A Review:
By Sheila R. Ronis, Ph.D.,
The University Group, Inc.
Visioning for the U.S. Government is a difficult process.
No one entity has the responsibility to define the long term vision of the
country. This has been argued for many years amongst those of us who
discuss the role the United States needs to define for itself with the end
of the Cold War and a world emerging in the 21st Century that is very
different. But, little progress has ever been made. Until now. In a
brilliantly lucid manor, Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, senior strategic
researcher and professor at the U.S. Naval War College, has defined what
that vision of a “future worth creating” should be in his new book,
The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century.
The map he is referring to is the map of the world divided
into two regions; those who represent countries whose populations are
connected or moving toward connection to the global economy, internet,
etc., and those who are still unconnected. It is not the usual discussion
of helping the “have-not” countries through foreign aid or
humanitarian assistance. It is a discussion of the “have” or “emerging
have” countries, what Dr. Barnett refers to as “the Core and New Core”
countries working together to bring the rest of the world of “have not”
countries, what he refers to as “the Gap” into the global economy and
the world’s rule sets.
The entire work describes the fact that the Core countries
of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, and the New Core countries such as
China, India, Brazil, and Mexico, operate under one set of international
security rules and the countries in the Gap, such as much of the Middle
East, parts of Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, and most of Africa,
operate under a different set of rules, and in some instances, no rules at
all. His research over the years indicated that almost all of the conflict
in the world occurs in the Gap.
Dr. Barnett comes to the conclusion that the “enemy”
of the 21st Century is lack of connection to globalization –
economically, politically, militarily and socially. His discussions
integrate them all. They explain, far better than the current
administration, why what the United States is doing in Iraq and
Afghanistan is the right thing to do. It explains what the next
administration must do regardless of who is resident in the White House
and who is elected to Congress – that is “shrink the Gap” and “grow
the Core.”
It also explains why the Bush Administration’s
preemption policies should not distress most of the world. Dr. Barnett
says, “the strategy of preemption is not new, nor will it be universally
applied. Mutually Assured Destruction, deterrence, and collective security
inside the Core are not altered one whit by the Bush Administration’s
new strategy of preemption, because it simply does not apply to the Core
– only to the Gap. Inside the Core we have a host of official
mechanisms, both bilateral and multilateral, to deal with any security
issues that arise. September 11 did not change any of that rule set, nor
does the global war on terrorism. When the Bush Administration talks
preemption, it is talking about actors and regimes in the Gap that we must
prudently assume might be undeterrable, simply because they do not live in
the same world or adhere to the same security rule sets that we do. Our
goal in using the preemption strategy is not to destroy the Core’s
security rule set but to extend it.”
During a fourteen year career filled with unusual
assignments, Dr. Barnett gives us a view of the personal and professional
challenges that he has experienced in the journey that brought him to
understand what the world needs in this 21st century world of
globalization to bring about a peaceful future. His explanations include
an understanding of war “in the context of everything else,” the way
systems scientists look at the world. He says, “Disconnectedness defines
danger.”
“Eliminating the disconnectedness that defines the Gap
goes far beyond simply defeating those forces willing to use violence to
achieve or maintain it, because these terrorists are nothing more than
parasites feeding off this political and economic isolation. Once that
isolation is ended, and broadband connectivity is achieved for the masses,
the forces of terror and repression can no longer hold sway. Will they
ever disappear completely? Absolutely not. But, they will have to take
their acts truly underground, off the net, and into the world of
illegitimacy. That is how you turn a “heroic” terrorist into a common
criminal: you surround him with a society deeply connected to the larger
world of rules, opportunity, and hope. You render him an outcast among his
own. You shame him out of existence. What you cannot do is simply catch
him and kill him, because there will always be more. Over time, your
violence will be delegitimized and his honored, unless yours is employed
on behalf of a society growing in connectivity. Your effort must be
intimately identified with that growing connectivity; your war must be in
the context of everything else.”
Dr. Barnett’s strategy hinges on four flows; people,
energy, money and security. These flows are required to “balance” the
forces in the world in a market-based way. As long as these flows are not
disrupted, the chances to make progress toward reducing the Gap and
growing the Core are improved.
The Pentagon's New Map is only pre-orderable for now at
the following web-site. It will be available after April 26, when it will
be published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Find it on the web at: www.thomaspmbarnett.com
This work should be translated into every major language
around the world, though the wit and wisdom may be difficult to translate.
It is a must read, not only for policy analysts in the beltway and every
American, but for every citizen of the world who cares about the future.
