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Deleted ScenesDeleted Scene #5Chapter Four: The Core and Gap Section: The Miltary-Market Link COMMENTARY: This fifth "deleted scene" was likewise cut for pacing reasons. I include it here simply because I like the concept that Wall Street's map of the world and the Pentagon's map of the world are -- and should be considered -- negatives of one another. I got this point in elsewhere in the book in a later edit, but I still like how this one reads. Deleted Scene: Wall Street's Map Versus the Pentagon's Map[TEXT BEGINS] In essence, the Pentagon's new map is the reverse image of Cantor's current map. As the former's area of responsibility contracts and the latter's area of opportunity expands, both sides of the military-market nexus can be said to be winning. Of course, no movement is consistently unidirectional, and therein lies the utility of dialogue between Wall Street and the Pentagon: their respective maps should be reasonably aligned with one another. The asymmetry that arose between Wall Street's investment map and the Pentagon's threat map defined the essential rule-set misalignment of the post-Cold War era. Our "economic security workshops" reflected those overlaps and gaps. The obvious area of misguided overlap was Developing Asia and China in particular, where the Pentagon and Wall Street seemed to be looking at two very different realities. The gaps were found in the most severely disconnected countries that we now understand serve as havens or sanctuaries for dangerous transnational actors such as the Al Qaeda network. Both the Pentagon and Wall Street effectively wrote off these disconnected states in terms of having any bearing on globalization's advance, and now we know both communities were wrong to dismiss these countries as irrelevant to their respective definitions of "global risk management." Ultimately, Wall Street and the Pentagon need to work not so much in explicit partnership as implicit synchronicity: the former expands the Core and its firm rule set, while the latter shrinks the Gap and its lawlessness. Another way to say it is that, as the process of security hedging is diminished within any region, financial hedging should commensurately increase -- in effect segueing from simple security (like guns) to sophisticated mechanisms of securitization (like bonds). Again, real security comes when the military is essentially irrelevant to the maintenance of rule sets -- even under conditions of serious duress. The aftermath of 9/11 is a good example: the U.S. military played virtually no role in our domestic recovery of security following those terrorist attacks, other than a few showy displays (e.g., jet fighters patrolling over New York and Washington) that were largely irrelevant. Compare this to an Israel that is forced to use its military forces within its own borders on a regular basis in response to terrorist attacks. That is why, no matter how many 9/11s ensue, America remains firmly in the Core. Likewise, no matter how globalized Israel's economy becomes, it remains trapped inside the Gap so long as their quest for internal security requires a significant military role. [TEXT ENDS] |
Putnam, 2004 |
