This took place quite a while ago (if I remember correctly).
The opening about Tom:
Federal 'Department of Everything Else' Draws Fire, By Evan Moore, CNSNews.com, April 28, 2008(CNSNews.com) - America's efforts at stabilizing failing regimes and promoting the spread of democracy would improve if an agency were created to foster a culture of nation-building in the U.S. government itself, according to a leading foreign policy expert. Critics, however, dismiss the idea as unnecessary and an unwanted step towards creating a "colonialism" office.
The office in question was coined the "Department of Everything Else" by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, author of the "Pentagon's New Map" books.
In an interview with Cybercast News Service, Barnett said the proposed new department "would cover the process of getting states from failure to functioning, from instability to stability, from disconnectedness to connectedness, from war to peace, and transition them from what I have dubbed globalization's 'non-integrating gap' (where the wild things are) to its 'functioning core.'"
The idea was introduced "because Defense can't do it alone and State can't do it at all," said Barnett. "(We)need someone to cover the middle ground. ... Until we create a bureaucratic center of gravity for that role, we will continue to vastly underperform and thus attract few, if any, allies to future projects. That'll needlessly cost America lives in future interventions, just like it has for years in Iraq before the counter-insurgency strategy was finally allowed to emerge by the Bush administration."
Barnett concluded: "This problem will not be inter-agency'd away. ... It's a big enough task to warrant its own department. Until we show we're serious, no one will take us seriously."
The U.S. government already has an office committed to nearly the same function as the one envisioned by Barnett. The State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) was created in August 2004 to provide experts from the government and private sector to nations that have recently experienced a conflict.
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Comments (4)
with all due respect to Dr Barnett, i always wonder,if we don't have
any high nationalisic interests,and if spreading democracy and help
failing states are what we want,don't you think we already have this
organization(department) called UN.why do we need "Department of
everything else",why the US has to be the one to do this,don't we
talk about having multi-polar world order,and a globalization that
should cover every country and help bring everybody out of poverty
(GAP),and that the clasic balance of "who is up,who is down" no longer holds. Then why is it that a handfull countries manipulate and
influence the UN.If nation building is our true goal and we want to
address the needs and the issues that most coutries are facing,then
why is it we don't allow a true world body (department) exist and let
everybody have a vote and decide the path to the future.when are
we going to realize that America alone,either economically,or militeraly can't boss the world,as british couldn't do it, or as China will
not be able to do it.the era of deciding the economic and political status of other countries by afew or singal nation is over. As a peot
a thousand years ago wrote; humans are like the atonomy of a body
,if one part of body hurts,the rest of the parts of body is not at peace
and hurts too.
Posted by farhad | May 1, 2008 9:43 AM
farhad: the UN doesn't work. that's why Tom says the de facto world executive should be (and, in fact, is) the G20. but you're right about US trying to run everything being untenable.
Posted by Sean Meade![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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May 1, 2008 1:25 PM
The U.S. Congress is not likely to declare war against any nation in the future because of a lack of credible, confirmable intelligence to "prove" who is responsible for future terrorist attacks against US.
Consequently, our super power military may become only a gun for hire by a consensus of a G20, G10 or G8 but getting Congress to approve such action, in likely defiance of the UN, is hard to envision. Great power war is over.
The most we might expect is US troop deployments to our allies at their request (and hopefully their expense too). System Administration duties will probably fall to our allies and a US Dept of Everything Else seems like a pipe dream.
I never expected to see it in my lifetime but we are becoming a nation of pacifists. Who will we ever attack again and on what political will and what budget? Embrace your future, read your Quran.
Posted by VoteWithTroops | May 1, 2008 9:56 PM
Basically foreign assistance was dominated in the past by money or military assistance. All that has really happened is that because the US never tried to learn the lessons of past assistance efforts it never learned the basic limitations of that strategy. And of course the UN has neither money or troops. Time to upgrade foreign assistance to included administration by those with the appropriate background in the culture and language of those it is assisting and keep from providing that assistance soley through favored contractors located principally in the continental US or through location in Americanized Ghettoes. Basically time for brains not money or brawn.
Posted by William R. Cumming. | May 2, 2008 3:15 AM