Strategy without (much) ideology...

Want good analysis of the global strategic landscape? Try these two links on for size:

John Robb's Weblog. Excerpt:

China Checkmates the US in the Middle East:

China locked in part of its future energy needs with a long-term arrangement with Iran via a $100 billion 25-year deal (for 10 million tons of LNG a year).  It is expected to increase to 15-20 million tons a year.  An additional agreement on oil worth another $50 to $100 billion is expected soon.  

Global Guerrillas. Excerpt:

To the global guerrillas in Iraq, it may appear that they are participating in classic terrorism or guerrilla warfare since this new method of warfare draws on a similar tactical approach. However, the results of their efforts point in another direction. Almost all of the attacks in Iraq can be aggregated into categories of system attack that lay waste to the processes of globalization and state power. In contrast to terrorism, global guerrilla warfare is a greenfield technique -- in that it never suffers diminishing reutrns (I will post more on this later). It also converts the inevitable civilian casualties that often over time detract from terror's effectiveness into a more acceptable "collatoral damage" -- people that are killed while near valid targets (this is another lesson learned from the US military). The net result is an effort that is likely going to be decisive within Boyd's framework. It will win the war in Iraq (unless there is immediate action to counter it). It will also be a method of warfare that will be exported around the world

This shit is important. If the 'Left' (if there is one left) want to be able to engage the neo-cons effectively in the politicalsphere then they need to demonstrate that they grasp the model battlesphere BETTER than the neo-cons (who don't, but are at least TRYING to grasp it). Head-in-the-sand foreign policy isn't going to work. There are other things that the Left need to do, but I won't bother with them in this entry.

[EDIT]

Reading stuff like this makes me re-consider my desired careered both of film director. Why? Because global politics is fucking important. People die because of global politics. People generally don't die because you've made a film. I still like the idea of introducing some degree of global politics (rather than domestic bullshit) into my work. In some ways, my two current scripts Homewar and Shunned do do this... Particularly the latter, as it has passing references to a fictional secession of Irian Jaya from Indonesia... I guess thats why I like science fiction, particularly cyberpunk, because its about big picture. Shape of the world kinda deal.

We'll see. If my directing career fails, I might just do a MA in International Security or something and join a thinktank.