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The Pentagon's New Map > Director's CommentaryThe PrefaceThe main point here to remember is that it was written after the rest of the book was written, although it predates the intro mini-essays that begin each chapter. As I wrote the individual sections of the chapters in order (1,2,3,4,5,6 and conclusion, with Chapter 7 being generated by Mark Warren out of bits stolen from other chapters), my security blanket notion was that—somehow—there would be this brilliantly comprehensive but amazingly succinct preface that would introduce all the main concepts so that I could always plunge into my unique terminology (Core, Gap, System Perturbation, etc.) anywhere in the text without any fear. The Preface, therefore, was to be the "magic cloud" on the PowerPoint slide that showed where all the wonderful transformation was to occur. Mark kept telling me as I plunged ahead—day after day—on the sections, "Don't worry, we'll introduce everything in the Prologue. Assume we did that and just keep writing." That is what we originally wanted to call the Preface: the Prologue. But when Neil Nyren at Putnam finally read it, he said three things: 1) it's a preface in function, not a prologue; 2) it's twice as long as it needs to be; and 3) get rid of the overtly messianic tone. Now, when I got done cranking out all the chapter sub-sections and it was time, in mid-September, to generate the Preface, Mark's idea was to avoid any mini-recap of the book to follow, which was something I really dreaded writing. Instead, he said that the Prologue (his preferred term) should be "writing about the book or writing about the writing of the book." His main emphasis was that it should be different in tone from the rest of the book. That instruction apparently was translated by my brain as "come off as messianic," because the original 8k version of the Preface was fairly high-energy in tone, sounding most closely like the original Esquire article and a lot like the book proposal. Mark and I loved that original draft, because it was so in-your-face—you, the reader, that is. But Neil felt it was overbearing and would leave a bad first impression. He feared it was selling the reader a tone that did not well represent the rest of the book—that it would not close the deal, so to speak. So Mark went about editing the original 8k down to about 4k, which was brutal—for me. Then I worked it over some myself and it seemed to get closer. Neil was annoyingly demanding and imprecise in his instructions, which was natural given the reality that what he was instructing us on was tone, not a sentence to fix here or there. Plus, as I have said before, he was really focused on getting the Preface just so, believing it was crucial to getting the reader into the text—closing that deal. In a way, what Neil wanted us to end up with was a "reading proposal" that spoke directly to the potential buyer. Like the book proposal that spoke directly to the publishing houses, he wanted the Preface to speak directly to the reader in such a way as to convince them they needed to read the main body. It was an audition, in effect, so the tone had to be energetic and intriguing, but not overbearing and presumptuous. In short, I needed to charm as well, because in doing so I would legitimately represent the very personal tone of the book and my reasonably charming role as narrator. In the end, I think Neil was absolutely right, and I think he was too, because he uses the Preface on the Penguin site as an open promo for the book—the perfect sales pitch to the reader. More details . . .. (1) "An Operating Theory of the World" is the subtitle of the Preface [p. 1]. That is Mark Warren's doing. I lifted that phrase from the lead-in he wrote for the original Esquire article:
(2) Neil Nyren actually wrote (or so rewrote as to basically make his own) the first two paragraphs in the Preface ("When the Cold War ended, we thought the world had changed. It had—but not in the way we thought. When the Cold War ended, our real challenge began." [p. 1]). Why I love mentioning that is because Mark Warren so rewrote the last paragraph in the Conclusion that it basically is his own as well, meaning my two editors wrote the first and last lines in the book, leaving me fairly free on the 139,800 words in between. But hey, that's editors! They want those first and last words (and they write them so well you are smart to allow it) and the rest they leave to you—albeit with all their cuts (and I'm talking tens of thousands of words). (3) The Preface is really trifurcated. There is the opening sequence that is my set-up/teaser for the book. Then there is the "Let me introduce myself" quick bio (which starts with "Now might be an appropriate time for me . . " [p. 5] and ends with "Thanks to this book, I am finally able to deliver the brief to you." [p. 6]). Finally there is the preview of the book itself, which thankfully avoids that horrible sort of "Chapter One will tell you about . . ." rundown of the material on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Instead, I use this last section to really unveil my ambition for the book: I see it as the enunciation of the historical successor to the containment strategy—the "X Article" everyone has been waiting for (a title several books over the years have laid claim to). (4) The last material I wrote for the entire book consisted of my final edit of the Preface, and I penned my very last words while flying with Bradd Hayes, a War College colleague, on a United transatlantic flight to London to give the brief in the House of Commons: "… and when I found myself in London one fall evening speaking in the House of Commons . . ."[p. 6]. I sent the final input to Neil from the RAF Officers Club in London in mid-November 2003—roughly 100 days from the first day I began writing, or 2 August 2003. (5) The Preface is dated January 2004, because that is the month in which Mark and I finished our final substantive edit of the text. For all practical purposes, though, I was done writing back in mid-September 2003—or four months earlier. (6) The Preface ends [p. 8] with language that steals from my very brief "Thomas Barnett responds" entry in the May issue of Esquire, where the magazine ran the first group of letters to the editor about the original March article (they ran a further bunch in the June issue as well—because of the great flow). In that brief reply I had said:
You know, they say talent imitates, but genius steals. I guess real brilliance comes simply in recycling the best stuff you got. In a way, that is what I did throughout the Preface: recycle my best lines in one clear, compelling sales job to the reader. I only hope it worked. |
Putnam, 2004 |
