Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" 2011 brief: the Brief in full

Can be found in this post and on this permanent page, also linked to from the navigation bar above. Or you can go to the YouTube pages directly, as linked on the left navigation bar below.

No, it's no longer exactly the brief I give now.  I've already made about 50 changes. But that's the nature of the beast: it is always evolving and new versions constantly emerge. 

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" brief

Video segments of September 2011 briefing by Tom to an international military audience in the Washington DC area.

Part 1: The Pentagon's New Map

Part 2: The Flow of People

Part 3: The Flow of Money

Part 4: The Flow of Energy

Part 5: The Flow of Food

Part 6: The Flow of Security

Part 7: (Q&A) The Role of Religion

Part 8: (Q&A) Global Economic Crisis

Part 9 - Final: (Q&A) Postwar Operations & US Allies

Comments

[Maduka]

The creation of the new world you envision will require more political skill than is available anywhere in the Western World. Neither an Obama or any of the major Western leaders has the capacity to operate on that level, the Republican line-up is a huge joke.

A "morning in America" is even less likely. Reagan dealt with a simpler world, with less competition and in which the difference between friend and enemy was stark. It was a straight-forward world - economics was dominated by a Western-centric G7, the World Bank and the IMF set the rules and everyone meekly complied and the US traded with only its friends not with "frenemies" (China) and "neo-Gaullists" (Brazil, India).

A future American president may exhort the American people to some higher purpose, but a combination of a declining share of the global economy and the consequences of abandoning the most promising frontier markets to the Chinese (i.e. Africa and Latin America) might make national rejuvenation difficult if not impossible. The time to act is now.

This is not to suggest that other major powers like China don't have serious problems, but the Chinese have been around in one form or another for 4,000 years, so they may be more resilient than you suggest. They might weather the storm much better than you think they will.

America spends too much time, energy and resources on a narrowly defined goal - the so-called "War on Terror". It is a very expensive distraction. In many African nations, there is a combination of poverty, inter-ethnic rivalry, inter-religious competition, poor governance and corruption. The only thing that seems to get America's attention is encapsulated in a simple sentence "group X is an affiliate of Al Qaeda, send in Africom". So you expend diplomatic energy on a narrowly focused often non-productive goal.

This is not how to treat a market of 800 million consumers.

For example, the US created the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) about ten years ago- a law setting out a basket of preferential market access for African exports to the US. It might interest you to note that (a) the AGOA forum is the most important forum for US-Africa trade diplomacy (b) No US secretary of commerce has ever attended an AGOA forum in Africa (Rick Perry wants to abolish the Department of Commerce !) and (c) Secretary Clinton was supposed to attend the last AGOA forum in Lusaka, but couldn't be bothered to come on time - she arrived Lusaka AFTER the forum was concluded. (US presidents cannot be bothered to attend, they merely address conference attendees via video link).

The contrast with the Sino-African conference on trade and development is stark. (Hu Jintao always attends - in person).

Your reaction to 9/11 and your narrow focus will make you lose at least twenty very valuable years. Twenty years which your strategic competitors (Brazil, China, India) will capitalise on. It will take more than a Reagan or a Nixon to undo the damage. A seriously divided America is unlikely to produce such political talent.

[tc]

These are really well presented and I appreciate your direct style. Interesting view of the world to me as I am in a top 5 MBA program where the perspective is global, but in a different way.

Globally, but mainly in GDP or trade terms and only from the 2000's to now, extrapolated to the 2020's... Training us to think about where we want to plant ourselves job wise, which industry and which region. What you wind up with is thousands of elite MBAs wanting to work on financing alternative energy projects in China. I don't think most of us are realizing the significance of the "4-2-1" problem China has, or putting the rise of global powers into its historical perspective. To think about where the next opportunities will arise we are looking at too recent a period of time and looking too much at flows of capital and not enough at flows of people, I think.

[Thomas P.M. Barnett]

That is a fascinating observation I have never heard before. It jives with my own educational past. Thanks.

[Derek Bergquist]

Hi Maduka,
Finish Tom's books. Your criticism of Nigeria's largest export partner (US) and 2nd largest import partner (US after China) is dead on concerning US political engagement in both Africa and Latin America. We will vote out that leadership between 2012 through 2016.
You need to get over politics being the solution. Business/Economics is ahead of Politics which is ahead of the military. That is why Clinton and Obama should have shown up for the AGOA.
Looking beyond US politics will also show you that US foreign direct investment countries are in Latin America, with the exception being Singapore. That should begin to pay off for the US by 2030 as well in coordination with drug decriminalization and immigration reform.
You would also see the US is the 2nd most diverse country on the planet after Brazil. We are priveledged to have 10 million muslims and 30 million latin americans here for better opportunities. 35% of the US is not descended from Europe and will change to 50% to 55% by 2050. For all the ethnic differences in foreign countries, the US does draw on experience of working with the best of all in society to perform important economic work even though we may not live in the same local communities. I expect to see this work with diplomatic engagement in Africa too, although it will be slow.
Remember, most foreign interactions with the US are economic then political. What makes the news is the military, not completing the free trade agreement with Colombia. The war on terror is not involved in the world, only 5 countries, the hardest cases that not even Nigeria or anyone else wants to address or help. You've said Africa's security problems are their own. That is mostly correct, until I have suicide bombers from the US attacking in Somalia or pirates boarding ships.
For years, Centcom dug wells and sent humanitarian aid to Somalia. It doesn't work without some kind of government to arrest true troublemakers preventing economic growth. Where is the AU on putting Somalia back together? Trust me, China/India/Turkey/Russia working with the US could impose peace on Somalia in 5 years with a concerted effort without mass shooting and bring east africa into the economic fold. I don't see any way around it so the US must swallow hard and go to military allies that have real economic interests East Africa to solve Somalia and probably Yemen as well.
All of Tom's books describe this, it just is taking time to catch on.
Thanks.
Derek Bergquist