Tom on kottke

When I saw Jason Kottke was blogging Pop!Tech, I wondered if he would mention Tom again. It first heard of Tom two years ago when Kottke posted about him at Pop!Tech the last time. Here's Kottke's take this time:

The upshot of Thomas Barnett's entertaining and provacative talk (or one of the the upshots, anyway): China is the new world power and needs a sidekick to help globalize the world. And like when the US was the rising power in the world and took the outgoing power, England, along for the ride so that, as Barnett put it, "England could fight above its weight", China could take the outgoing power (the US) along for the globalization ride. The US would provide the military force to strike initial blows and the Chinese would provide peacekeeping; Barnett argued that both capabilities are essential in a post-Cold War world.