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STRATEGY
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In an article in Esquire early in 2003 Tom Barnett, a professor at
the Naval War College, outlined a proposed "grand strategy"
for the twenty-first century, based on the concept of "The
Functioning Core and the Non-Integrating Gap." "The Core"
refers to those nations with relatively stable governments and a
willingness to cooperate in a more or less peaceful world community.
This included the United States, Japan, most of Europe (though not the
Balkans), and Russia, plus a few nations in other areas, such as India,
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, and the Asian
"Little Tigers," as well as China, essentially the "globalized"
community, roughly two-thirds of humanity. In contrast, "The
Gap" was the region of instability and poverty that has been
largely failed to integrate into the global community, including large
swathes of the Americas, the Balkans, most of Africa (save South
Africa), the Middle East, and Central and South East Asia. This latter
area, encompassing about a third of humanity, he observed, has been the
scene of far more military clashes, internal upheaval, poverty, and
brutal oppression, while being a focus of international terrorism, which
it exports to the rest of the world. In essence, Barnett proposed that
the "Core" nations – led by the United States, acting as
much as possible in cooperation with other "Core" states and
under the umbrella of the United Nations -- undertake to stabilize the
"Gap" and help bring it in to the globalized community.
In The Pentagon's New Map, Barnett elaborates upon this grand
strategy, a formula for the next few decades that can be likened to
George Kennan's famous 1946 "X" article, "The Sources of
Soviet Conduct," which outlined the "Containment"
strategy that ultimately won the Cold War . The book essentially has two
themes.
First, Barnett notes that the events of 9/11 essentially
"saved" the Pentagon from its fixation on the Cold War. A
decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, despite the total absence
of any power capable of threatening the U.S. conventionally, the
Department of Defense was still focused on "The Big One," and
wholly unprepared for what has come to be call "asymmetrical
threats." The events of September 2001 forced a reluctant military
establishment to find ways to cope with a new kind of warfare, one in
which the nation's massive conventional – and even nuclear –
capabilities was of little use, in a transformation that is still in
progress.
Barnett goes on to say that Bush Administration "has the right
strategic vision" and has taken many of the steps needed to get a
long-term strategy rolling." He faults the administration, however,
in failing to explain this strategy to the American people and to the
global community. The essence of the "Core/Gap" strategy is
that while there is an established and generally smoothly-running
international security system in the "Core" different rules
are necessary when dealing with the "Gap." In these terms, the
policy of "pre-emption" applies to the "Gap", not to
the "Core", where there are numerous alternative approaches to
resolving problems, and a generally mutual-willingness to do so. The
result of this failure to effectively articulate the strategy has been
an enormous amount of ill-will and acrimony both domestically and
internationally, which came very near to destroying NATO. Barnett wraps
up his discussion by outlining some of the dangers of a forward policy
towards the Gap, such as becoming embroiled in internal and regional
quarrels. And he concludes by stressing the need to maintain the
integration of the "Core" nations, lest they lose a sense of
commonality, leading to fragmentation into regional power-blocs, with
the result that the Core will not only fail to grow, but will leave the
problems of the Gap unaddressed and result in a more unstable world.
An important contribution to the debate on the nature of conflict in
the twenty-first century. Reviewer: A. A. Nofi
COMMENTARY: Generally favorable, so
how to complain? But a little too focused on repeating what I say rather
than commenting on it. I found myself muttering throughout, "But how
does that make you feel?" Obviously, I love being compared to
Kennan's "X Article" (frankly, I beg for it in the book), and
this guy has seen the full-up brief (being someone who works with a
high-level naval strategic planning group here in Newport), so the fix was
in from the beginning. Still, strategists love to crap on each other's
work, so a positive review from Nofi feels very satisfactory—a genuine
peer review. |
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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