This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR

Nearly three months have passed since the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, first saw mass demonstrations against Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but an exit from the current stalemate is still nowhere in sight. Saleh retains enough support to continue dictating the terms of his eventual political departure to an emboldened yet frustrated opposition. At the same time, the writ of his authority beyond the capital is dwindling, which is increasing the level of chaos and allowing various rebel groups to collect arms, recruit fighters and operate under dangerously few constraints.

The prospect of Saleh’s political struggle providing a boon to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is understandably producing anxiety in Washington, where U.S. officials have spent the past few months trying to envision what a post-Saleh Yemen would mean for U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the Arabian Peninsula.

While fending off opponents at home, Saleh and his followers have been relying on the “me or chaos” tactic abroad to hang onto power. Loyalists argue that the dismantling of the Saleh regime would fundamentally derail years of U.S. investment designed to elicit meaningful Yemeni cooperation against AQAP or, worse, result in a civil war that will provide AQAP with freedom to hone its skills. Emboldened by the recent unrest, a jihadist group called the Abyan-Aden Islamic Army launched a major raid on a weapons depot in Ja’ar in late March, leading a number of media outlets to speculate that the toppling of the Saleh regime would play directly into the hands of Yemen’s jihadists.

Meanwhile, the opposition has countered that the Yemeni jihadist threat is a perception engineered by Saleh to convince the West of the dangers of abandoning support for his regime. Opposition figures argue that Saleh’s policies are what led to the rise of AQAP in the first place and that the fall of his regime would provide the United States with a clean slate to address its counterterrorism concerns with new, non-Saleh-affiliated political allies. The reality is likely somewhere in between.

The Birth of Yemen’s Modern Jihadist Movement

The pervasiveness of radical Islamists in Yemen’s military and security apparatus is no secret, and it contributes to the staying power of al Qaeda and its offspring in the Arabian Peninsula. The root of the issue dates back to the Soviet-Afghan war, when Osama bin Laden, whose family hails from the Hadramout region of the eastern Yemeni hinterland, commanded a small group of Arab volunteers under the leadership of Abdullah Azzam in the Islamist insurgency against the Soviets through the 1980s. Yemenis formed one of the largest contingents within bin Laden’s Arab volunteer force in Afghanistan, which meant that by 1989, a sizable number of battle-hardened Yemenis returned home looking for a new purpose.

They did not have to wait long. Leading the jihadist pack returning from Afghanistan was Tariq al Fadhli of the once-powerful al Fadhli tribe based in the southern Yemeni province of Abyan. Joining al Fadhli was Sheikh Abdul Majid al Zindani, the spiritual father of Yemen’s Salafi movement and one of the leaders of the conservative Islah party (now leading the political opposition against Saleh). The al Fadhli tribe had lost its lands to the Marxists of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which had ruled South Yemen with Soviet backing throughout the 1980s while North Yemen was ruled with Saudi backing. Al Fadhli, an opportunist who tends to downplay his previous interactions with bin Laden, returned to his homeland in 1989 (supposedly with funding from bin Laden) with a mission backed by North Yemen and Saudi Arabia to rid the south of Marxists. He and his group set up camp in the mountains of Saada province on the Saudi border and also established a training facility in Abyan province in South Yemen. Joining al Fadhli’s group were a few thousand Arabs from Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan who had fought in Afghanistan and faced arrest or worse if they tried to return home.

When North and South Yemen unified in 1990 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yemen’s tribal Salafists, still trying to find their footing, were largely pushed aside as the southern Marxists became part of the new Republic of Yemen, albeit as subjugated partners to the north. Many within the Islamist militant movement shifted their focus to foreign targets — with an eye on the United States — and rapidly made their mark in December 1992, when two hotels were bombed in the southern city of Aden, where U.S. soldiers taking part in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia were lodged (though no Americans were killed in the attack). A rocket attack against the U.S. Embassy in January 1993 was also attempted and failed. Though he denied involvement in the hotel attacks, al Fadhli and many of his jihadist compatriots were thrown in jail on charges of orchestrating the hotel bombings as well as the assassination of one of the YSP’s political leaders.

But as tensions intensified between the north and the south in the early 1990s, so did the utility of Yemen’s Islamist militants. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh brokered a deal in 1993 with al Fadhli in which the militant leader was released from jail and freed of all charges in exchange for his assistance in defeating the southern socialists, who were now waging a civil war against the north. Saleh’s plan worked. The southern socialists were defeated and stripped of much of their land and fortunes, while the jihadists who made Saleh’s victory possible enjoyed the spoils of war. Al Fadhli, in particular, ended up becoming a member of Saleh’s political inner circle. In tribal custom, he also had his sister marry Brig. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a member of the president’s Sanhan tribe in the influential Hashid confederation and now commander of Yemen’s northwestern military division and 1st Armored Brigade. (Mohsen, known for his heavily Islamist leanings, has been leading the political standoff against Saleh ever since his high-profile defection from the regime March 24.)

The Old Guard Rises and Falls

Saleh’s co-opting of Yemen’s Islamist militants had profound implications for the country’s terrorism profile. Islamists of varying ideological intensities were rewarded with positions throughout the Yemeni security and intelligence apparatus, with a heavy concentration in the Political Security Organization (PSO), a roughly 150,000-strong state security and intelligence agency. The PSO exists separately from the Ministry of Interior and is supposed to answer directly to the president, but it has long operated autonomously and is believed to have been behind a number of large-scale jailbreaks, political assassinations and militant operations in the country. While the leadership of the PSO under Ghaleb al Ghamesh have maintained their loyalty to Saleh, the loyalty of the organization as a whole to the president is highly questionable.

Many within the military-intelligence-security apparatus who fought in the 1994 civil war to defeat South Yemen and formed a base of support around Saleh’s presidency made up what is now considered the “old guard” in Yemen. Interspersed within the old guard were the mujahideen fighters returning from Afghanistan. Leading the old guard within the military has been none other than Mohsen, who, after years of standing by Saleh’s side, has emerged in the past month as the president’s most formidable challenger. Mohsen, whose uncle was married to Saleh’s mother in her second marriage, was a stalwart ally of Saleh’s throughout the 1990s. He played an instrumental role in protecting Saleh from coup attempts early on in his political reign and led the North Yemen army to victory against the south in the 1994 civil war. Mohsen was duly rewarded with ample military funding and control over Saada, Hudeidah, Hajja, Amran and Mahwit, surpassing the influence of the governors in these provinces.

While the 1990s were the golden years for Mohsen, the 21st century brought with it an array of challenges for the Islamist sympathizers in the old guard. Following the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, Saleh came under enormous pressure from the United States to crack down on al Qaeda operatives and their protectors in Yemen, both within and beyond the bounds of the state. Fearful of the political backlash that would result from U.S. unilateral military action in Yemen and tempted by large amounts of counterterrorism aid being channeled from Washington, Saleh began devising a strategy to gradually marginalize the increasingly problematic old guard.

These were not the only factors driving Saleh’s decision, however. Saleh knew he had to prepare a succession plan, and he preferred to see the next generation of Saleh men at the helm. Anticipating the challenge he would face from powerful figures like Mohsen and his allies, Saleh shrewdly created new and distinct security agencies for selected family members to run under the tutelage of the United States with the those agencies run by formidable members of the old guard. Thus the “new guard” was born.

The Rise of Saleh’s Second-Generation New Guard

Over the course of the past decade, Saleh has made a series of appointments to mark the ascendancy of the new guard. Most important, his son and preferred successor, Ahmed Ali Saleh, became head of the elite Republican Guard (roughly 30,000-plus men) and Special Operations Forces. Ahmad replaced Saleh’s half-brother, Mohammed Saleh al Ahmar, as chief of the Republican Guard, but Saleh made sure to appease Mohammed by making him Yemen’s defense attache in Washington, followed by appointing him to the highly influential post of chief of staff of the supreme commander of the Armed Forces and supervisor to the Republican Guard.

The president also appointed his nephews — the sons of his brother Muhammad Abdullah Saleh (now deceased) — to key positions. Yahya became chief of staff of the Central Security Forces and Counter-Terrorism Unit (roughly 50,000 plus); Tariq was made commander of the Special Guard (which effectively falls under the authority of Ahmed’s Republican Guard); and Ammar became principal duty director of the National Security Bureau (NSB). Moreover, nearly all of Saleh’s sons, cousins and nephews are evenly distributed throughout the Republican Guard.

Each of these agencies received a substantial amount of money as U.S. financial aid to Yemen increased from $5 million in 2006 to $155 million in 2010. This was expected to rise to $1 billion or more over the next several years, but Washington froze the first installment in February when the protests broke out. Ahmed’s Republican Guard and Special Operations Forces worked closely with U.S. military trainers in trying to develop an elite fighting force along the lines of Jordan’s U.S.-trained Fursan al Haq (Knights of Justice). The creation of the mostly U.S.-financed NSB in 2002 to collect domestic intelligence was also part of a broader attempt by Saleh to reform all security agencies to counter the heavy jihadist penetration of the PSO.

Meanwhile, Mohsen watched nervously as his power base flattened under the weight of the second-generation Saleh men. One by one, Mohsen’s close old-guard allies were replaced: In 2007, Saleh sacked Gen. Al Thaneen, commander of the Republican Guard in Taiz. In 2008, Brig. Gen. Mujahid Gushaim replaced Ali Sayani, the head of military intelligence (Ali Sayani’s brother, Abdulmalik, Yemen’s former defense minister, was one of the first generals to declare support for the revolt against Saleh); The same year, Gen. Al Thahiri al Shadadi was replaced by Brig Gen. Mohammed al Magdashi as Commander of the Central Division; Saleh then appointed his personal bodyguard Brig. Gen. Aziz Mulfi as Chief of Staff of the 27th mechanized brigade in Hadramout. Finally, in early 2011, Saleh sacked Brig. Gen. Abdullah Al Gadhi, commander of Al Anad Base that lies on the axis of Aden in the south and commander of the 201st mechanized brigade. As commander of the northwestern division, Mohsen had been kept busy by an al Houthi rebellion that ignited in 2004, and he became a convenient scapegoat for Saleh when the al Houthis rose up again in 2009 and began seizing territory, leading to a rare Saudi military intervention in Yemen’s northern Saada province.

Using the distraction and intensity of the Houthi rebellion to weaken Mohsen and his forces, Saleh attempted to move the headquarters of Mohsen’s First Armored Brigade from Sanaa to Amran just north of the capital and ordered the transfer of heavy equipment from Mohsen’s forces to the Republican Guard. While Saleh’s son and nephews were on the receiving end of millions of dollars of U.S. financial aid to fight AQAP, Mohsen and his allies were left on the sidelines as the old-guard institutions were branded as untrustworthy and thus unworthy of U.S. financing. Mohsin also claims Saleh tried to have him killed at least six times. One such episode, revealed in a Wikileaks cable dated February 2010, describes how the Saleh government allegedly provided Saudi military commanders with the coordinates of Mohsen’s headquarters when Saudi forces were launching air strikes on the Houthis. The Saudis aborted the strike when they sensed something was wrong with the information they were receiving from the Yemeni government.

Toward the end of 2010, with the old guard sufficiently weakened, Saleh was feeling relatively confident that he would be able to see through his plans to abolish presidential term limits and pave the way for his son to take power. What Saleh didn’t anticipate was the viral effect of the North African uprisings and the opportunity they would present to Mohsen and his allies to take revenge and, more important, make a comeback.

 

(click here to enlarge image)

An Old Guard Revival?

Mohsen, 66, is a patient and calculating man. When thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of Sanaa in late March to protest against the regime, his 1st Armored Brigade, based just a short distance from the University of Sanaa entrance where the protesters were concentrated, deliberately stood back while the CSF and Republican Guard took the heat for increasingly violent crackdowns. In many ways, Mohsen attempted to emulate Egyptian Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi in having his forces stand between the CSF and the protesters, acting as a protector of the pro-democracy demonstrators in hopes of making his way to the presidential palace with the people’s backing. Mohsen continues to carry a high level of respect among the Islamist-leaning old guard and, just as critically, maintains a strong relationship with the Saudi royals.

Following his March 24 defection, a number of high-profile military, political and tribal defections followed. Standing in league with Mohsen is the politically ambitious Sheikh Hamid al-Ahmar, one of the 10 sons of the late Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar, who ruled the Hashid confederation as the most powerful tribal chieftain in the country and was also a prominent leader of the Islah political party. (Saleh’s Sanhaan tribe is part of the Hashid confederation as well.) Hamid is a wealthy businessman and vocal leader of the Islah party, which dominates the Joint Meetings Party (JMP), an opposition coalition. The sheikh who, like Mohsen, has a close relationship with the Saudi royals, has ambitions to replace Saleh and has been responsible for a wave of defections from within the ruling General People’s Congress, nearly all of which can be traced back to his family tree. In an illustration of Hamid’s strategic alliance with Mohsen, Hamid holds the position of lieutenant colonel in the 1st Armored Brigade. This is a purely honorary position but provides Hamid with a military permit to expand his contingent of body guards, the numbers of which of recently swelled to at least 100.

Together, Mohsen and Sheikh Hamid have a great deal of influence in Yemen to challenge Saleh, but still not enough to drive him out of office by force. Mohsen’s forces have been gradually trying to encroach on Sanaa from their base in the northern outskirts of the capital, but forces loyal to Saleh in Sanaa continue to outman and outgun the rebel forces.

Hence the current stalemate. Yemen does not have the luxury of a clean, geographic split between pro-regime and anti-regime forces, as is the case in Libya. In its infinite complexity, the country is divided along tribal, family, military and business lines, so its political future is difficult to chart. A single family, army unit, village or tribe will have members pledging loyalty to either Saleh or the revolution, providing the president with just enough staying power to deflect opposition demands and drag out the political crisis.

Washington’s Yemen Problem

The question of whether Saleh stays or goes is not the main topic of current debate. Nearly every party to the conflict, including the various opposition groups, Saudi Arabia, the United States and even Saleh himself, understand that the Yemeni president’s 33-year political reign will end soon. The real sticking point has to do with those family members surrounding Saleh and whether they, too, will be brought down with the president in a true regime change.

This is where the United States finds itself in a particularly uncomfortable spot. Yemen’s opposition, a hodgepodge movement including everything from northern Islamists to southern socialists, are mostly only united by a collective aim to dismantle the Saleh regime, including the second-generation Saleh new guard that has come to dominate the country’s security-military-intelligence apparatus with heavy U.S.-backing.

The system is far from perfect, and counterterrorism efforts in Yemen continue to frustrate U.S. authorities. However, Saleh’s security reforms over the past several years and the tutelage the U.S. military has been able to provide to these select agencies have been viewed as a significant sign of progress by the United States, and that progress could now be coming under threat.

Mohsen and his allies are looking to reclaim their lost influence and absorb the new-guard entities in an entirely new security set-up. For example, the opposition is demanding that the Republican Guard and Special Forces be absorbed into the army, which would operate under a general loyal to Mohsen (Mohsen himself claims he would step down as part of a deal in which Saleh also resigns, but he would be expected to assume a kingmaker status), that the CSF and CTU paramilitary agencies be stripped of their autonomy and operationally come under the Ministry of Interior and that the newly created NSB come under the PSO. Such changes would be tantamount to unraveling the past decade of U.S. counterterrorism investment in Yemen that was designed explicitly to raise a new generation of security officials who could hold their own against the Islamist-leaning old guard. This is not to say that Mohsen and his allies would completely obstruct U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Many within the old guard, eager for U.S. financial aid and opposed to U.S. unilateral military action in Yemen, are likely to veer toward pragmatism in dealing with Washington. That said, Mohsen’s reputation for protecting jihadists operating in Yemen and his poor standing with Washington would add much distrust to an already complicated U.S.-Yemeni relationship.

Given its counterterrorism concerns and the large amount of U.S. financial aid flowing into Yemen in recent years, Washington undoubtedly has a stake in Yemen’s political transition, but it is unclear how much influence it will be able to exert in trying to shape a post-Saleh government. The United States lacks the tribal relationships, historical presence and trust to deal effectively with a resurgent old guard seeking vengeance amid growing chaos.

The real heavyweight in Yemen is Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royals have long viewed their southern neighbor as a constant source of instability in the kingdom. Whether the threat to the monarchy emanating from Yemen drew its roots from Nasserism, Marxism or radical Islamism, Riyadh deliberated worked to keep the Yemeni state weak while buying loyalties across the Yemeni tribal landscape. Saudi Arabia shares the U.S. concern over Yemeni instability providing a boon to AQAP. The Saudi royals, which are reviled by a large segment of Saudi-born jihadists in AQAP operating from Yemen, is a logical target for AQAP attacks that carry sufficient strategic weight to shake the oil markets and the royal regime, especially given the current climate of unrest in the region. Moreover, Saudi Arabia does not want to deal with a dramatic increase in the already regular spillover of refugees, smugglers and illegal workers from Yemen should civil war ensue.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia and the United States may not entirely see eye to eye in how to manage the jihadist threat in Yemen. The Saudis have maintained close linkages with a number of influential Islamist members within the old guard, including Mohsen and jihadists like al Fadhli, who broke off his alliance with Saleh in 2009 to lead the Southern Movement against the regime. The Saudis are also more prone to rely on their jihadist allies from time to time in trying to snuff out more immediate threats to Saudi interests.

For example, Saudi Arabia’s current concern regarding Yemen centers not on the future of Yemen’s counterterrorism capabilities but on the al Houthi rebels in the north, who have wasted little time in exploiting Sanaa’s distractions to expand their territorial claims in Saada province. The Houthis belong to the Zaydi sect, considered an offshoot of Shiite Islam and heretical by Wahhabi standards. Riyadh fears Houthi unrest in Yemen’s north could stir unrest in Saudi Arabia’s southern provinces of Najran and Jizan, which are home to the Ismailis, also an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Ismaili unrest in the south could then embolden Shia in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, who have already been engaged in demonstrations, albeit small ones, against the Saudi monarchy with heavy Iranian encouragement. Deputy AQAP leader Saad Ali al Shihri’s declaration of war against the al Houthi rebels on Jan. 28 may have surprised many, but it also seemed to play to the Saudi agenda in channeling jihadist efforts toward the al Houthi threat.

The United States has a Yemen problem that it cannot avoid, but it also has very few tools with which to manage or solve it. For now, the stalemate provides Washington with the time to sort out alternatives to the second-generation Saleh relatives, but that time also comes at a cost. The longer this political crisis drags on, the more Saleh will narrow his focus to holding onto Sanaa, while leaving the rest of the country for the Houthis, the southern socialists and the jihadists to fight over. The United States can take some comfort in the fact that AQAP’s poor track record of innovative yet failed attacks has kept the group in the terrorist minor leagues. With enough time, resources and sympathizers in the government and security apparatus, however, AQAP could find itself in a more comfortable spot in a post-Saleh scenario, likely to the detriment of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the Arabian Peninsula.

This report is republished with the permission of STRATFOR.

This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

This recipe is quite simple and yields a breadstick-like appetizer.  I’m calling it a North Beach Cable Car because of the track treads found on the snack.  I incorporated a panini press to provide a conduit for a strip of sauce in the middle, which is not only functional– it allows for a unique presentation, too.

To a multigrain pancake batter from Trader Joe’s (about 1/6c remaining) I added a few shakes of Mexican-style chili powder, 30ish flakes of Thyme, and a splash of ground cumin.  You can include sea salt and ground peppercorns in the batter or put it on top for presentation.  Mix this up and scrape it out in strips onto the hot griddle surface.  Let it sit until the batter starts to form several tiny bubbles along the surface and then close the Panini press.  While you do this, put a couple tablespoons of  balsamic vinaigrette (I used Trader Joe’s brand of BV) into a small sauce container and microwave for 12 seconds to heat it up.  After the BV is microwaved, wait another 20 seconds and open up the panini maker.  Apply a thin strip of the BV to the crevace in your cable car and let it sit on the Panini maker while you heat up some leftover pasta sauce.  We had Classico Tomato & Basil…  Apply 3-4 dabs of pasta sauce onto the strips and add dried oregano leaves for presentation if you desire.

These cable cars are quite tasty and will give you an easy option to please guests who prefer a savory finish after a sweet breakfast.

I hope you are equally spellbound by the words within.

A Geopolitical Journey, Part 1: The Traveler
By George Friedman

I try to keep my writing impersonal. My ideas are my own, of course, but I prefer to keep myself out of it for three reasons. First, I’m far less interesting than my writings are. Second, the world is also far more interesting than my writings and me, and pretending otherwise is narcissism. Finally, while I founded STRATFOR, I am today only part of it. My thoughts derive from my discussions and arguments with the STRATFOR team. Putting my name on articles seems like a mild form of plagiarism. When I do put my name on my articles (as Scott Stewart, Fred Burton and others sometimes do) it’s because our marketing people tell us that we need to “put a face” on the company. I’m hard pressed to understand why anyone would want to see my face, or why showing it is good business, but I’ve learned never to argue with marketing.

I’ve said all of this to prepare you for a series of articles that will be personal in a sense, as they will be built around what I will be doing. My wife (who plans and organizes these trips with precision) and I are going to visit several countries over the next few weeks. My reasons for visiting them are geopolitical. These countries all find themselves sharing a geopolitical dilemma. Each country is fascinating in its own right, but geopolitics is what draws me to them now. I think it might be of some value to our readers if I shared my thoughts on these countries as I visit them. Geopolitics should be impersonal, yet the way we encounter the world is always personal. Andre Malraux once said that we all leave our countries in very national ways. A Korean visiting Paris sees it differently than an American. The personal is the eccentric core of geopolitics.

There are those who travel to sample wine and others who travel to experience art and others to enjoy the climate. I travel to sample the political fault lines in the world, and I have done this all my life. This is an odd preference, but there might be some others who share it. Traveling geopolitically is not complex, but it does take some thought. I thought you might find my description of geopolitical travel interesting. It’s how I think this series should start.

The geopolitical is about the intersection of geography and politics. It assumes that the political life of humans is shaped by the place in which they live and that the political patterns are frequently recurring because of the persistence of nations and the permanence of geography. I begin my travels by always re-reading histories and novels from the region. I avoid anything produced by a think tank, preferring old poems and legends. When I travel to a place, when I look at the geography and speak to the people, I find that there is a constant recurrence of history. In many places, a few centuries ago is like yesterday. Reading literature can be the best preparation for a discussion of a county’s budget deficit. Every place and every conversation is embedded in the centuries and the rivers and mountains that shaped the people who shape the centuries.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and withdrew to the borders of old Muscovy, there were those who said that this was the end of the Russian empire. Nations and empires are living things until they die. While they live they grow to the limits set by other nations. They don’t grow like this because they are evil. They do this because they are composed of humans who always want to be more secure, more prosperous and more respected. It is inconceivable to me that Russia, alive and unrestrained, would not seek to return to what it once was. The frontiers of Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union had reasons for being where they were, and in my mind, Russia would inevitably seek to return to its borders. This has nothing to do with leaders or policies. There is no New World Order, only the old one replaying itself in infinitely varying detail, like a kaleidoscope.

Our trip now is to countries within and near the Black Sea basin, so the geopolitical “theme” of the trip (yes, my trips have geopolitical themes, which my children find odd for some reason) is the Russian re-emergence as viewed by its western and southwestern neighbors: Turkey, Romania, Moldova, Poland and Ukraine. I was born in Hungary and have been there many times, so I don’t need to go there this time, and I know Slovakia well. My goal is to understand how these other countries see and wish the present to be. It’s not that I believe that their visions and hopes will shape the future — the world is not that accommodating — but because I want to see the degree to which my sense of what will happen and their sense of what will happen diverge.

This is the political theme of the trip, but when I look at these countries geographically, there are several other organizing themes as well. Turkey, Romania, Ukraine and in a way Moldova are all partly organized around the Black Sea and interact with each other based on that. It’s a sea of endless history. I am also visiting some of the countries in the Carpathian Mountains, a barrier that has divided the Russian empire from Europe for centuries, and which the Russians breached in World War II, partly defining the Cold War. Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and even southern Poland cannot be understood without understanding the role the Carpathians play in uniting them and dividing them. Finally, I am visiting part of the North European Plain, which stretches from France into Russia. It is the path Napoleon and Hitler took into Russia, and the path Russia took on its way to Berlin. Sitting on that plain is Poland, a country whose existence depends on the balance of power between other countries on the plain, a plain that provides few natural defenses to Poland and that has made Poland a victim many times over. I want to understand whether this time will be different and to find out whether the Poles realize that in order for things to be different the Poles themselves must be different, since the plain is not going to stop being flat.

Part of traveling geopolitically is the simple experience of a place. The luxury of a hotel room facing the Bosporus, and me with a drink in hand and the time to watch the endless line of ships passing through the narrow straits, teaches me more about Alexander’s conquests, Britain’s invasion of Gallipoli or Truman’s obsession with Turkey than all the books I’ve read and maps I’ve pored over. Walking a mountain path in the Carpathians in November, where bandits move about today as they did centuries ago, teaches me why this region will never be completely tamed or easily captured. A drive through the Polish countryside near Warsaw will remind me why Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin took the path they did, and why Poland thinks the way it does.

The idea of seeing geographical reality is not confined to this trip. I recall visiting Lake Itasca in Minnesota, where the Mississippi River begins, following it to St. Louis, where the Missouri flows into it, and then going down to New Orleans, where the goods are transferred between river barges and ocean-going vessels. Nothing taught me more about American power and history than taking that trip and watching the vast traffic in grain and steel move up and down the river. It taught me why Andrew Jackson fought at New Orleans and why he wanted Texas to rebel against Mexico. It explained to me why Mark Twain, in many ways, understood America more deeply than anyone.

In visiting countries of the Black Sea basin, I am fortunate that a number of political leaders and members of the media are willing to meet with me. Although not something new, this access still startles me. When I was younger, far less savory people wanted to make my acquaintance. A cup of coffee and serious conversation in a warm office with influential people is still for me a rite of passage.

These visits have their own dangers, different from older dangers in younger days. Political leaders think in terms of policies and options. Geopolitics teaches us to think in terms of constraints and limits. According to geopolitics, political leaders are trapped by impersonal forces and have few options in the long run. Yet, in meeting with men and women who have achieved power in their country, the temptation is to be caught up in their belief in what they are going to do. There is a danger of being caught up in their passion and confidence. There is also the danger of being so dogmatic about geopolitics that ignoring their vision blinds me to possibilities that I haven’t thought of or that can’t simply be explained geopolitically. Obviously, I want to hear what they have to say, and this trip presents a rare and precious opportunity. But these meetings always test my ability to maintain my balance.

I should add that I make it a practice to report neither whom I meet with nor what they say. I learn much more this way and can convey a better sense of what is going on. The direct quote can be the most misleading thing in the world. People ask me about STRATFOR’s sources. I find that we can be more effective in the long run by not revealing those sources. Announcing conversations with the great is another path to narcissism. Revealing conversations with the less than great can endanger them. Most important, a conversation that is private is more human and satisfying than a conversation that will be revealed to many people. Far better to absorb what I learn and let it inform my own writing than to replicate what reporters will do far better than I can. I am not looking for the pithy quote, but for the complex insight that never quite reduces itself to a sentence or two.

There is another part of geopolitical travel that is perhaps the most valuable: walking the streets of a city. Geopolitics affect every level of society, shaping life and culture. Walking the streets, if you know what to look for, can tell you a great deal. Don’t go to where the monuments and museums are, and don’t go to where the wealthy live. They are the least interesting and the most globally homogenized. They are personally cushioned against the world. The poor and middle class are not. If a Montblanc store is next to a Gucci shop, you are in the wrong place.

Go to the places where the people you will never hear of live. Find a school and see the children leave at the end of the day. You want the schools where there is pushing and shoving and where older brothers come to walk their sisters home. You are now where you should be. Look at their shoes. Are they old or new? Are they local or from the global market? Are they careful with them as if they were precious or casual with them as they kick a ball around? Watch children play after school and you can feel the mood and tempo of a neighborhood.

Find a food store. Look at the food being offered, particularly fruits and vegetables. Are they fresh-looking? What is the selection? Look at the price and calculate it against what you know about earnings. Then watch a woman (yes, it is usually a woman) shopping for groceries. Does she avoid the higher priced items and buy the cheapest? Does she stop to look at the price, returning a can or box after looking, or does she simply place it in her basket or cart without looking at the price? When she pays for the food, is she carefully reaching into an envelope in her pocketbook where she stores her money, or does she casually pull out some bills? Watch five women shopping for food in the late afternoon and you will know how things are there.

Go past the apartments people live in. Smell them. The unhealthy odor of decay or sewage tells you about what they must endure in their lives. Are there banks in the neighborhood? If not, there isn’t enough business there to build one. The people are living paycheck to paycheck. In the cafes where men meet, are they older men, retired? Or are they young men? Are the cafes crowded with men in their forties drinking tea or coffee, going nowhere? Are they laughing and talking or sitting quietly as if they have nothing left to say? Official figures on unemployment can be off a number of ways. But when large numbers of 40-year-old men have nothing to do, then the black economy — the one that pays no taxes and isn’t counted by the government but is always there and important — isn’t pulling the train. Are the police working in pairs or alone? What kind of weapons do they carry? Are they everywhere, nowhere or have just the right presence? There are endless things you can learn if you watch.

All of this should be done unobtrusively. Take along clothes that are a bit shabby. Buy a pair of shoes there, scuff them up and wear them. Don’t speak. The people can smell foreigners and will change their behavior when they sense them. Blend in and absorb. At the end of a few days you will understand the effects of the world on these people.

On this I have a surreal story to tell. My wife and I were in Istanbul a few months ago. I was the guest of the mayor of Istanbul, and his office had arranged a lecture I was to give. After many meetings, we found ourselves with free time and went out to walk the city. We love these times. The privacy of a crowded street is a delight. As we walked along we suddenly stopped. There, on a large billboard, was my face staring down at us. We also discovered posters advertising my lecture. We slunk back to our hotel. Fortunately, I am still sufficiently obscure that no one will remember me, so this time we will try our walk again.

There are three things the geopolitical traveler must do. He must go to places and force himself to see the geography that shapes everything. He must meet with what leaders he can find who will talk to him in all parts of society, listening and talking but reserving a part of his mind for the impersonal reality of the world. Finally, he must walk the streets. He won’t have time to meet the schoolteachers, bank tellers, government employees and auto repairmen who are the substance of a society. Nor will they be comfortable talking to a foreigner. But geopolitics teaches that you should ignore what people say and watch what they do.

Geopolitics is everywhere. Look at the patterns of an American election and you will see it at work. I would like, at some point, to have the leisure to study the geopolitics of the United States in detail. But geopolitics is most useful in understanding conflict, and therefore the geopolitical traveler will be drawn to places where tensions are high. That’s a pity, but life places the important above the interesting.

In future pieces, I will be writing about the region I am visiting in a way more familiar to our readers. The next one will be about the region as a whole. The series will replace my weekly geopolitical analyses for several weeks, but I hope you will find it of value. By all means, let us know what you think. We do read all of your emails, even if there isn’t time to answer them. So what you say can help shape this series as well as our work in general.

This piece was authorized for republication by www.STRATFOR.com

Panera’s new “MyPanera” customer appreciation program appears to be an offshoot of capacity management, too.  Panera usually donates all their extra unsold baked goods to charitable organizations at the end of the day, thus their customer loyalty program also cuts down on potential waste while increasing customer satisfaction.  And this allows them to award baked goods earlier in the day when they are more fresh.  I was initially confused by the seemingly random awards offered to their customer base, which is not necessarily driven by purchasing decisions but, it seems, by repeat visits to a store.  This allows a statistical spread so they can randomly assign the “outliers” of baked goods and other minor items to an additionally randomized spread among consumers who visit their store.  Instead of giving away free samples to anyone, they are ensuring that their repeat customers benefit from increased attention.  If this is what they are doing it’s very smart, and if it’s not then I just gave them a cutting edge way to manage their inventory fluctuations.  =)

After speaking with several senior Marines who have assisted in my job search, it appears that much of the entrepreneurial work is also headed toward managing excess capacity for government contracts.  One program in particular adopted mathematical formulas from the oil industry and migrated them into a software modeling program that was applied to aviation platforms.  When the operational tempo was taken into consideration in a simulated environment, it was determined that several major corporations were unnecessarily selling the government additional replacement parts for their contracted components based on a linear maintenance curve.

Capacity management is nothing new, but the ways in which businesses are calculating their formulas are causing significant downstream effects for streamlining business operations, and also for shifting the revenues of suppliers involved in manufacturing replacement parts.  Often times the “giant” suppliers are offended by new advances in capacity management, because it means their revenue is coming under the chopping block.

In addition to capacity management, increasing the longevity of maintenance parts is also a frustration for major suppliers.  If you increase the life of brake rotors by 200% or 300% after cryogenic processing, that means a brake manufacturer is potentially seeing a 200-300% decrease in their profits if all of their customers find out about the matter.

For providers of specialized maintenance-related items, a reduction in demand might also mean the value in doing a factory production run for replacement parts is lost.  Often times in small part production runs, the cost per unit becomes prohibitively high with this shift in demand.

Just something to think about, but it’s a trend I’m seeing.  I’m looking forward to seeing how America’s entrepreneurial community can capitalize on this trend in the near future, too.

Send me a red one! At least I know where *not* to die now.

I got in a New York City taxicab this evening and had to laugh when I saw that my ride was brought to me by “Windows – Out of Virtual Memory”

It amazes me that they’d use Windows to power an interactive display inside a taxi.  But it does not surprise me that Windows refuses to run the program properly.  How does something like this run out of memory??  It’s not like we’re doing video editing inside the cabs here…

If you’re building a mobile application, take notice of the unreliability here and stick with Linux.  Mac OS X was built on a Unix core for good reason.  What amazes me is how many people in our government are still attached to Windows OS contractors, even after proven reliability in the *nix world in datacenter environments.  Oh wait, am I stepping outside my box by criticizing a brand?  Give me until 2011 so I can elaborate freely…

If you’re ever near the White House, make it a point to stop by the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery.  President Kennedy saved the building from destruction in 1962 and, after a long history of government use dating back to the civil war, it reopened in 1965 as a museum, as the house was originally intended for in 1858.

Since May 2009, the Art of Gaman exhibit (Gaman means “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity”) has been displayed, which features artwork from Japanese Americans living in internment camps from 1942 to 1946.  These unintentional artists, composed of farmers, gardeners, shopkeepers, and homemakers, used peach pits, dried seeds, onion sack string, pipe cleaners, and old toothbrush handles to craft their designs.  They acted through art to pass the time and ensure their emotional survival.  One of the photos that stood out for me was of wood carvings of Hitler, Mussolini, Churchhill, and Stalin.  I often wonder if their faces were burned into the memories of these trapped people from such a dark time in our nation’s history.

Another section worth visiting is the Bresler Collection, which opened September 24th and features beautiful wood designs from artists like Hugh E. McKay.  His wood work is featured in one of my photos, seen with a stone inlay.

The upstairs ballroom is also worth visiting and I can imagine hosting a non-profit event here with an incredibly relaxing vibe.  If you have any interest in wood work or crafts of any kind, I highly recommend a visit to this gallery.