Approaching the tipping point

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, stroke of midnight, 31 December 2004

We have survived the 11+ hours of The Lord of the Rings. Actually only Emily, my oldest daughter, and I make it to the end. Youngest Vonne Mei hits the crib around 9pm. Jerry, wearing his Spiderman costume with fake muscles is carried up at 10. Son Kevin, who starts the day puking, then is rollerblading around the basement at 3, goes back to upchucking at 6 and conks out for good around 9pm.

It's been that kind of day.

A death in my spouse's family this morning ends a tough year on that score, so we're up before dawn on New Year's to drive Vonne and baby to Logan airport for the flight back, leaving me and the three oldest for several days. That'll push off the start of my writing for a couple of days, but that seems for the better. I am still wrapping my mind around the outline and a couple of more days fiddling will seem good. Plus that'll give me Monday and Tuesday to get things settled at the college regarding my formal end date.

Interesting possibilities already coming in over the transom, so my sense is that 2005 will be a very good year, but one of transition. Clearly, everything will revolve around the sequel to PNM, and looking at the outline, I realize clearly that this will be a sequel.

That feels both odd and quite natural. Given the year I've had and how PNM turned out, it would seem both weird and false to simply write another book where Core-Gap, System Perturbations, SysAdmin, etc. all seemed to vanish into the past. I mean, what's the point of being a visionary if you're just going to change your look with every book? Either I'm with the program or I'm not, and I've decided I'm with it.

So I signed my contract with Putnam tonight, and it'll go out with FEDEX on Monday, the same day I hand in my resignation to the collegeóat the very strong suggestion by my superiors. Their choice, my choice, and never the twain will meet from here on out.

So I move from advocating to serious commitment. This is who I am going to beóall grown up with my father in the ground.

So it's ever-upward and ever-forward for this mongrel, Chinese-American family with the purebred Siberian cat and the soon-to-be adopted purebred black Lab (actually, mom was a blond, so go figure). I must admit, sometimes I marvel at the racism we've already met on this subject of our youngest, with some of the strongest reactions coming from kids who attend school with my two oldest ("She's not your sister. She's Chinese and someday she'll find out!"). But we'll move ahead on this subject and so many others in 2005. And maybe we'll all head back to China, all six of us, in 2006, just to piss those people off all the more!

So I'll take the hate mail in stride, my kids will take the racial taunts in stride, and that which does not kill us will make us stronger over the long haul.

Because it's always a long haul. As Gen. Abizaid recently told the Washington Post's David Ignatius a couple of weeks back ("Achieving Real Victory Could Take Decades," 26 December 2004, p. B1), this is going to be a "long war," against what Abizaid calls this century's version of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, radicals determined to disconnect the Middle East from the world at large. According to his top admiral, David Nichols, commander of the 5th fleet (Ignatius' paraphrase), "It's not 'us' vs. 'them,' but a connected world in which everyone will gain by isolating and destroying the extremist fringe." As Ignatius later puts it:

That's what victory would look like in Abizaid's Long War, too. In the broad arc of the world where Centcom operates, life would feel modern, connected, free, relaxed, ordinary. It would feel like a hand that is no longer clenched in a fist. It's a fight where the Muslim masses would win, without the United States losing. But this past week, those images of connectedness and success seemed a long, long way off.

They certainly seem a long way off in south and southeast Asia following the Christmas Tsunamis. But even here there is a nice glimmer of hope. How about an unprecedented "core regional group" made up of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia. Ever heard of that quartet before? Toss in China and you've got a mighty hand ready to sow connectivity where disconnectedness was generated almost instantly by one massive vertical shock followed the world's biggest horizontal wave.

What's so great about how the Core must respond to this tragedy is that if it does not respond as fully as it should, smart money knows that we'll end up losing a victory we could easily achieve, if only we understood this global war on terrorism within the context of everything else. There is connectivity to be won in Asia in 2005. There is a future worth creating there, a Core worth expanding, a Gap worth shrinking.

On that "core regional group," a name I naturally like, will that new club have the sense to include China? I mean, if China's rising, shouldn't it be there helping the very same region reshaped by its rise? Good question for both Washington and Beijing.

My world of the defense community still sees only danger and threat and confrontation in everything China does, ditto for Russia. Is there a future worth creating where we somehow manage to turn these two giants back into enemies? I mean, is there one for those who do something other than plot brilliantly massive wars against brilliantly massive opponents? That debate is raging right now inside the Pentagon regarding the Quadrennial Defense Review and how we describe China in that document. Does either side realize the opportunity for good that now exists in the response to the tsunamis in Asia? How resources for war can be diverted to something better?

The big cuts are coming in defense for the classic big-ticket items. The Navy is going to give up a carrier as a sacrificial lamb in 2005, and it won't be the last. So if that is our decision making, are we effectively managing the "everything else" for those cuts to make sense, or are some of us simply setting up the rest for the much desired I-told-you-so down the road.

I say beware of the doom-spouting prophets in this day and age. They want conflict and rivalries and danger the world over, and they don't care how many historic opportunities are discarded in the process. Theirs is that classic "us v. them" future, lacking the connectedness, lacking the sense of responsibility for the "them" and considering only the "us" (as our Founding Fathers constantly advised us, I am told in email after email). This selfish view encompasses a future only worth creating for us, one that forces the "them" to stay outside, over there for all time, lest of course they were to come here and increase the mongrelization of our culture, our values, our blood.

For some it dies hard, but for me it never dies. I see 2005 as a year for staying the course but also taking some bold steps to carve out both a new place in this world for my family (odd as it may seem to some here in Rhode Island, a tiny white island in a sea of multi-kulti America). That's what I'm doing in my personal life, that's the upcoming piece in Esquire, that's the book that's just itchin' to come out (I pretty much dream it every night now).

This is what I take from 2004: people want a hopeful vision and a guide to what they might do to help bring it about. PNM ends the year # 78 on Amazon (78! Tell me that one back in April when it came out and I would have shouted "Shut up!"). All the finger-pointing books have come and gone. All the backward-looking books have come and gone. Eight months later, PNM remains. And the reason why is that it's not a grand strategy for the summer of 2004, it's a grand strategy for what lies ahead: for the Long War that spreads the Long Peace--which has long defined the Core--into the still tumultuous Gap. That future worth creating has been years in the understanding for me, and it will be years in the making for this planet. But 2005 is as good a year to start as any, and I look forward to it immensely.

THOMAS BARNETT: O profeta do impÈrio [The Epoca interview in Portuguese]

THOMAS BARNETT

O profeta do impÈrio

[NOTE: That's a picture of me standing on the Mall about a half mile from the U.S. Capitol building. It was a very foggy day.]

Consultor do Pent·gono aposta que 12 paÌses virar„o Estados americanos atÈ 2050. Entre eles est„o o MÈxico e naÁıes asi·ticas

EXPEDITO FILHO, de Nova York

A globalizaÁ„o pode ser uma arma t„o eficiente quanto os ExÈrcitos no mundo que surgiu depois do ataque terrorista ‡s torres gÍmeas do World Trade Center. Por meio de concessıes comerciais e de investimentos do setor privado em paÌses que ainda n„o tÍm suas economias irrigadas pelo capital globalizado, o mundo do futuro ser· mais pacÌfico. As naÁıes que continuam isoladas e compıem o chamado gap da globalizaÁ„o - localizadas em parte do Caribe, dos Andes, da ¡frica, dos B·lc„s, da ¡sia Central, do Sudeste Asi·tico e do Oriente MÈdio - teriam suas economias ligadas ao chamado n˙cleo globalizado, onde j· se encontram Estados Unidos, Europa, China, Jap„o, R˙ssia, Õndia, Brasil, Chile e Argentina. Com a reduÁ„o desse v„o entre os paÌses perifÈricos e os de centro, o terror estaria com seus dias contados, acredita o professor Thomas P.M. Barnett, da Escola Naval Americana. De outubro de 2001 a junho de 2003, o doutor em CiÍncias PolÌticas pela Universidade Harvard foi assessor e estrategista do secret·rio de Defesa, Donald H. Rumsfeld, e, hoje, presta consultoria para o Pent·gono. Em entrevista a …POCA, explicou as idÈias que compıem o livro O Novo Mapa do Pent·gono, recentemente lanÁado por ele nos EUA.

…POCA - Qual È o novo mapa do Pent·gono?

Thomas Barnett - O mapa comeÁa por traÁar os lugares para onde os Estados Unidos tÍm enviado tropas ao redor do mundo desde o fim da Guerra Fria. S„o pontos de violÍncia maciÁa ao redor do globo, para os quais sentimos a necessidade de dar uma resposta. Do contr·rio, muita instabilidade pode resultar disso e muita gente pode morrer. O que fiz foi traÁar uma linha em torno de 95% desses casos e perguntar: o que h· nessas regiıes para atrair intervenÁıes militares americanas de tempos em tempos?

…POCA - O que resultou dessa an·lise?

Barnett - Observei que essas regiıes s„o formadas por paÌses menos conectados com a economia global. Muitos exportam apenas uma ou duas matÈrias-primas e poucos produtos manufaturados. Chamo essas regiıes de n„o-integradas - o fosso (gap, em inglÍs). Fazem parte dele a maior parte do Caribe, a porÁ„o andina da AmÈrica do Sul, quase toda a ¡frica, os B·lc„s, a ¡sia Central, o C·ucaso, o Oriente MÈdio e muito do Sudeste Asi·tico. Dentro desse fosso encontram-se todos os conflitos desde o fim da Guerra Fria: as guerras civis, a limpeza Ètnica, o genocÌdio, o estupro em massa como instrumento de terror, crianÁas forÁadas a guerrear, os principais exportadores de drogas e os grupos terroristas que mais nos preocupam. Percebi que desconex„o com o mundo globalizado implica perigo.

…POCA - Em que sentido?

Barnett - Se sua economia n„o est· conectada com a economia global, a probabilidade de seu paÌs viver uma situaÁ„o de violÍncia em massa È muito maior. Assim como o risco de atrair uma intervenÁ„o militar do exterior, mais provavelmente dos Estados Unidos. Existe tambÈm o que chamo de n˙cleo funcional da globalizaÁ„o ou, grosso modo, onde vivem dois terÁos da populaÁ„o global. Nele est„o incluÌdos AmÈrica do Norte, Europa, R˙ssia, China, Õndia, Jap„o, CorÈia do Sul, Austr·lia, Nova Zel‚ndia, ¡frica do Sul, Argentina, Chile e Brasil. Entre esses paÌses h· uma chance muito remota de guerra, no sentido tradicional. Portanto, a principal miss„o militar das naÁıes do n˙cleo È trabalhar coletivamente para melhorar a seguranÁa no fosso. E, com isso, ajudar essas regiıes a se integrar na economia global de maneira mais justa.

…POCA - Qual È o papel do Brasil nesse novo mapa do Pent·gono?

Barnett - O Brasil È parte do n˙cleo funcional da globalizaÁ„o porque saiu da forte dependÍncia de exportaÁ„o de matÈrias-primas para um novo perfil econÙmico, que inclui produtos manufaturados como aÁo, uma agricultura forte em escala industrial e avanÁos reais em produtos mÈdicos e de biotecnologia. O Brasil tambÈm È um paÌs est·vel, sem risco real de guerra, embora como muitos paÌses do fosso tenha alguns problemas de seguranÁa em sua fronteira. Especificamente, na ·rea da Floresta AmazÙnica.

…POCA - Nesse novo desenho, h· algum risco de o Brasil perder a Floresta AmazÙnica?

Barnett - N„o vejo risco. Muito pelo contr·rio. O Brasil precisa - e est· sendo bem-sucedido nisso - gerar transparÍncia na Bacia AmazÙnica para impedir tr·fico de drogas, pilhagem ambiental e que terroristas busquem ref˙gio na floresta. Acredito tambÈm que o Brasil precisa jogar um papel maior na seguranÁa n„o apenas da AmÈrica do Sul, mas de uma forma geral nos paÌses da chamada regi„o do fosso. Cada vez mais, a sa˙de econÙmica do Brasil vai depender de sua habilidade em se manter conectado com a economia global. … not·vel o crescimento dos laÁos econÙmicos entre o Brasil e a China nos ˙ltimos anos.

…POCA - O senhor prevÍ que atÈ 2050 mais 12 paÌses virar„o Estados americanos. Como ser· isso?

Barnett - Economicamente, o MÈxico j· È parte dos Estados Unidos. E, atÈ 2050, um em cada trÍs eleitores nos Estados Unidos ser· hisp‚nico. … grande a probabilidade de o MÈxico se juntar ao paÌs de maneira pacÌfica para criar um novo e maior Estados Unidos da AmÈrica. A naÁ„o mudaria ‡ medida que novos Estados se juntassem, como aconteceu no passado. N„o È apenas uma quest„o de alguÈm desaparecer, mas de se juntar a algo maior que todos vejam como benÈfico.

…POCA - A naÁ„o ter· Estados tambÈm na ¡sia ou no Oriente MÈdio?

Barnett - Os Estados Unidos s„o o ˙nico paÌs no mundo fundado em torno de uma idÈia, e n„o de um territÛrio. Nosso conceito de Estados juntos para formar uma uni„o polÌtica e econÙmica maior pode se espalhar pelo mundo. Somos a uni„o polÌtica e econÙmica mais antiga e bem-sucedida. N„o h· raz„o para esse modelo n„o crescer. Assim como ocorreu com a Uni„o EuropÈia, espero ver uma uni„o de Estados asi·ticos nas prÛximas dÈcadas. O conceito È muito maior que a naÁ„o ''AmÈrica''.

…POCA - PaÌses como FranÁa e Alemanha aceitar„o a hegemonia americana?

Barnett - N„o vejo hegemonia. N„o sei o que essa palavra significa na atual era da globalizaÁ„o. Essa È uma velha linguagem aplicada a uma realidade nova e muito mais complexa. Como dizer que os Estados Unidos fazem a guerra sozinhos se outros pagam para comprar a nossa dÌvida? Nenhum paÌs age sozinho, porque tudo est· conectado. Hegemonia È uma palavra de um tempo que n„o existe mais.

…POCA - Que tipo de relaÁ„o haver· entre a China e os Estados Unidos?

Barnett - A China e os Estados Unidos ser„o parceiros estratÈgicos porque compartilham interesses econÙmicos. A influÍncia da China ao redor do mundo È baseada na adoÁ„o do capitalismo, que, por sua vez, gera enorme demanda por recursos. Isso È bom e natural. Ent„o, n„o deve haver receio de nossa parte. N„o vejo uma nova guerra fria. Apenas alguns idiotas em altas esferas que ainda sonham com esse nonsense.

…POCA - Os Estados Unidos v„o invadir a CorÈia do Norte?

Barnett - A quest„o-chave È conseguir que a China queira que o ditador da CorÈia do Norte, Kim Jong II, deixe o poder. Se os Estados Unidos e a China entrarem no pal·cio de Kim para falar que È hora de sair, meu palpite È que ele se submeter·, como Baby Doc, no Haiti, ou Charles Taylor, na LibÈria. Se ele n„o aceitar pacificamente, seus subordinados v„o ajudar na remoÁ„o dele. Acredito que sua base de poder est· muito mais abalada do que se imagina. Ent„o, n„o acredito em invas„o. Vejo mais um golpe engendrado com pessoas locais. Kim conseguiu armas nucleares e n„o È possÌvel confiar nele como um ser racional. AlÈm disso, a ¡sia precisa de uma alianÁa militar que amarre todos os grandes poderes e gere equilÌbrio, como a Otan faz na Europa. A remoÁ„o de Kim È o gatilho para esse desenvolvimento positivo. A hora dele chegou.

…POCA - Por que o senhor pensa que o mundo de seus filhos depois do 11 de setembro est· mais seguro que o de seus pais durante a Guerra Fria?

Barnett - Meus pais viveram a ameaÁa de guerra nuclear global, que hoje n„o È sequer cogitada. Dizer que os terroristas podem conseguir a bomba nuclear n„o È o mesmo que duas superpotÍncias nucleares entrarem em guerra. N„o h· comparaÁ„o entre os dois perÌodos. O que enfrentamos hoje È a violÍncia entre Estados e terroristas transnacionais. Isso È mais complexo, mas os problemas s„o menores.

…POCA - O senhor considera George W. Bush preparado para liderar essa transformaÁ„o?

Barnett - Bush foi perfeito no perÌodo pÛs-11 de setembro. Acredito que respondeu ‡ altura. Nisso, ele foi como o ex-presidente Harry Truman depois da Segunda Guerra Mundial. A quest„o agora È: a polÌtica de Bush ser· aceita pelo mundo? Se n„o for aceita, as vitÛrias dele podem ser tempor·rias e custar mais caro do que valem. A longo prazo, penso que far· um bom segundo governo. Sua reeleiÁ„o foi a confirmaÁ„o de que os Estados Unidos est„o levando a sÈrio a guerra contra o terrorismo. A possibilidade de o mundo se ajustar nessa direÁ„o È maior que a de Bush mudar seu ponto de vista, embora ache que ele adotar· um estilo mais suave com os aliados.

…POCA - O Pent·gono subestimou a Al Qaeda?

Barnett - Sim. Subestimamos o papel dos terroristas no mundo pÛs-Guerra Fria porque falhamos em reconhecer a profundidade de nossa vitÛria. N„o h· mais nenhum perigo de guerra entre as grandes potÍncias. A guerra entre Estados est· desaparecendo porque o poder militar americano È incompar·vel. Quando esses assuntos est„o fora da mesa, o que sobra È o terrorismo. O Pent·gono n„o se sente confort·vel lidando com o terrorismo porque essa guerra È muito assimÈtrica. Mas o 11 de setembro requer que lidemos com essa ameaÁa agora. Isso significa mudar o nosso ExÈrcito dramaticamente nos prÛximos anos.

…POCA - A Al Qaeda ainda desafia os Estados Unidos. O mundo ficou mais seguro depois da invas„o do Iraque?

Barnett - O mundo ficou mais seguro. SÛ n„o est· ainda mais porque a ocupaÁ„o foi mal conduzida. Os Estados Unidos precisam de dois tipos de forÁa militar: uma especializada em guerras como essa que derrubou o odiado regime de Saddam Hussein. Outra capaz de efetivamente manter a paz e os esforÁos de construir uma naÁ„o. Os Estados Unidos precisavam manter ambas as forÁas por algum tempo. Se a ocupaÁ„o malfeita provocar o surgimento dessa forÁa focada na manutenÁ„o da paz, ter· servido a algum propÛsito.

…POCA - Algo mudou na organizaÁ„o dos grupos terroristas?

Barnett - Depois da invas„o do Iraque, a Al Qaeda e outros grupos terroristas do Oriente MÈdio em geral est„o de volta ao padr„o geogr·fico que vimos nos anos 70 e 80. Ou seja, eles podem atacar em todo o Oriente MÈdio e em partes do sul da Europa e da R˙ssia. Mas n„o parecem capazes de voltar a atacar os Estados Unidos. Ent„o, È melhor que a violÍncia ocorra no lugar ao qual ela pertence do que nas ruas de Nova York. N„o se vence uma guerra global contra o terror atÈ que o Oriente MÈdio se junte ao n˙cleo funcional da globalizaÁ„o, oferecendo mais que apenas petrÛleo e terrorismo. Precisamos conectar aquela regi„o com o mundo exterior mais rapidamente do que os Bins Ladens possam desconect·-la.

…POCA - Por que o senhor acredita que o Oriente MÈdio sofrer· grandes transformaÁıes nas prÛximas duas dÈcadas?

Barnett - S„o trÍs fatores. A juventude entrar· na meia-idade e isso criar· uma sociedade impaciente por mudanÁas polÌticas. AlÈm disso, o tempo est· se esgotando para a economia baseada no petrÛleo. A demanda global por petrÛleo atingir· o pico em 2025. Em terceiro lugar, os Estados Unidos est„o no Oriente MÈdio para ficar, porque se saÌrem o terrorismo internacional far· algo atÈ pior que o 11 de setembro.

…POCA - Outros paÌses seguir„o os passos dos Estados Unidos na regi„o?

Barnett - A expectativa È de que os paÌses poderosos da ¡sia entrem no Oriente MÈdio por causa de seus interesses econÙmicos. … bom lembrar que a ¡sia j· consome a maior parte do petrÛleo que sai do Golfo. Essas necessidades v„o dobrar nas prÛximas duas dÈcadas. O Iraque de hoje È sÛ um palito de fÛsforo. O fogo vai ser aceso, se n„o pelos Estados Unidos, por outro paÌs. … sÛ uma quest„o de tempo.

…POCA - O senhor È o sonhador de um novo mundo conectado ou o filÛsofo da hegemonia americana no sÈculo XXI?

Barnett - De novo essa palavra. Hegemonia nega conex„o e a AmÈrica È a conex„o personificada. Acreditamos em certas premissas para gerar riqueza e desenvolvimento, enquanto alguns outros paÌses geram conflitos e inseguranÁa. Seria Ûtimo se os governos do mal, localizados no fosso, pudessem desaparecer sem esforÁo militar do centro, mas isso n„o È plausÌvel. PaÌses isolados representam sempre um grande risco de violÍncia. O mundo È pequeno e est· ficando menor ainda. O conflito est· desaparecendo na regi„o do centro do planeta e permanecendo apenas no fosso. Reduzi-lo È acabar com a guerra. O fim dos conflitos iguala hegemonias, e aÌ eu n„o sei o que essa palavra significar·.

FormaÁ„o
Doutor em CiÍncias PolÌticas pela Universidade Harvard e professor da Escola Naval Americana

TrajetÛria

Assessor e estrategista do secret·rio de Defesa americano, Donald H. Rumsfeld, atÈ junho de 2003

OcupaÁ„o atual

Consultor do Pent·gono e autor do livro O Novo Mapa do Pent·gono, lanÁado nos Estados Unidos

THOMAS BARNETT: Prophet of the Empire [Original full transcript of the Epoca interview in English]

Epoca -- What is the new Pentagon's map?

Thomas Barnett -- The map begins by plotting where the U.S. has sent its military forces around the world since the end of the Cold War. These are not places, in effect, where we wereóas we did in the Cold Waróhoping to counter any Soviet influence, so these were the natural "hot spots" of mass violence around the world, to which we felt a need to respond, otherwise too many people might die and too much instability might result.



Epoca -- How did you find that?

Barnett -- What I did with this map was simply draw a line around 95% of those cases and ask, What is it about these regions that seems to attract U.S. military interventions time and time again? I came to the observation that these regions were, by most definitions, made up of those countries that are least connected to the global economy. Typically, many of them export one or two raw materials but very little manufactured goods, for example. I called these regions the Non-Integrating Gap. These regions include much of the Caribbean Rim, the Andes portion of South America, virtually all of Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the Middle East, and much of Southeast Asia.

Inside this Non-Integrating Gap one finds, since the end of the Cold War, all the wars, all the civil wars, all the ethnic cleansing, all the genocide, all the instances of mass rape as a tool of terror, all the children forced into combat units, all the UN peacekeeping missions, and virtually all the major narcotics exporters and terrorist groups that we worry most about. So my motto became, disconnectedness defines danger. If your economy is not well connected to the global economy, odds are you are far more likely to experience mass violence and thus attract some military intervention from the outsideómost likely from America.

Epoca -- How this new map is divided?

Barnett -- Counter to this image is what I call the Functioning Core of globalization, or roughly two-thirds of the global population. In the Core is included North America, Europe and Russia, China, India, Japan and South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Chile and Brazil. Among these countries, I maintain, there is little chance for war in any traditional sense. Therefore I argue that the main military mission of these Core states is to collectively work together to improve the security situation across the Gap andóby doing soóshrink that Gap over time by helping those regions integrate themselves with the global economy in a fair and just manner. That integration, while facilitated by security provided by the Core, is ultimately a private-sector-driven process by which the Core sends foreign direct investment into the Gap and helps those countries move up the production chain toward real economic development.

Also, by shrinking the Gap, I believe you end the disconnectedness that fuels not only conflicts and wars, but also generates the seeds of international terrorism. So, in my view, America and the Core win the Global War on Terrorism by shrinking the Gap andóby doing soómaking globalization truly global in a far and just (but also secure) manner.



Epoca -- What is the role of Brazil in this map?



Barnett -- Brazil is part of the Functioning Core of globalization because it has moved off of a strong dependence on exporting mostly raw materials to a new economic profile that includes manufactured goods like steel, industrial agriculture (Brazil is, I believe, the number one meat exporter in the world), and real breakthroughs in medical and biotechnology sciences. It is also a stable country with no real risk of war, although it, like many states ringing the Gap, suffers some security issues with its bordersónamely the Amazon forest area.

Epoca -- Do you think there is risk of Brazil losing the Amazon?

Barnett -- I see no risk of Brazil losing the Amazon. Quite the contrary, I see Brazil needing to, and succeeding in, generating greater transparency throughout the Amazon basin so as to preclude negative activities there involving narcotics trafficking, environmental pillaging, and rebels/terrorists seeking sanctuary. If anything, I believe Brazil needs to play a bigger security role not just in South America but elsewhere in the Gap. Increasingly, Brazil's economic health will depend on its ability to maintain its connectivity to the global economy. Look at how much Brazil's economic ties have, for instance, grown with China in recent years.



Epoca -- After the Middle East crisis, Brazil and South America lost relevance. Why do you think that the free trade area of the Americas is going to be a reality in 2015?



Barnett -- I think there are strong economic reasons for this FTAA to develop, but such negotiations typically slow down dramatically in harder economic times. The notion was proposed in the very prosperous 1990s, and now seems less realistic. But as the global economy once again picks up speed, I expect progress to continue either on a FTAA, or such progress on things like a Central American FTAA or bilateral agreements between the U.S. and other Latin American states that the group of involved nations as a whole will once again push far harder to make FTAA a concrete possibility. For now, however, America is rightfully accused of paying too much attention to a global war on terrorism and not enough on fostering more Core-Gap economic and trade connectivity. I believe America must also end much of its protectionism on agriculture in the current Doha Development Round of the WTO. A more balanced mix of security and trade issues in the second Bush administration would go much farther in winning a global war on terrorism than focusing too much just on security issues.



Epoca -- The violence in Iraq is increasing; the terrorist organization al Qaeda continues to defy the USA. Do you think the world is safer now after the Iraq occupation? Why?



Barnett -- I think the world is safer after the Iraq war, but less so because of how badly we have conducted the Iraq occupation. I think America needs two types of forces: one that specializes in wars of the sort that toppled the hated Saddam Hussein regime and one that specializes in effective peacekeeping and nation-building efforts. I have thought America needed both forces for quite some time, and if it takes the botched Iraq occupation to bring such a second (i.e., peacekeeping-focused) force into being, then it at least serves that purpose. As for Al Qaeda and Middle East terror groups in general: after the invasion they are all back to the same geographic pattern we saw in the 1970s and 1980s, meaning they can strike at will throughout the Middle East and reach into the southern portions of Europe and Russia. They do not seem able, anymore, to reach all the way into the United States, so obviously this is a real improvementófrom our perspectiveówhen compared to 9/11. Does the Middle East feel more secure after the removal of Saddam from power? I think not, but I truly believe that the grievances of virtually all transnational terrorism lie in the Middle East itself, so better for the violence to occur there, where it belongs, than on the streets of New York. People criticize this current administration for trying to transform the Middle East, but I ask you, do you think that terrorism emanating from that region will end simply if the world pulls out of those countries and stops buying that oil? Or do you think it only ends if Bin Laden and others have their way and turn the region into a giant version of Taliban Afghanistan? If that occurs, do we have a safer then? Or a more dangerous one?



People want simple answers to complex issues, but there are none. You cannot win a global war on terrorism until the Middle East joins the Functioning Core of globalization offering more than just oil and terrorism. The countries there need broad economic connectivity to the outside world that allows their young people a chance to make their own economic way rather than relying on "trust fund" governments who control too much of the wealth generated by all that oil Until that happens, we will continue to suffer from authoritarian regimes in the region, and those regimes will continue to attract the attention of desperate terrorists who want to topple them. If I though that just killing all the terrorists would work, I would advocate that, but I do not. I think we need to connect the Middle East to the outside world faster than the Bin Ladens and Zarqawis of that region can disconnect it. To me, that's the real global war on terrorism.



Epoca -- Do you think the world of your children (after 9/11) is safer than the world at the time of your parents during the Cold War?



Barnett -- Yes. My parents faced global nuclear war, which is not a danger today. To say that terrorists are far more likely to use a nuclear bomb is not the same as two nuclear superpowers going to war. To me, there is no comparison between the two ages. Since we've invented nuclear weapons, no two great powers have ever gone to war, despite the long rivalry between us and the Soviets during the Cold War, and since the end of the Cold War, inter-state wars have largely disappeared. Now we face mostly subnational violence within states and transnational terrorists. More complex on many levels, yes, but far smaller problems. Big wars between big states are a thing of the past, and now we're getting down to the truly harder security issues to tameólike terrorism. But you have to keep some historical perspective on it all.



Epoca -- After the end of the Cold War, do you think that the Pentagon underestimated the role of terrorist groups like al Qaeda as a result of clash of civilizations or culture?



Barnett -- Yes, we did underestimate the role of terrorists in the post-Cold War world, but we did so because we failed to recognize how profound our victory had been in the Cold War. There is no significant danger of war among great powers anymore, and inter-state war is disappearing because America's military prowess is unmatched. When those big issues are off the table, what you are left with is terrorism. The Pentagon is uncomfortable dealing with terrorism because that sort of warfare is so asymmetrical, but 9/11 requires that we deal with that threat now, and that means changing our military fairly dramatically in coming years.



Epoca -- You said that the Middle East will be transformed over the next two decades. How will this transformation happen?



Barnett -- Three trends will push it. First, the "middle-aging" of the population, as the current youth bulge moves into its thirties and forties. That demographic aging of the population will make societies more impatient for political change. Second, time is running out on the oil economy. Global oil demand probably peaks around 2025. As soon as that happens, the Middle East's hold on everyone attention begins to drop precipitously. As that reality draws near, expect to see governments there try to change themselves in terms of being more receptive to populations they can no longer bribe with oil wealth. Third, the U.S. is in the Middle East to stay, because if we pull out, transnational terrorism will simply pull us back in by doing something even worse than 9/11 to draw out attention back. Beyond the U.S., expect basically all of the powers of Asia to come to the Middle East militarily in coming years out of their growing economic interests. Asia already takes the majority of the oil coming out of the Gulf, and it's requirements double in the next two decades, so you do the math and tell me Asia's interest in, and presence with regard to, security in the Persian Gulf won't skyrocket in coming years. Put those three trends together and the Middle East of today will inevitably change radically over the next two decades. Iraq of today is just the match, but that fire was going to be lit by someone if not the U.S. It was just a matter of time.



Epoca -- In your book you anticipate that Kim Jong-Il must be removed from power and Korea must be reunited during the second term of Bush administration. How can Kim Jong-Il be removed?



Barnett -- Key here is to get China to want Kim gone. If U.S. and China can walk into Kim's palace and say that the time has come for him to go, my guess is he might take the package if enough if offered, like a Baby Doc in Haiti or a Charles Taylor in Liberia. If he won't go peacefully, then I target his subordinates to aid you in his removal. I think his power base is far more shaky than is popularly believed. He isn't the all-powerful leader. So in the end, I don't see any invasion, more an engineered coup either with locals or operations focused specifically on him. Kim's list of crimes against his own people is a long one, including a self-induced famine that killed at least two million. He's next because he's got nukes and he can't be trusted to be rational, and because East Asia needs a NATO-like military alliance that binds all the major powers there and rules out great power war for all time, like it has in Europe. Kim's removal is the trigger for that positive development. He's a very evil man whose time has come.

Epoca -- In this new map, what kind of relationship will have China and United States?



Barnett -- The U.S. and China must be and will be strategic partners out of shared economic interests. China's influence around the world is based on its adoption of capitalism which in turn generates huge demands for resources. This is both natural and good, so no fear on our part should be involved. I don't see a new cold war, only some idiots in high places who still dream of this nonsense. They are growing very few in number.



Epoca -- Would countries like France and Germany accept the American hegemony? How the America would work in this scenario?



Barnett -- I don't see hegemony. I don't even know what that word means in today's era of globalization. Again, I think that is old language applied to new, far more complex realities. Does America wage war unilaterally if others pay for it by buying our debt? There is no such thing as "free riders," as everything it too connected for that simple model of power-hoarding. Same with "hegemony." It is a word from a time that no longer exists.

Review the Reviews (Mark Safranski on History News Network)

Find the original here @ http://hnn.us/articles/9212.html.

12-27-04: News Abroad

Why Some Are Calling Thomas P.M. Barnett Our Age's George F. Kennan

By Mark Safranski

Mr. Safranski is an educational consultant to secondary schools. He frequently writes about the military.

Americans tend to be a practical people. When faced with a problem we experiment, improvise and muddle through until we succeed or we move on to more fruitful endeavors. De Tocqueville wrote, ìThe spirit of the Americans is averse to general ideas and does not seek theoretical discoveries.î A truism evidenced even in our greatest politicians ñ Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt ñ who during a crisis, broke from tradition but did so without any grand design. As a result America has often suffered from the early results of ìmuddling throughî until we found a Ulysses S. Grant or a George Kennan who could provide not merely a tactic but a strategy.

The War on Terror sharpened and embittered a debate over national strategy that has plagued Americaís elite since 1991 when the Soviet collapse eviscerated the need for containment. Globalization, the unification of Europe and the rise of the new economy badly shook all of the assumptions upon which the old, bipolar, Cold War world rested. America may have been--in Madeleine Albrightís phrase--the ìindispensable nation,î but it was also a hyperpower without a role. A reluctant policeman at best, babysitting Saddam, cutting and running in Somalia, dithering in Haiti and gamely whistling through the graveyards of the Balkans and Rwanda.

Then came the morning of September 11. Swiftly followed by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, in the Sunni Triangle, signs of ìmuddling throughî can be discerned.

Into this breach strides Thomas P.M. Barnett, a Naval War College professor and DoD strategist who seems to have written not an ìX article" but the ìX bookî of the decade, still riding high on Foreign Affairs bestseller list, a briefer to both Rumsfeldís senior staff and John Kerryís campaign advisers. Barnett, whose overarching paradigm in The Pentagonís New Map is really the Convergence of Civilizations, not the Clash ñ seems poised to join George Kennan on the short list of American grand strategists who like Alfred T. Mahan or Herman Kahn, stimulated policy changes that were broad and deep.

The Pentagonís New Map (PNM) argues that military strategy can work only in the context of everything else and that a major part of the context that the Pentagon must recognize are the geopolitical tectonic shifts wrought by Globalization, which he describes using the following PNM terminology:

The Core: The industrialized, connected to the information economy, mostly peaceful, rule of law abiding, liberal democratic world.

The Old Core: The heart of the core, the old G-7/NATO/Japan states led by the United States.

The New Core: Those modernizing states that joined the Core in the 1980's and 1990's ñ not as liberal, democratic or law-abiding as the Old Core but they have more or less irreversibly committed to moving in that direction - China, India, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil and the like.

The Gap: The Third World regions mostly disconnected economically and politically from the Core. Hobbesian in character, ridden by violence, oppression, poverty and anarchy. Ruled by despots--if ruled by anyone--committed to keeping their nations disconnected as a political survival strategy.

Rule-Sets: The explicit and implicit rules that provide the framework by which nations interact and function internally. There is a clash of rule sets between the Gap and the Core and within the Core between Europe, which mostly cannot and will not intervene in the Gap to enforce rules, and the United States, which can ñ if it chooses..

Connectivity: The degree of acceptance of globalization's many effects and the ability of a nation's individuals to access choices for themselves. Most international hotspots are in the most disconnected parts of the Gap.

Global Transaction Strategy: Barnett's equivalent to "containment" - a national and Core strategy to "Shrink the Gap" by connecting and integrating into the rule sets of the Core.

System Perturbation: The ultimate shock to a system that by ìturning the world upside downî forces a response and a re-ordering or Rule-Sets. 9/11 is the most recent example.

Barnett argues that Globalization is a dynamic exchange relationship defined by ìfour flowsî between the Core and the Gap that affect international stability:

■ Migration of people from the Gap to the Core

■ Movement of energy from the Gap to the Core.

■ Movement of money from the Old Core to the New Core

■ The export of security from the Core to the Gap ñ that only America can provide.

The unity of the Core is maintained, in Barnettís view, by the common adherence to Rule-Sets that promote peace, transparency, markets, liberal values. This Rule-Set is what prevented wars among members of the Core since 1945. Rule-Sets are enforced in the Core but can be exported to the Gap in two forms: ìLeviathanî ñ a massive, crushing, military sledgehammer -- think D-Day-- or by "System Administrationî ñ the nation-building, humanitarian intervention operations typified by the UN in East Timor.

The two forms of military power are almost symbiotic. Without a Leviathan force in Bosnia, lightly armed UN blue helmets could not prevent Serb paramilitaries from committing mass atrocities. In Iraq, without a Systems Administration force, the United States has not been able to rebuild the country or restore order. The Pentagon, geared up to fight the Next Big Enemy, is now poorly positioned, Barnett argues, for System Administration missions, which account for the majority of U.S. military deployments. Afghanistan and the Iraq Wars are exceptions. Even the Terror War against al Qaida depends, ultimately, on the nation-building expertise that the Europeans have and the Pentagon needs to acquire.

What the United States and Core requires, according to Barnett, to deal with the terrorism, rogue states, WMD proliferation, anarchy and pandemics is a Global Transaction Strategy to ìshrink the Gapî by fostering ìconnectivityî to the Core. Calling for a new vision of ìwar in the context of everything else,î PNM strategy cannot be conceived in traditional military terms but as full-spectrum intervention to foster the flows of globalization. Soft power here is equally important, as is access to technology, humanitarian programs by NGOís and the exchange of ideas that could potentially strengthen fragile civil societies. As a Leviathan, present circumstances make the United States truly indispensable but removing tyrants alone is not enough. The rest of the Core is needed along with international organizations to help dysfunctional nations make the jump from Gap State to a newly industrializing member of the Core.

As a doctrinal possibility, Barnettís ideas are currently being very serious attention by CENTCOM, Special Operations Command (which already conceived of ìwarfightingî as only one small part of their mission arc) and the Joint Forces Command and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Comparisons to containment are frequent but there are some significant differences between containment and Shrinking the Gap.

George Kennanís prescription was essentially to ìhold the lineî by walling off or ìcontainingî the Soviet menace from the West until monolithic totalitarian Communism began to mellow as a system or collapsed. The stakes of failure were extremely high during the Cold War for the United States but the tasks to implement containment were familiar and relatively easy ones. The Truman administration established on a global scale the old ìCordon Sanitaireî that the French had tried without success in Europe after Versailles: vigilant, defensive military and diplomatic alliances, deterrence and measured responses to Soviet provocations over time.

Thomas Barnett is really proposing ìintegrationî instead of containment. The economic and political conditions that generate terrorism, genocide, WMD proliferation, dictatorship and anarchy in the Gap are to be ameliorated by a comprehensive civil-military engagement by the Core to ìconnect ñupî to functional rather than dysfunctional Rule-Sets in priority problem states. This is a more complex agenda diplomatically than containment, which had the advantage of a truly malevolent enemy in Josef Stalin. Chaos does not have a human face ñ though Osama bin Laden vied for that title ñ and the problems of todayís world are intersecting and interconnected in a Gordian knot of diverse security threats.

The advantage Barnett has in having his ideas become the sword to cut this Gordian knot is that unlike the preemption strategy of the Neocons, PNM is a non-zero sum game. The United States gets to wear the White Hat again in allied eyes by pushing a strategy that stresses mutual interests instead of just unilateral survival. China, which is not even an ally, has already accorded The Pentagonís New Map a respectful hearing by senior academic advisors to the Chinese government. PNM strategy, unlike the National Security Strategy of the United States, does not scare the hell out of the rest of the world.

Instead The Pentagonís New Map offers a hopeful ending, ìa future worth creating.î When skeptical leaders of foreign states ask American ambassadors and Generals ìYes, but what are you fighting for? What is in it for us to help you?î ñ weíd better have an answer.

COMMENTARY: What do you say when you get what you want? You say, thank you, and leave it at that. Few people get PNM like Mark does. I feel like he is a true fellow traveler on this intellectual journey of mine, and I say that even though I've never met the man and know almost nothing about him other than he's much more polite and intelligent in emails than I tend to be. What's clear is that Safranski has a gift for history, and when I say gift, I mean that when he opens his mouth, everything gets clearer instead of more complex (naturally, he's a teacher). That's a real talent, and I'm very happy that PNM has received the benefit of that insight, because it seems like such a better book whenever he talks about it. PNM was built to be like that, meaning something that pushed people to new heights. So Mark's heightened understanding means a lot to an author who's never made it through a day yet without wondering if he's completely full of shit.

Reviewing the Reviews (James C. Bennett in The National Interest)

See the original here

Issue Date: Winter 2004/05, Posted On: 12/22/2004

Dreaming Europe in a Wide-Awake World

By: James C. Bennett



The world today is a vastly different place from what it was thirty years ago. Then the picture was dominated by the stark contrast between the generally prosperous and free First World, the economically stagnant and drably totalitarian Second World, and the seemingly hopeless Third World. Today, that disturbing but fairly simple tripartite classification has been replaced by a much more complex picture. What stands out in this new picture is the way winners and losers are emerging within each of the former categories. Within the former Third World, erstwhile basket cases such as China and India have become awakened giants, economically dynamic and increasingly more assertive on the international stage, while other Third World locations have become more of a Fourth World, sinking into a Conradian heart of darkness, breeding a seemingly endless mess of massacre and terrorism. The bright lights of Prague, Budapest and Warsaw signal a reborn eastern Europe, while Belarus and Ukraine struggle, and Russia wavers in between. Even in the First World, more and more is heard of Atlantic Divides and a growing feeling that America and a uniting Europe have less in common with each other and more in common with other parts of the world. Making sense of this complexity and illuminating a path forward is the intellectual task of today, one which becomes a metric for judging all international trends and policy analysis.

One of the most interesting analytical problems is that presented by the divergent paths taken by the developed nations of the First World, and their respective degrees of success. These are sometimes segmented out as Europe, America and Japan, but the more useful division is probably one of Japan, Continental Europe and what are variously called the "Anglo-Saxon" economies or, increasingly, the Anglosphere. In the early 1970s, all three of these regions were seen to be facing roughly the same set of problems: first, stagnation of a modified market economy defined by substantial economic regulation, high marginal tax rates, and a fairly high percentage of GDP captured by the public sector, as well as high wage levels and inelastic industrial structures reinforced by strong unionism; second, a declining birthrate, which promised trouble downstream for pay-as-you-go pension and benefits programs; and third, a weakening of the old sources of social cohesion, particularly religion, patriotic narratives in education and the media, and (in some countries) ethnic homogeneity.

From the end of World War II to the early 1970s, all three sectors of the developed world enjoyed a general economic expansion. Continental Europe and Japan in fact each experienced more rapid growth and development than the English-speaking nations, mainly from the spur of postwar reconstruction. However, as more and more of the Third World began adopting aggressive, export-driven industrialization strategies, the old cozy collaboration of government protection and passing wage increases on to the consumer began to fall apart.

The Anglosphere nations, led by the United States and Britain, reacted by reducing marginal tax rates, privatizing and deregulating markets, and refusing to subsidize declining smokestack industries. High levels of immigration were accepted, reversing the demographic patterns of decline. Continental European nations responded by increasing European integration, thus expanding internal market opportunities but retaining and even reinforcing the "social market economy"--legislated job protection and generous social benefits, particularly for the unemployed.

A wave of European Union-mandated privatizations ended the most egregious boondoggles, and small, protected national companies were absorbed into a smaller number of EU-wide champions, which were protected more subtly by disguised subsidies and ingenious non-tariff barriers. Meanwhile, most European nations accepted "guest workers", increasingly from North Africa and Turkey. But their assimilation into European national cultures was never aggressively pursued.

Finally, Japan addressed essentially the same set of problems through aggressive use of automation and offshore production, honing their competitive capabilities, and continuing a rather blatant policy of domestic protection. Japan also employed other labor-saving strategies and a minimal number of temporary foreign workers, though making clear that they were expected not to become permanent residents.

So the world economy must today be considered as one vast experiment. The object of this experiment is to determine whether the developed nations might continue to enjoy at least their current levels of prosperity, while the large developing nations of India and China become major economic players and a host of smaller, newly industrialized countries acquire the capability to offer almost every sort of manufactured good and advanced service at the same quality and lower price.

Author Neal Stephenson once famously described this process ending with a global standard of living stuck at "what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity." The challenge for the developed world is to avoid this fate, while not retarding the emergence of these major new players. At the same time, we must deal with those parts of the world that, for whatever reasons, are not climbing the ladder to prosperity. Engagement with these disadvantaged areas is less a matter of philanthropy than of the acute security challenges presented by the current anarchy. These areas, instead of exporting trade goods, are supplying large numbers of desperate immigrants, legal and illegal, and smaller but highly troublesome numbers of criminals and terrorists.

It is in this global and historical context that we must examine Europe's present and future, and what they may mean for the United States. Any static view of Europe today, or one that merely contrasts Europe and the United States in a less-than-global context, is worse than useless. Whatever the relative standings of Europe and the United States may be today, they will be different tomorrow. For anyone seeking to understand Euro-American differences in this context, Jeremy Rifkin's and Olaf Gersemann's respective treatments of Europe relative to America provide examples of two dramatically contrasting approaches encountered in this debate.

One holds that the American approach is dynamic and responsive to competition, and thus it is progressive, and therefore good. The other holds that the European Union, by increasing the scale of its market beyond that of the United States, will overcome whatever inefficiencies remain from its social market capitalism and overtake the United States, and thus that it is progressive, and therefore good.

Gersemann's treatment is closest to the first position. Its particular distinction lies in addressing the "yes, but. . ." arguments made by Europeans and their admirers when addressing the visible GDP gaps between America and Continental Europe. These run "Yes, America has a substantially lower unemployment rate . . . but that's because so many Americans are in prison", or "America makes more jobs, but they are low-wage, service-sector 'McJobs.'" (Gersemann characterizes the latter argument as "We can't actually make any jobs, but if we did, they would be good ones.") Gersemann systematically and persuasively rebuts such arguments.

Rifkin's book is a strange duck. It initially seems to offer a conventional example of the second Europeanist position. And in fact, it does include the standard Euro-critiques of the American socio-economic approach: prisons, McJobs, consumerism and so on. As usual, these arguments are used to fill in the argumentative gaps created by the shortcomings of actual, existing Europe, as opposed to the theoretically ever-more-efficient Europe beloved of the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.

Layered underneath these fairly standard approaches, however, is a deeper and more philosophical level of argument than Europeanists usually present. Rifkin argues that the European approach (The European Dream of his title) is precisely the abnegation of traditional progressivism in its most fundamental sense: the belief in the desirability of material and scientific progress, and the individual identity and freedom that accompany it. Thus, Rifkin's is a two-level critique of America contrasted with virtuous Europe. First, he asserts that Europe is surpassing America on the conventional criteria of prosperity. But he then adds that where economic success is absent in Europe, that's okay too, because progress is bad for you anyway.

Rifkin, therefore, requires critiquing on both levels. Gersemann, in debunking the general Europeanist criticism of America, (his book was written prior to the release of The European Dream) provides an excellent analysis of Rifkin's surface level. The case for the coming European triumph over America is quickly refuted. Gersemann, himself a German financial journalist (currently Washington correspondent for Wirtschaftwoche), convincingly refutes all of the prevailing Euro-legends about America, from the supposedly collapsing middle class to medical care to income inequality. He likewise documents the growing structural and demographic crisis of a Europe that has created more unfunded obligations than it can fulfill--while producing too few children to pay the bills their parents are racking up.

Immigration, which is now hoped to be able to fill the demographic gap, remains problematic. It is exactly the postmodernist multicultural narrative so praised by Rifkin that has created an unassimilated immigrant underclass. This underclass is a poor candidate for stepping up to the greater taxes needed to fund the lavish pensions now coming due. Young, mostly Muslim families struggling under ever-increasing payroll taxes will hear calls from ethnic-based politicians to repudiate the checks that old rich white Europeans had written to themselves. To the extent that Rifkin holds up Europe as a model for Americans to emulate, he is in effect urging the purchase of a ticket on the Titanic.

At this point one must turn to the underlying level of Rifkin's critique, that of the entire complex of ideas of autonomous individuals with enforceable constitutional rights. In essence, Rifkin is saying "Okay, perhaps United Europe will after all be poor and strife-ridden. But at least you will lose your freedom and individualism in the bargain." Rifkin presents a distillation of the positions of a number of European intellectuals over the past decade or two (but with roots in a Europeanist tradition going back much further). This argument states, roughly, that the entire idea of progress--of autonomous individuals possessing stated constitutional rights in a contract-based market society--is a historical aberration, and an unfortunate one. Rifkin traces it to the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution and certain precursor events, including the introduction of scheduled time by the Benedictine order.

In Rifkin's narrative, medieval people lived a collective lifestyle, in which individuals were embedded in a web of connections and did not think of themselves as apart from their colleagues. It was only the introduction of the proto-capitalist mentality that shattered this comfortable universe of family, congregation and community and transformed mankind into alienated individuals. The coup de grace was provided by extreme Protestant sects in the English Civil War, who used the new invention of printing to shatter the last stands of community by preaching the direct link, via the Bible, between man and God. These individuals went on to develop capitalism and technology, destroy the environment, subdue the Third World, and create our current world of SUVs, beef eating, obesity, and excessive punctuality (to give some idea of the bÍtes noires inhabiting Rifkin's earlier works critiquing the American way of life). America is of course the ultimate example of this alienated world, while Europe is on the path back to connectedness, mostly by creating vast, unaccountable bureaucracies and substituting positive rights (things the state must do for you) for negative rights (things the state cannot do to you).

What Rifkin is talking about is familiar to anyone who has studied the historiography of the Industrial Revolution: Marx and Engels on alienation, Tînnies' distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft societies (the former Rifkin's medieval, status-based, "connected" societies, the latter modern, contract-based individualist societies), and Max Weber's famous "Protestant Work Ethic" thesis.

All these theorists posited a world characterized by universal laws of cultural evolution: Everyone was once tribal, then agricultural, then feudal, then modern (or is destined eventually to become so). The Marxists posited subsequent stages of socialism and communism, and others debated how, when and why peoples moved from one stage to another. Rifkin's novel contribution is to identify the emerging European postmodernist society as the next stage. Instead of a proletarian revolution ushering in central planning, we are to have a centralized bureaucratic revolution that will plan proletarian immobilization.

But what if there are no inevitable stages of social evolution? What if some people have never displayed the characteristics of Gemeinschaft society, but have been individualists from as far back as records could show? This in fact seems to be the case. It is the English (and their cultural descendants throughout the Anglosphere) who for many centuries have been the exception. Over the past thirty years, an intellectual revolution has been taking place in historical sociology, led in particular by Alan Macfarlane (whose works deserve a more substantial treatment in this regard than is possible here).

Macfarlane and his associates have demonstrated very convincingly that English society back to Anglo-Saxon days has been characterized by individual rather than familial landholding; by voluntary contract relationships rather than by inherited status; and by nuclear rather than extended families. Individuals were free of parental authority from age 21 on, and daughters could not be denied their choice of husband (unlike on the Continent). The English nobility, regularly churned by elevation of commoners and marriage of younger sons to non-titled families, tended to mix freely with the rest of society, rather than being a separate caste, again as on the Continent. Rather than the English Reformation being the event that caused this change, it seems to have been (for the majority of the population) the event that brought formal theology and church government more in line with the pre-existing customs of the country. So the English "peasant" that Hollywood is fond of depicting turns out to be the figment of a 19th-century Marxist's imagination.

Macfarlane's body of work represents a momentous intellectual revolution. The implications of this revolution have not yet been fully realized, or even generally understood. It suggests that modernity and its consequences came particularly easily for the already-individualistic English. Conversely, it came particularly hard for the Continental Europeans, whose societies were characterized by all the non-individualistic features England lacked. It was to these Continentals that the intrusion of individualist, market-oriented relations was particularly disruptive and shocking. With medieval traditions of representative government moribund or long vanished, it is not surprising that Continental states had a particularly difficult time adjusting to parliamentary government, experiencing instead frequent coups, revolutions and periods of authoritarian rule, spiraling down to the abyss of fascism and communism.

It has been usual to write the history of the past two centuries of Continental Europe as one of modernity and democracy punctuated by periods of exception, but it may be more accurate to see the period from 1789 until the very recent past (France's current political arrangement dating back to 1958, Spain's to 1976) as a long, difficult and perhaps incomplete period of adjustment to modernity. Although certainly the majority of most Continental populations made a perfectly successful transition to modernist life, a significant minority never fully bought in to the psychology or assumptions of liberal society, and thus were easily recruited into the darker visions of fascism. That may explain why Anglosphere nations never developed significant fascist movements, despite experiencing the same traumas of postwar disillusionment and economic depression.

In this light, Rifkin's European dream becomes just one more chapter of what economist Brink Lindsey has aptly dubbed the Industrial Counter-Revolution--a diversion from the path to modernity rather than an effective alternative to it. Fortunately, this version of it lacks the fascination with violence and the cult of leadership that characterized the previous rejection of modernity in Europe (not to mention the effective military organization). Still, the Europeanist dream as articulated not just by Rifkin but by many intellectuals incorporates so many of the tropes of the authoritarian anti-Americanists from the Europe of 1921-45 that the current "Atlantic divide" (which in reality is still more of a Channel divide) may not be easily or quickly resolved.

One must then ask, if the divide between les Anglo-Saxons and the Continentals is genuinely deep rooted, why have Atlantic relations over most of the past fifty years been so relatively tranquil? It may be because the Cold War years, with their combination of Soviet threat and open American markets for recovering Continental industries, and with the Third World economically invisible, provided a period of unique military-political stability and economic opportunities that provided uniquely strong incentives to smooth over problems. With the end of the Cold War, the first incentive has disappeared. With the rise of the newly industrialized countries, the European share of the American export market continues to shrink. Japan now competes for the luxury markets Europe used to dominate, India targets software, while China and the East Asian Tigers take the low-cost manufactured-goods slot from Japan. The Anglosphere nations have navigated this tightrope with a combination of maintaining the high-technology pioneer slot, aggressively combining offshore, low-cost labor with their managerial and financial talents (a strategy followed by Japan as well), and growing their domestic services sector, primarily by entrepreneurism. Continental Europe has so far proven too slow and inflexible to follow this pattern. In this environment, the Anglosphere-Eurosphere divide promises to widen, not shrink.

Rifkin's analysis either ignores or trivializes this problem, despite his frequent invocation of the term "globalization", which in his eyes becomes primarily a justification for European-style multiculturalism. Fortunately, this global context is becoming more widely recognized. Two new books coming from the opposite sides of the British debate on Euro-Atlantic relations, Timothy Garton Ash's Free World and Christopher Booker's and Richard North's The Great Deception, provide a much more illuminating discussion, and one rooted much more soundly in current realities.

The British debate is particularly interesting, because Britain is a sort of canary in the mine for Euro-Atlantic relations. Any perturbation in those relations is usually foreshadowed by a perturbation in British politics over the same issues. This debate thus cannot be resolved without finding a consensus on exactly what "Europe" and "America", or increasingly, "the Anglosphere" mean, and where and how Britain fits into each. This debate has been continuing unresolved for decades. As issues such as the Single Currency and the current European constitution have begun to present Britain with the prospect of an irreversible commitment to the EU, the debate has become increasingly acute and shrill.

Timothy Garton Ash, a British historical scholar of high reputation and a convinced Europeanist, has produced a work that promises to help move the debate toward a consensus on at least the underlying questions, if not necessarily the right answers to them. He imaginatively casts Britain as a four-faced Janus, looking simultaneously in four directions, each of which represents an aspect of British reality, and each of which calls Britain down a particular path. These four directions he identifies as Europe, the Anglosphere, the wider globalized world, and finally the inward-looking focus on the traditional Britain. The Europeanists call for the whole-hearted involvement of Britain in the European Union, the Anglospherists call for the rebuilding of institutional ties to the United States and the Commonwealth, the globalists emphasize the UN and other fully international or transnational bodies, and the Little-Englanders emphasize the recovery of traditional Britain with an unaligned, self-interested foreign policy. Resolving this "Janus dilemma" is both Britain's problem and a wider problem of the Euro-Atlantic West.

Ash's formulation is a welcome advance for the Euro-Atlantic debate. One of the principal obstacles to a useful discussion of Euro-Atlantic issues and Britain's options therein has been the insistence by the Europeanist side that Britain is entirely a European power and that its Anglospherist side is either defunct or irrelevant. Ash states forthrightly that "the Anglosphere is an economic reality", both in the sense that the economies of the English-speaking nations share a recognizable and distinct profile compared to others, and that they do a very substantial amount of business with each other. He cites also the "Inglehart Human Values and Beliefs" study, which found that English-speaking nations form a separate and distinct cluster from other world cultures. So for Ash, the question becomes, "what formulation of interests balances Britain's European, Anglosphere, global and inward sides?"

His question is useful because it proceeds primarily from his awareness of the new global situation: one in which the need for the poorest of the Earth to catch up, the need for the newer developed nations to prosper, and the need for the old developed nations to preserve their prosperity each gets due attention. His answer is, basically, for the developed nations, and particularly the Euro-Atlantic West, to set aside whatever differences they have, renew the mutually advantageous working relationships they enjoyed between 1945 and 1989, and focus on creating a genuinely global prosperity.

In pursuit of this goal he makes a remarkable plea for mutual understanding, reaching out to Americaphobes in Europe and Europhobes in America. His attempt at explaining the actions of the United States since September 11, 2001 from the American point of view for the benefit of Europeans is fascinating to read. If it had been written by any literate American other than a convinced internationalist, it would seem like an unremarkable statement of reality. In fact, it represents a stupendous feat of imaginative reconstruction on Ash's part, comparable to Anthony Burgess's writing a first-person novel-length narrative from a homosexual viewpoint in Earthly Powers.

Given this recognition of the genuine case for an Anglosphere identity and dimension, two questions for Britain regarding Europe arise. First, is Britain a European nation with a special relationship to the United States, or is it an Anglosphere nation with a special relationship to Europe? Second, given that it must interact with both spheres, what should the exact nature of the institutional ties with each be? Ash does not really answer the first question, although his presentation gives plenty of evidence for the idea that its Anglosphere identity is primary, while his stated conclusions imply that the European predominates. Ash's answer to the second question is essentially that Britain must fulfill its destiny by participating fully in the European Union and embracing further integration. But it must also attend to its Anglosphere side by pursuing larger Euro-Atlantic integrative structures, such as a trans-Atlantic free-trade area and a revived NATO integration.

Laudable as such structures are, Ash at the last minute weakens his argument by shying away from the difficult points. His diagnosis is convincing, his prescription less so. The question comes back to this: Are the structures of the EU the best vehicle for resolving Britain's need to maintain both cross-Channel and intra-Anglosphere ties? And are the structures of the European Union adequate to the task of maintaining the integration of Europe in the wider Euro-Atlantic world, and in the world in general?

Before attempting to answer this question, it would be highly advisable to read Booker's and North's The Great Deception. These authors, experienced journalists and committed British Euroskeptics, have written a history of how the EU came to be and what the consequences of its peculiar genesis have been. The book is a substantial achievement. It meticulously documents the origins and development of the Union, and in the process destroys a number of common myths, including ones beloved of Euroskeptics and Europhiles alike. For example, although they write from a Euroskeptic perspective, the authors dispel the charges made by many Euroskeptics, including historian John Laughland, that the EU derives primarily from wartime Nazi plans for a Europaische Wirtschaftgemeinschaft (European Economic Community, also the original name of the EU). They demonstrate that such plans were never much more than a propaganda exercise to permit collaborationists to rally local support in occupied countries, and that there was no significant continuity between this planning and postwar Europeanist activity.

On the other hand, they re-examine the myth that the EU was the product of gallant anti-Nazi resistance fighters who wished to make sure that war and tyranny would never trouble Europe again. In fact, Booker and North demonstrate that the Europeanist idea dates back to the experience of Jean Monnet and a handful of European bureaucrats in the First World War. They first glimpsed that the way to achieve intra-European economic (and ultimately political) integration was through the same kind of unelected international technical organizations, such as the World War One Inter-Allied Maritime Transportation Board, in which they routinely made decisions that affected the economies of a third of the globe.

It was these experiences that led Monnet and a few partners to set up a series of economic bodies during the chaos of postwar reconstruction, beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community. Having once established them, they relentlessly expanded their reach. The underlying pretense--that the move toward European integration was primarily an economic rather than political exercise--is the "Great Deception" of the book's title. Like a miser hoarding his coins, Europeanists never missed an opportunity to shift power away from nation-states. This strategy led to the European Union, but also became its Achilles' heel. For in gathering power by stealth and exercising it without effective accountability, a substantial "democracy gap" arose--alas, not entirely to the creators' dissatisfaction.

Populations in many European countries repeatedly found their governments making decisions that went against their explicit wishes, and finding, like the Irish, that when they voted the "wrong" way on European matters in referenda, they were told in effect to "vote again until you get it right." This democratic deficit, inherent in this model of transnational governance, threatens to weaken support for European solutions just when the pressures of demography demand they be strengthened and reformed. For the British, who have an escape hatch in the form of their Anglosphere and global connections, this may not be fatal. But for the Continental Europeans, their pressing problems require a realistic assessment of their global situation.

Draw a circle on the map of a thousand miles radius, centered on Brussels. Within that circle the states are free and democratic, and military conflict is virtually unthinkable. Now draw a similar thousand-mile circle centered on Tokyo. Within that circle or very near lie a half-dozen states. Three of them have nuclear weapons and the rest are close. These states are rising economic, technological and industrial powers. In contrast to Europe, it is highly conceivable that such weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction, could be used at any time. The transnational institutions and agreements that preclude war in democratic Europe have little purchase in this region.

Europeanists have maintained that Europe's model is the world's future, but while Europeans were combining nation-states into a wider entity after World War II, northeast Asians were taking an existing single-market area (pre-war Japan, which integrated Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria) and turning it into separate nation-states, with equally prosperous results. Even today there is no visible movement to a Northeast Asian Union, although many writers automatically assume that other regions will imitate European structural models. Both Free World and The Great Deception suggest the conclusion that the EU is probably a one-off happenstance from unique historical circumstances. Once one leaves the immediate neighborhood of Brussels, transnationalism does not seem so inevitable.

America faces both Brussels and Tokyo, and must act in both of these universes. It deploys troops and nuclear weapons in both theaters. Is it any wonder that America cannot wholeheartedly adopt the Europeanist outlook?

Yet it is this global environment that we must consider as we contemplate Thomas P. M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map. Barnett describes a world in which the historically industrialized nations are the Old Core, the new industrial powers are the New Core, and the bulk of the old Third World that has not achieved takeoff is the Gap. He sees the task of the 21st century as stabilizing the Gap enough for it to adhere to the Core through "connectivity"--flows of capital, people and trade goods. In order to sustain these flows in a stable world, he would combat anti-globalization jihadis (not all of them radical Muslims) with a combination of hard military power, "soft" economic-political power, and a new synthesis of the two: a "nation-building" capability which he calls the "System Administrator." This last would have been called a colonial constabulary and colonial civil service in the 19th century. Its mandate today, however, would not be an imperial one, but would emanate from the web of transnational institutions that have sprung up, and the bulk of its power would be provided by the United States.

Many of Barnett's basic assumptions--the generally beneficial effects of globalization, the utility of connectedness in fighting the anti-globalization jihadis, and the stake that the Core nations, old and new, have in seeing globalization defeat the jihadis--will meet with general agreement. He is also to be commended for realizing that the entry of India and China as first-rank players is a major development of our era, and for constructing a worldview that integrates this fact fully rather than treating it as an afterthought. But his worldview and analytical framework still deserve closer scrutiny.

It makes sense to focus on connectivity as a factor in Gap-state failure, for instance. But Barnett goes further, maintaining that lack of connectivity is the most useful predictor of Gap-state failure and violence inviting outside military intervention. He originally defined the Gap by observing the clusters of U.S. military interventions during the 1990s and then trying to define what these areas had in common. One of these four clusters was the Balkans, specifically the former Yugoslavia and Albania. Yet although Yugoslavia was less "connected" by Barnett's criteria than, say, Austria or Italy, it was certainly far better connected by almost any definition than Bulgaria or Romania, both now candidate countries for EU accession. It seems his "connectivity" metrics might actually be markers for something else. Perhaps the "strength of civil society" is a more reliable underlying predictor of a state's ability to lift itself out of the Gap than connectivity per se.

A much more significant weakness is that Barnett's focus on the Core-Gap dichotomy leads him to minimize the importance of the existing links that connect particular Gap countries with particular Core nations. Given cheap air transport and telecommunications rapidly moving to a worldwide flat rate, the old paths of empire and emigration have given rise to a series of fluid, overlapping worldwide network civilizations. In the place of the British Empire there is now a demotic Anglosphere of Birmingham curry houses and Indo-American software engineers, a son of Jamaican emigres becoming Secretary of State, and Filipino immigrants commanding British, Australian and American troops together. The cocked hats and pith helmets these days are only seen over the faces of hometown boys made good and appointed Governor-General in Kingston or Belmopan. In much the same way, the former realm of the conquistadors is now a demotic Hispanosphere, the old French empire is now a Francophone network, and so on.

The key point here is that these new constructs all cut across Core-Gap lines, yet they are almost always the most effective lines along which the money, people, goods and services will flow to bring connectivity from the Core to the Gap. Rather than striving for universality of approaches, we would do better to work with the grain and maximize the use of these existing channels.

This applies also in matters of grand strategy. Bismarck famously remarked that the most important reality of the 20th century would be the fact that the United States spoke English. The most important fact of the 21st century may be the fact that the educated and ambitious of India have made of English not merely a useful foreign tongue, as have the Chinese, but a language they have taken into their homes and their literature, and into their heads and hearts by creating their own version of it. The new rising generation of well-educated, tech-savvy Indians increasingly regards this intertwining of India and the Anglosphere not as a colonial relic, but as a valuable card that history has dealt to their country, and one that should be played. Evidence that it is being played can be seen in both the quietly accelerating Indo-American military cooperation and the rapidly accelerating economic interpenetration between India and America.

The all-Core alliance against the anti-connectivity actors in the Gap that Barnett and Ash in effect advocate has the nature of a grand coalition--that is, one that enlists all significant actors. Typically, however, grand coalitions do not last. Sooner or later, one or more players decide that they can do better outside the system, and a new oppositional alignment emerges. Some Core nations are already in the business of pimping their Core status to Gap states to achieve narrow national goals--the role of France in providing militarily useful technologies to Gap states being a particular example. So even if the grand coalition can be assembled, we must consider who might be tempted to bolt.

Continental Europe in general, but especially "Old Europe", has tended to see this emerging world as a game in which they are dealt a progressively worsening hand with every shuffle of the cards. Thus they have concentrated on cashing in chips for short-term gain, while trying to trip up stronger players when the opportunity strikes. At present, the costs of being in the coalition would probably include making major and painful structural adjustments to their economies. Domestic European electorates might therefore be tempted by the alternative of a Euro-Islamic alliance, in which Middle Eastern oil states would prop up unreformed European economies in return for international support, high-tech weaponry and open access to Europe for Islamic economic migrants. The growing "Eurabian" bloc of Islamic voters would thus combine with anti-reform pensioners to veto any other political alignment, driving politics in the direction of the Euro-Islamic solution.

This alignment might then attempt to pick off one other major player from the grand coalition. Russia would probably find this unattractive, given their problem with radical Islamic separatists, and Japan would gain little from it. China might be tempted by access to energy, European weapons technology and the European market, so long as their access to the American market was not entirely precluded. China might not be so much a partner as a semi-detached fellow-traveler, careful never to fully alienate either side. Russia might well try to play a similar semi-detached role to the Anglosphere-India-Japan group.

Under this scenario, we might see the world gradually align into several loose competing politico-economic alliances whose elbow-jostling would not rise to the level of war, or even cold war. The above scenario may in fact be emerging now, with an Anglosphere-plus-India-plus-Japan-plus-Russia team contending with a Euro-Islamic-Chinese bloc. Within such a framework there would still be a need for high-level international agreements and organizations to bind the major players together within a limited framework--to facilitate world trade and prevent any major conflagration among the major powers. But a new world order it would not be, and the transnational elements in it would probably wield about the same amount of influence as during the Cold War.

All in all, the European model is unlikely to be replicated on the world stage--and it may be scaled back and even dismantled in Europe itself when the evidence that India and China are overtaking it becomes too embarrassingly clear. As for the really big picture, instead of problematic schemes for transnational governance on the European model, we are likely to see the gradual rise of associated commonwealths, achieving more modest goals more effectively on a basis of cultural, legal and linguistic affinity. Rifkin's "European Dream" is likely to remain exactly that.

James C. Bennett is president of The Anglosphere Institute and author of The Anglosphere Challenge.

COMMENTARY: I will admit, that the first time I read this I read only the parts about PNM and felt Bennett was a complete ass. Then my fellow bloggers told me to chill and read the whole thing more closely, thin-skinned fellow that I am. Realizing Bennett's bent, as it were, I get his arguments a whole lot better, and realize his complaints about the vision all amount to interesting observations that I could easily plug into the PNM sequel.

More specifically: Bennett's bit about "connectivity" being a poor predictor of conflict is a bit narrow, because I view connectivity both in terms of the internal civil society that he cites, and the external connectivity to the world. In other words, it's hard to get the latter without having a good portion of the former. But I learned something by his critique, and that is, I didn't explain that point enough.

The bit about the old colonial ties as a methodology to shrink the Gap is something that I have considered often, and plan to use in the sequel. I just ran out of gas in PNM, frankly.

On the possible bunching across the pillars of the Core, I buy his analysis, and agree that creating the new institutions to deal with that possibility is crucial in the years ahead. To me, though, such avoidance of a split within the Core isóin itselfóa new world order worth achieving.

All in all, a lot of effort from one guy to cover all those books, and in terms of his treatment of my book, awfully respectful given the competition.

So I walk away feeling a bit smarter but not unduly challenged, and that's nice after a critique.

The King of the C-SPAN Store

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 29 December 2004

Got this email this morning when I woke up:

Mr. Barnett,

After reading your book (twice), and since religiously following your blog, I decided to view your CSPAN show last week. Well, being both bandwidth and Cable-challenged (I'm in the Gap of information technology, I swear ;) ), I sked a friend to tape it for me. Of course, Murphy's Law, he forgot, so I set off this AM to buy the DVD from CSpan. When I went to Google to find the URL for CSpan's store, I discovered something. . ..

Thought you might be interested to see what you get if you type in the phrase. . . cspan store . . .into Google.

Look at the first result. Remember, Google ranks based largely on popularity. What's it feel like to be king of the world???? Ride the wave!

- John, from Connecticut, who still wants to know if you're speaking near me and who's citing you in his essay to the USNI

So here's the resulting capture, top six hits:

#1) C-SPAN Store -- The Pentagon's New Map: PowerPoint Presentation
The Pentagon's New Map: PowerPoint Presentation. Program ID: 182105-1
Format: Speech Event Date: 6-2-2004 Location: Washington, District . . .
www.c-spanstore.org/cgi-bin/cspanstore/182105-1.html - 21k - Dec 27, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

#2) Booknotes

. . . and journalists. Only $20.95, including shipping Buy Videotapes. Visit

the C-SPAN Store to buy Booknotes videotapes. [ Learn More . . .

www.booknotes.org/ - 18k - Dec 27, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

#3) Books & Films

. . . via their website at: http://www.cspan.org Please access program #174127, titled "Vietnam Adoptee Experience from the AMNH" for CSPAN store ordering details. . . . www.vietnambabylift.org/Books&Films.html - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

#4) Book TV.org

. . . Encore Booknotes David Halberstam, The Fifties. Book TV Coffee Mug Own an 11 ounce ceramic Book TV mug, from the C-SPAN On-Line Store. . . . www.booktv.org/ - 12k - Dec 27, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

#5) Compare Prices and Read Reviews on CSPAN at Epinions.com

. . . Subscribe to reviews on this product. Marketplaces, Store, Rating, eBay, . . . Search "Buy it Now" for CSPAN, . . . www.epinions.com/tele-TV_Channels-All-CSPAN - 35k - Cached - Similar pages

#6) Ohio Casts its Electoral College Vote LIVE-CSPAN 12ET

. . . line is longer than I thought - I might need to go back to the store!! . . . I cant wait for the mootbats 'hearings' on CSPAN at 4:30 Eastern, another 500,000 GOP . . . www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1300388/posts - 43k - Cached - Similar pages

Meaningful? Would mean more to me personally if I got a DIME!

But yes, it's nice. . .

PNM popping up all over the dial

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 28 December 2004

Blur of a day: started by getting up at 4am and jumping into limo that I find waiting for me out in the dark on my snow-drifty driveway. Then a 90-minute drive to Boston while I peruse two books I'm wanted to read in anticipation of starting work on the sequel to PNM.

Arrive at local video remote facility in Watertown around 6am and surf the web for about 30 minutes, until the tech says Fox wants me in the seat NLT 0640. I'm wearing what one usually puts on in the dark at 4am: black slacks, navy blue mock-turtle and tan shoes. So I slip on blue dress shirt, jacket from navy blue suit and nice dark blue tie and voila! I'm just fine for a chest-and-up remote shot.

The interview goes well enough. Two hosts of "Fox & Friends" are energetic (Brian Kilmeade and E.D. Hill), which is good because I'm not even after two large mugs of coffee. I make the mistake of taking the tech up on his offer to watch the show in my camera lens, which is helpful because I can then check my position and I know when I'm on-screen. But even just the distance between Boston and NY creates a weird time lag, meaning if I move my head a bit I see it on camera a second or two later, and once you start noticing that, it's a short distance to slurring your words in order to re-synch that which can never be "sunch."

Still, despite one word drop, it looks fine at home later at 8am, after the driver drops me off at home (I give him a signed copy cause he says he loves to read books of people he's driven) and I can check out the tape that Video Link is always so kind to provide instantly after each performance.

After I drop Jerry off at pre-school I'm into my office for a day of organizing stuff and catching up on sundry details (planning to move, you know!), but I find time to appear with Brian Kilmeade at 1140 am EST as he subs on Tony Snow's radio show (that goes better, I feel, because we have more time), plus I do a quick interview with a newsletter editor from the Center for Defense Information regarding China (that article should be out in day or two) and I quick Q&A with a Pittsburgh-based journalist for a Saturday edition feature he does for the local paper. That's four interviews in roughly ten hours, which feels kind of weird for the 28th of December, but I think I'm enjoying the bumps from Ignatius and the C-SPAN broadcasts, so I answer the mail as it comes in.

And yes, I still call myself a Naval War College professor for now, because it takes too long to explain my upcoming departure.

Spent the night reading May through October blogs. Cataloguing before the grand reset of table of contents on Thursday. My brain is cooking right now, so much so that I often feel like I'm coming down with something. I can tell I am really close to the big creative tear that will be about 40 days of writing.

In addition to all those interviews, let me cite a trio of recent articles that highlight PNM and/or quote me with regard to it:

■ First up is Jonathan Gurwitz with his op-ed entitled, "Internet, knowledge light the path to victory for open societies." That story ran on 26 December in the San Antonio Express-News and on 28 December in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (as "Internet a Beacon for Open Societies").

■ Second piece is a Foreign Broadcast Information Service (or FBIS) translation of an August article written in Slovene for the Slovakia daily paper Delo, which in Russian means "stuff" or "business" or "affairs" (and I assume the root is same in Slovene). The title is "The Pentagon's New Map," a commentary by Barbara Kremzar. The FBIS notation was "Slovene Commentary Says Success of US Troop Redeployment 'Difficult To Assess.'" The pub date is 17 August 2004.

Was going to give you third piece from Nihon Keizai Shimbun in which I was quoted by journalist Hiroyuki Akita in an 18 December story on intelligence reform, but he sent it to me only in Japanese and I can't make the font work here, so I'll post a PDF of his full interview article with me from 15 December (tomorrow, I promise) and provide the transcript of our phone interview for reference. I speak so slowly in Japanese anyway . . .

First off, a quick spin of the news dial (a slimmer version that I will favor between now and end of book writing).

News spin 28 Dec 04 (tsunami, China-Venezuela oil, supermarkets in LATAM, Al Qaeda strategy in Saudi Arabia, second Ukraine election)

■"Toll In Undersea Earthquake Passes 25,000; A Third Of The Dead Are Said To Be Children: Fear of Disease; Thousands Are MissingóMany Tourists Are Killed," by Seth Mydans, New York Times, 28 December 2004, p. A1.

■"Aid Agencies Go to Work as Tasks Continue to Mount," by Eric Lipton, New York Times, 28 December 2004, p. A10.

Question of whether this will be System Perturbation has little to do with trigger, since that one is impossible to be traced back to any human causality, like global warming or something. Also unlikely to change living near shore in those areas, cause this is a one-in-gajillions shot.

Where it can trigger massive new rule set flow would be in public's sense of bad recovery, meaning either too long/inefficient or too imbalanced (either inside states or when various states are compared). It's those differentials that anger people the most, act of God or no.

Quiet story to all this, buried in second story, are the US Air Force C-130s, Navy P-3s and Pacific Command's consideration of sending "several thousand American troops to the effort." Nothing unusual about that. It happens all the time. And it usually gets even less notice in the press.

■"Venezuela Agrees to Export Oil and Gas to China," by Chris Buckley, New York Times, December 2004, p. A1.

Analysts in DC and especially the Pentagon will squirm and vent mightily on this one, but it's no more surprising than Iran or Sudan or anybody else. This is simply "get it where they (the West) ain't" for China, meaning those oil sources we may shun or underplay are natural targets for a very needy China.

■"Supermarket Giants Crush Central American Farmers: The Food Chain (Survival of the Biggest)," by Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, 28 December 2004, p. A1.

Watching this is like watching small farmers where I grew up in Wisconsin in the 1970s, except there it was the mega-farmers who crowded in far earlier than the Cub Foods grocery behemoths. By the time Windward Farms was done, almost half the farms kids I knew from 1st grade were living in town by 6th grade. It was stunning, but unstoppable.

The alternative was a local economy based on low levels of ag production, and that just wasn't going to last. Sad for small farmers, yes. But frankly, there's nothing sacred about them, any more than coal miners or any other hard-scrabble lifestyle. They last until they can't last, and then they're gone almost overnight. People get nostalgic, and wax poetic about the life lost, but time moves on.

Real tragedy for Central America is lack of alternative employment, I would imagine (and confirmed, I see, about 20 paras into the text). What saved area where I lived was rise of Land's End and other manufacturers. But you can't fight consumers wanting cheaper food. That doesn't work. Rather than fighting this as rear-guard action, governments there need to attract foreign direct investment that triggers alternative jobs. Job loss is a tragedy. Job transition is a fact of life in globalization.

■"Al Qaeda Shifts Its Strategy in Saudi Arabia: Focus Placed on U.S. and Other Western Target in Bid to Bolster Network, Officials Say," by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 19 December 2004, p. A28.

This is Osama backtracking at his real Ground Zero. Going after the House of Saud and other symbols of authority is creating a backlash, as in uncool. So recruiting is down and the network is weakening.

So the backtrack is to resume targeting the evil West. Gets Osama close to nowhere, but it keeps the faith alive.

Good sign for the Global War on Terror, but bad sign in terms of reform in the kingdom. As always, the House of Saud temporizes with great mastery.

They are survivors, that lot. Crappy rulers in so many ways, but survivors.

■"Yushchenko Wins 52% of Vote; Rival Vows a Challenge: A clear victory in Ukraine, but a daunting task ahead for the victor," by C.J. Chivers, New York Times, 28 December 2004, p. A3.

You have to like that outcome, and the Kremlin is swallowing hard, but swallowing. It's like the head ref just pulled his head out of the instant replay tent and reversed the call!

Commentary by Barbara Kremzar: "The Pentagon's New Map"

Slovene Commentary Says Success of US Troop Redeployment 'Difficult To Assess'

Commentary by Barbara Kremzar: "The Pentagon's New Map"

Originally published on 8/17/2004 by Delo (Internet Version-WWW) in Slovene .

[FBIS Translated Text] Germany, which used to be home to the biggest US military contingent in Europe, is at least slightly saddened. With the closure of military bases, from where the Americans would scare for decades the Soviet Union and also led a military attack on [former President Slobodan] Milosevic's Serbia, whilst both presidents Bush used to settle scores with Saddam Husayn from there, the Americans will finally bid farewell to nice little American towns and the Germans to quite big financial gains. But the punishment of the ally that condemned the war of the president son is merely a less important element in the biggest redeployment of the US army after the end of the Cold War. It's been months that [Defence Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon had been drawing up its new map of the world in which different threats call for different kinds of alliances.

Because the new terrorist threats are so extensive from the American perspective, the little treats, which certain Eastern European allies are going to get in the shape of new, more flexible bases, will not bring much Cold War nostalgia. It is not by chance that the defence secretary travelled to Russia and not to Poland just before the announcement of the new strategy. Washington needs Russia's quiet approval - or at least not loud opposition - of the anti-terrorist and energy front in Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, but also approval of the anti-ballistic and other missiles system in Alaska.

But above all, the Americans will try to bring closer to its targets in the Arabic-Persian Gulf the Russians - and Chinese and Japanese and the Europeans - both by trying to convince them of yet another "Islamic" nuclear bomb and by establishing peace in Iraq. The number of fallen US soldiers in this country is fast approaching the number thousand and the US army is already feeling the burden of long-lasting fighting. If it wants to avoid a general call-up, which with the inclusion of the boys from the neighbourhood would certainly spark off a new Vietnam syndrome, Washington cannot keep its servicemen and reservists in peaceful Germany.

It is as yet difficult to assess the final success of the announced changes, but the world can by all means only hope that the devisers of the new US strategy, which can no doubt win wars, have considered also the long-term consequences of military movements better than in the Iraq case. Because of terrorism, the American public agrees that the only remaining superpower must take care of stability of a large part of the world. But military analysts Thomas P. M. Barnett in the book The Pentagon's New Map also writes that the "USA had spent so much energy trying to prevent the horrors of a global war that it forgot to dream about a global peace".

Ljubljana Delo (Internet Version-WWW) in Slovene -- leading centrist daily

Jonathan Gurwitz: Internet, knowledge light the path to victory for open societies

Web Posted: 12/26/2004 12:00 AM CST, San Antonio Express-News

The origins of the Internet lie two generations in the past in Cold War fears of nuclear destruction.

The original concept, spelled out by RAND Corp. scientist Paul Baran in a 1962 study, called for a decentralized communications network that would allow the military to maintain command and control of its forces in case of Soviet attack.

The proposed network would contain multiple nodes and connections so that if some locations ó and the data they possessed ó were destroyed, surviving locations would retain the ability to communicate and possess the database of the entire network.

This conceptual framework reveals much about the differences that underlie free and unfree societies. Knowledge is power. Fascism, communism and socialism ó political philosophies that rest on the concentration of power ó could never have conceived of an Internet. The protection of knowledge, which is to say the protection of the totalitarian regime, requires centralization not dissemination.

In ways that could not have been foreseen four decades ago when the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects began work on ARPANET, the decentralization of knowledge is generating historic revolutions. In science and medicine, researchers collaborate across continents and marshal decades of accumulated knowledge at their fingertips.

In politics, the Internet combines the historic impact of every technological innovation that preceded it: the printing press, radio, television, the photocopier, the fax machine, the VCR and the cell phone.

The rulers of closed societies are fighting a losing battle against a technology that no weapon, no censor and no physical or digital barrier can ultimately impede. China's attempt earlier this year to block 1,000 words ó including "democracy," "freedom" and "liberty" ó from the nation's most popular instant messaging service is emblematic of this futile effort.

The most important book on the reading list of policy-makers and military strategists right now is "The Pentagon's New Map." In it, Thomas P.M. Barnett, a professor at the Naval War College, suggests that the great fault line in international relations is not along religious or cultural divides. Rather, it is between a functioning core of nations and what Barnett calls the "non-integrated gap," between nations connected to the modern age of knowledge, wealth and progress and those disconnected from it.

Barnett's specific prescriptions on how to shrink the gap will be debated for years to come. His basic strategic assessment, however, is sound: "All we can offer is choice, the connectivity to escape isolation and the safety within which freedom finds practical expression."

In presenting this choice to the world ó in Afghanistan, Iraq and scores of other nations ó the United States and its allies in the functioning core are engaged in a desperate race against time. As 9-11 foreshadowed, the confluence of violent ideologies with modern technologies makes the destruction of one or more great cities far more likely than the Cold War did.

Recently Google, the company that revolutionized Internet searches, announced a historic development in the history of the Internet and mankind.

Google revealed its plan to index, scan and make available through its search engine what may eventually be tens of millions of books from five of the world's greatest libraries: Oxford University, Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Michigan and the New York Public library.

A derivative benefit exists to decentralizing so much knowledge ó including hundreds of thousands of rare editions to which the public has had little or no access ó beyond simply sharing it. Should we lose the footrace with nuclear terrorism, our modern body of knowledge will not go the way of the ancient Library of Alexandria, the great repository of classical knowledge lost to history in the cataclysmic fires of some forgotten conflict.

The Internet and its philosophical propositions ó conceived in response to the threat of a different cataclysm ó are now among the chief weapons deployed against a disconnected enemy. It also serves as a digital storehouse for humanity should that enemy ever achieve its apocalyptic goal.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

jgurwitz@express-news.net

Going on Tony Snow's Fox radio show live at 11:40 am EST

Just a quick notice. This was set up following my appearance on "Fox & Friends" this morning (0645 EST).

Sub host is same guy who interviewed me today on TV.

I guess when it rains, it snows!

Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Worldchanging Interview

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 27 December 2004

Got a lot of emails about this, overwhelmingly positive, so it must a pretty good interview. My impression of Steffen was that he was really prepared, and as I have learned time and again, that means everything in terms of the quality of the interview.

Go here for the full interview at the World Changing site.

Below is the full interview, without any further commentary from me.

December 21, 2004

Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Worldchanging Interview

WorldChanging Interviews

Prof. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Senior Strategic Researcher at the U.S. Naval War College, is maybe the hottest military thinker in the world right now. His work, which focuses on the connections between development and security, and in particular his book, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, has become deeply influential with forward-thinking members of the military. Whether or not Worldchanging readers agree with what he has to say, Prof. Barnett's vision for the future of the U.S. military is worth knowing about.

Alex Steffen: What do you mean when you talk about "the Gap" and "the Core?"

Thomas P.M. Barnett: Let me back up and explain how I got here.

A few years ago, I was doing some simple mapping of where we sent US military forces since the end of the Cold War. We sent soldiers into conflicts almost 150 times, seemingly around the planet, but when you actually plot it out, you realize it's clustered, rather significantly, in a series of regions.

When I drew a line around those regions on the globe, I realized there were certain things about those regions that were similar, and in a burst of bold data-free research I realized there was a pattern: when you look at the area where we've committed our forces, you're seeing the parts of the world that are least connected to the global economy. And I realized the shape I was staring at I'd seen in many, many forms: biodiversity loss, poor soil quality, where the most fundamentalist versions of religions are, where there're no fiber optic cable, where there are no doctors.

And I wanted to describe this split without using a term -- like North and South, say -- which resurrects a whole bunch of old arguments. So I just tried to describe it plainly, calling the connected parts of the world the Functioning Core of Globalization (or the Core)

Across that Core I see integrating economies, the regular and peaceful rotation of leadership, and no real mass violence. All the countries that the Pentagon's been planning for a big war with are all in the Core, but oddly enough, these are all the countries that come to our aid after 9-11, and the countries that find commonality in a struggle against global terrorism.

Meanwhile, when I look at the other areas, what I call the Non-Integrating Gap (or the Gap), I see almost all the negative situations we've faced since the end of the Cold War. Virtually all of Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean Rim and Andean portion of South America, the Caucauses, Balkans, Central Asia and much of Southeast Asia: in that Gap I found virtually all the wars, civil wars, ethnic cleansings, genocide, use of mass rape as a tool of terror, children forced or lured into combat activities,virtually all the drug exports, all the UN peacekeeping missions and almost 100% of the terrorist groups we're fighting.

It's a simplistic map, of course, but the match-up is profound: show me where globalization and connectivity are thick and I'll show you people living in peace. Show me where globalization hasn't spread, and I'll show you violence and chaos.

(continued. . .)

Steffen: So, if you're right and globalization brings peace, why are we experiencing so much blow-back?

Barnett: Because globalization can be a wrenching process. When globalization rolls into traditional societies -- and those are the only societies left outside the Core -- it has certain profound effects. Globalization is Borg-like in its integration abilities: it remakes you more than you can ever remake it. When it comes into traditional societies, which are pretty much defined by male control over females, it suddenly alters the character of some of our most important relationships and decisions: marriage, sex, births, family economics, the whole shebang. And globalization has proven itself time and time again to empower women disproportionately over men. That is a direct threat to the nature of traditional societies.

***

Steffen: The top third of humanity has unquestionably gotten much richer in the last decade, but there's also a billion people on the bottom who seem to be going backwards. And those people -- the part of the developing world that's no longer developing -- seems to map pretty exactly to your Gap.

Barnett: The Gap is the bottom third. One of my main points is that the middle third has joined the Core. The lives of the middle third have improved. There's been a reduction of about 400 million in the number of people in absolute poverty over the last 20 years. The number of people living on a dollar a day went from 40% of the world's population to about 20%.

There is still, though, about a third at the bottom who are shut out of the benefits of globalization. About half of them are kind of getting by in a subsistence way, but the other half, about one billion, are not only not getting by, they're falling off the edge of the planet.

Now, I should note that it doesn't mean that terrorism comes from one or the other, because terrorism seems to be related less to poverty than to a sense of diminished expectations. It tends to be people who know there's a better life, know they could get a better life because they have the skills and drive, but are prevented from having that better life. Terrorists tend to be middle-class, fairly educated, fairly smart people. Just because people are poor doesn't mean that they'll become terrorists.

Steffen: Yet you do say that shrinking the Gap is a pretty strong priority for our own national security.

Barnett: There is absolutely a security imperitive involved. If you're serious about ending transnational terrorism you've got to end disconnectedness. You're got to grow the global economy in a fair and a just manner. And we've got to find ways of bringing in that one third of humanity who still have their noses pressed to the glass (some of whom are pissed off about it).

To grow connectedness, though, you are going to necessarily involve yourself in the tumult, the resistance, and the violence, frankly, that comes about as that global economy expands and overruns traditional societies.

Bin Laden is part of the resistance to the global economy. He's saying in effect, your system is corrupt, it changes our traditional way of life, it asks too much in terms of lost identity and cultural distinctiveness and we're going to fight it and do our best to keep a firewall between us and you.

We need to understand this and we haven't. There was this sense in the 90s when the global economy was growing so well and so fast, that you didn't need to care about the consequences of having a Gap, because -- and this was essentially the argument Tom Friedman made in the Lexus and the Olive Tree -- globalization itself would just sort of spread all over the planet, and erase poverty, and integrate everybody, and by doing so it'll handle any problem you can dream up.

When we got 9-11, we realized that wasn't the whole picture, that those who feel shut out of the global economy are going to be unhappy about it, and in their unhappiness, they're going to send us their pain, and that pain can take profound proportions. 9-11 proved that the global economy can't police itself.

Now we know that there's no way to ignore the fact that a good third of humanity feel shut out of the global economy. That doesn't make them all threats. What it does mean is that if you're going to be serious about this trans-national terrorism issue, you're going to have to confront the reality of that one third. If you want to attack terrorists by shrinking their area of operations, in a classic military way, to reduce their ability to move around and squeeze them out of existence, then you have to integrate the rest of the world that remains left out.

Steffen: Now, you're not arguing that globalization is perfect, though, that the specific rule set under which we're operating globalization now is the only rule set, but rather just that there must be a rule set that applies to everyone? You give the Group of 20+ and their criticisms some credibility, right?

Barnett: Absolutely. There is always going to more argument about what's fair and what works. The concept of globalization is under constant revision.

As India and China become such big players in the global economy, the old charge that globalization equals Americanization is disappearing. In ten years people are going to see an economy that is as dominated by China, India and Brazil as it is by the EU or US. There are a variety of different rule sets competing here, and the globalization we have today will not be what we have in a decade. But the conflict isn't fought by massed armies on the battlefield, it's fought in huge bureaucratic conferences like the World Trade Organization. That's a positive process.

When I talk about globalization growing, I'm not talking about the enforcement of US interests on the rest of the world. I'm talking about places with rules replacing chaotic places. Globalization comes with rules, not a ruler.

***

Steffen: One of the things I've heard you say is that in the global economy we have all sorts of institutions and organizations to handle countries with failed or bankrupt economies -- from the IMF on down -- but that we don't have any institutions which are set up to handle failed states.

Barnett: People would assume that the United Nations was set up to handle failed states, but the reality is different. The UN was created -- largely by the United States -- in the aftermath of World War Two, having seen the horrors of state-on-state war, invasions and occupations and the like, and so the rules they put in place at the UN said state sovereignty is everything. The UN is set up to help stop states from invading and conquering each other.

The UN rules, in retrospect, look odd. To pretend that a Sudan, for instance, which is doing what it's doing within its borders should have its sovereignty treated with the same respect as a France or Japan is ludicrous.

So while in the popular imagination, the UN is the forum for addressing international crises, the reality is that the UN is largely impotent, except for its internal technical rule-making, which functions quite nicely, frankly. The UN has become primarily a bitch-session, where the developing countries can complain about their lot and the direction of the advanced world. I think that's fine in many ways; it's good that the Gap has a venue and forum to complain in the direction of the Core. In fact, increasingly what you see is one position held by what I call the "old Core" -- the U.S., the E.U., Japan -- another position held by the Gap, and what I call the "new Core" -- the Brazil, India, China and South Africa -- acting as a sort of go-between. This is an arrangement which serves us well in terms of trade and economic and technical arguments.

But in terms of security, in the realm of violent situations, it's not realistic to pretend that 1) all countries are equal -- 'cause they're not: we have huge military capabilities and almost nobody else really does -- or 2) that every state has good intentions or treats its own people well. There are terrible things happening in certain parts of the world, and I think it's unrealistic to pretend that the U.N. is going to be able to stop these things.

So what I argue for in the book, and what I'm arguing for even more extensively in the next book, is that we need to come up with a transparent and fairly agreed-upon "A to Z" ruleset, as I call it, for dealing with politically bankrupt states. Again, as you said, we have a system for dealing with economically bankrupt states. Why? That's a fairly non-controversial subject compared to genocide or states trading in weapons of mass destruction. It's pretty basic to say, it would be nice if you paid back your creditors. But how do you deal with states that are either run by bad guys or in melt-down?

The traditional model has been imminent threat. You threaten me and I'll deal with you. But in a world of international norms and a stronger sense of community, haphazard responses just don't measure up.

Steffen: "He was reachin' for his gun" sounds pretty shabby in comparison to our economic and diplomatic decision-making processes?

Barnett: Well, what you want is not some sort of frontier justice, but a police force: something that represents the law, that points out when some guy transgresses the law, and takes him down when we catch him.

Steffen: Would that be an international institution?

Barnett: It'd be a series of institutions.

Steffen: What might those look like?

Barnett: The U.N. has a certain role. It would be the Grand Jury, aggregating information, organizing complaints, hearing grievances, and then when there's a preponderance of evidence against a particular actor in the system -- people are complaining about what the government of Sudan is doing in Darfur, and the evidence suggests a serious wrong is being committed, then it rises up to the U.N. Security Council which blesses the argument that someone has crossed the line by issuing resolutions and taking the limited punitive actions it can.

That's the first step. What would need to come afterwards is some sort of functioning executive, which would take the will expressed in the UN and make some decisions about when the collective international community's military firepower will be brought to bear against this bad actor.

That's a complex set of decisions, because that military power is, in essense, the US military, because we're the only ones who can project power anywhere on the planet, it is a struggle for the international community to come up with an agreed-upon system for saying, "Here's when we turn the Americans loose on you."

It's hard to turn the Americans loose on somebody without it seeming like it's the Americans, and only the Americans, engaging in an act of war. And because we're a democracy, in order for us to build the will to engage in these acts, we traditionally have to turn it into an argument about how this guy's not only evil, but he's a threat to us, and he's not only a threat to us, but he's a threat to us right now and we'd better do something about it this minute, when in reality we haven't fought a war against a truly imminent threat in over 50 years. We wage war on a nearly constant basis, but not because of true threats -- there have been bad people, doing bad things, typically far from our shores, but we've come to the conclusion that stopping those things is worth doing, and so we make these arguments about how we're under imminent threat in order to fight the people doing them.

That was the core of Containment in the Cold War. That's the core of the Global War on Terrorism. Various people, including myself, have trouble with that phrase, but it's an improvement, I suppose, over saying something like we're fighting a war against chaos and uncertainty.

But anyway, right now, any conflict we get involved in needs to be couched in terms of global terrorism: "I think this guy is aiding terrorists." That won't work. What we need, in the real world, is a clear rule set that says certain behavior is just unacceptable. Uprooting a million people from their lives and homes and then engaging in mass-rape and mass-murder against them: whether or not terrorism or narcotics or weapons of mass destruction are involved, we can't tolerate that and it must be stopped.

So we need some functioning executive to decide when we're going to step in and stop it. I think that's going to be a sort of Star Chamber that can say this is wrong, it's bad for business, and we're going to stop it now.

The neo-cons have a very small definition of the membership of that Star Chamber. It's called the United States. Our allies would like to think it's the United States plus our allies, something like the G8 framework. I think it needs to be something like the G20 [not to be confused with the G20+ -- ed], a coalition of the world's 20 or so biggest, richest and most powerful countries. I like that idea, because it basically gets you most of the functioning Core in one room. If you can get that group to agree on how to wield power together, then I think you've got the closest thing you can get to a global consensus.

And if you can get that consensus, then you can use the Leviathan force, the US military, to do, frankly, regime change, against bad guys who need to be taken out, in a way that won't make everyone angry and scared and uncertain. No one else can do these missions, but the US can't do them alone.

***

Steffen: But what do we do once we've toppled the bad guys? Are you saying we need to do nation-building?

Barnett: Well, we need to get better at it. As demonstrated by the failures in the Iraq occupation, we need a Core-wide, and a Core-wide-funded peacekeeping force. I think the US military has a key role to play in that force, in terms of command and control, organization and logistics, but the overwhelming the bodies for that force have to come from all around the Core, and, in certain key circumstances, the Gap countries themselves.

After the Leviathan force has done the hard stuff -- the killing and removing of the bad people -- this force comes in and engages in a very broadband, dedicated, capital- and labor-intensive effort like the US engaged in Germany and Japan following the end of the Second World War, with Japan being the more direct model: with Germany, we were just reconstructing industry -- you had property rights and a moden history of democracy there; with Japan, we had to build all sorts of social and political institutions.

We need to rethink the connections between security and developmental economics. We need to stop having an antagonistic relationship between military people and the development community, because the fact is, we're not succeeding at all in these failed states. Insecure places are desperately poor places. Desperate poverty breeds insecurity. We need a new approach, a more comprehensive and integrated approach that sees these problems as two sides of the same coin and thinks differently about how to solve them.

Steffen: What would that approach look like on the ground, do you think, compared to what we're able to do now?

Barnett: Well, it would be what I call the System Administrator Force. It would be a people-intensive, UN-peacekeeping-plus approach that could defend itself -- could do counter-insurgency, could fight and not be some ineffective, pussy UN force where you shoot at them and half of them run away. It would be a tough force. You shoot at these guys, or start committing atrocities in their presence, and they would stop you, and if necessary, kill you. It could not only keep the peace, but enforce it.

It would also have a highly-trained civilian component. You'd have international, inter-agency teams. It'd look like the Casbah bar scene in Star Wars -- you'd want to see loads of uniforms from all sorts of countries, and you'd want to see civilians from all sorts of NGOs and aid agencies: you'd want the whole package, acting in a Great Depression, FDR sort of mode, where the first order of business (after enforcing the peace) would be to get everybody busy. The government that would be there would be some sort of transitional organization, an international reconstruction fund, with the goal of getting things stabilized, an economy working and laws written.

The United States military is going to continue to be critical to the whole process, though, for a long time, Other countries won't show up for peacekeeping unless the Americans will be there, and be there in numbers. And the NGO crowd can't really show up unless there's a stabilizing military presence there. So if you don't have the Americans, you don't have big enough coalitions to make it work, and if you don't have those coalitions, you don't have the NGOs who can turn things around, except for the bravest, most foolhardy ones who will go into the most dangerous situations, people like Doctors Without Borders.

But it's not going to be the United States alone, policing the whole world. It can't be. The only way that you can shrink the Gap and deal with these failed states and the humanitarian crises you're seeing is to bring together the assets and the energies and ideas from the Core as a whole: not just what the Americans can dream up, not even just what the Europeans can dream up, but the best innovations from an India, a China.

The military component would be predominant at first, then, over time, ramp down. These would be trained, experienced peacekeepers, and at first they would be everywhere, because our experience with peacekeeping is, the more peacekeepers you have, the fewer of them die.

We need to design an overwhelming presence, like that we've had on the warfighting side, for the peacekeeping side. Our warfighting force can actually be a small, elite, small footprint, highly maneuverable, lethal, mostly raining death-and-terror-from-the-skies crowd--

Steffen: You're talking about a continued process of having the best Navy, the best Air Force, and really great special operations units, forming a small tight fighting force that can do pretty much whatever it wants, right, and --

Barnett: And then this other force, which will be much more ground-intensive. And it'll look different, too: it'll be an older crowd, it'll tend to be more gender-balanced, more educated. It'll seem to our current eyes more like a uniformed, muscular peace corps. The warfighting guys come in and get the killing done in five weeks, but these are the people who may stay for five years. That's the force that the Pentagon needs to start building now.

Steffen: So, if I understand you, the goal would be to bring to bear pretty massive resources and personnel, to build the country's capacities as rapidly as possible, to move it from being a failed state to a country where we can leave and be confident that we're handing off power and authority to a responsible government?

Barnett: Yes, but look, we need to rethink every step of that process.

The developmental model needs to be smaller, simpler, more rapidly-achievable. We've gone in with giant infrastructure projects, vastly expensive, so complex that they require imported expertise to run, and so large that they take years to unfold. I think those are terrible models for any developing community. I think they're an absolute disaster when you're talking about a failed state.

Failed states are situations where people have been brutalized. And when you've gone in and fought a war there, however much it was necessary, you've just brutalized the people there some more. What you have is a situation where people need some rapid recovery. People there are going to ask for help.

The answer can't be, "Well, the good news is, we got the bad guy. The bad news is, if you can just hang on for about six to eight years --"

Steffen: We'll get your water working again.

Barnett: [laughs] Exactly. What we need really looks like what FDR did for this country: get people working. I don't care what they do, get them involved in building something out of their lives again. We don't want to make them dependent on foreign aid, but we do want to get people doing something.

Steffen: But at the same time, the sense I get is that the gap between the best practices for development and the current methods is so large that we could potentially take those best practices and tools, customize them for the situation on the ground, and create some pretty worldchanging progress. I mean, what if we could say, here's nationbuilding-in-a-box; everyone get to work? What if we could quickly spread models for microcredit programs, literacy programs, better transitional housing, better medical care, small-scale industry, communications networks, solar energy and lighting, y'know, the whole works?

Barnett: Well, like as Tolstoy said at the beginning of Anna Karenina, all happy families are alike, but unhappy families are all unique.

Steffen: So all failed states are unique?

Barnett: Yes, they tend to be screwed up in incredibly unique ways. I mean, I agree with everything you say there. I think we can now do many things better than we could in the past. We could do it all a lot better. We can turn countries around. But every situation will be unique.

And we don't need to change every country. The Gap is about 100 countries, about two billion people. Historically, since the end of the Cold War, there's about three dozen at any one time having levels of mass violence. Usually, there are about seven or eight that rise to the level of an international moral issue, where we all start to say, Jeez we should do something about this.

Steffen: Those are also the countries which tend to destabilize their neighbors, spreading conflict, uprooting refugees, creating the conditions for famines and epidemics.

Barnett: Right, so fixing those countries is important, and so we're not talking about invading 100 countries at once. We're talking about stopping genocides and civil wars in seven or eight, and frankly, the US military's already been doing that for fifty years, but most people here don't realize it. I could point out several countries in Africa where we've gone in eight or nine times over the last dozen years. It's like we're doing ER medicine, when what they need is rehabilitation--

Steffen: Or at least some preventive care.

Barnett: Yeah, get 'em some health insurance or something.

Steffen: I wonder if one of the difficulties is that we don't really have a heroic image of a peacekeeper. We have plenty of heroic warriors, but how many heroic peacekeepers do we have?

Barnett: Of course we have a heroic image of a peacekeeper: it's called a cop.

Steffen: But we don't usually think of sending our cops to other countries.

Barnett: No, we don't. And that's where we have to dis-aggregate war and peace a little better, and we have to dial down some of our old military rhetoric a little. War now is not about state-on-state combat. It's about cop-like behavior. But because it involves, by necessity, the instrumentality of the US military, and because it involves at least the possibility of people getting killed in large clusters, we describe what we're doing in the language of war. That's a real problem. It leads to real errors.

For us to shrink the Gap, we need to find a new lexicon to describe what we're doing. We've tried terms like "police action," but we need new language that doesn't make the victims into enemies, and that lets us more easily divide the conflict side, the soldier mode, from the peacekeeping side, the cop mode.

Look at what's happening with the International Criminal Court. It blurs the line between military law and civilian law. The international community wants us to go in and engage in serious violence in these places, to engage in acts of war against bad actors, and then apply a police model with these civilian legal norms after the fact. Of course, the US military is concerned that they're going to do something legitimate by military standards that'll be called a war crime later under a different standard.

My argument is that you will never get the war-fighting portion of the US military under the purview of the International Criminal Court. But there is that other part of the mission, the peacekeeping force, which should be under international legal authority. In effect, we have to stop calling that second force "soldiers."

Steffen: At the same time, "peacekeeper" isn't quite the right word, because you're talking about something more vigorous. You're talking about "peacemakers," really, y'know?

Barnett: Well, and that's a really good word, actually. That's how they described that one handgun that settled the West.

Y'know, I get criticized for this on my blog. I say that shrinking the Gap is like settling the West, and the first response I get from people is "Barnett advocates genocide throughout the Gap."

That's the fear. That's a reasonable expression of the fear that when globalization comes in, it's like an invasive species. The fear that you're being invaded by a hostile army and it will mean your death, the death of your family and your culture. And in the New World, early globalization meant real genocide, both intentional and accidental.

That's not what I'm talking about when I talk about settling the West. I'm talking about the time when you had things settling down--

Steffen: When the sheriff and the schoolmarm showed up.

Barnett: Yeah, and what's the Coalition of the Willing? It's posse. We're looking, at the Pentagon, for metaphors like this, to explain what we're trying to do.

Steffen: Of course, these are precisely the kinds of images and metaphors which don't reassure the rest of the world. They may make sense to us, but I wonder if others aren't saying, wait a minute, if you're the cowboys, who're the Indians?

Barnett: Well, but we're also a nation with a frontier history, and we understand that rough, tough law men were part of how our country came to be a stable, integrated nation. This was how we set up rules and got people to respect them.

The Gap needs rules, needs laws, needs institutions that can enforce them. That's Hernando de Soto's point about how so much of the Gap's economic activity is informal, and therefore not recognized, not legalized.

Steffen: Which makes it really hard to do business, much less use that property as collateral for credit to expand your farm or --

Barnett: Basic structures for doing that don't exist through much of the Gap. I mean, look at the conflicts you have in the Sudan and Nigeria -- it's the farmer and the cowboy can't be friends. It's right out of our own past. And so often, when you look at these conflicts, they may break down along tribal or religious lines, but they start over who has rights to the land. Who gets to use the resources? The rule sets are weak. There's no way of adjudicating these disputes, other than picking up guns and getting medieval on each other.

Steffen: Well, and that example raises not only the points you make about the need for laws in the Gap, but also, another set of questions around environmental issues. In much of the Gap, all the problems we've talked about are being made worse by climate change, by water shortages, by erosion and the spread of deserts, even, increasingly, by massive pollution, as these nations scramble to catch up. Degrading environments create real instabilities--

Barnett: Right, environmental refugees, for instance.

Steffen: Exactly. If you go back to Rwanda, for instance, there have been studies that show that the strength of the pre-genocide local relationships between the groups had almost no impact on the outcome, but rather, that the places where the famine was the worst, were the places where the killing was the worst, period. What do examples like this teach the Core about how to think about security and sustainability?

Barnett: I think what it shows is that if you want a country to protect its environment, help it develop, and visa versa. The answer can't be to turn the Gap into a giant game preserve, and prevent development. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about their environments, but throughout the Gap, wherever I see failed states, bad governments, loose rule sets and lack of development, I see people cannibalize their environment out of sheer desperation. Until you create a certain critical mass of development, people won't protect their environments.

Steffen: My point is though that protecting the environment is also a way of creating the kind of stability it takes to shrink the Gap. Climate change, for instance, is hitting the developing world much harder than it's hitting us --

Barnett: Look. I put protecting the environment where I put democracy: everybody wants them, and it's clear that they are both goals we're ultimately aiming for here. But first you need development and stability and some basic rules. First things first.

***

Steffen: So, let's say you were asked to serve as Secretary of Defense. What are the first three differences we'd see in your Pentagon?

Barnett: One. I would advocate a massive redistribution of resources towards that System Administrator function. I'd accelerate that dramatically. In terms of acquisitions for my war-fighting force, I'd keep buying high technology, but I'd buy in much smaller numbers, and take the freed-up resources and plunge them into building the new force.

You would see, very quickly, a four-star military police general in my Pentagon. You would see position and authority accrue to people that had been considered lesser includeds: I would have four-star military medical generals and four-star military supply generals, not just the war-fighting guys running everything.

Two. I would redesign the unified command plan, which was really built for another era. Having European Command have its Area of Responsibility extend all the way down to Sub-Saharan Africa is really kind of a mis-match. I would create an African Command, and an East Asian Command and a West Asian Command. In East Asia, once we get rid of Kim Jung Il, I'm looking at a relatively peaceful region, and I'm building a NATO there. That's a place we can draw resources from.

I'd put those resources into Africa. I think Africa needs a lot of dedicated attention. To the extent that we drive that fight against terrorism out of the Middle East it's going to head south, especially to the Horn of Africa. People ask me "How do we know we've won in the Middle East?" And I say, "When all our troops are on peacekeeping missions in Central Africa."

Three. I'd abolish service identities once you reach flag rank, meaning once you became an admiral or a general (and I suppose you'd have to come up with a single term, which will really piss of the Navy, because I'm sure you'd end up with general), you'd serve the Pentagon as a whole. That'd solve one of the biggest problems, because now, once you become a one-star general, the way to become a two-star general is to protect you service's force structure in budgetary battles, to make sure that no matter what else happens, you've got twelve carriers or three armored divisions or whatever. These idiotic budgetary battles go one forever and ever and lead to all sorts of overlaps and inefficiencies and acquisition scandals.

If instead, the incentives for becoming a two- or three- or four-star would be how gloriously "purple" you were -- which is the color they associate with "jointness" -- how seamlessly you could cooperate. That would also, I think help people to be more interagency, more international, to adapt to unexpected situations.

I threw that out as sort of a lark in the book. You'd be amazed how many people take it seriously, inside the Pentagon.

Steffen: Are you finding a willing audience for your reforms?

Barnett: When they invite you in to address the entire class of a war college, that's a good sign. The other thing I do is I'm now coming in and briefing all the new one-star generals and admirals, and that's a big sign of acceptance.

Posted by Alex Steffen at December 21, 2004 10:36 PM

Out of the mouths of babes . . .

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 27 December 2004

Was going to take sick leave today to tend to ill wife and eldest daughter, but snow storm saved me the effort by closing the base to all but essential personnel (and we now know how unessential I truly am!).

The amazing and heart-rending story of the tsunamis in Asia has shifted my time on "Fox & Friends" tomorrow. Instead of appearing in the 7am EST hour, I'll appear at approximately 6:50 am EST. That means the car sent from Providence to drive me to Watertown MA and the satellite studio there will need to pick me up around 5am, so if I look a bit bleary eyed, you'll know that either my spouse's tough day dragged on or baby's two incisors coming through made for some late night HBO watching on my part.

I won't be using the "Fox & Friends" platform to announce my impending departure from the college. Upon advice of many friends and family, I will let that sleeping dog lie. There's simply no good way to spin that event without raising unsettling questions about the college's (or the Department of Navy's) fears and motivations regarding my future writings, and I'd rather not go down that road, even if some on the other side are more than happy to voice malicious accusations regarding my own. Taking that argument public is counterproductive to my goal of spreading the vision, which I know has widespread appeal even within the U.S. Navy, probably the service most likely to endure significant change as a result--after the Army, of course. So I won't be dignifying those sorts of threats, and I trust the college's leadership will be wise enough to do the same.

Again, the larger goals here are what matter. I saw an amazing segment last night on "60 Minutes" on the "echo boomers," sometimes called the "Y Generation" and the "Millenium Boom." It's the single largest age cohort America has ever seen, roughly 80 million souls born between the 1980 and the early 1990s, meaning my oldest Emily would fit in. This is the group that will run the world in 2025, as their age range will then extend from roughly 30 to 45.

Reaching this group regarding A Future Worth Creating is everything to me, for they are the generation of note for the next several decades.

To that end, there are no greater satisfactions had than to receive the sort of letter I just got from a high school teacher who's written me in the past.

Here it is in full:

Dear Tom,

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing your brief again and the question and answer session. You may recall that I was the Davison High School teacher that asked for a little advice before. After reading the book and being a constant visitor to your weblog, I was most excited to see that your brief was returning to C-SPAN. It will be an excellent addition to my current issues class next semester, which I am going to give a ìworld problems and conflictî spin.

I wanted as many of this semesterís students (Economics, Government, and American History) to see it as possible, but itís too long to show in a 50-minute class with the end of the semester looming. So, I bribed the children with extra credit for watching it and writing up a summary and reaction paper. I figured that this semesterís kids would be fine guinea pigs.

I've created a monster. I have kids walking around talking about "system perturbations," "disconnectedness defines danger," and "Sys Admin." The assistant principal reports he has even heard them discussing this on their lunch period.

It gets betteróI have a large world map on one wall of my classroom. The day after the brief, I had several students ask if we could draw the boundary of the Core and Gap on it. Another student raised his hand, presumably to lobby for it, and I called on him. He responded that it wouldnít be wise to draw the line on the map permanently because the gap will be progressively shrunk, and that it would be better to put clear plastic over the map and draw the line with an overhead marker. Out of the mouths of babesÖ

As far as the brief is concerned, I liked the new version, but you cannot leave out the part about Canada and anthrax! Itís too crucial to demonstrating the ìnew rule setsî that emerge from 9/11.

May I humbly suggest the following ìnew rule setî for your weblog? India is now being forced to conform to the WTOís new rule set on patents for prescription drugs. This will contribute to connectivity; now the outsourcing of jobs can include more high-tech drug researching jobs to India, since there will be less risk of patent infringement. Umm, is that a good thing? By your model, it is a definite good. Try telling that to new American medicine graduates. . ..

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=509&ncid=509&e=4&u=/ap/20041226/ap_on_bi_ge/india_patent_worries

Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to reading ìA Future Worth Creating.î And don't let caller #1 from the program (clearly of questionable sanity) stop you in your quest.

Sincerely yours,

Mike Baysdell

Weird thing is, I know Davison well. My first cousins on my Mom's side grew up there, and we visited their house several times across my childhood.

Small world, huh?

Indeed, getting smaller all the time in the minds of the Echo Boomers.

And I think that is a very good thing.

C-SPAN instant replay 12/27 2a.m. (EST)

Monday, 27 December, 02:00 am (EST)



The Pentagon's New Map: Presentation & Call-In

C-SPAN

Thomas P. M. Barnett , U.S. Naval War College

Welcome C-SPAN viewers: Intro to Tom Barnett

Critt here. . . Barnett's webmaster. . .

I'm in the process of editing an end of year review for this blog, to be published December 31st (my birthday). In the meantime, for those wanting to better understand Tom's message, I've put together an index of posts that I believe are illustrative of Tom's strategic thinking.

Peace to you,

Critt

Welcome C-SPAN viewers: Intro to Tom Barnett

Critt here... Barnett's webmaster...

I'm in the process of editing an end of year review for this blog, to be published December 31st (my birthday). In the meantime, for those wanting to better understand Tom's message, I've put together an index of posts that I believe are illustrative of Tom's strategic thinking.

Peace to you,

Critt

PNM makes Globalist's list as one of 2004's ten best books on globalization

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 26 December 2004

On the second day of Christmas, the Globalist gave to me . . . a #2 ranking as the second-most important book written on globalization this year.

Here's the announcement reposted from their site, which is for the most part restricted to subscribers:

Special Feature > 2004 in Review

The Globalist's Top Ten Books of 2004

By The Globalist | Thursday, December 23, 2004

In some ways, terrorism and the role of the United States in the world still shaped many a book on global issues in 2004. But beyond that, many of the most interesting books covered other ground, including the way the environment and regional futures shape our common destiny. Here are our top 10 books of 2004.



1. Stephen Glain: Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants [How have economic decay and political malaise created tragic consequences in the Arab world?]

2. Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Pentagon's New Map [Will the United States be able to improve the Middle East's position in the global economy?]

3. Emmanuel Todd: After the Empire [What accounts for America's deteriorating global authority?]

4. Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy: The Siberian Curse [How have Soviet planning and physical geography shaped Russia's economy?]

5. Elizabeth C. Economy: The River Runs Black [Can China's economic growth be reconciled with sound environmental policy?]

6. Martin Wolf: Why Globalization Works [Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf describes how globalization works ó despite the efforts of the World Bank.]

7. L. Ronald Scheman: Greater America [What are the key factors in determining the future of geopolitics and power in Latin America?]

8. Sebastian Mallaby: The World's Banker [Have outside activists undermined World Bank development projects?]

9. Victoria Abbott Riccardi: Untangling My Chopsticks [Victoria Abbott Riccardi describes her year in Kyoto, engulfed by the tastes and customs of Japan.]

10. Howard Markel: When Germs Travel [Is eagerness to participate in the global economy a danger to countries' health ó or an incentive to fight disease?]

COMMENTARY: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that PNM is probably the only NYT best seller in the bunch, and when all is said and done it will outsell the other 9 books. And it will do all this without a review from either the Times or the Post.

Enjoy the rerun of the C-SPAN 20 December broadcast of my 6 December brief to the Highlands Forum and the subsequent live viewer call-in segment lasting an hour.

I will be too busy to watch: got a sick wife and eldest daughter, so I empty the buckets, keep the fire roaring, and assemble the toys.

Just kidding. I'll have it on in the background. It's a rare day when you get to watch 2.5 hours of yourself on TV!

Here's the catch of the day:

■ Americans care, some more than others

■ The year-end good, bad and ugly on China

■ The year-end good, bad and ugly on Russia

■ Islam: the opposition movement

■ In trade, bilats matter



■ Adjusting the rule set for Argentina

■ Zimbabwe: more bad signs on the horizon



■ Pakistan and bomb-selling: implicit villains in the Core, plenty of customers in the Gap

■ Postwar occupation planning in the Pentagon for Iraq: the magic cloud phenomenon

The year-end good, bad and ugly on Russia

■"Getting Personal, Putin Voices Defiance of Critics Abroad: Heated words about an oil giant's sale and post-Soviet elections," by C.J. Chivers, New York Times, 24 December 2004, p. A3.

■"Why 'Contain' Russia?" op-ed by Eugene B. Rumer, New York Times, 17 December 2004, p. A33.

■"State Company Buys Winner In Yukos Deal," by Erin E. Arvedlund and Simon Romero, New York Times, 23 December 2004, p. C1.

It's good for Putin to sound off on how hypocritically the West seems to be whenever it chooses to judge him or Russia's path in general. I mean, there's voter intimidation and there's voter intimidation, and when it occurs in either America or the Ukraine, it's wrong. When Europe tries to tell American voters who they should vote for, Americans tend to say, "shove it." And when the U.S. gets itself in the position of non-too-subtly seeking to influence election outcomes in Ukraine, just like Russia did, we can expect Putin to call this kettle "black."

What's just so good about this rather contentious end-of-year extended press conference is that Putin simply held it, seemed relaxed and in command of a wealth of details, and proved flexible throughout over a two-and-a-half-hour conference!

Is Russia still a meddling player throughout the former Soviet Union (how dare they?)? Sure. But the real point is how ineffective they've been most of the time (Rumer's point). So bad, yes, but not effectively so.

Of course, the Yukos auction was ugly. It's like the U.S. buying a distressed Microsoft after going after it with anti-trust legislation. It's ugly alright, but keep it in perspective. Russia is feeling shut out of the corridors of power in many places, and the government will do whatever it can to make itself seem important and a needed seat at the table, wherever it is set.

We want Russia at those tables, sitting in that seat. And we want that role to be defined economically, not militarily.

The year-end good, bad and ugly on China

■"China Expands, Europe Rises. And the United States . . . As the dollar falls and debt grows, America no longer seems indispensable," by Fred Kaplan, New York Times, 26 December 2004, p. WK6.

■"Canada's Oil: China in Line As U.S. Rival," by Simon Romero, New York Times, 23 December 2004, p. A1.

■"A Corner of China in the Grip of a Lucrative Heroin Habit: Peasants find an escape from poverty in a new version of the opium industry," by Howard W. French, New York Times, 23 December 2004, p. A4.

China's emerging as a global counterweight to the U.S., as is the euro. Is this a sign of "chaos" and "uncertainty" and "frightening" multipolarity where the U.S. isn't in charge of everything?

Yeah, I guess it is. It always amazes me that the same analysts who decry U.S. "unilateralism" and "empire" also seem to wax pessimistic whenever any real balance begins to emerge in the system.

This balance in the economic realm is not only necessary, it's absolutely essential for the Core to win this war on terrorism. America needs to be economically healthy and well-connected to the global economy if its going to continue being the lead military player in this effort. We won't discipline ourselves all by ourselves, so a rising balance in both Europe and Asia on this score is exactly what the doctor ordered, just so long as we don't dissolve into the usual paranoia about being held "hostage" to the demands of others. The global rule set is always a "test," whether it's Russia failing the test on the Yukos auction, or Asia adjusting to pass the test on the avian flu, or America checking the necessary boxes whenever it deems it necessary to push for regime change inside the Gap. Global "tests" are good, essentially the Core as a whole saying "this is how we define playing by the rules." China is, through its rise, playing a huge role in this, and that's very good.

Of course, China will engage in seemingly "bad" activities as it emerges, like daring to compete with the U.S. in oil markets around the world, and perhaps even in our backyard! But viewing this as zero-sum is stupid in the extreme. China securing oil is China continuing to develop economically and move increasingly in the direction of our political and social model, while simultaneously helping us maintain our standard of living through a complex series of economic transactions. Expecting them to somehow "get theirs" always at no competitive cost to the U.S. is bizarrely myopic. Again, there is no "free riding" anywhere in the Core; it's all one big system of checks and balances. If we want to remain the world's sole military superpower, then we have to accept certain economic realities vis-‡-vis China.

We have to accept those realities because there is still a huge, interior chunk of China that is stuck in the Gapóotherwise known as its largely rural, agrarian, poor, interior provinces, or where my daughter came from. There, we're going to see very Gap-like behavior, like growing poppies and exporting them to the rest of the Core to support our continuing heroin habit.

Facilitating China's explosive growth is how that Gap gets shrunk. So again, there's no free riding here. There's only seeing the world in all its complexity and understanding the trade-offs. The U.S. wants China to be in charge of "in-Coring" its own internal Gap regions, as well as "in-Coring" those Gap states in the rest of Asia that line its very long borders. If America is going to focus on transforming the Middle East, we need a China to continue that process in East Asia. Shrinking the Gap is a Core-wide effort. China isn't a free rider. It's pulling its weight just fine, if only we take the time and effort to see the full spectrum of its interactions with the world outside, as well as with its interior Gap regions.

Americans care, some more than others

■"America, the Indifferent," editorial, New York Times, 23 December 2004, p. A26.

■"When the Right Is Right: For the left, this is no time to sulk," op-ed by Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, 22 December 2004, p. A31.

The New York Times sees the U.S. essentially short-changing on aid while wasting money on foreign interventions, and by doing so, the editorial board there fundamentally misses the military-market nexus. To shrink the Gap is to engage in both building up security inside the Gap and increasing its market connectivity to the Core. Does the U.S. specialize in the former more than any other Core power? Yes. Can the U.S. be expected, therefore, to keep pace with the rest of the Core on foreign aid? No. Does that make America "indifferent"?

Ask someone in America who's lost a loved one in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Ask them if they can easily equate higher taxes to the death of a child, or spouse, or parent. America has sacrificed a significant number of their "only begotten sons" in this global war on terror, signaling thatóin the truest senseóthey love their enemies more than themselves.

Tell me Jesus wouldn't understand that one.

Tell me Jesus wouldn't also say, put your money where your mouth is. Does America pull its weight on foreign aid? Not in terms of official developmental aid. But frankly, that's a drop in the bucket anyway when compared to far more important and larger aid flows.

Take America's willingness to let in foreign workers and immigrants. What they send back in remittances is routinely 5-6 times what we spend in aid. Remember that when those immigration-hating Europeans lecture us on foreign aid.

Also remember that "crazy," "far too religious" America also gives a huge amount of private charity aid to the Gap. Foreign policy "experts" are constantly decrying the "indifferent, ignorant" American public that cares not for suffering throughout the Gap, and yet, where is all this charity coming from? Faith-based groups are the biggest providers. These red-state types are also the ones who agitate most regarding human rights abuses in places like Zimbabwe and North Korea. They're the ones who scream the most about the effective genocide going on in the Sudan.

Where are the liberal street protestors on any of this?

Here's Kristof's interesting take:

Ö a larger shift is also under way. Liberals traditionally were the bleeding hearts, while conservatives regarded foreign aid, in the words of Jesse Helms, as "money down a rat hole." That's changing. "One cannot understand international relations today without comprehending the new faith-based movement," Allen Hertzke writes in "Freeing God's Children," a book about evangelicals leaping into human rights causes.

America the indifferent? Or New York Times the clueless?

Uh Ö I mean, except for Kristof, of course, who frankly is kicking Friedman's ass right now in terms of being the foreign affairs interpreter of note on the staff.