Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 9 May 2004
This one comes from Dallas/Fort Worth-based Star-Telegram. Here it is in full and then follows my commentary:
Posted on Sun, May. 09, 2004COMMENTARY: I know Mark Warren would quibble over the organization complaint, and would indeed cite the great compression required to make the material fit this book. Frankly, we both thought the book could have easily been expanded into 5 or 6 books. So point well taken there.
The Pentagon's New Map
Closing the Gap
World peace is seen as a matter of the haves helping the have-nots
By Heather Landy
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
As the United States began identifying the suicide pilots who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, many of my colleagues in the Manhattan office where I was working at the time shared a theory: Maybe if these terrorists had more to live for, maybe if their corner of the world had political freedom, economic opportunities and a sense of social progress, then they would not have been so quick to participate in suicide missions plotted by Osama bin Laden.
This is the same premise offered by U.S. Naval War College Professor Thomas P.M. Barnett in The Pentagon's New Map. The book takes the theory several steps further, providing statistical evidence and the kind of long-term vision and military credentials that come in handy when one is trying to influence policy on an international issue.
In an updated version of "the haves" and "the have-nots," Barnett splits the world into "the Core" and "the Gap." The map he draws shows North America, Europe, Australia, India, East Asia and select parts of South America comfortably chugging along in the Core, while most of Africa, Central America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia struggle to subsist in the Gap.
America has the military strength and the moral obligation to shrink the Gap economically and to export security as needed to help Gap countries integrate into the Core, Barnett argues. Ultimately, this is our best defense against terror and the anti-American hatred that breeds in the Gap.
Barnett also suggests that our war on terrorism will work only if it is waged as part of a larger campaign, with the goal of making the global economy truly global, and helping Gap nations move toward more open societies with enough political and economic stability to attract foreign investment and reconnect to the Core.
Trained as an expert on the Soviet Union, Barnett in recent years has briefed officials from the Defense Department, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security, sharing his Core-Gap theory and pressing for changes that would help the military become as adept at fostering peace as it is at waging war. His book uses an easy, conversational language that instructs rather than condescends.
Ideological hawks may not take kindly to parts of The Pentagon's New Map. Barnett exposes petty insecurities and political maneuvers that have hampered the Defense Department's view of the world, and he pulls no punches when it comes to analyzing President Bush's post-war strategies in Iraq.
But those who believe we never should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place won't find a sympathetic viewpoint here, either. To Barnett, the bombs that began raining down on Baghdad a year ago were not dropped in vain.
"The reason I so easily fit an argument for the war within my 'shrink the Gap' strategy wasn't that I thought Saddam had to go right then, but that I knew he had to go sometime, and the spring of 2003 was as good a time as any," he writes.
In one of the strongest passages of the book, Barnett describes life in the Gap. Among the statistics he cites: Of the 50 countries with the lowest life expectancy rates, all but South Africa lie within the Gap; the Gap accounts for 96 percent of the people who are forced to leave their home countries to escape warfare or similar deprivations; and it hosts 31 of the 36 groups that the State Department officially considers to be terrorist organizations.
It may be difficult to have sympathy for Gap societies when we see photographs of Iraqis dancing on a bridge, with the burned bodies of American civilians hanging above them. These images make us want to bomb these people, not help them. But they also show how desperate and disconnected these societies have become.
Barnett's call for action rises above partisan politics because it tugs at us as humans, not as liberals or conservatives, or as free-traders or isolationists. He criticizes and praises Republican and Democratic administrations alike. In an era of political firestorms set off by one-sided tell-all books from government insiders, this is particularly welcome.
The Pentagon's New Map is not without its shortcomings. Barnett gives little advice on how to deal with allies who might not be supportive of certain U.S. policies. The book also suffers from a lack of organization, making Barnett's arguments sometimes seem repetitive. Perhaps both flaws are the result of trying to explain a 30-year vision almost too concisely. The Pentagon's New Map is based on an article of the same name that Barnett published in the March 2003 issue of Esquire magazine.
One of the book's biggest strengths is its positive viewpoint. Barnett is the first to admit that the Core-Gap structure will persist for some time and that the changes he prescribes for our military structure will take decades to implement. But throughout, Barnett maintains an infectious optimism that should cause most readers to hope that his ideas are acted upon.
"America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire," he writes. "It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap. This is a boundable problem with a foreseeable finish line." For although it may loom large on a military agenda not yet equipped to handle the peace after war, the Gap is not infinite.
The Pentagon's New Map
by Thomas P.M. Barnett
Nonfiction
Putnam, $24.95
Grade: A-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heather Landy is a Star-Telegram business writer.
As for the repetition, there we erred on the side of caution, not expecting the reader to read through it too quickly given the density of ideas. In retrospect, we—and especially I—was probably wrong on this. Most people seem to read the book very quickly.
In general though, I like this review a lot, in the sense that it was a review for average readers that stressed the utility of the book for average readers. More than anything, this is the review Mark and I wanted: this is not just a book for experts or partisans, but for average people hoping to find some middle ground.
