Here's Mark R. Anderson's intro to my special letter:

Publisher's Note: I first picked up Tom Barnett's book, The Pentagon's New Map, before I'd been introduced to him, for the simple reason that it had a sense of inevitability about it: The Pentagon obviously was re-assessing its role in future U.S. global military policy, as we had heard from past Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Bill Owens, in his opening remarks to our first Future in Review Conference. While some generals continued to hold onto the old mentality of big ships and big bases, there was a strong new movement afoot to redesign the military for future engagements, which likely would be very different from those imagined during the Cold War (I recommend Bill's book on this, Lifting the Fog of War.

At first I suspected this book might be a War College-generated apology for the Pax Americana I have written about in the past, an intellectual afterthought to justify deploying the U.S. military everywhere. But a close reading of the book convinced me that not only does Barnett take issue with the Bush/Rumsfeld/Neocon plan (Barnett is not in favor of the Iraq War, at least not for any of the reasons deployed by Bush), but that his worldview allows for ultimately reduced U.S. policing based upon increasing Connectedness between what he calls the Core (developed countries) and the Gap.

In this sense, I believe he has assembled a new world view which is based upon economic realities, and which avoids old left/right word and strategy traps by using new, baggage-free terms to describe global issues. Because I also believe that providing Net connectivity is an inherently positive process which increases communications, trade, and ultimately peace between nations, I have found Tom's work compelling. I would advise SNSers to read it carefully, and to completion, before reacting too strongly; by the time you are finished, I think you'll tend to agree that this is a new way of thinking about the global map which should be discussed by everyone, and not just the Pentagon. Leaders in technology will find this thought process in close alignment with the benefits of a global broadband rollout. ñ mra.

COMMENTARY: Since a lot of my lingo and ideas spring from the world of IT, I felt Mark's intro to my summary of the book's main concepts was right on.