Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Fantastic topic to tackle, Tom. But have you seen examples of thinkers in both horizontal and vertical, or someone whose foundation is vertical and then could leap from there to be horizontal? I observe that in the science and engineering cohort, you must begin as a vertical thinker, and only afterwards, play around with being horizontal.

I am resetting my language goals in my written journal! Your article is a cause set in motion. I sought to be fluent in Czech by year's end (which then gives me Slovak, since they are very similar, and Serbo-Croatian, Polish to a degree), and improve a little of my Chinese (Putonghua). So I'd have
-English (American)
-Czech
-Chinese (Putonghua, Cantonese)
under my belt.

By the way, it should be pointed out that while there's a pragmatic reason to learn a foreign language, that's not why most people do it (see example of Richard Feynman learning Spanish and Portuguese). =) What men would do for women (and vice versa)!

"But getting Defense to cooperate with State to cooperate with Commerce. . . It's the connections between economics and security, for example, that we understand least."

Some cooperation might take place at state level. A Conversation with History interview took place this year with the president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, Chalmers Johnson.

He seemed to argue that the health of the national economy determines policy and expenditure on national security. Part of the interview:

"I come [from] the 50th district of California. One of our most distinguished citizens, [a former congressman], is spending eight and a half years in a federal penitentiary for being the largest bribe-taker in the history of Congress. It is significant that he was taking bribes from military contractors to buy junk that nobody wanted -- the Defense Department didn't want it, it was worthless stuff . . . But it's illustrative of the world that we live in. Well before [action by the U.S. Attorney] . . . I had written an article in the LA Times, pointing out that [the congressman] was bought and paid for by the military industrial complex, and I received letters from people in, oh, say the 34th district, downtown Los Angeles, saying, "God, I wish he was my congressman. I could use a good job. I wouldn't mind making cluster bombs for use on Lebanese civilians, or whatever else." We don't manufacture that much in this country anymore, but we do manufacture more weapons than anybody else on earth."

"But getting Defense to cooperate with State to cooperate with Commerce. . . It's the connections between economics and security, for example, that we understand least."

Some cooperation might take place at state level. A Conversation with History interview took place this year with the president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, Chalmers Johnson.

He seemed to argue that the health of the national economy determines policy and expenditure on national security. Part of the interview:

"I come [from] the 50th district of California. One of our most distinguished citizens, [a former congressman], is spending eight and a half years in a federal penitentiary for being the largest bribe-taker in the history of Congress. It is significant that he was taking bribes from military contractors to buy junk that nobody wanted -- the Defense Department didn't want it, it was worthless stuff . . . But it's illustrative of the world that we live in. Well before [action by the U.S. Attorney] . . . I had written an article in the LA Times, pointing out that [the congressman] was bought and paid for by the military industrial complex, and I received letters from people in, oh, say the 34th district, downtown Los Angeles, saying, "God, I wish he was my congressman. I could use a good job. I wouldn't mind making cluster bombs for use on Lebanese civilians, or whatever else." We don't manufacture that much in this country anymore, but we do manufacture more weapons than anybody else on earth."

any book,or talk probelaly going to have some facts or truth in it.
but the important thing is what message it gives.eg; you can talk
about middle east as being very much involved in religous, which
can be true,but you can arrive at a totally wrong conclusion& not
see that the cause of that is mostly economic& poverty.in another-
-word,this is poverty (poor) that keeps the region(people)undeveloped (some say backward)& not the religion.the big question
of course is why these countries have stayed behind & turned to
religion to releive their suffering.it is a facinating subject & the grand
stradigist who can find the truth about that is giving the right message.you can do that by going through history & the answer is
there.

As an engineer, I have to second Ari's observation. I trained with a bit of this and a bit of that, and have had a bit of trouble getting a job since then:P

If your new book can help me think through my own career path, though, that would be great.