Somebodyís taken Philosophy 101 . . .
4 of 9 people found the following review helpful
2 out of 5 stars
Read Hegel Instead, July 8, 2004
Reviewer: Frank Prest (Portland, OR USA)

Mr. Barnett displays an ability to think big and he's not afraid to make bold statements and predictions. This is what drew me to purchase and read "The Pentagon's New Map" in the first place. I have no doubt that Mr. Barnett has dedicated his professional life to the achievement of the noble and mostly realistic notion that correct choices by the US government can bring about "a future worth creating" across the globe. I found the book to be tedious however.

First, it is too long. My guess is that it should be no more than half its actual length. Mr. Barnett uses up 100 pages to make the point that pentagon planning in particular and US foreign policy in general were in sad shape after the end of the cold war. It certainly wouldn't take much to convince me that after nearly 50 years in which the cold war defined US policy across the globe, it was going to take time to re-tool.

Secondly, there is a notable lack of supporting information to support the ideas and predictions brought forth in the text. I think the idea is "I'll tell you how smart I am and then you won't have to worry about facts". This makes the book tend to read like any number of business books that promote "thinking outside the box" or searching for the "killer app". Too clinical, no human touches.

Lastly, the author tirelessly portrays the world in terms of "gaps" between the enlightened globalists and the deprived regionals. I found this to be annoying after a while. The modern philosopher, Hegel, might find the whole structure of the arguments a bit derivative of his notion of "dialectics" as well.

Two stars because of the author's "courage of his convictions" and an interesting look inside the "think tank culture" of the beltway.

COMMENTARY: This guy clearly reads for just the high concept, so he found the personal narrative off-putting. As for a lack of data, thatís nonsense. I give a large amount of supporting data all over the dial. What he wants, I think, is a lot of background theory and citations of smaller ideas to build my bigger ones. Given the Hegel reference and everything else, I think he wanted something closer to Fukuyama and Huntington than what he found here, which wasóby designócloser to Thomas Friedman.

Looking for hope in all the right places
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5 out of 5 stars
Finally some clarity, hope, and optimism, July 8, 2004
Reviewer: Robert Meyers (Ithaca, NY)

Mr. Barnett's book is a welcome breath of fresh air. Free from partisan rants and cheap ideological jabs, he presents a very solid case for a dramatic change in American (and indeed world) foreign policy. This book uses an insider's understanding of the Pentagon and US government to help the reader understand exactly why we were caught so off-balance by 9/11 and why it took such a massive shock to initiate change. However, Mr. Barnett's main scope is global, allowing him to observe certain trends in population, technology, and energy consumption which provide rock-solid support for his conclusions. He is not a dangerous ideologue who advocates the 'Americanization' of the world, but a man who is firmly grounded in reality and wants to see the benefits of the industrialized world spread to the impoverished--while keeping them and their cultures intact. It is a breathtakingly optimistic view of the future, one that I sincerely hope comes true.

COMMENTARY: Again, this one is very gratifying, because both Putnam and myself felt that the optimism of the book would be its main selling point in a market currently glutted with pessimism and fear-mongering.

Globalization at a barrel of the gun
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3 out of 5 stars
A very bloody, savage path to peace, July 8, 2004
Reviewer: Sho J. Morimoto "aresdracon" (Washington, DC)

Dr. Thomas Barnett, former CNA and OSD analyst and currently professor at the U.S. Naval War College, wrote the Pentagonís New Map with the general public in mind. Lamenting that the Pentagon and State Department have intentionally isolated themselves from global political realities, Barnett argues that the United States needs a new grand strategy that recognizes the country's historic role as the "linchpin to the entire process [of globalization]." Basically, nuclear deterrence, U.S. military supremacy and economic interdependence have ended any possibility of war between major powers. The first two conditions remain true throughout the world. However, economic interdependence, or "connectedness," only exists among states connected to the global economy (i.e. the "Functional Core"), so the rest of the world (i.e. the "Non-Integrating Gap") still perceives some potential for benefit in engaging in mass violence (e.g. maintaining absolute, personal control over a population by forcibly isolating it from global norms on democracy). The best way to secure perpetual world peace, then, is to eliminate "disconnectedness" by connecting the Gap members to the global economy (a.k.a. "shrinking the Gap"), making all three conditions of permanent peace apply to the entire world.

Barnett puts forth three goals for the U.S. government in order to achieve this "future worth creating." First, the U.S. and the rest of the Core must shore up internal defenses and crisis management systems to minimize the attacks that will surely come from the Gap's worst actors as they feel threatened by U.S. policies aimed at eradicating disconnectedness and eroding their hold over disconnected populations. The Core must do so without causing too much friction within the Core or hindering globalization's advance. Second, the Core must stop the worst of the Gap's exports (e.g. terrorism, diseases, drugs, human and arms trafficking, etc.) from entering the Core but again without slowing down globalization. Third, the U.S. must commit to exporting security to the worst flashpoints in the Gap while aggressively promoting globalization.

For this purpose, Barnett prescribes a bifurcation of the U.S. military. While nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence will maintain security in the Core, the U.S. still needs a "System Administrator" force that will underwrite security both for the Core and members of the Gap that are in the process of integrating into the global economy. The other force will play the preemptive, hard-hitting Leviathan in the Gap, where the rules of engagement differ from the rest of the world because there are no real rules. Once an intervention has finished surgically removing the proponents of disconnectedness in a given state, the Sys Admin force will quickly replace the Leviathan to reconstruct the state and connect it to the Core. In this manner, with the Middle East as the starting point, the U.S. and its allies will eliminate the Gap.

Though refreshingly simple in its explanation of the relationship between international security and globalization, Barnett's book suffers from several problems of style and logic. I found it hard to dig up the most important points of his thesis because of his tendency to use half the pages in the book to congratulate himself on his past achievements or complain about people who do not see things his way. He could have spent that space for proving some of the claims he makes without furnishing the evidence. He sounds condescending sometimes by making assertions about globalization (e.g. it inevitably leads to bliss) and security (e.g. the U.S. can surgically take out all the bad actors while leaving the targeted countries relatively untouched) without facts to back them up. We're all supposed to take his word because all his claims are "no-brainers." Anybody who disagrees is either a fear-monger or an idiot. I'm not quite sure whether Barnett is an optimistic idealist or an overzealous crusader.

Labels aside, he does provide a vision of the future that tries to make sense of all the military operations we are currently undergoing. Instead of a war on terror that does not seem to have a foreseeable end state, we have a war on countries that do not open themselves up to democracy, good governance and free market economy. I share his belief that our nation and the international community can bring greater peace and prosperity to the entire world in the future. I just can't accept that the path towards that peace must be a series of bloody wars initiated on terms set by a few in Washington. That definitely is not a "future worth creating."

COMMENTARY: Another guy looking for pure high concept and resenting the personal narrative as superficial and self-congratulatory. As for the lack of evidence he cites, I didnít try to make this a book that defends globalization on an economic level. There are plenty of other books out there that do that. My quoting a bunch of them wouldnít make my argument any better, because itís doubtful I would convince any already committed anti-globalist to move off their dime. Then again, he could have read his way through my 35 pages of footnotes. It would have been interesting to hear his alternatives, but I think this is a guy who keeps reading books hoping one will convince him that globalization is a good thing, andóalasóhe did not find that book here.

I thank you, my mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my . . .
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5 out of 5 stars
A new Kennan, July 4, 2004
Reviewer: Eric Lee (Toronto, Ontario, CANADA)

I think Barnett does us a great service by explaining in clear language that the old rules no longer apply, and that new thinking is needed. The 21st century is shaping up to be far more complex and interesting than some Pentagon planners with their fossilized mindset realize (and Carnes Lord, Barnett's colleague at the Naval War College, typifies this kind of old thinking). Globalization, economic self-interests and economic interdependence, domestic political evolution - none of these are important to some of the folks at the Defense Dept who continue to look at the world as a one-dimensional chessboard, with monoliths pitted against monoliths in a zero-sum game (as in the Cold War). Barnett's vision is realistic, highly analytical and well-informed. This book is partially autobiographical and is a little confusing at times (I wish he would separate his own life in an appendix perhaps). But still it makes very good reading. Barnett is a new Kennan for America, only this time with a totally new vision expressed in terms which would be surprising to Kennan. The same brilliance though.

COMMENTARY: Personal narrative didnít work for this guy, but I sealed the deal with the high-concept material on being the next Kennan, so what to complain about?

Organizational man
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5 out of 5 stars
illuminates new world, June 28, 2004
Reviewer: "oracle007" (Bowling Green, KY United States)

This book explains the post cold war world. It illuminates the reasoning behind the current US foreign policy and it cuts through the election year political rhetoric. Very helpful reading, organizes known facts.

COMMENTARY: Geez, youíd think heíd get a bit more excited about a 5-star review. I feel like he might say the same things about a well-designed phone book!

Jíaccuse! Mr. War-monger!
5 of 30 people found the following review helpful
1 out of 5 stars
A Nasty Book by a Dangerous Ideologue, June 20, 2004
Reviewer: A reader

The book argues that the cultures of 2 billion people living in the "disconnected" societies of what he calls "the Gap" must be fundamentally changed essentially through Americanization. Should these countries not become "globalized" the United States is justified in seeing them as potential sources of terrorist attacks. "In sum, the United States needs to play System Administrator to globalization's continued functioning and advance, periodically waging war across the Gap as its de facto Leviathan" (p. 369). He sees these wars stretching across generations as the U.S. changes the world through cultural but also military force. The Iraq war is merely first in a long sequence of invasions that Thomas P M Barnett finds fully justified. A nasty book by a dangerous ideologue.

COMMENTARY: You just know this must be Dennis Kucinich. ìA reader,î come on! Clearly someone who buys the ìperpetual warî argument and simply ignored the historical data I put out that suggests this fear is hugely overblown.