Inflection Point

Somewhere in the sprawling vastness of Manhattan , Christopher “Ryan” Henry, the OSD Principle Deputy Undersecretary for Policy, was addressing an exclusive gathering of senior executives from the private sector.

I was in Mid-town at that very moment, walking from Penn Station up 7 th Avenue toward the Algonquin Hotel. I was in New York for literary purposes, not matters of National Security, but it seems I can’t get away from it. I don’t know if Ryan Henry was following me, or if it was the other way around.

It was confusing enough. The transit strike was in the third day, and no subway trains or buses were running. There was an air of cheerful desperation on the crowded streets. People were roller-blading in the bus lanes, and with so many on foot, had ceased to obey the traffic signals altogether.

Mr. Henry is a handsome man with neatly cut salt-and-pepper hair swept back from a commanding forehead and gold wire-frame spectacles. He looks a little like for Secretary of Defense Robert S. MacNamara, only healthier. He has been the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense since he was confirmed by the Senate in early 2003, which is to say that his personal pockets are not deep, though he influences the deepest of them all.

I am confident he did not arrive at the conference on foot. I was on literary business, and could not afford a cab even if there was one to flag down.

Henry was dispatched to Gotham to be the Grinch. He was supposed to pass the word to the concerned citizens in expensive suits that the ride on the big gravy train was about over. The defense budget has soared 41 percent since 9/11. This pattern cannot be sustained, he was told to tell the executives, and it is inevitable that the curve will flatten.

Everyone wants to be in Manhattan at Christmas time, and that is why the conference was there, and why the strike happened when it did. The impact on trade was going to be severe, and mayor Blumberg was warning that it was likely to flatten the retail sails curve dramatically.

The streets are jammed with people from Jersey and the Mid-west, and all of them are looking up towards the top of the buildings, or looking around at the wonders at eye-level. There is magic in the shop windows, and at The Plaza, and in the jammed aisles of the F.A.O. Schwartz toy store, or Macys, or Saks. The real Saks, right where it is supposed to be, on 5th Avenue .

Even a Grinch and the elves of the Military Industrial Complex must enjoy the skaters at Rockefeller Center.

Manhattan swells with the holidays, just as my adopted home town of Washington empties out.

That is the nature of these two cities, connected by shiny rails and just over three hours apart. Washington blusters and issues laws and regulations. New York has the deep pockets and the drive to make it happen. It has the power of the market, and an infectious palpable urgency.

Washington has a chip on its shoulder about New York, a real inferiority complex about culture and museums . New York would be amused, if it noticed. There are a lot of capitals in the world, but there is only one Big Apple.

I was not with Mr. Henry or the executives from Lockheed-Martin and Boeing and McDonald-Douglas and Raytheon, although I was interested in what he had to say. There had been muttering in the halls in Washington, that things were going to change in the budget due to the operational costs of the hurricanes and the war. Henry had been dispatched to the Lion’s den, to meet the lead edge of the Iron Triangle of Industry, the Military Services and the Congress.

Congress was on break and scattered to the winds for the holiday. The Fat Cats were right in the heart of it, all attracted to the holiday gravity of Manhattan. Henry was telling them that his Pentagon was redefining the strategic threats confronting the United  States . It is about widely dispersed terror networks, not heavy armored divisions and sleek fighters or ominous warships.

I realized I was at the foot of the Chrysler Building just about the time Mr. Henry was telling industry that the wild spending party of the last four years is over, regardless of the merriment outside. I looked up at the iconic spire of the art deco building. I had not noticed the gargoyles at the fortieth floor. Interesting fancy, and I would not have been surprised if a real New Yorker had taken the opportunity to pick my pocket as I looked up.

Henry had been taking a hard look, too. He said the new fiscal landscape requires highly agile weapons and the sensors to target them accurately. I imagine the executives squirmed in their seats as Henry told them that the Department is at “an inflection point.”

I don’t think they knew what that meant any more than I did, but it certainly seemed ominous.

I looked it up when I got back home. An inflection point is a point on a curve at which the sign of the curvature (i.e., the concavity) of the curvature changes. I like it. It is clinical and sounds scientific, as if the affairs of humans could be reduced to an equation. I think it is better than the words “tipping point,” which Secretary Rumsfeld used a while back to describe the moment that a fluid situation achieves directional inertia, and moves to conclusion.

It might be an accurate statement of how things work, but it sounds imprecise. Like someone is drunk.

As I trudged toward the hotel on 44 th Street , Mr. Henry shuffled his papers. I was elbowed by a group of Chinese tourists and a dozen cell-phone conversations were happening around me. Henry cleared his throat and told the executives that the Pentagon currently has over a trillion dollars of weapons acquisition planned, but less than half of that amount is actually in the Future Years Defense Program.

With the party over, it means fewer ships and fighters are going to be purchased. The companies are going to have to scale back expectations. There will be slowdowns and lay-offs and smaller bonuses for the executives.  It was not a pleasant message to bring before Christmas, and I hope that Mr. Henry had a chance to do some shopping before the limo took him back to the airport.

As the Mayor said, the economy of the city was at an inflection point due to the strike. There were sales in progress everywhere, “Transit Strike!” the signs read. “Deep discounts!”

I hope the executives got a chance to take advantage of the sales after Mr. Henry was on his way back to Washington. Tiffany’s appeared to be doing a fairly brisk business as I walked by despite the transportation crisis. The jewelry store’s flagship location is further up  5th Avenue from Saks, near the NBC complex. The closest subway station is at Lexington Ave , but people shopping at Tiffany’s probably wouldn’t be on the subway even if the trains were running.

But I imagine the people from Jersey would only have been there to gawk at the jewelry. It takes deep pockets to actually buy things there.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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