Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Sent to me by the publisher. Less the big idea book than a straightforward textbook for college students, it was nice to see the ideas get mainstreamed.

Brian Forst, American University, Terrorism, Crime, and Public Policy, (New York: Cambridge University Press).

What gets listed in the bibliography is PNM and the "Make Sense of Your Second Term" Mr. President piece I wrote for Esquire, or essentially the miniature BFA thesis.

The mentions include page 76 (in chapter, "Two Trajectories of Humankind: Globalization or Clash?":

Several scholars have written extensively about a convergence of civilizations under this trajectory of globalization, perhaps foremost of whom is Francis Fukuyama, starting with his landmark 1992 book, The End of History, and the Last Man. Others have taken up Fukuyama's basis thesis of convergence of civilizations in the post-9/11 era, including economists Jagdish Bhagwati, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and Martin Wolf; political scientist Walter Russell Mead; New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman; and military scholar Thomas Barnett.

They all get pictures in the text, but alas I do not!

Then on page 82 I finally get the treatment:

Thomas Barnett (2004) recognizes both sides of the double-edged sword of globalization and concludes that there is a clear net good. Nations that join the global economy experience not only prosperity, but perhaps more importantly, they experience the benefits that accrue from the rule of law. Thus, globalization is a geopolitical formula for peace in the post-9/11 age. Barnett sees globalization as the primary long-term solution to the problems of terrorism. He draws a long and winding boundary over a map of the world, demarcating two vast areas at odds with each other: the "functioning core" of interconnected countries with rule sets, norms, and ties that bind people together in mutually assured dependence on the one hand, and the "non-integrating gap" of countries in globalization's "ozone hole" on the other (Barnett, 2004, pp. 4-8). He sees globalization as the central and defining element of global security in the post-Cold War era. Barnett describes the implications of this connection between globalization and security for the development of a defense strategy that focuses on U.S. military needs, but he states that there is no less a diplomatic responsibility to work effectively to help countries in the gap move to the core.

In a later chapter entitled, "Preventing Terrorism: Short-Term Approaches," the following bit on page 363:

A distinct advantage for the terrorist organization of having internal financial support is that it can have a degree of autonomy that may not be as easily achieved when it is heavily reliant on external sources of funding (Napoleoni, 2005). The need for internal funding obtained through illicit activities may be especially great in countries that are disconnected from the global economy--what Thomas Barnett (2005) refers to as "gap nations." A nation's distance from the forces of globalization may thus deepen the vicious cycle of terrorism and illegal activities needed to support it, each feeding the other and breaking down formal and informal social control systems along the way. The greater the distance, the greater the inclination for terrorists to disrupt the forces of order and finance their operations autonomously through illegal activities--as exemplified by the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the coca plantations of Colombia.

I would say this guy gets my ideas pretty darn well!

Final cite comes in later-still chapter entitled, "Preventing Terrorism: Long-Term Strategies," pages 391-2:

We have much to learn about dialogue. The United States spends some $300 billion annually on defense, and $10 billion for the State Department to conduct diplomacy. We spend vastly more on defense research than for research on how to build bridges of social connections that might be capable of making war unthinkable. Thomas Barnett (2004) and others have written about the need for a fundamental reshaping of the military to make it more responsive to the growing demand for peace-keeping forces--maintaining an effective capability to wage war while expanding the capacity of the military to secure peace by strengthening local security and building and maintaining other critical infrastructure needed for civil society in places where hostilities have been pervasive. Learning to engage in effective dialogue may be essential to preventing war in the first place and to securing peace when preventive interventions fail.

You know, I often wince when I get books from publishers and then see how the author has mangled or caricatured my ideas beyond all recognition, but this guy gets my ideas quite nicely and uses them with great skill--in a textbook no less (complete with discussion questions for each chapter).

Very gratifying.