SWJ Q&A with Tom

A big thanks for Mark 'zenpundit' Safranski for honchoing an interview with Tom for Small Wars Journal

Ten Questions with Thomas P.M. Barnett

Also, thanks to Lexington Green for many valuable contributions behind the scenes.

All of us who are regulars around here know Mark's knack for incisiveness - getting to the heart of the issue. He did a great job coming up with questions that would showcase Tom to the SWJ crowd.

Here's a sample:

4. In Great Powers, you delve deeply into American history. What lessons did you find in our nation's past that the diplomat overseas, the Army colonel in Afghanistan or the U.S. Aid worker in Africa should know to navigate their mission today?

This is all about frontier integration. Globalization is like America's rapid and aggressive push Westward across the 19th century: a lot of the same bad actors and a lot of the same tools applied. So don't be surprised when the Pinkertons show up, or when the covered wagons are attacked, or when the Injuns head to the Badlands for sanctuary. Thus, the goals of our frontline players are fairly straightforward: create the baseline security to allow the connectivity to grow. Focus on social trust and institutions as much as possible, but co-opt existing structures whenever and wherever you can. It doesn't have to be perfect and it sure as hell doesn't have to measure up to America's mature standards. This is a frontier setting within globalization-treat it as such. The good news is, the settlers are already there, with more uncredentialed wealth than we realize (see Hernando DeSoto), if you respect their existing rule-sets and realize they will change only when the locals see the need themselves, so no instant rule-set packages applied by outsiders, please. Finally, acknowledge that with growing connectivity with the outside world, you will see more nationalism, more ethnic tensions, and more religious identity. These are all natural reactions, and not signs of your failure, so patience is the key.

Be sure to read the whole thing!

Comments

[Tom Barnett]

Curses!

Somebody "corrected" an attempted joke, and a neat one at that!

"Build that better mouse and you're Bill Gates" gets corrected (Lex, admit your lack of humor here) to "Build that better mousetrap and you're Bill Gates." MOUSE! MOUSE! MOUSE!

FOLKS, IS THIS MICROPHONE ON?

[Sean Meade]

in fairness, that could have been me. i thought about it for sure. i thought it might be intentional, but... IIRC, Lex left it in and i was worried it was a mistake and went with what was safe.

and, as a geek, i kept thinking 'well, Xerox, PARC invented the mouse, and apple deployed it on commercial computers before IBM, and, of course, Gates never made hardware...'

[Tom Barnett]

Details, my boy.

I'm working a joke here. Don't let reality intrude.