Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Dateline: SWA flight from BWI back to Providence, 8 July

Rare travel day for me: got up at hotel after good night’s sleep and nothing to do but travel home. So did some work at the room before driving to Baltimore-Washington International at a time I knew would find little traffic in my path.

Good day to reflect on another review. This one comes from the Naval Institute’s flagship journal, Proceedings, which is the premier journal of the naval community. I’ve written about ten articles for them over the years, and was chosen their Author of the Year in 2001, so there’s a pretty special relationship there, especially between myself and the editor-in-chief Fred Rainbow. Fred published a lot of my early articles when I couldn’t find anyone else to take them, so in many ways he starts the publication pathway that eventually becomes the PNM.

Does that mean I expect a good review from Proceedings? Not on your life. Frankly, the Navy and the Army like my material least, whereas the Marines, Air Force and Special Ops guys warm up to it the fastest, so I had little expectations of a good review here. The guy who wrote it holds the Chief of Naval Operations Chair at the National War College, a navy captain by the name of Robert B. Brannon. I don’t know the guy, but I can’t be sure he hasn’t seen the brief.

Here’s the review with my commentary to follow (plus today’s catch of articles):

The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century


Thomas P.M. Barnett, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004; 392 pp. Maps. Index. Notes. Bib. $26.95

Reviewed by Captain Robert B. Brannon, U.S. Navy

Thomas Barnett is a masterful storyteller and insightful futurist. In this book, he transports his readers from the relative comfort zones of traditional security into a world of new dimensions. Using devices such as scenario planning and systems integration, Barnett describes conditions that dominate the post-2001 security environment. The Pentagon’s “new map” looks similar to the old one in that it reflects the same images of nations, states, and geographic borders—but that is where the similarities ends. The new world, as Barnett sees it, is one best described by what he calls the “Functioning Core” and the “Non-Integrating Gap.”

The core is the part of the world that is connected and “wired” through collective security, integrated economics, and the positive aspects of globalization. The gap is everything else, nonintegrated and disfranchised from the rest. The two regions are related through four flows: the movement of people from the gap to the core; the movement of energy from the gap to the core; the movement of money from the old core to the new core; and the exporting of security that only the United States can provide to the gap. These four flows (people, energy, investments, and security) become crucial not merely to preserving the core, but also to bridging the two in such a way that the core is made larger while the gap is reduced in size. Barnett’s central thesis is aimed at shrinking the gap.

In the connected world, there is less reason to make war or threaten the economic well-being of any other core nation in a substantive way because of the associated negative consequences. In the gap, there is constant cause for alarm because these nations are left out, forced to compete on a playing field that is decidedly not level, and made to fight for every advantage. Barnett’s prescription for security centers on making the gap more integrated with the core. Because rules govern international relations and influence relationships, “rule-sets” help to explain the various factors that have an impact on rebalancing the world as we know it. He suggests that new ordering principles are needed in favor of a better sense of balance. In a world defined by chaotic influences, especially between the core and the gap, sometime flows can become so imbalanced that new threats are created.

Barnett concludes by suggesting a new strategy for the United States as the de facto Leviathan in this new world. There are three basic goals: nurture security relations across the core by maintaining and expanding alliances; work bilaterally with states located at the seams between the core and multilaterally with the core as a whole, while discretely protecting the core from the gap’s most destabilizing flows (terrorism, drugs, and pandemic diseases); and make a commitment to reduce the gap by continuing to export security to its greatest trouble spots, while integrating countries that are economic success stories as quickly as possible. The author suggests a ten-step program for accomplishing this strategy. Replete with inspired ideas about how to make the world safer, this list alone is reason enough to read the book.

The Pentagon’s New Map is highly readable. Barnett does not waste time debunking old myths and theoretical constructs that no longer serve to explain international relations and current events. He simply spins a narrative that draws the reader ever closer into a kind of literary vortex devoid of familiar handholds and safety nets. Almost immediately, the reader feels slightly off balance. It may be that the author wants his readers in precisely that position of disequilibria, the better to appreciate his perspective.

The real value of this work lies not so much in the author’s out-of-the-box style, or because it suggest a very new and different way of looking at the world. Its value lies in what the author’s thesis says about the future of warfare. Whether or not you agree with Thomas Barnett’s ideas, his book likely will change the way you think about security in the modern world—especially if you are a warrior.

Captain Brannon is the Chief of Naval Operations Chair and instructor of national security strategy at the National War College.

COMMENTARY: It’s hard to complain about much in this review. As a rule, I don’t like regurgitation reviews (mostly full of recitations of the book’s main ideas), but Brannon writes very well, so he covers an amazing amount of territory with swift assurance. That leaves him plenty of space to make his main analytic points, which I feel frame the book exactly as I would want a military reader to appreciate it. It is a little strange he doesn’t explore the Leviathan-Sys Admin split, because that is what really grabs most military and expert readers, but that may be the navy in him. Probably, it’s more the national security strategy instructor in him, because this is the first review—I believe—to really nail both the four flows and the three prongs of the grand strategy so dead on. So the review is, in many ways, the best of both worlds for me: it truly presents the overarching vision as so much more than just the application of military power but likewise makes the case that the book’s main strength is its description of a new era of warfare. If the guy had sent it to me in advance and asked me to edit it, I wouldn’t have touched a word.

Here’s today’s catch:

Falluja returns to the forefront in Iraq

“Falluja Pullout Left Haven Of Insurgents, Officials Say: But U.S. and Iraqis Are Reluctant to Send G.I.’s Back, Fearing a New Uprising,” by Dexter Filkins, New York Times, 8 July, p. A1.

“Stability coming back to streets of capital: But some say bureaucracy heavy-handed,” by Paul Wiseman, USA Today, 8 July, p. 8A.

“U.S. Starts Drawing Plans To Cut Its Troops In Iraq,” by Eric Schmitt, NYT, 8 July. P. A11.

“Lawmakers: Troop call-ups pose ‘alarm’; Guard, reserves being strained,” by Tom Squitieri and Dave Moniz, USA, 8 July, p. 9A.

“Bush Questions Edwards’s Qualifications for Top Job,” by Mike Allen, Washington Post, 8 July, p. A2.

“Northrop Grumman Gets $175 Million Pact: Project Is Homeland Security’s Personnel System,” by Christopher Lee, WP, 8 July, p. A15.

“Vietnam, China Accuse U.S. of Protectionism,” by Margot Cohen et. al, Wall Street Journal, 8 July, p. A12.

“New Faces of Farming in Russia’s Far East: Rich Land Draws Reverse Migration,” by James Brooke, NYT, 8 July, p. W1.

“WHO Wants to Start Drug Trial Registry: Proposal to Be Made in November,” by Shankar Vedantam, WP, 8 July, p. A3.

“African Leaders Failing Zimbabwe, Prelate Says,” by Michael Wines, NYT, 8 July, p. A3.

“Roadblocks to EU Integration: Germany’s Autobahns Hit Bumps at Every Attempt to Expand,” by Matthew Karnitschnig, WSJ, 8 July, p. A12.

“European City Wins Jobs—and Looks Over Its Shoulder: Timisoara, Romania, Struggles to Keep Outsourcing Boom; Engineers Seek Higher Pay; Joining EU Could Blunt Edge,” by Dan Bilefsky, WSJ, 8 July, p. A1.