Women's Where

Just in time for the opening of Washington’s political season, Cabela’s sale catalog came. Now don’t get me wrong. I do not plan to track, stalk, shoot, kill, gut, skin, stuff, and display any the multitude of Asia policy talking heads who will promote themselves over the next few months. Even if it is open season…

Not only are there the mid-term elections, but the presidential campaign for 2012 is also beginning. The policy wonks need to get on the radar fast and the more sound bites and platitudes they offer the better. Expect a rush of turgid op-eds, fatuous interviews, and redundant programs this fall that will all showcase the, er, talents of Washington’s Asia policy professionals. There will be a raft of vanity reports written primarily by interns (these used be girls but now they tend to be male South Asians) masquerading as policy proscriptions.

Sadly, the press follows along. For example, Washington’s Japan press corps pursued Michael Green “a Japan expert and former senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House,” after his August 31st presentation at the Heritage Foundation for a quote. Green told an eager press gaggle (in both English and Japanese) that Ichiro Ozawa, former secretary general of the Democratic Party of Japan, who is now running in the DPJ presidential election is “anti-American” and that Ozawa’s “remarks made since last year have caused severe damage to the Japan-US relationship."

Although the White House does not suggest Green as a source on Obama Asia policy, he was quoted as saying: "The U.S. administration reached out to him (Ozawa, believing he was an influential political figure), but that only made matters worse. [The US Administration] does not think he will win, but it is nervous about what impact the result of the election will have on [US-Japan relations]."

Enough about the men who will benefit from all this and let’s get back to Cabela. What caught my eye was the leafy-wear camouflage jacket and pants suit on sale for half price--$39.99! That is definitely a must-have and good price point (as few are hired full time) for many of the women in Washington who work on Asia issues.

It is the perfect moderator’s suit. You can actually look like the potted plant, the ornament, the after-thought that you have been selected to be. Introduce the men, be gracious, and help assure the program organizers that women were included. Then you can blend back into the fake foliage on stage.

One problem I observe the upcoming meeting on Asia this fall is no women have invited to participate, even as moderators. For example, NBR’s release of its annual Strategic Asia report not only does again not have any women authors but no women speakers. Senator Daniel Inouye’s US-Japan Council conference, Shaping the Future of U.S.-Japan Relations, to encourage interest in the Japan-American community in helping the Japanese government lobby in the U.S. only has women speaking on a panel ghetto about Women in the Workplace & Leadership.

There are many more examples, but why bother to list them. You will get the emails. My advice is if they don’t serve lunch for free, don’t go.

Anyway, Cabela’s leafy-wear suit with “outline shattering Silent Leaf construction” deal does not come with head camouflage. Here is an area where the female moderator can personalize, accessorize. I think a nice floral headpiece would be a nice touch.

I almost took advantage of the sale, however, it occurred to me that after 20 years of working Japan policy issues complete with having authored and advised on all sorts of legislation, I have never once been invited to participate in a program or even moderate. I don’t need a gillie suit; I am invisible all by myself.

Happy Bloggers

Happy people do not blog. That is unless they are paid to do so.

This month, the MacArthur Foundation started a blog to support their Asia Security Initiative (ASI). They are paying selected bloggers $10,000/year to blog about the research supported by the Initiative. (I am not making this up.)

This blog, according to their website is to host "a discussion of current events and security challenges in the Asia-Pacific, drawing from the policy research of the Asia Security Initiative network. Anchored by six expert bloggers, the blog also includes contributions from leading Asia Security Initiative-supported experts."

As of yet, there is no Northeast Asia expert for the blog, but the Foundation is in the process of selecting him. Reporting on this region, for now, is by one of the MacArthur Foundation's ASI program administrators.

It is probably a good thing that this position is still unsettled. The primary job of the blogger is to promote the research of the specific think tanks ASI supports. This can run into a few difficulties. 

For one, most of the research and writing in Washington think tanks are mediocre reiterations of common knowledge by undergraduates hoping to please their status-seeking bosses. Another problem is that the think tanks selected feature people who have promoted a failed policy with Japan and the Northeast Asian region. They are all members of "Team Armitage." Last, the entire question asked by MacArthur, which is focused on constructing a "security architecture" in Asia may be wrong. It is a tired question that merely continues an old discussion rather than starts a new one.

Frankly, many of the reports to be blogged upon deserve the inattention they ordinarily would have gotten. 

Thus, blogging on the ASI is fraught with all sorts of dangers. The poor blogger is forced into the traditional Washington game of "log-rolling"--you mention me, I will mention you. Objectivity may become skewed as the blogger understands the price of a "bad" review. You either enrage the powerful (albeit unworthy) or embarrass the Foundation for having selected such posers. Having MacArthur's grant administrator blog on his grantees might actually be the safest tack.

The think tanks selected for the Northeast Asia policy blogger to follow are well-known. They house the top tier of policy insiders. Unfortunately, their opinions are culled more from access than knowledge, and their prose is more glib than analytical. They are heavily funded by foreign sources, dependent upon the information given them, and inbreed. Oh yes, they are all heavily alpha male driven.

These think tanks are safe and not known for innovative policy analysis or scholarship. NBR gives the impression that it works with scholars. In truth, it selects prominent scholars and policy officials to head its studies, but the research and writing is done by young RAs. CSIS and the CSIS Pacific Forum have no world-class scholars involved in their programs and rely on former government officials-in-waiting to select the right interns and RAs to do their work. 

The Peterson Institute, although having a better quality of scholarship than most in DC, is poor on Japan and North Korea. Their North Korea fellow is well-known simply because there is no one else; presentable that is. Also they are savvy enough to get substantive outside experts to assist or actually do the work. Peterson simply rebrands the outsiders' research--co-authors matter here. Peterson's Fellows have more the benefit of being in Washington and available than of really knowing anything--then again anything one says on North Korea can be right. The Peterson Fellows, however, are yet to be right on Japan or North Korea.

In Japan, the Japan Center for International Exchange is one of oldest governmental institutions to manage gaijin. It is the granddaddy of Japan's mutual understanding machine. I am intrigued that it is taking foreign funds. JCIE has played an important role in cultivating the Japan hands at CSIS and the Council on Foreign Relations as well as being a back channel to Japan's Foreign Ministry.

For the members of Team Armitage, especially at CSIS and CSIS Pacific Forum, the MacArthur grant may have come at an opportune time. Their traditional sources of funds have been Japan, Korea, and Taiwan as CSIS has been viewed as a backdoor to the White House and American Asia policy. Once this relationship is perceived to be broken, it is likely their funding and "specialness" in Japan will fade as well.

So important CSIS was viewed by Japan, that Japan's conservative nationalists positioned disgraced, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to begin his reentry into politics by speaking at their conference on maritime security in Asia.* Although Team Armitage members such as Kurt Campbell and John Steinberg hold key positions in the State Department, most of the Team members and believers have been shut out.

The nomination of John Roos, an unknown to these men, as ambassador to Japan was a wake up call to CSIS's supporters in Japan. The Japanese were convinced that it would be their friend and Team Armitage member Joseph Nye. As an article in the July issue of the conservative Bungei Shunju notes:

...media reports were based on the impression of "Japan experts" like Armitage and former National Security Council director for Asia Michael Green [now CSIS]. These Japan experts monopolize contacts with Japanese companies and politicians and form a small circle of close acquaintances in a kind of "mutual admiration society." Even after the turnover from a Republican to a Democratic government, theirs is a mechanism to protect mutual interest by dispatching officials on Japanese affairs from their exclusive circle. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell is also a member of this inner circle. 

Since they do not have any connections with Roos, both the so-called "experts on the U.S." and the "experts on Japan" are dissatisfied, calling his appointment a "downgrade." Yet, these very people are the culprits for the lack of stability in the Japan-U.S. relationship. Perhaps it is time to say goodbye to this inner circle. [emphasis added]

*The only thing funnier than that, was one of the conference's the keynote addresses by Vice Admiral William Douglas Crowder, which liberally quoted from a "futuristic" book about the coming war with a Japan allied with Turkey against the US allied with Poland.

Undermining Market Confidence

This evening, Kurt Campbell and his Center for a New American Security held a big briefing and small reception in the Willard Hotel to introduce his "bi-partisan" report on why Obama should rely on the same men who advised George Bush on Asia. The US and the Asia-Pacific Region: Security Strategy for the Obama Administration is the collective wisdom of five Washington think tanks, of which three are DoD affiliates and taxpayer funded.

But this is not the blog post to discuss the report, which was out-dated on delivery because of the global economic crisis. Anyway, far more witty and knowledgeable bloggers will do that.

Instead I want to relate to you a story of regional cooperation told at the briefing by Dr. Patrick Cronin, director of the Institute for National Security Studies at the National Defense University.

Dr. Cronin talking about, I think, how economics was bringing Asians together, used a quintessential Washington-point-making strategy (if you are keeping score), he noted a conversation he had with MR. TARO ASO THE PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN AT DAVOS. Gosh, an unlikely foreign leader talking to an obscure think tanker at an important conference. I almost did not listen to the story I was so overwhelmed.

"Cronin-san," TARO ASO said.

"You would not believe what just happened. I was with Chinese President Hu Jin-tao. He saw me and grabbed two chairs and asked me to come sit and talk with him. He told me about how important it was to cooperate on economic issues and asked me to discuss with him the economy. And he sat there and took notes while I talked.

Never would I have believed that the President of China would sit and listen to a Japanese prime minister."

Now, I am not sure if I got every word correct of Dr. Cronin's anecdote, but the general idea was that Prime Minister Aso, the fresh prince of Tokyo, was explaining economics to the head of the largest country on earth.

Now you know why I could not get near the bar at the reception.