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Tuesday, November 30, 2004 |
 Mideast Online. Fallujah. "One of the biggest obstacles is getting contractors in here," said marine Lieutenant Colonel Scott Ballard, operations officer for civil-military affairs at the marine's headquarters in Fallujah. The military said a "Green Zone" has been created in Fallujah's northwest corner where contractors will work under the guard of US and Iraqi troops. But in this theoretically safe area, military officials said fighting broke out as US navy engineers tried to clear a park area of debris. Almost every single building bears the scars of the battle and vital infrastructure needs to be urgently repaired. "We're trying to clear rubble from the street but we've been stood up by contractors for the last three or four days. We're frustrated with that," said one marine officer as he drove past ruined streets choked with shattered brick and a burned out car.
10:01:51 PM 
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Wow. I get 1-3 requests for advice on private military employment (mercenary work in Iraq) a day. This is much more than my time allows. I should start an agency (or at least work with an agency) to help place these people.
11:54:17 AM
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Chet Richards, links to Global Guerrillas and this site from his excellent "Defense and the National Interest" site. His site is a treasure trove of first rate thinking on defense topics. Thanks!
11:21:36 AM
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USA Today. A top U.S. commander is warning Iran and others against thinking they can exploit the U.S. military because its ground troops are fighting two major missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is worry about the Lind scenario, as well there should be.
10:32:28 AM
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Always On. Global wars of the 21st Century. Global guerrillas is the top resource. Thanks!
8:44:21 AM
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UPI. Bush orders a massive recruitment wave for CIA. If done correctly, they could radically upgrade the agency with new talent (totally opposite the tales of woe over quantity vs. quality mentioned in the article). There are lots of super qualified people out there but they need to be actively recruited (which won't happen). An expansion of the executive service plus a targeted recruitment drive would work wonders (particularly for the financial and technical talent they need but don't know they need).
8:39:24 AM
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Much of the conflict in the Ukraine seems to be over which trading bloc the country should join. The maternalistic EU with its modern jobs -- or -- the paternalistic Russian bloc with its focus on resource extraction. With the rapid rise of the Chinese bloc, its amazing how quickly the world is dividing up. I think we are going to find that the economic integration will go quickly (trade, currency, passport, etc.) but the political integration will bog down (and may never happen).
6:50:38 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Robb.
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Here's a map of the newest global trading bloc. With Japan and India, the bloc would encompass ~ half of humanity (3 billion people). Imagine. No tariffs, one passport, one currency, etc. Wow. China is quickly locking up long term access to the raw materials to power its economic expansion (particularly in conjunction with their recent deals with Iran and Russia). In contrast, the US appears stalled on NAFTA integration (we are actually going backwards on this) and we are nearly at blows with our raw material partners (Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, etc.).
