded if gays in service were allowed to reveal themselves. This scholar strongly defended the widening gap between military norms and those norms of tolerance and inclusion that were spreading in American society.

(Admiral Mike Mullen receiving standing ovation at Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal signing ceremony; official White House photo, Pete Souza)

Fortunately, that kind of thinking seems to have been pushed to the periphery - and humor about these tectonic civil rights shifts are helping to make sure that duty, honor and country can be embraced openly by all in military service.

As a small example, at this year's White House Correspondents Dinner, I ran into a General I greatly respect, General John Allen - who is succeeding General David Petraeus as Commander of the ISAF forces in Afghanistan. General Allen was in full, fancy, mess dress - lots of colorful medals and ribbons; quite dashing. I saw him, and somewhat loudly yelled, "John!" And he yelled just as loudly "Steve!" One of us gave the other a manly bear hug -- can't remember which.

And standing next to us was AP's Anne Gearan as well as Admiral and Mrs. Mike Mullen. Mullen chuckled and said "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

Great moment - but the point is that the gap between "us" and the military is disappearing, and this is good for American society.

Duty. Honor. Country. I'm a patriot. My gay Air Force friend is a patriot. My non-gay General friend about to take the reigns in Afghanistan is a patriot. Seth Myers, who performed that night at the Correspondents Dinner and took some whacks at President Obama, Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, and particularly Donald Trump is a patriot.

Has to be said again. Duty, honor, country -- Seth Myers was just brilliant. He did his part for the country that night.

Happy July 4th - and a salute to everyone - everyone in the big tent - who has helped move this country forward.

We have so much further to go. America is stuck in some ruts and has had some serious dips and shown some key economic, military and moral limits that have punctured its mystique. But I feel that America has a creative edginess that may help to undermine cynicism and get the country on a healthy, productive course that everyone has a hand in.

As controversial a man Douglas MacArthur was, he had a way with words - and these particular words of duty, honor, and country -- I feel -- apply to all of us.

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The 10th Anniversary of 9/11 will be upon us soon - and it got me to thinking what the now dead Osama bin Laden was able to achieve in terms of achieving one of his goals - getting the US to spend a lot of treasure on trying to feel more safe in an unsafe world.

If one uses the $294 billion FY2000 defense budget as a baseline and presumes that global security in a post Cold War context would remain fairly consistent with blips of concern and challenge here and there, then one could measure the gap between what a defense budget adjusted for inflation over time would have been compared to what the 9/11-triggered spending reality was.

And the answer is interesting, and somewhat disturbing -- particularly given the intense budget debates under way in the nation.

The US has spent cumulatively $2.263 trillion more than the FY2011 baseline.

Here is a quick run down of the amounts spent above the FY2000 levels adjusted each year to grow with inflation:

2001 - $16B

2002 - $45.2B

2003 - $144.9B

2004 - $167.3B

2005 - $161.9B

2006 - $205.5B

2007 - $259.1B

2008 - $302.6B

2009 - $305B

2010 - $325.2B

2011 - $329.7B

Total $2262.5B

I asked a friend of mine to chart this out and have pasted the pdf above. I should note that I think that there is a mistake in the black line above which is supposed to chart the FY2000 budget over time adjusted only for inflation. One would not see such a rise and fall in the early part of the line - so when that is fixed, I'll repost it. Nonetheless, it does show generally what Osama bin Laden was able to get us to do.

The other interesting take-away is that $2.263 trillion roughly equates to about 7 million sustained jobs in the private U.S. economy, sustained over these entire ten years.

There are problems in equating US government spending on wars to what might have been done with those resources in the private economy - but again, in terms of broad benchmarks in a time of constraint and very harsh offsets, I think it is illustrative to consider whether the collective costs of Afghanistan and Iraq - costs and obligations which will continue for decades given the benefits and health support that deployed military will receive - have been part of America's job deficit misery.

Bin Laden is gone, and I'm glad - but one of the challenges we need to deal with at some point, perhaps after the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, is why we so easily fell into the groove of spending at the levels he wanted to trigger.

(photo credit: Steve Clemons, The Washington Note)

News is breaking that the prosecutor's case in the rape allegations against former IMF Director and French political kingpin Dominique Strauss-Kahn is collapsing.

According to reports, the accuser who worked at New York's Hotel Sofitel has allegedly been engaged in money laundering activities and has had substantial contact with an incarcerated drug dealer.  Strauss-Kahn's bails and terms of detention are reportedly going to be lightened today -- and others are suggesting that felony charges may be dropped against him.

Maybe he did harass this woman -- but it is also possible that he did not.  That's what the system of justice is for -- to presume innocence until guilt is determined.  That no longer sounds likely in this case.

But this week, former French Finance Minister Christine Legarde was named Strauss-Kahn's successor at the International Monetary Fund, and back at home, French Socialist Party Leader Martine Aubry declared her candidacy for President.

Strauss-Kahn, who may be innocent, who even Sarkozy said should be presumed innocent unless evidence led to a different conclusion, now cannot return either to the IMF or to his position as the next likely President of France.

One of the fears that I often hear from people when talking about the growing power of social network sites, blogs, as well as micro-journalism and micro-comment platforms is the one of scandalmongering, or a tsunami of mistruths and reputational attacks that take down some high profile person.

A good read on this sort of thing is the late William Safire's historical novel, Scandalmonger, which shares what slander blogging might have been like in late 18th century America in the person of James Callender who doggedly pursued, occasionally inventing, sleazy stories about both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

I have generally argued, and may be wrong, that the internet is a much more honest and disciplining arena than print, that errors, mistakes, or misreporting would be instantaneously sniffed out and corrected by a global audience.  I know I have gotten things wrong before and had emails or posted comments that helped me put my information on a better, more accurate track.  But that isn't always the case, particularly in growing clusters of same-thinking people who care less about sorting out the facts than they do about the frame (or bias) they bring to some respective issue.

But in today's fast-paced world, a reputation can be destroyed rapidly -- and if, as in the case of Strauss-Kahn it seems, the consequences of charges made actually precede the processing of those charges, then we as a society are no longer extending the benefits of presumed innocence that are core to our form of democracy and our legal system.

I realize given the proliferation of commentary about Strauss-Kahn's alleged womanizing and the bandwaggoning criticism of him that built after his arrest that he is perhaps a flawed and tragic figure. 

But the problem of reputation wrecked still stands whether the target is warm and likeable or a brilliant storm, as I see Strauss-Kahn, and that lesson is a bad one for people on the internet, who are becoming commentators and writers, to learn.  They see the successful effects of attack, whether based in truth and credibility or not, and sense that the downsides of backlash and consequence to an accuser's or scandalmongerer's credibility are not serious.

When Georgia State USDA rural development director Shirley Sherrod was fired by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for making 'alleged' racially-tinged remarks, we also saw consequences meted out before the entire story of that video, brought to light by Andrew Breitbart, was properly considered.

There is no clear fix to these problems.  We don't have a system that would let Strauss-Kahn have his job back, and Aubry is not likely to step aside in her presidential quest and let DSK go back and take the top spot challenging Sarkozy. 

Again, I am not saying that I know if he did or didn't engage in lewd conduct against a hotel chambermaid -- but his legally-based presumed innocence has been inconsequential to the penalties that he's already received, and that's something that should worry us.

Third day into my new perch on Atlantic Voices and I've been kept from blogging much today while fighting to get from Aspen to Denver to catch a Lufthansa flight to Berlin.

We had a storm, a pretty one with lightning, dark clouds, and four of five minutes of wind, race past us in Aspen -- freezing everything.  And then Denver shut down -- and now we may be going again.

So, despite this seeming like a summer paradise, there is at least one downside to Aspen living: getting out.  Who knew?

More soon.

(President Obama with Afghanistan President Karzai, Pakistan President Zardari and Vice President Biden during a statement in the Grand Foyer of the White House May 6, 2009. Official White House Photo By Lawrence Jackson)

President Obama's decision to withdraw 10,000 US troops by year's end -- and another 23,000 by the end of 2012 has drawn little applause.

Some think he's moving too slowly and others think that he's forfeiting the field to the Taliban and leaving Afghanistan to become a sanctuary yet again for al Qaeda.

But Obama and his Vice President, Joe Biden, have it just right -- and have achieved something very important in the political battle over America's Afghanistan adventure.

Obama/Biden have broken the back of the COIN (counter-insurgency doctrine) -- that ever larger numbers of deployed troops equal ever large security and stability deliverables. COIN was always about size and resources -- the more deployed the more that could be achieved.

COIN was a nifty formula that led to occupation of a country and redirection of the habits and security situation of villages and neighborhoods.

Only problem is that occupation has its downsides. As US forces surged into corners of Afghanistan, so too did Taliban recruitment surge.

America's big footprint in Afghanistan has contributed to an impression that the military is overstretched, suffering from institutional fatigue.

Even General David Petraeus has said that his troop recommendations to the President were not based on an assessment of America's overall strategic needs and position -- but were focused exclusively on the needs of the Afghanistan/Pakistan environment.

In other words, America's most famous and arguably successful general, a celebrity now in his own right, has been advocating that his venture be the Moby Dick of concern in America's national security portfolio -- rather than a more balanced venture weighed against other problems with which the US is strapped.

But Obama has now definitively given up on the conception that "bigger is better."

Obama has also broken the back of the Petraeus frame on Afghanistan that America's mission was to 'defeat' the Taliban. The White House instead is suggesting that in the time that we have yet on the clock, the US and allies will 'shape the choices' of the Taliban and not allow circumstances in which the Taliban could overthrow the legitimate Afghanistan government, now headed by Hamid Karzai.

These are big shifts, enormous ones -- and the President in my book has taken the opportunity of the death of bin Laden to check off the al Qaeda box and to pivot towards a slippery slope leading to a significantly reduced role in Afghanistan -- and a quality of role that in my view may very well leave Afghanistan in better shape in the long run than where the Petraeus plan was taking us.

These ideas were very much a part of the Afghanistan Study Group, which I helped found and which many leaders -- most lately Jon Huntsman -- are endorsing in spirit. I commend the entire report to you but here are the five quick takeaways that our group suggested 18 months ago:

1. Emphasize power-sharing and inclusion. The US should fast-track a peace process designed to decentralize power within Afghanistan and encourage a power-sharing balance among the principal parties.

2. Downsize and eventual end military operations in southern Afghanistan, and reduce the US military footprint. The US should draw down its military presence, which radicalizes many Pashtuns and is an important aid to Taliban recruitment.

3. Focus security efforts on Al Qaeda and Domestic Security. Special forces, intelligence assets, and other US capabilities should continue to seek out and target known al Qaeda cells in the region and be ready to go after them should they attempt to relocate elsewhere or build new training facilities. In addition, part of the savings from our drawdown should be reallocated to bolster US domestic security efforts and to track illicit nuclear weapons globally.

4. Encourage economic development. Because destitute states can become incubators for terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and other illicit activities, efforts at reconciliation should be paired with an internationally-led effort to develop Afghanistan's economy.

5. Engage regional and global stakeholders in a diplomatic effort designed to guarantee Afghan neutrality and foster regional stability. Despite their considerable differences, neighboring states such as India, Pakistan, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia share a common interest in preventing Afghanistan from being dominated by any single power or being a permanently failed state that exports instability to others.

Making progress on all fronts. President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have learned the lessons of 'too big to succeed' and are now correcting this hemorrhaging of US power.

IDEAS!

Tom Donilon, President Obama's National Security Adviser, once told me that the thing he most needed but rarely had was "time to think."  

Donilon has almost single-handedly recrafted the national security decision making process from one in the George W. Bush administration in which Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld controlled "the flow" to one where not only more voices from the traditional defense and intelligence communities are heard in a decision but which now includes many dozens if not hundreds of others from the avant-garde national security arenas like climate, the economy, development, agriculture, and more.  Donilon is the master of meetings, lots of them, and he is now in a constant whirl.  

This brings me to this weekend of IDEAS I'm taking part in at the Aspen Institute's idyllic retreat in the Rocky Mountains.  Co-sponsored and jointly organized by Aspen and The Atlantic, the Aspen Ideas Festival is a collage of smart thinking on a hundred different fronts with an intergenerational collision of experiences and priorities achieved through the Festival's expansive scholarship outreach.  

I am taking some time to think in the next few days and will be reporting my reactions and provocations here at the new 2.0 incarnation of The Washington Note at TheAtlantic.com.  I wish Tom Donilon could join me here this round - but I'll work hard to get him here another year because he does need time and space to think.  It's vital for his White House team and him to hear what's going on outside the situation room.

I'm an ideas guy, sometimes called an ideas entrepreneur, and through the years have helped push along a provocative notion or two that got some policy traction through the New America Foundation, where I continue as Senior Fellow and Founder of the American Strategy Program.

But my new responsibilities at The Atlantic include serving as Washington Editor at Large as well as Editor in Chief of AtlanticLIVE, the global events division of the group.  

Lots of stuff to chew on in this new role - and I look forward to thinking out loud in the years ahead with not only my past readers but a whole new crowd of thinkers and writers who make The Atlantic, National Journal, and Government Executive part of their ideas habits.

Follow my Aspen Ideas Festival commentary at Twitter as well at Twitter.com/SCClemons.