Thomas P.M. Barnett

Home > Articles

Dear Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term, Secure Your Legacy, and, oh yeah, Create a Future Worth Living
Esquire February 2005
So you say you have no concern for your legacy. That some historian eighty years from now will figure out if you were a good president or not. Fair enough, but let's review so far. Your big-bang strategy to reform the Middle East took down Saddam, which was good; you've completely screwed up the Iraq occupation, which is bad; and now you don't seem to know exactly where you're going, which is not so great. This brings me to the bad news. The two players with the greatest potential for hog-tying your second term and derailing your big-bang strategy don't even live in the Middle East. Instead, they're located on little islands of unreality much like Washington, D.C.: Taiwan and North Korea.  
Esquire's "The Sound and the Fury" letters to the editor

The New Magnum Force: What Dirty Harry can teach the new Geneva conventions
Wired, February 2005
Ass kickers. Rule breakers. Lone riders. The United States may be founded on individual rights and the rule of law, but Americans love Dirty Harry and his literary and cinematic brethren. These hard-nosed heroes dispatch evildoers without remorse, going outside the law when necessary. The Man With No Name doesn't explain, he simply acts.

"The Pentagon's Debate Over What Iraq Means"
The Command Post, 22 January 2005
We've been linking to the work of Tom Barnett for some time, including his two Esquire articles, "The Pentagon's New Map" and "Mr. President, Here's How To Make Sense Of Our Iraq Strategy," and just yesterday, the CSPAN stream of his famous Defense Dept. brief on a grand military strategy for the United States.  He's a heavy hitter.  And here's the really great part: Tom has agreed to author an exclusive perspective piece for the Command Post's Op/Ed page, which you may find below. We're thrilled to have his contribution, and we hope you find the content enjoyable and provocative. --The Command Post

Not in America's Image
Baltimore Sun, 3 January 2005
Here's the good news: Within 10 years, no one on the planet will confuse globalization with Americanization. That's because several new superpowers are rising across the landscape, offering distinctively different faces to the often-demonized globalization process. Here's a quick preview.

Commission On Review Of Overseas Military Facility Structure Of The United States (pdf) [blog entry here]
Testimony delivered at Public Meeting held on 9 November 2004, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington DC
"First, let me thank the Commission on Overseas Basing for inviting me to testify here today. Second, let me emphasize right from the start that I'm not an expert per se on the U.S. military's global basing structure. I am essentially a grand strategist who spends his time contemplating the long-term objectives of U.S. foreign policy with a particular focus on how the employment of military force around the world can bring about not just increased security for our country, but improve the global security environment as a whole. I have written extensively on this subject, and I know that it is primarily on the basis of my recent book, The Pentagon's New Map, that I was asked to testify today, so many of my comments here will involve describing how I think this new map informs future planning for U.S. overseas basing realignment ..."

Does the U.S. Face a Future of Never-ending Subnational & Transnational Violence?
Conference Paper: National Intelligence Council 2020 Project (May 2004)
The short answer is yes. But the more important answers are that: 1) This future is worth pursuing because it represents genuine historical progress in the de-escalation of mass violence; 2) This problem-set is boundable and easily described as a grand historical arc of ever-retreating resistance to the spread of the global economy; and 3) The sequencing of the regional tasks involved is of our own choosing.

Gaming War in the Context of Everything Else
Fire and Movement, Issue 134 (2004)
Thomas P.M. Barnett wrote an article for Esquire magazine last year entitled "The Pentagon's New Map," in which he described what he believes is the new security environment that the U.S. finds itself in today. His recent book of the same title more deeply explores his thoughts on the matter. I asked Prof. Barnett what he thought the role of the commercial board wargame industry might be in the new world war in which we find ourselves. His response is included in this issue. It's definitely worth a close read.

Adam B. Ulam, Understanding the Cold War: A Historian's Personal Reflections, reviewed by Thomas P.M. Barnett, U.S. Naval War College
Journal of Cold War Studies, Summer 2004
There is only one really legitimate measure of an autobiography, and that is its ability to bring the author to life for the reader, giving a sense of who the person was and what it must have been like to have known him or her.  On that score, Adam Ulam's "personal reflections" succeed on every level.

Mr. President, Here's How To Make Sense Of Our Iraq Strategy
Esquire, June 2004
One of the architects of the Pentagon’s New Map of the world offers a most important guide to a) why the boys will never be coming home and b) why this is the first step toward a world without war. 
Esquire's "The Sound and the Fury" letters to the editor (Sept)
Esquire's "The Sound and the Fury" letters to the editor (Aug)

The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2004)
   A groundbreaking reexamination of U.S. and global security, certain to be one of the most talked about books of the year.
   Since the end of the Cold War, America's national security establishment has been searching for a new operating theory to explain how this seemingly "chaotic" world actually works. Gone is the clash of blocs, but replaced by what?
   Thomas Barnett has the answers. A senior military analyst with the U.S. Naval War College, he has given a constant stream of briefings over the past few years, and particularly since 9/11, to the highest of high-level civilian and military policymakers-and now he gives it to you. The Pentagon's New Map is a cutting-edge approach to globalization that combines security, economic, political, and cultural factors to do no less than predict and explain the nature of war and peace in the twenty-first century.
   Building on the works of Friedman, Huntington, and Fukuyama, and then taking a leap beyond, Barnett crystallizes recent American military history and strategy, sets the parameters for where our forces will likely be headed in the future, outlines the unique role that America can and will play in establishing international stability-and provides much-needed hope at a crucial yet uncertain time in world history.
   For anyone seeking to understand the Iraqs, Afghanistans, and Liberias of the present and future, the intimate new links between foreign policy and national security, and the operational realities of the world as it exists today, The Pentagon's New Map is a template, a Rosetta stone. Agree with it, disagree with it, argue with it-there is no book more essential for 2004 and beyond.

Targeting Terrorism
Forget Europe. How About These Allies?
The Washington Post, April 11, 2004
Terrorists buy a national election in Spain for the price of 10 backpack bombs and remove a "crucial" pillar of the Western coalition in Iraq. Predictably, op-ed columnists and talking heads raise the cry for the Bush administration to "save the Western alliance." This is a knee-jerk response that reflects historical habit more than strategic logic.

System Perturbation: Conflict in the Age of Globalization
With Bradd C. Hayes in Raymond W. Westphal Jr, ed, War and Virtual War: The Challenges to Communities (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2003), pp. 5-18.
Aperiodically, the international system reorders itself — normally in the aftermath of a major conflict. This reordering is accompanied by the implementation of new rule sets in an attempt to firewall states from the causes of the conflict. Policymakers have openly enquired whether the end of the Cold War and the birth of the information age require a new firebreak and the implementation of a new set of rules. Because "great power war" has been the proximate cause of past restructuring, great power war has been the ordering the principle for international (and national) rules and institutions. Recent events (from so-called the Asian Economic Flu, to the Mexican peso crisis, to the Love Bug computer virus, to the heinous events of 11 September 2001) indicate that a new ordering principle is required (one in which great power war is but one possible outcome).

The Global Transaction Strategy
WITH HENRY H. GAFFNEY, JR.
Military Officer, May 2003
Operation Iraqi Freedom could be a first step toward a larger goal: true globalization.

No Retaliation at Home
Mary Suh, editor, of Week-in-Review expert roundtable "Strategy, With the Benefit of Hindsight"
New York Times, 30 March 2003
Given all the months of planning for — and talking about — the war in Iraq, it appeared that every possible contingency had been accounted for, if not by the military itself, then by the platoon of retired officers that seems to populate television news. But as with everything else, there is no substitute for hindsight. The Week in Review asked several prominent experts on war and on Iraq to explain what has surprised them, or not, about the war thus far.

The Pentagon's New Map (Russian translation)  (German translation)
Esquire, March 2003
Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up with an operating theory of the world--and a military strategy to accompany it. Now there's a leading contender. It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them. Since September 11, 2001, the author, a professor of warfare analysis, has been advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community. Now he gives it to you.     
Esquire's "The Sound and the Fury" letters to the editor (June)
Esquire's "The Sound and the Fury" letters to the editor (May)

The American Way of War
WITH ARTHUR K. CEBROWSKI
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], January 2003
The ultimate attribute of the emerging American Way of War is the superempowerment of the war fighter--whether on the ground, in the air, or at sea.

Asia's Energy Future: The Military-Market Link
In Sam J. Tangredi, ed, Globalization and Maritime Power (National Defense University Press, 2003)
Continuing the “Economic Issues and Maritime Strategy” part, chapter 10 returns to the question of the economic impact (and necessity) of naval forward presence in a region of current concern, Asia-Pacific. The 2001 DOD Quadrennial Defense Review Report identifies a policy shift in American defense policy, from a Eurocentric focus to increased emphasis on potential security threats in Asia-Pacific. Chapter 10 explains the need for such a shift through its examination of the energy needs of the existing and emerging Asian economic powers—notably China. According to forecasts, perhaps more than 50 percent of Mideast oil production will be directed to the Asia-Pacific region, much of it traveling by tankers through such chokepoints as the Strait of Hormuz (between Iran and Oman) and the Strait of Malacca (between Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore). This and the potential for interstate and intrastate conflict in an “arc of crises” running from the Middle East to Northwest Asia suggest a continuing and increasing role for the U.S. Navy—the world’s last global navy—and the U.S. Marine Corps and other maritime forces in maintaining the peace and stability if that region is to share in the benefits of economic globalization.

The 'Core' and 'Gap'
The Providence Journal, 7 November 2002
Defining rules in a dangerous world.

Asia: The Military-Market Link
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], January 2002
China could be the world's largest auto market by 2020, increasing its oil needs by 40%. The Pentagon and Wall Street must understand their interrelationship: economic and political stability are crucial to reducing energy market risk.

Globalization Gets A Bodyguard
WITH HENRY H. GAFFNEY, JR.
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], November 2001
Definitions of U.S. national security never will be the same after 11 September 2001. Americans now have a costly bodyguard in the form of a Homeland Security Council which could impact globalization on many fronts.

Globalization is Tested
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], October 2001
Special: In Response to the Terrorist Attacks
Freedom Isn't Free.

India's 12 Steps to a World-Class Navy
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], July 2001
The International Fleet Review in February showed off its impressive fleet;
now the Indian Navy must determine how it wants to use it.

Top Ten Post-Cold War Myths
WITH HENRY H. GAFFNEY, JR.
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], February 2001
As a mobile, sea-based containment force, the U.S. Navy will continue to play an important role in the nation's foreign policy, but its missions will mirror the clustered responses in Iraq and Yugoslavia, not the obsolete two-major-theater-war standard.

Force Structure Will Change
WITH HENRY H. GAFFNEY, JR.
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], October 2000
Each service stands to win--or lose--depending on what national security visions the new administration embraces. System visions favor air forces; nation-state visions favor naval forces; subnational visions favor ground forces.

Life After DODth or: How the Evernet Changes Everything
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], May 2000
The relevance of DoD has declined steadily since the end of the Cold War. Coming to grips with its passing won't be easy, but the Navy is working through the five stages of grief and toward a future in cyberspace.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Network-Centric Warfare
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], January 2000
They are not mortal sins; penance can be made.

It's Going to Be a Bumpy Ride
WITH HENRY H. GAFFNEY, JR.
Proceedings [U.S. Naval Institute], January 1993
The Navy is in for some heavy seas if its leaders fail to adopt a defense vision that gets them in the Washington game and positions them well with the star players--Senator Sam Nunn, Congressman Les Aspin, General Colin Powell, and President-elect Bill Clinton.

Romanian and East German Policies in the Third World: Comparing the Strategies of Ceausescu and Honecker (Westport CT: Praeger Publishers, 1992)
   This book is a unique comparison of the Third World policies of the two East European regimes that were most active in the South during the 1970s and 1980s. The study examines why Romania's and East Germany's high activity levels in the South cannot be explained away as mere surrogacy for Moscow, and shows that those attempts represented the particular agendas of Honecker and Ceausescu in their efforts to alter their ties with the Soviet Union. Barnett concludes that Romania and East Germany saw opportunities in the Third World in the 1970s to forge strong diplomatic and security profiles within the Warsaw Pact's overall presence. 

Gulf Pundits: An Op-Ed Scorecard
The Washington Post, 16 December 1990
Choosing up sides in our war of words over Iraq.

Why Ceausescu Fell
The Christian Science Monitor, 28 December 1989
His silent war against the Romanian people backfired.

Romania Domino Stays Upright
The Christian Science Monitor, 11 December 1989
Events in Eastern Europe may have caught the West unprepared, but Ceausescu has been ready for this upheaval for quite some time.

Home