Deleted Scenes

As part of my effort to generate on this site a sort of deluxe, collector's edition, tricked-up "DVD package" of extras, I am generating a series of posts that I call Deleted Scenes -- material that didn't make it into "The Pentagon's New Map." Like Director's Commentary, this behind-the-scenes commentary on the making of the book is offered as additional background material for interested readers. To read all of this series' entries to date, click here.

Deleted Scene #1

Chapter One: New Rule Sets

Section: New Rules For a New Era

Commentary: This first "deleted scene" was something I ginned up in response to Mark Warren's concern that Chapter One really needed some firm explication of what I felt were the major rule-set shifts between the Cold War that ended years ago and the post-9/11 global security environment we find ourselves now inhabiting. We figured it would go in the second section entitled, "New Rules for a New Era." I cranked this out one afternoon after finishing some writing on Chapter Two. Mark liked the material and spent a lot of time trying to figure out where it might go in the first chapter, but in the end we decided not to use it because there was no easy place to put it and we feared it would slow down the pace with its intense summarizing qualities.

Deleted Scene #2

Chapter Two: The Rise of the 'Lesser Includeds'

Section: The Manthorpe Curve

Commentary: This second "deleted scene" constituted my first attempt at explaining what Mark Warren later called "the cult of the PowerPoint briefing" inside the Pentagon. As originally written, this was the intro to "The Manthorpe Curve" section in Chapter 2. Mark cut these paragraphs and started right with the one that followed: "In the early 1990s, William Manthorpe was Deputy Director Ö" [p. 63]. I include this deleted scene simply because I like it.

Deleted Scene #3

Chapter Two: The Rise of the 'Lesser Includeds'

Section: The Fracturing of the Security Market

Commentary: This third "deleted scene" was my effort to introduce the Waltzian three-tiered paradigm in all its glory. I have done this many times in reports over the years, feeling it is only right to give the man his due. Mark Warren cut this section because he felt it went on too long and because it came off as too academic. His point was that the reader really didn't need all this extra information for me to make the ensuing points in the text. Plus, because my use of this conceptual tool is unique enough, all I really needed to do was to give the man a good endnote, which I did.