Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

The transcript from Tom's appearance on Hugh's show yesterday is now up, linked from this post where Hugh put up what he considered to be a key excerpt.

The excerpt I liked best was the first caller:

Dave: Thank you, Hugh. I want to thank you for having such a great guest, and having such a intelligent discussion on grand strategy. I’m a military officer, working long range strategic planning for a command that deals back, of course, with the Pentagon. And everything he said is right on about non-material versus material solutions. As soon as you start to try to make wide swings in non-material approach, or a different approach, you affect the juggernaut of the things that you purchase. I would like to make the point that often we do, we are able to make some changes, and they usually are coincident with other big social event, military event, something that you could tie to and justify. He’s right on there. I’m going to find your book, sir, and make it a part of my education. I appreciate you talking about things in grand strategy like instruments of power, like diplomatic, military, informational, economic, these are all very important things that tie into how we move our big, grand strategy forward, and I’m so tired in the media of hearing these simplistic bumper stickers, and somebody’s got another strategy, and they expect it to be all military or all information, or all diplomatic. I just thank you, Hugh, for bringing this great topic forward, and bringing this guest to the radio.