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Providence Journal-Bulletin
November 7, 2002
The 'Core' And The 'Gap'
Defining rules in a dangerous world
By
Thomas P. M. Barnett
Domestic and foreign critics alike have blasted the Bush administration for a
seemingly endless stream of unilateral foreign-policy actions over the past
year.
In the security realm, the most fear-provoking actions involved abrupt
reversals of long-established policies regarding weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) -- for instance, walking away from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty's
restrictions on missile defense and a new pre-emptive-strike policy regarding
states deemed likely to employ WMD.
Digesting these policy shifts, critics naturally assume that the Bush White
House seeks to employ our military unilaterally around the world, with no regard
for its presumed negative impact on global order. In reality, this
administration is refining our national security strategy to reflect the
bifurcated nature of today's international environment. In short, it is not a
matter of when pre-emption makes sense, but where.
As globalization deepens and spreads, two groups of states are essentially
pitted against one another: countries seeking to align their internal rule sets
with the emerging global rule set (e.g., advanced Western democracies, Japan and
Asia's emerging economies, Putin's Russia) and countries that either refuse such
internal realignment or cannot achieve it because of political/cultural rigidity
or continuing abject poverty (much of Central Asia, the Mideast, Africa and
Central America).
I dub the former countries the Functioning Core of globalization, the latter
the Non-Integrating Gap. If we count up U.S. military crisis response activity
over the past 20 years, it quickly becomes apparent that the overwhelming
majority of our effort was concentrated inside the Gap. In other words, the U.S.
"exports" security to precisely those parts of the world that have a hard time
coping with globalization or are otherwise not benefiting from it. The Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks did the U.S. national-security establishment a huge
favor by pulling us away from the abstract planning of future high-tech wars
against make-believe "near peers" into the here-and-now concrete threats to
global order. By doing so, the geographic dividing lines between the Core and
the Gap were made clear.
The United States faces three national-security tasks in its role as "system
administrator" to globalization: 1) to bolster the Core's immune-system response
to the sort of disruptive perturbations unleashed by 9/11; 2) to build a
firewall to protect the Core from the Gap's worst exports -- namely terror,
drugs, pandemics; and 3) to progressively export security to the Gap's worst
trouble spots. These are three very different tasks, and each will demand very
different levels of cooperation with other states.
Bolstering the Core's immune system is overwhelmingly a multilateral affair,
in which the United States builds all sorts of transnational networks of mutual
support across both the public and private realms. As a security issue, it is so
much more than just the Defense Department's interest: It fundamentally involves
the entire U.S. government. Protecting the Core from the Gap's worst exports is
more bilaterally focused, meaning that the U.S. partners intimately with states
lying on the bloody seam between Core and Gap. Think of our expanding security
relationships with Russia or India, or our growing security aid to the
Philippines or Indonesia. Finally, exporting security into the Gap's worst
trouble spots will be largely unilateral, although we can typically count on
Britain for assistance. Here we will play military Leviathan on a regular basis,
enforcing the system's rules in a manner that no other state can possibly
consider.
Understanding America's different security roles across these distinct venues
goes a long way toward explaining what often seems like the Bush
administration's split personality on national security. For example, when the
administration proposes a pre-emptory-strike policy against states possessing
dangerous WMD capabilities, does it intend to employ such a policy against
fellow members of the Core? Of course not. While a traditional strategic posture
of deterrence still makes sense vis-a-vis a China or the Core as a whole, it
simply will not do for several of the real or potential foes we face in the Gap
-- namely Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Beyond President Bush's "axis of evil,"
there are also transnational terrorists to worry about. Simply put, when we
cross over into the Gap, we enter a different rule-set universe.
When the Bush administration announces such policy distinctions, it is not
striking a unilateralist pose but rather signaling our nation's continued
willingness to bear the bulk of the Core's burden in managing and ultimately
reducing threats emanating from the Gap. In other words, it is not about seeking
a separate rule set for the United States, but acknowledging the need for one in
those parts of the world that do not recognize the emerging global rule set.
Progressively shrinking the Gap will be this country's primary
global-security task in the 21st Century. Our long-term export of security into
those Gap areas -- namely, Central Asia and the Mideast -- that present the
greatest potential disruptions to the Core's economic functioning will
inevitably rival our Cold War efforts in Europe and Northeast Asia. To
accomplish this task, we must be explicit with both friends and foes alike about
how we will necessarily differentiate between our security role within the
Core's burgeoning security community and the one we assume whenever we intervene
militarily in the Gap. Seeking two sets of rules for these different security
roles is not being hypocritical but honest and realistic.
Thomas P.M. Barnett, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College's Decision
Strategies Department, is also the assistant for strategic futures in the Office
of Force Transformation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The views
expressed here do not necessarily represent the official position of the
Department of Defense or the U.S. government. |
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Email Thomas P.M. Barnett
Biography
Putnam, 2004
The Pentagon's New Map
Esquire, March 2003
The
Pentagon's New Map
Global Transaction Strategy
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