On Sundays I usually take a quick tour of the New York Times OpEd section to see if they have any interesting long-term insights. Today I was intrigued by two celebrated columnists who happen to be on the same page (12): Frank Rich on “Obama at the Precipice” about the threat of Afghanistan to Obama’s presidency, and Thomas Friedman on “The New Sputnik” about China going green.

Did China just launch its 21st century version of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite that was in 1957 “the shock of the century”? Click

I’m always encouraged when I see major journalists attempting to play the “long wave” analysis game, even if they don’t call it that. And we definitely have two of them here. But the end result is often questionable. For example, I can’t see a significant parallel with a green China and Sputnik, although Friedman does. And, although many folks are fascinated with proposed parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam, Rich’s explanation isn’t very convincing to me. So I give them an “A” for their creative approach, but have to give them a “C-” for their analysis. Here’s why.

21stCenturyWaves.com explains the clearly observed, twice-per-century major clusters of great explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro-engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and major wars (e.g., World War I) as fundamentally driven by long waves in the economy — essentially a 56-year long business cycle — that is documented back almost 200 years.

This is a powerful idea that offers us scientific predictability for the next 20+ years of major exploration, engineering, and military events, based on patterns in macroeconomic data and historical trends over the last 200+ years. The basic idea is that many major events in society are being enabled and/or encouraged by our position in the 55-60 year long wave.

Rich seems excited about this idea. For example, “Analogies between Vietnam and Afghanistan are the rage these days.” Referring to the “hawkish young President Kennedy wrestling with Vietnam during his first months in office. … The remarkable parallels to 2009 became clear last week…” And as Gordon Goldstein — author of Lessons in Disaster, the new “must-read book” for Obama — recently said to Rich, “it’s ‘eerie’ how closely even these political maneuvers track those of half a century ago, when JFK was weighing whether to send combat troops to Vietnam.”

And yet Rich uses the long wave idea in a casual way. One problem is that 2009 minus 56 (the approximate length of the long wave) is 1953 — several years before John F. Kennedy became president. This date suggests there might be interesting parallels between 2009 and the Korean War, a conflict that involved the United Nations and others in a proxy war that was part of the larger Cold War; it ended in 1953.

Even a year or two makes a difference in the long wave’s influence on society. For example, in July, 2007, the world was still experiencing the “greatest boom ever,” which was only months before the Panic of 2008. This reminds us that JFK became president as the 1960 economic boom was taking off — certainly a far cry from the experience of Obama who was greeted by the Panic of 2008 and a great recession. Not to mention that no Vietnamese soldier ever directly attacked New York City. While there might eventually be political dangers for Obama in Afghanistan, parallels between the context and events of Vietnam and Afghanistan are exaggerated.

Friedman, in “The New Sputnik,” is a little better with his arithmetic, but less convincing with his analysis. Sputnik’s surprise launch was in 1957 (remember that 2009 – 56 = 1953) which is only 4 years off; about 1/2 the error of Rich. However, Friedman equates Sputnik with China’s recent energy direction, “I believe the Chinese decision to go green is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik — the world’s first Earth-orbiting satellite.” Friedman refers to China’s decision to invest in solar energy, wind power, and batteries so they can exploit future global markets in these areas.

I think the challenge that China presents to the West in these technologies will increase global competition and thus have a net positive effect. However, I see little relation of this to Sputnik, as Friedman essentially admits, “Unfortunately we’re still not racing. It’s like Sputnik went up and we think it’s just a shooting star.”

In 1957, nobody had to explain the symbolic, technological, and military threat of Sputnik to the West. Sputnik changed the world and launched the first Space Age that culminated in an American on the Moon in 1969.

Unless we are able to channel global interests in lunar bases and the commercial development of space into a “Grand Alliance for Space,” we may be forced to re-live a Sputnik-like event near 2013 when possibly a China-led consortium announces their program for the aggressive exploration and colonization of space, including the ultimate “green” technology: space-based solar power collectors that provide inexhaustible, clean energy to Earth to meet the 24/7 demands of economic growth everywhere on Earth.

Now that’s a Sputnik-like event that everyone would recognize.

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