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Bryan Preston (blogging as
Junk Yard
Blog) 1. You describe the Bush administration's decision to topple Saddam Hussein as courageous, and the catalyst for a "Big Bang" that will transform the Middle East. Ten years from now, what do you expect the Middle East to be like, and how much of that change would you credit to the 2003 Iraq war? I don't think either a Bush or a Kerry administration will be willing to let Iraq really fail in the direction of autocracy again, nor turn into some permanently war-torn Lebanon or Sudan. Avoiding both extremes will require our military presence for roughly a decade, within which time a couple of peaceful transitions of leadership can occur. That's usually the tipping point for stability over the long term. Meanwhile, I would see an Iraqi society connecting itself up dramatically with the world at large because-in general-people there seem quite hungry for that after all those years of isolation. Yes, it will be messy (Iraq is a real crossroads of civilizations), and yes there will be plenty of terrorism from those determined to re-isolate that country from "Westoxification," but Iraq is really a good place to start in the Middle East, given its relative secularism under the Ba'ath Party over the decades and the fact that you're talking about a fairly educated population with long-suppressed ambition for a better life. Like a fragmenting Yugoslavia, a fragmenting Iraq wouldn't be as bad as some make out. The reality of several countries trapped within one border will force plenty of compromises, so long as the Leviathan of U.S. military power remains, and the examples set by some in their quest for greater connectivity with the outside world (say, the Kurds in the north) will spur the rest. If they all remain equally disconnected, then they fight with each other over what none of them really have -- a better life. But if one or more parts of that country show success in leveraging connectivity with the outside world, the internal squabbles fade over time because more and more of Iraqi society will come to understand their collective economic future is not some fixed pie to fight over, but something to be grown over time. But that, of course, means Iraq becomes more than just a source of oil for the global economy. Ten years from now I expect the Middle East to be deep into a perestroika-like unleashing of democratic movement led by a generation of impatient youth demanding a better transaction with the outside world beyond the barebones oil-for-money most of the region's autocratic regimes enjoy today. The region is on the verge of seeing a host of aging despots pass from the scene. In ten years virtually all of the cast of leaders who've dominated regional politics over the past thirty years will be gone from the stage, and their replacements will choose connectivity with the outside world over the isolationist threat presented by the fundamentalists. But that choice will only make sense if the rest of the world -- or more specifically what I call the Functioning Core of globalization -- makes the effort to facilitate that connectivity. So it's not a matter of the Core "getting off oil" to get out of the Middle East, but helping the Middle East connect on more levels than just oil. In the end, the war in Iraq will be viewed as a trigger that helped unleash larger forces for change, but not the source of change itself. Ultimately, what forces the Middle East to choose connectivity over disconnectedness will be the end of the reign of king oil in the global economy. That day is coming faster than anyone in the region realizes. 2. Why do you think the Bush administration has done such a poor job of explaining its strategic thinking and plans to the American public and the world? The Bush Administration is dominated by Cold War strategists who continue to view the world largely in terms of great powers and the security relationships among them. To their credit, they recast most of their thinking with 9/11, embracing a willingness to enter the Gap with an abandon that makes the Clinton Administration and its so-called mania for nation-building seem almost quaint in comparison (imagine Clinton trying to sell a Republican congress on "transforming" the Middle East with military invasion!). But their continuing tendency to speak in almost exclusively hard-power terms leaves much of the world worried about an expanding U.S. military "empire." Then there is the Bush White House's self-defeating habit of almost absurd vindictiveness regarding those who oppose them -- to wit, the asinine "forgive Russia, ignore Germany, and punish France" formulation following those nations' resistance to our invasion of Iraq. That sort of pettiness only raises the end costs of the inevitable multilateralism that must ensue if we really want to succeed in the end. The bigger problem is this: getting the American public and the world to realize that different security rule sets define the Core and the Gap, and that the only way we're going to achieve real security in the age of globalization is to eliminate disconnectedness by making globalization truly global. The Bush Administration has the courage and the vision to wage a global war on terrorism, but until they can enunciate that global future worth creating, they will continue to be viewed by much of this country and the world as primarily a war administration, a war president, and a war without end. To leave that much fear out on the table on a constant basis is to invite distrust, and distrust kills your ability to communicate your intentions effectively. Today, there is no such thing as war waged strictly within the context of war. The Bush Administration has not yet demonstrated in their words or deeds how the global war on terrorism fits within the larger context of globalization, but they're getting closer with their initiatives and ideas regarding the integration of a "greater Middle East" with the rest of the world. Given a second four years, their continued evolution away from their Cold War roots might yield some very great outcomes. Then again, their penchant for vindictiveness in foreign policy could isolate them beyond hope in a second administration, leading to a serious fracturing of the Core. This White House is in a tough fight right now, and a mudslinging election, even if won, does not bode well for their ability to conduct a more successfully multilateral foreign policy in their second iteration. And they'll need such success if their dreams for a transformed Middle East are to come true. America cannot integrate a Middle East all by itself, and if real integration does not ensue, this war will go down in history as a completely wasted effort. 3. Is the Pentagon actually basing its strategy on your map and your Core, Gap and Seam theory? Has the White House embraced your work? Sorry, wrong number. Better question is how accurately my map reflects the world as they see it. These guys didn't spend their careers slaving away for this moment of great power simply to turn over their strategic vision to some unknown professor up in Rhode Island-as much as conspiracy thinkers love to find the "Rasputin" behind every big idea. To the extent that any in this administration embrace my thinking, it's all opportunistic in the best sense of the word -- I simply provide useful language and images for that which they have already come to know, understand, and act upon. Strategic visioneering is a lot like psychoanalysis: you simply help the patient see the world for what it is. You do not impart that which is not already there. You merely connect their need for logic with a description of the outside world that matches their need for positive self-image -- i.e., I do this to make the world a better place. If I really had any serious influence with this crowd, then they would talk about the Gap as a whole, and not just focus on the Greater Middle East, the Arc of Instability, or any other lesser definition of what I consider to be the true extent of the task ahead. In my mind, in this era you only wage war within the context of everything else, which today is defined by the concept of globalization. This administration has not made that connection yet to that larger context. My president would never be just a "war president" -- plain and simple. In my work, I don't worry about the admirals and the generals, because somebody else already shaped them. I worry about the captains and the colonels. Those are the ones I seek to influence. At that range and below, the willingness to embrace my work is growing by leaps and bounds, because these individuals recognize in it a world they will someday necessarily seek to manage. Beholden to the future, they have no choice but to let go of the past. 4. Spain has now had its 9-11. In the long run, how do you think that attack will affect the US-led anti-terror alliance? Will it encourage more or less cooperation with us among the Core states? Terrorist attacks in Europe -- or anywhere across the Core, for that matter -- can increase long-term cooperation in this global war on terrorism, but only if the U.S. effectively sends the signal -- in both word and deed -- that what we seek in this war is not merely an increase in our national defense, but an increase in the Core's collective security. Here again, I chide the Bush Administration for a bit too much of the "my way or the highway" tone that animates our foreign policy. The worst outcome of a Madrid "3/11" is that the rest of the Core says, "That's what you get for siding with those cowboy Americans in this crazy, myopic war of theirs!" Right now the Chinese leadership talks a seemingly more sophisticated game regarding globalization than we do, because, to much of the world, it seems like the U.S. is all about this global war on terrorism and little else. Think about how odd that sounds. But compare the speeches of President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao in the Australian parliament last year and then tell me I'm wrong. More than a few Australian legislators walked away from those two seminal presentations (held within just days of one another in October) thinking China is the country of the future and it's the United States that seems stuck in some militaristic past. I find these perceptions very disturbing. 5. How will Spain's elections -- in which the anti-war Socialists defeated Aznar's pro-American Popular Party -- affect the Core's ability to collectively act against terrorism? I think what the election shows is that governments will rise and fall based on their populations' perceptions of how well or how badly they wage this global war on terrorism. If it is perceived that al Qaeda's strikes can actually swing an election in a major Core state, then 3/11 will go down as a significant System Perturbation that sends the Old Core's security rule sets into great flux. Typically, having the U.S. get behind something security-wise made it a sure bet -- thus the positive potential for bandwagoning in coalitions. If 3/11 demonstrates that one bloody nose is all it takes to remove a Spain from the roster, then al Qaeda should feel greatly emboldened to strike on -- especially against the Europeans. However, I wouldn't extrapolate the EU to the entire Core. The Russians, Chinese, Indians and Latin American states all are far more like the U.S. in their ability to withstand significant numbers of deaths than the Europeans. Japan will be an interesting question, but -- strange as it may seem to say -- they may well follow the lead of the Chinese, who don't have the European fear of spilling or shedding blood. In the end, the true impact of the 3/11 System Perturbation (if it goes down as one, and it's looking more and more like one) will be to put Western Europe on the sideline for a very long haul, thus offering significant strategic opportunities to Russia, India, and China in terms of partnering with the U.S. to deal with the Middle East. Rather than asking ourselves, How do we make the (old) Europeans happy? We should be asking ourselves how we make the Russians, Indians, and Chinese happy? We need to look to the New Core that is far more incentivized to wage a GWOT consistently over time rather than Old Core (Japan, West Europe) which may openly seek free ridership on this collective good. 6. What will victory for our side in the war look like? What would defeat look like for our side? Victory in the ultimate sense is the elimination of the Gap, or basically no country or region in the world still stuck on the outside of the global economy -- noses pressed to the glass. In that world, terrorism would hold little sway because individuals and the societies in which they live -- no matter what their "civilization" -- would always find sufficient options in that connectivity so as to avoid having to choose organized mass violence to advance their agendas. As I say in the book, given the roots of transnational terrorism today, it only makes sense to start that process of shrinking the Gap in the Middle East. But we need to understand that if we drive that fundamentalist rejection of globalization out of the Middle East, it will only be replicated elsewhere in the Gap, meaning it will simply migrate to ever more disconnected places to continue the fight. In other words, we defeat the al Qaedas of the Middle East today, only to fight them all over again in sub-Saharan Africa. But keeping the forces of disconnectedness "on the run" will signal globalization's effective advance over time, so we must consider that progress, no matter how long it takes. Defeat is easy to describe: Fortress America signals the death of globalization. The biggest danger on that score right now is probably the USA Patriot Act of 2002, although listening to John Kerry spout that nonsense about "Benedict Arnold CEOs" infuriates me almost as much. But in general, Kerry's slip in syntax reflects America's continuing ambivalence about globalization's promise and peril -- thus it is a fear to be exploited in elections. The Patriot Act, however, may signal a scarier slide into a generalized U.S. fear about being penetrated and infiltrated by a big bad world outside. A McCarthyite turn in U.S. politics regarding terrorism would be scary indeed. Will the Patriot Act go down in history as the Smoot-Hawley of this era's globalization? I certainly hope not. But the tightening of laws all over the Core regarding the inflow of tourists, students, guest workers, and immigrants can easily go too far. This is a real flash point where the global war on terrorism bumps up against the "everything else" that animates the far more important spread of globalization. 7. You write that Kim Jong-Il should be next in line for us to deal with, and that the end of his regime is inevitable if President Bush wins another term. How do you think the standoff with Kim will play out? Do you see any possibility of a Chinese-led plan to topple and replace him? Eventually Kim steps over a line at some future date when there's enough understanding developed among the key players (U.S., China, Japan, South Korea) that "enough is enough." That threshold gets lower as Kim rises to the top of the list of brutal dictators that everyone in the world would rather see gone. The key here is the understanding between China and the U.S. that getting rid of Kim would be a win-win for both, and not some zero-sum loss for either. If both Beijing and Washington come together over some solution regarding his downfall, it's very hard to imagine how the rest of the Core would put up much of an objection. This guy is easily responsible for the preventable deaths of several million of his own people in the famine that ravaged the countryside over the late 1990s. That effective war crime remains an abstraction for the world outside primarily due to that country's extreme disconnectedness. If an American administration really wanted to get rid of Kim, it would figure out how to make the process China-centric. Nothing valuable in this world comes without a price. Figuring out China's regarding Kim would be the quickest route to a happy ending that could be effectively sold to the rest of the Core. 8. You write that there will be an Asian counterpart to NATO in the coming decades. The US has created the Proliferation Security Initiative as a way of blockading (without calling it that) North Korea. Might the PSI be a precursor to an Asian NATO, or to a more Core-centric and democratic government-friendly replacement to the UN? Possibly, in the sense that it could serve as precursor to the four or more states that ultimately come together to oversee a toppling of Kim's regime and the reunification of the Koreas. North Korea is clearly the biggest security deficit in East Asia today, so it's logical that any Asian "NATO" would find its initial center of gravity in the resolution of that situation. A seriously "grand" strategy on the part of the U.S. would purposefully look to solving the Korea problem as a springboard to triggering the rise of an East Asian security alliance that includes China. But when your Pentagon still spends most of its days plotting futuristic high-tech wars with China in the straits of Taiwan, that sort of "grand" imagination remains on the margins of most "realistic" discussions of future security environments in Asia. Ah, to be a realist! 9. How do you see the growing Oil-For-Food finance scandal in the UN playing out? Sanctions never work. They always end up killing the old and the young and enriching the corrupt leaderships whose behavior is never altered one whit. But liberals and conservatives love economic sanctions, because for both it's a way to avoid "military adventurism" and/or "overseas burdens." America is the most sanction-crazy power in the world. They do almost no good and damage a lot of relationships around the world. What the UN scandal should do is convince our Congress of the continuing error of their ways, but most likely all it will do is make even more people consider the UN largely ineffective -- if that's possible. 10. Many of the Bush administration's critics cite our difficulties with France and Germany regarding the Iraq war but fail to take into account the support of arguably more important allies such as Japan, Great Britain, Australia, and South Korea. In your opinion, why might that be the case? In both France and Germany you saw leaders exploiting the situation for personal political gain. Before we get too high and mighty with them, let's see how well the Democrats and Republicans get through this election year without engaging in all sorts of similarly stupid behavior. In the end, we caught both nations at a bad time (and in the case of Chirac, a leader whose personal vindictiveness surpasses George Bush's). We chose to make too much of this. If the Bush White House had handled it better following Saddam's downfall, none of that enmity would have lingered. "War within the context of everything else" is a very Godfather-like concept: nothing personal, strictly business. America in general tends to take war very personally, meaning we feel the need to whip ourselves into a frenzy before going to war. Taking down Saddam was strictly business. He was a roadblock to globalization's progressive embrace of an otherwise isolated Middle East. But we had to get all jacked up to take him down, pursuing it within the emotional aftermath of 9/11. So we've all let ourselves feel too angry about those who questioned our judgment. I don't simply lay it all at the feet of the Bush White House, but real leadership in this regard is to stay above such emotional fray and guide America down a more responsible pathway. Here the Bush Administration fails us by not demanding more from us. We need to be more mature about war in general. 11. Russia's Putin seems to be gathering more authority to himself and may thereby be turning back the clock on Russia's connectivity with the rest of the Core. In your opinion, how likely is Russia to revert to a more authoritarian rule, and what would that mean to the war and to globalization? I disagree with the notion that events in Putin's Russia signal a growing disconnectedness with the outside world. If you only read the New York Times or Washington Post, you might buy into that view, but check out the Wall Street Journal and tell me you can't see all sorts of signs of Russia's growing connectivity with the global economy. I see Putin's "dictatorship of the law" necessarily taking on the so-called robber barons who profited mercilessly during the privatization era of the mid-1990s. Bill Gates at least built his empire, whereas many of the barons in Russia simply stole theirs for pennies on the ruble. Few in Russia are crying for these guys when they come under political scrutiny or even imprisonment. I mean, do you fear America's growing disconnectedness and turn toward authoritarianism simply because Martha Stewart is going to serve time for insider trading? So yes, these events bear watching, but let's not lose our sense of historical proportion. Putin is light years from becoming another Stalin. 12. How will the China-Taiwan split be resolved? According to the Globalist (www.theglobalist.com), "In 2003, China accounted for about 40% of South Korea's total export growth, 70% of Japan's - and 90% of Taiwan's." Every country in Asia ultimately moves in the direction of economically integrating with China's huge markets -- Taiwan most of all. But Taiwan does not voluntarily join China until China moves so far in the direction of real democracy that it stops even raising the question. The only hitch is this historic equation is a China that freaks out from some internal economic panic and the Communist Party pulls that string out of fear for its rapidly declining internal legitimacy. You want to stop China from invading Taiwan? Then push banking and financial reforms there. 13. If readers only take one idea away from reading The Pentagon's New Map, what do you as the author hope that one idea is? The way we place this global war on terrorism within a larger context is to connect it to the truly worldwide struggle that defines globalization -- or that between the forces of connectedness and disconnectedness. America serves as globalization's source code. To deny our parentage of this era's form of globalization is to deny our essential nature as the world's first multinational economic and political union. Eventually, everyone in this world will live in states united. We can either choose to help that process along or stand on the sidelines, assuming someone else will. America yielded to that temptation once before, and got World War II for our sins. There is nothing that guarantees this era's globalization cannot suffer the same fate as those of previous eras. Millions upon millions of lives would be summarily shortened all over this planet in that scenario, but first and foremost inside the Gap. To summon up the courage to care about all those lives "over there" is to understand that "national defense" just doesn't cut anymore as a strategic paradigm for the world's sole surviving military superpower. It is to understand the utility of thinking about war within the context of everything else. |
Putnam, 2004 |
