The Pentagon's New Map > Director's Commentary

New Rule Sets

OVERVIEW

First off, I have to say that this chapter scared me the most in terms of writing. It really builds off—almost completely—a single slide in my briefing, the gist of which is captured below:

Now, I have to tell you: in the brief, this slide (actually a far more loaded and complex version) contains something like 50 animations. When I get really wound up in a presentation, this slide alone can result in 6 to 8 minutes of oral presentation. It is the kick-ass slide whose mind-bending animation usually gets open-mouthed stares from the audience—when people realize they are going to see something they've never seen before in terms of PowerPoint. None of that is apparent in this rudimentary B&W version I had done up for the US Government report we cranked (not available yet), simply because it is impossible to replicate that sort of animation in any currently available web-based presentation format.

Plus, if I gave away that sort of stuff, maybe I'd never get any more speaking contracts!

So basically, my goal in this chapter was to turn that slide into about 15,000 words. Seems easy, in retrospect, no?

UNTITLED INTRO ESSAY

This was really fun to write. Mark was editing the four sections to follow and kept delaying his decision to send me his edit of this first chapter. So I am writing this in early October while waiting for Mark to send me the first chapter as a whole—something I've yet to see (at that time) since I wrote the chapter's four sections as separate files and emailed to him over four consecutive days in early August. Why the delay? Mark is nervous because he is editing this chapter heavily. That is something we learn later: Mark edits 1 and 2 very heavily, then 3 far less so, and the remainders even less (though he does some wholesale whacking!). So Mark's editing curve goes down as we move through the book. That occurs for three reasons:

1. I write better as I go along and find my voice, thanks to Mark's constant coaching and the daily feedback from my brother-in-law and first proxy reader, Steve Meussling of Payne OH. 2. The material simply gets easier once we get past the first two "framing chapters." 3. Mark's instructions grow more sharp and detailed over time, so I feel more confident writing each day that I am on target, and that leads to less "pre-writing," as Mark calls it—or my wandering around in the text before settling in on the key points of each chapter section.

Mark's instructions on this intro essay were simple: explain what the hell I mean by "rule sets."

This was so easy once I thought of it: I would compare rule sets to the basic rules that define any sport. Then it hit me: this way I could kill two stones almost immediately in the first pages of the book: mention my kids and mention the Green Bay Packers!

The other goal of this intro essay was to describe what the hell I do as a national security analyst, which results in my brief description on page 11.

That brief description allows me to segue into the Jack Ryan story, which would have been a bone-headed way to intro the chapter as a whole. Mark's fear—absent the creation of this intro mini—essay, something we immediately decided we'd replicate in all other chapters to follow—was that jumping right into this autobiographical story would seem like one giant diversionary tactic, following as it would on the heels of this blistering Preface that promised so much ("But first, let me tell you this quaint story from my career …"). With the intro essay, we set some nice expectations for the chapter that allow me to detour into this illuminating story without giving the reader a sort of "where in the hell is this guy going(?) feeling.

Or so we hope …

PLAYING JACK RYAN

This is my favorite section on many levels: 1) it's a neat little story that reminds me of my start in this business; 2) it's a great way to introduce the reader into the reality of the workday of a national security analyst; 3) it shows how things really work inside the Pentagon; 4) it was the first section I wrote on writing day #1, 2 August 2003; and 5) I love that the first three words that I wrote in the book were "My sister Maggie . . .."

Fundamental purpose here: bring tempo down a notch and really let the reader get to know who I am and what I do. So this first section, after all the sturm-und-drang of the Preface and chapter intro, dials it down and lets the reader into my world at a nice easy-to-follow pace. We make it highly narrative and personal, or very direct sounding, to assure the reader that the book isn't going to be one long mad dash from high concept to high concept, lightened here and there by mind-numbing statistics. Instead, you get a sense of the storyline arc: this is where it all began for me, and now let me trace the great journey with you, narrating all this seemingly incomprehensible global change as we move through the story of my career.

So this first section is all about downsizing the grand sweep of history into something recognizable for the reader: the story of a guy beginning a career and trying to do well in his work.

Plus, damn it! It is a cool little story that allows me to mention friends along the way, like Ken Kennedy, Hank Gaffney, Phil Voss, etc.

The section also gives you a sense of how long these ideas have been building within me. I did pen the book in about 40 days, but I've been working the material day-in and day-out for well over a decade.

Minor details:

(1) I wasn't going to mention Ken Kennedy by name in the piece because I wasn't sure he'd want his name used. Then amazingly, he shows up at the college right when I'm writing this material and we catch up on old times. In a brief exchange, he gives me the line about how the work we did together basically "went against his entire career up to that point" [p. 14].

(2) The conference room where I gave the brief described on pages 14-15 was Room number 531 in the old Center for Naval Analyses HQ on Ford Avenue just off King Street in Alexandria. It was my favorite briefing room there because it was completely internal to the building and thus had no windows—so easier to control the lighting. I still have the little agenda card with the names of all the flags and officers in attendance in my files.

(3) When I talk about all the "formers" I interviewed [p. 13] as part of my research project on naval arms control, some of the bigger names included Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Walter Slocombe, Ambassador Richard Helms (he was a trip!), Admiral James Holloway (once captain of the U.S. Enterprise!), Admiral Huntington Hardisty, Bill Manthorpe, and Albert Carnesale. All in all, a pretty stellar group to interact with.

(4) When I talk about all the briefs I gave [p. 17], some of the people I met along the way included Rear Admiral Ted Baker, whom I later worked for in the Naval Capabilities Planning Effort, and Rear Admiral Edward Scheafer, Director, Naval Intelligence.

(5) When I mention younger officers who really believed in my work back in the early 1990s who later went on to bigger and better things, I think of people like Harry Ulrich, was as a commander was one of the last deputy directors of SPAG. He is now a Vice Admiral in charge of 6th Fleet (Med). He remains a good personal friend. I helped convene a workshop of European and African experts at the Naval War College to discuss emerging issues with him just before he took command.

NEW RULES FOR A NEW ERA

This section is really the section that lays out the logic of the slide presented above. The whole point of this section was to explain where we are in the history of globalization's ebb and flow across the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Also, the section introduces the notion of rule sets out of whack and that we're now living in a period of rule-set reset.

Other details:

(1) The title of this section is actually the title of the first slide in my current brief (again, displayed above). I built the slide in response to the Y2K workshop we held with Cantor Fitzgerald atop World Trade Center One in May of 1999. You can see the earliest version of it in the Y2K report. I still use it because it's still a great way to summarize the history of globalization in the 20th century.

(2) When I began writing this section on 3 August, I fully expected it to be all high concept and no personal historical narrative material, but what I found out is that I pretty much always needed something small and personal to start the section each morning—usually something I dreamed up in a long, hot shower around 5 a.m. I would just stand in the shower until something came to me: here it was that "feeling I never could shake as I worked with the Pentagon during these years . . . that the defense community was becoming increasingly irrelevant to the process of global change" [p. 18]. This is actually a big theme of my CNA mentor Hank Gaffney's work across the 1990s, and you can imagine how popular that notion made him with admirals and generals who wanted to believe the Pentagon ran the world.

(3) That whole early sequence [p. 19] about a "reproducible strategic concept" was my wife's idea. She reminded me of how often I felt isolated at CNA because of the oddness of my strategic outlook. I really love that little section. It is sort of my ode to Mark Llewellyn, my first department manager at CNA. He constantly lectured me on the subject of making my work "reproducible."

(4) My great friend at USAID during my years of working with Africa Bureau [p. 21] was Tony Pryor, who is now at International Resources Group with Asif Shaikh. I thank Tony in the acknowledgements and Asif has a blurb on the back jacket cover.

(5) The "damn dirty apes" reference [p. 21] I blame on the comedian Mike Myers and his obvious fascination with Chuck Heston's sci-fi career. I think Myers used it in one of the "Austin Powers" movies, but I can't remember which one. [Help anyone?]

(6) The effort to define "rule sets" on page 22 was my first attempt. Mark Warren didn't think this was enough, and that decision basically drove him to make me write the chapter intro essay, which in turn triggered similar such essays throughout the book. Talk about a pathway dependency!

(7) My dig at CIA [p. 24] made me feel bad, hence the endnote in the back where I make the exception regarding the National Intelligence Council, whose work I greatly admire.

(8) Most of my Democrat friends love the dig at Ronald Reagan [p. 30], but the real point of that section (which I love) is comparing George W. Bush to Harry Truman. Experts like to compare Bush to Woodrow Wilson or Reagan because of the perceived ideological fervor he brings. But to me, Bush is situated in history's flows much as Truman was, and he displays the same sense of confidence/arrogance of a leader who feels he knows full well what history demands of him right now. Same personal grace, I might add. Harry was fortunate to rule before the age of TV.

(9) My Mom and my mother-in-law both tried to get me to change the "9/11 was an amazing gift" line on page 34, fearing it would come off badly with the reader. When I tried to replace it with something very poetic and very sensitive, Mark Warren read it and said it was fine, but that he'd already read that sort of sentiment about 1 million times since 9/11 and he didn't see why I felt the need to repeat it. Instead of replacing the line, therefore, I expanded the paragraph dramatically to explain what I meant. I know the phrasing is very controversial. To see where I got this logic in my own life, though, notice that I repeat the phrasing with my subsequent reference to my firstborn's long struggle with cancer [p. 249].

PRESENT AT THE CREATION

This is a major theme of the brief I give, less so now than when I first developed it and delivered it in the fall of 2001 and the winter of 2001-02.

The purpose of this section is to explain the rise and fall of rule sets, teaching the reader that the rule set of the Cold War was basically codified decades before the Berlin Wall collapsed, and that in the aftermath of that rule-set codification, new rising arcs of rule-set clashes had long been in the works (the Middle East, terrorism).

Other details:

(1) Notice again how I start with the personal narrative [p. 37]. My little brother Ted and I often played commandos with our neighbors Scott Gilbertson, Steve Wayne, and Dave (Tim) Roth. What triggered this opening sequence for me was an article by my friend Michael Vlahos entitled "Enemy Mine" (referencing the science fiction movie of the same name). Find the piece online at http://www.techcentralstation.com/072903A.html. It reminded me of playing war with my friends around our yard.

(2) I do really believe what I say about Robert McNamara [pp. 40-41], believing his whole career has been mistakenly reduced to Vietnam.

(3) The point I make about the Cold War basically ending in 1973 [p. 38] is one my old Soviet scholar mentor Adam Ulam made as well. Read his autobiography "Understanding the Cold War," found via his website at http://www.aulam.org/. I reviewed it for the Journal of Cold War Studies (or at least I sent them a review; not sure if they published it).

(4) This whole section is really inspired by a couple of slides I did for Hank Gaffney at CNA but have never really used in any brief (and I don't believe Hank ever has either). I include them below:

A FUTURE WORTH CREATING

The purpose of this section is to lay out the four pathways I think are possible for globalization after 9/11. This section, therefore, essentially spells out the two-by-two matrix slide I often use in my brief (seen below). I do not use the names from the scenarios in the text, because Mark Warren felt they didn't really add any information and thus were distancing for the reader.

The second purpose of the section is to introduce the whole research partnership with Cantor Fitzgerald and the resulting NewRuleSets.Project. I mention it earlier in the preface, but here was where I wanted to introduce it more fully, because it was this interaction with Wall Street that really gave me the big picture on globalization.

In effect, this section, which concludes Chapter 1, is the closest thing to the "call to arms" portion originally envisioned for the opening chapter. By "call to arms," I mean something that really gives the reader the sense of where they are in history and makes them feel motivated to act upon that knowledge.

Other details:

(1) I originally ran across this phrase ("a future worth creating") in an article describing the work of the futurology group at Royal Dutch/Shell. It was just a simple phrase in a sentence ("The true role of strategy was to describe a future worth creating—and then to reap the competitive advantages of preparing for it and making it happen."), but I liked it a lot and actually used it as the title of my Office of Force Transformation brief for most of 2002 and 2003. I found the phrase in Ian Wylie's article, " There Is No Alternative to ..." in Fast Company (July 2002). I have no idea if Ian is the first to pen the phrase, but I sort of doubt it. The article is found online at http://www.fastcompany.com/online/60/tina.html.

(2) I really love the sequence about disconnectedness on page 49. It remains my favorite short description of the "enemy."

(3) This section is the closest I come to spending serious time dissecting other great books. Hence my mini-odes to Thomas Friedman, Samuel Huntington, Robert Kagan and Robert Kaplan [pp. 51-53].

That's it in terms of commentary for Chapter 1. Again, this was considered by me to be one of the easier chapters, meaning more narrative/history and not to much factual detail/high concept. The next chapter, "The Rise of the 'Lesser Includeds,'" demands more from the reader.

Email Thomas P.M. Barnett

Biography

Putnam, 2004
The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century

Esquire, March 2003
The Pentagon's New Map

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