Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Period covered: 1JUL01 to 30JUN02

Few scholars since Alfred Thayer Mahan can have done as much as Tom Barnett to identify the Naval War College with innovative strategic thinking. The number and seniority of individuals he has briefed throughout the national security community, in the media, and in the business community are unique among Naval War College faculty, and he probably has few peers elsewhere. This preeminence is due to his brilliance as a synthesizer, conceptualizer, and presenter, to his intense intellectual energy, and to his focus on product.

As the beginning of the reporting year, Tom was engaged in preparations for the fourth in a series of economic security exercises to be conducted under the NewRuleSets.Project. The destruction of the World Trade Center, site of the exercises, and decimation of the firm with whom we collaborated, Cantor Fitzgerald, brought an effective end to the project. However, within a month, the President of the Naval War College had agreed to a request from the Director of the Office of Force Transformation (OFT), Department of Defense, that Tom be seconded there as Assistant for Strategic Futures for two-thirds of his time, on a reimbursable basis. Since then, he has continued his analysis of global trends and their strategic impact, with a particular focus on the implications for transforming the U.S. military. The value placed on his work is reflected in an email the Director of OFT, Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski, sent a Pentagon official on 23 August, recommending that Tom brief senior OSD officials: "I would like to propose the briefing and a discussion with you and other members of the USDP team, including the Undersecretary himself. Not only is the briefing intellectually stimulating, it offers insights into transformation imperatives that I have seen nowhere else. It is helping me shape our work in transformation and is taking us in directions that I would not have predicted only one year ago."

There is insufficient space here to list more than a fraction of the briefings Tom has given. They average almost one a week, and his audiences have included the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, the Director of Defense Policy at the National Security Council, senior ONR and OASDC3I staff, the USMC Strategic Initiatives Group, JWAC, and senior aides to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. He was invited no less than four times to brief the country's most senior intelligence body, the National Intelligence Council, and other audiences include such influential think tanks as the Arlington Institute, Brookings Institution, Kennedy School of Government, and Potomac Institute.

Conference organizers and representatives of the media have also demonstrated a strong interest in Tom's original ideas and stimulating presentations. He participated on panels and presented papers at the National Defense University, Harvard, AFCEA West Coast Conference, and Syracuse University. He was interviewed by National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.

Also noteworthy is Tom's appeal to senior business executives. He made highly successful presentations to corporate leaders visiting the College from Northrup Grumman, United Defense LP, and Raytheon.

Tom's intense briefing schedule has not prevented him from maintaining his distinguished record of publications. This year saw three more articles appear in the Proceedings of the Naval Institute and Tom's selection as the Institute's Author of the Year. The President of the War College traveled to Annapolis for the award ceremony.

Along with contributing to the prestige of the College by appearances and publications elsewhere, Tom has made significant contributions locally. At the invitation of the President of the College, he offered one of the Evening Lectures, inspiring enthusiastic applause and a lively discussion that ended only when maintenance personnel told a group of ardent questioners they must leave so the Auditorium could be secured for the night! Tom also briefed his strategic concepts to the Mahan Scholars, faculty involved in the DoN Vision Study, an elective class, the Retired Flags Forum, and officers and trustees of the Foundation, rounding out his remarkable, multi-faceted record of contributions to the College.