Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

DATELINE: US Airways flight to Boston, 8 November 2006

Tomorrow I give my first-ever presentation at Harvard, specifically at the JFK School. Prior to this I was asked back only once, by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (where I was, not JFK) to speak at a career counseling day. I think I was asked to do that solely on the basis of proximity, so I used the day to take Em and Kev to museums.

I'm able to do this gig while piggy-backing on a corporate event that I'm doing later in the day in New Hampshire for Raytheon (frequent and good client over the years). Harvard's picking up the hotel but nothing else. I'm doing it for free because my core (inviting) audience is the military officers's program at Kennedy. I did them in the past once or twice while at the Naval War College, with them coming down.

So, truth be told, Harvard still hasn't invited me, the officers did.

Still, fun to go back, despite my ambivalence about the place. It was a brutal place for your ego. You go from being the smartest guy around to just one of many (that I could handle--and enjoyed). But what really intimidated was how so many grad students there were already plugged into power networks (powerful parents or patrons was a constant theme, as in, "Oh him, his mom's the editor of The Sunday Times in New Delhi" or "He's going to run [insert major pub], dontcha know? It's all set."). That kind of backstage gossip (all true) was monumentally intimidating, making you feel like such an unconnected, uncredentialed loser in comparison. I mean, imagine how much more confident in their future these people were as a result? And how that delta with your confidence level made them natural stars in class?

So I felt like a peon, and a foreigner at that ("You're from Wisconsin? How long have you been in the country?").

The first year was rough, but I did well, and won the first-year student award in the Soviet program, which made me Adam Ulam's research assistant. His patronage helped me get into the Government PhD program (where I came in with guys like Sullivan, Pei and Zakaria), because there was an informal quota system WRT regional MA programs, as in, only 2 from each got in each year and my class had some big names like Kate Schector (dad wrote about her in his NYT-bestselling memoir of being the NYT Moscow bureau chief), Mark Medish (later an assistant to Rubin in Treasury) and George Perkovich (the nuke/South Asian expert). But apparently, all that scotch and tennis and shared love of the Red Sox paid off, letting me sneak into the program, where I got to learn from the likes of Huntington, Nye, Keohane, Sandel, Putnam, Pipes, Hoffman and Shklar, so damn! I was plenty grateful.

Still, I had so little sense of myself or much confidence in my voice when I left there.

My eight-year residency at the Center for Naval Analyses took care of that, because I enjoyed the tutelage of a number of great mentors there, like Hank Gaffney, Jim Blaker, Jack Mayer, Linton Brooks, Bob Murray, and Gary Federici.

The rest, as they say, is still unfolding.

But no doubt, I head back into The Yard with a sense of confidence and purpose.

Speaking of confidence and purpose, look out hard for the December issue of Esquire--yes, the Best & Brightest one. Some amazing stories in this issue, including one I want everyone to read...

Gotta save my brain power (and voice!) tonight: two talks in one day is awfully tough. Gotta drive in between as well. No fears, though, as I brought the Garmin (another Time tech innovation of the year).

Too bad it can't settle this bumpy commuter flight ...