The Pentagon's New Map

Rating:
Summary: Understanding the conversation
Review: "Some nights the wolves are silent and the moon howls."
--Bathroom graffiti in the Blue Moon Tavern

Like Buckminster Fuller's "Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth", Barnett's work provides a whole-systems approach to understanding our world. His "Decalogue" in Chapter Four -- The Core and the Gap -- provides the linkage between security and economics.

Wolves read the title and howl at the moon. But I say, read it all the way through. Then howl with the moon -- in great conversation.

[Disclosure: I am Barnett's webmaster]

Rating:
Summary: Young Man, Narrowly Read, Has Big Idea with Few Details
Review:

This is another of those books that started as an article and should have stayed there. The author, who appears to be either unfamiliar with or unwilling to credit works from earlier decades as well as more recently that present ideas similar to and often superior to his, has essentially three good ideas that can be summed up as follows:

Idea #1: World can be divided into a Functioning Core and a Non-Integrating Gap. The disconnected gap is bad for business (risky) and the US military can protect its budget by getting into the business of exporting security so that Wall Street can do more business safely.

Idea #2: Connectivity or disconnectedness are the essential means of defining and influencing which countries are able to move into the Functioning Core and which remain in the Non-Integrating Gap [too state-centric for my taste, but a good point--my 1990's call for Digital Marshal Plan remains valid.]

Idea #3: Economic relationships have replaced military power as the essential attribute of relations among nations--for example, we cannot deal with China as a military power without first having a comprehensive economic strategy and economic tools with which to influence them.

There are many points where I agree with the author, and I give him credit for thinking of all of this on his own, without much attention to decade's worth of scholarship and informed professional opinion in the military journals. He is absolutely correct to note that we cannot fence the Gap, we must stabilize it. Of course, Joe Nye and Max Manwaring and Mark Palmer and Bob Oakley and Jonathan Schell, to name just 5 of the 470+ national security authors have made important points along these lines, but their work is not integrated here. This is one massive Op-Ed that should have remained an article.

The author has irritated me with his low-key but obvious assumption that he is the first to break out of the box and "get it." On page 63 he goes on at length with the view that America has lacked visionaries, and the implication that he is the first to come forward. Not true. From John Boyd to Chuck Spinney to Bill Lind to GI Wilson to Mike Wylie we have had many visionaries, but the military-industrial complex has always seen them as threats. We tend to dismiss and shoot our visionaries, and I am truly glad that the author's personal relations with Cebrowski and a few others--as well as his fortunate association with a couple of naval think-forward endeavors--has given him some running room.

There is actually little of substance in this book. The article has been expanded, not with substance, but rather with very long descriptions of this young man's engagement in the process of the Pentagon and the process of strategic reflection. His discussions of the many forums that he found boring if not hostile to free thinking are excellent, and that aspect of the book takes it to four stars where it might normally have only received three.

Two weaknesses of the book, perhaps associated with the author's urgent need to "stay inside the wire" in order to keep his job:

1) All his brilliance leads to just two forces being recommended: the "big stick" force and the "baton-stick" (constabulary) force. In fact, were he more familiar with the literature, he would have understood that from diverse points we are all converging on four forces after next: Big War, Small War including White Hat/Police Ops, Peace War, and Cyber-Economic War. Inter-agency strategy, inter-agency budgeting, and inter-agency operations, with a joint inter-agency C4I corps under military direction, are the urgently needed next step.

2) The author is delusional when describing and praising our operational excellence in defeating well-armed enemies. Were he more familiar with the after action reports from Iraq, particularly those done by the Army War College (clearly on a different planet from the Navel War College), he would understand that Iraqi incompetence was the foremost factor in our success, especially when Rumsfeld insisted on throwing out the sequence of force plans and sending us in light and out of balance. He also ignores the vulnerability of complex systems and relies much too heavily on University of Maryland and CIA unclassified publications that are completely out of step with European conflict studies and other arduously collected ground truths about the extent of state and sub-state war and violence.

I disagree with his concluding recommendations that place Africa last on the list of those areas to be saved. His overall recommendations are simplistic, focusing on the standard litany for Pentagon go-alongs: Iraq, Korea, Iran, Colombia, Middle East, China, Asian NATO, Latin American NATO, Africa.

I note with interest his use of the term, "the military-market link." I believe this refers to an assumption, matured by the author in the course of his Wall Street wargames, and certainly acceptable to the neo-conservatives, to wit, that the U.S. military exists to export security so America can do business. I would draw the reader's attention to Marine Corps General Butler's book, "War as a Racket", and his strong objection to having spent his career as an "enforcer" for US corporations.

I do want to end with a note of deep sympathy for the author. On the one hand, he overcame a period of time when his sanity was questioned by ignorant Admirals and other "lesser included" Captains of limited intellect. On other he is trapped in a system that does not like iconoclasts but rewards those who innovate on the margins. His book is most useful in describing this environment, where people who rely on secrets are completely out of touch with reality, and service chiefs focus on protecting their budgets rather than accomplishing (or even defining) their mission. He appears to have discovered the Catholic mafia within the naval services, and his several references throughout the book lend weight to my belief that we need to do religious counter-intelligence within the government.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful new analysis
Review: A wonderful new insight into America role in the world. Along with 'Clash of Civilizations' and Brzezinski's book this book is the singular best assessment of the new global position, especially as it relates to America. The author divides the world into the non integrating 'Gap' and the functioning 'Core'. Students of Political Science can be excused for surmising that this reminds them of the 'center-periphery' debate. But this book is not a scholarly approach, in fact if anything its greatest downside is that its language is playful and low brow, perfect for an introduction to the global situation but lacking for those who were enjoyed Huntington's earlier revolutionary work on the similar subject.

The analysis is wide ranging, part autobiography and part introduction to Naval War College analysis. In the end the books greatest triumph is in the wonderful color map that details where exactly America has intervened between 1999-2003. This map clearly illustrates which countries are seen by America as 'allies' or at least 'stable'. This include S. Africa, North America, the southern cone, the EU, China, Japan, India and Australia. Basically the middle east, eastern Europe, central Asia and most of Africa, along with central America are seen to be the potential problem countries. By in large this simply reflects where America has had to intervene or where current wars and civil strife are taking place. One could also argue that these are the countries with the most dictatorships and human rights abuses. A very insightful text that is wonderful for anyone interested in Americas new vision of the world.

Seth J. Frantzman

Rating:
Summary: An important, but TERRIBLE book.
Review: Barnett has a PhD in political science from Harvard University, which, like many people who have gone to Harvard, is the first thing he tells you about himself. He thinks this means he is very smart, which he also tells you, over and over and over and over again. He also KNOWS a lot of very smart and important and powerful people, who may also have gone to Harvard, which he also tells you ad nauseum (that means until you want to throw up, in case you're wondering).

This is basically the story of how Barnett went from Harvard to Washington and found THAT ONE SLIDE that made his career in the big-time, as an important "pol-mil" analyst. He tells you all this, and much, much more, in the first part of his book, up to page 154. It just gets worse from there until it finally ends on page 389.

In the course of this book we learn that Barnett has lots of important friends and acquaintances, that he works 18 hour days holed up in Pentagon briefing rooms with admirals who yell at each other, that he singlehandedly showed the Pentagon how to do their job right, that he left his wife to eat Thanksgiving dinner alone in order to spend time in briefing rooms with admirals, that he is a Democrat (no surprise there), and that his wife ("a card-carrying member of the ACLU") worries that he is becoming a Republican.

We learn a new language for expressing old ideas: "globalization" means "American world hegemony", "disconnectedness" means "no one has cell phones or computers", "the Gap" and "lesser includeds" mean "poverty-stricken countries" (what used to be called "The Third World") - you get the idea. New lingo, old ideas.

We learn that Gorbachev really deserves the credit for the fall of the Soviet Union, not Reagan (although I don't think Gorby really meant for things to come out that way), that "the world has effectively surrendered the seas to the US Navy, and it has done so out of immense trust that America will not abuse that unprecedented power", that the Bush administration has engaged in "bone-headed" diplomacy and "political gamesmanship of the most venal sort", and that when we "successfully exported that rule set to the other great powers" (he means the fall of the Soviet Union), "the threat of global war basically ended in human history".

The full onslaught of this incoherent torrent of self-referential egomaniacal Wilsonianism has to be experienced to be believed. I would recommend that every American tax-payer read this book at least up to page 154 just to get a feel for the kind of clap-trap we are paying for in Washington. One can only pray that Barnett is a flash in the pan, and will not be taken too seriously.

He has an action plan, which starts on page 379:

1. Democratize Iraq (he calls it "reconnecting" Iraq)
2. Get rid of Kim Jong Il and unify Korea
3. Foment counterrevolution in Iran
4. Form a Free Trade Area of the Americas
5. Pressure the Saudis to stop funding Islamic maddrassahs, by shifting our automobiles to fuel cells
6. Develop a military and financial alliance with China
7. Form an Asian NATO
8. Merge that Asian NATO with NAFTA and the European NATO
9. Admit a dozen more states to the US (presumably from Mexico and Central America), with the first Mexican president of the US coming from a Mexican state.
10. Africa just will have to wait until the Middle East is pacified ("integrated into The Core")

The first three of these goals aren't total moonshine, except that Barnett doesn't tell us how we are going to accomplish them, other than through the use of military force, as in Iraq. I suppose that's the Pentagon's problem, now that Barnett has pointed them in the right direction. As to the rest of it, it's highly unlikely that Mexico WANTS to be a part of the US, and Africa may or may not be willing to "wait its turn". History is not nearly as predictable as Barnett seems to think. Of course, overwhelming military superiority tends to make things go your way, as long as it lasts.

Whether or not American world hegemony is a good thing for either America or the world is something people of good will may have honest disagreements about, but don't look for that discussion in The Pentagon's New Map. And if Barnett wants to call American world hegemony "globalization", I don't think anyone is going to argue the point with him, as long as 12 nuclear carrier battle groups and a large fleet of advanced attack nuclear submarines like the James E. Carter are there to back him up. However, it is highly unlikely that the world's problems are going to be solved by giving everyone cell phones and access to internet pornography, or even by giving women political power. We've had quite a few wars since women got the right to vote in America.

Barnett restrains himself from talking about himself long enough to make a couple of good, though unoriginal, points, namely that there is a strong relationship between military power and economic prosperity, and that we should try to avoid forcing China into a corner where they feel they have no choice but to fight us, like we did to Japan in the 1930's. But these points have been made better by other people, and wading through Barnett's tedious self-aggrandizement is too high a price to pay for these couple of nuggets of truth.

The book would be more readable if it had been edited, instead of being merely a verbatim regurgitation of Barnett's Pentagon briefings. Some elementary copy editing would also help: I don't think "static quo", used twice by Barnett, is a word in the English language. But no amount of editing will improve Barnett's half-baked ideas.

5 stars because the book is being read by important people, minus 5 stars for sloppy editing and out-of-control narcissism.

Rating:
Summary: I think Democracy is more important then economics.
Review: Barnett seems to describe the problem using a systems method and an economic model of the world state. He seems to underestimate the great ideas of western civilization in favor of economics. While I empathize with his ambitions, I am troubled by his solutions.
Great men and great ideas change history, not just economics.


The goal of the military complex should be to establish individual liberty and natural rights for the majority of the world population. Freedom is very different then economic prosperity.

Lines of Freedom should be established. We should demarcate the world into areas of basic freedoms.
The core should be defined as fundamentally democratic (little d), and having values very similar to ours, the gap should be defined as non democratic.

Integrating non democracies into the core is risky. We should be exporting "democracy," not "security." Exporting security is what you do when you just want to trade. Exporting democracy, on the other hand, is a much more stable long term solution. History has shown that economic appeasement can only be viable as a temporary solution. Eventually, as history has shown, non democracies can without deliberation, or consensus become tyrannies. So we may, in our attempts to integrate, be creating enemies a with large and powerful military or inadvertently be subsidizing violations of basic human rights. I am skeptical of the 4-2-1 argument.


The recommended solution of exporting money and capital, and mass importing of immigrants will disenfranchise US citizens and cause cultural strain. They will feel betrayed and wonder whom to blame.

The Project for the New American Century seems to have the right idea for our troubled world.

Rating:
Summary: Great stuff...Stop what your doing and get this book
Review: Before I ran into TB on cspan I couldn't have told you why we were in Iraq other that some general feeling that the US wanted to exert influence in the mid east. Now I feel like I have a much clearer view of the world and America's place in it. It all makes perfect sense to me though I would be interested to hear a intelligent critique of the work with some alternatives proposed.

I have to say I'm disappointed that during the course of the election nether candidate made this strategy clear. They both must be aware of this work. Barnett says he briefed Congress IE Kerry. I'm sure Bush got the sock puppet theater version of the brief at some point. Got to keep his attention somehow and I'm sure if you ask Cheney he'll tell you, "The more puppets the better."

Rating:
Summary: the horrors of conquest and world domination
Review: Dr. Strangeglove meets Power Point in a world where we are the only major Power and finds world conquest necessary because our economy (necessary to support the military) may run low on gas.

The thoughts are interesting and dangerous reminding one of how some of our Generals wanted to fight with Hitler to defeat Communism and after the war wanted to Nuke the H-ll out of the Soviets before they became powerful. Now we need new excuses (states "disconnected"; Islam and Green Peril; Terrorist/pirates; oil security). The "disconnect" of states outside pervasive internet and satellite TV webs are totalitarian and offensive to us. They do not participate in the world economy on our terms (as Freidman would mourn they have no MacDonalds either. If ever there was terror because "they don't like our way of life" this is it -- but our terror against them.

Intellectually not convincing, morally reprehensible - no wonder they like him at the Pentagon and in the Board Rooms of what once was a democratic country that inspired others rather than dominated them.

Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ if you are to join the debate
Review: Early last spring, a friend of mine with political connections had been told privately by a member of our state's congressional delegation that war with Iraq was "a done deal." While the rest of the nation was engaged in public debate, our leaders knew war was a foregone conclusion.

At the same time, Esquire magazine published an article titled "The Pentagon's New Map" written by a man described as one of Bush's top military advisors -- Thomas Barnett. I found Barnett's article so frightening and his predictions so chilling that I made numerous copies and gave it to anyone I thought would sit still long enough to read it. The article haunted me for weeks because although I opposed almost every argument for war Barnett made, I could not deny his logic.

That article is now a book. "The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century" is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how the U.S. military complex views our post-9/11 world, how U.S. military policy is made, and who wishes to intelligently debate America's role in this "new world."

Barnett's premise is strikingly simple. In the 21st Century, there are two global camps. There is the "Functioning Core," a term used to describe nations that are "connected" to the rest of the world, and there is the "Non-Integrated Gap," a term used to describe nations that are "disconnected."

The Core -- represented by North America, Europe, China, Australia, and limited parts of South America -- is stable. Core nations, while they may not be democracies, by virtue of their participation in the global economy and their subscription to a generally agreed upon "rule set," pose little threat of state-on-state violence (war).

The Gap -- represented by the rest of the world, notably Central America and large parts of South America, the Middle East, most all of Africa, the Balkans and Southeast Asia -- is unstable and will continue to "export violence" to the Core. In Barnett's world, disconnectedness equals danger, and the disconnected Gap represents one-third of the world's population whose societies threaten global peace.

He argues that the Cold War strategy of "containment" no longer applies. We cannot simply contain the Gap, we must shrink it. And the U.S., as the only remaining superpower and the only nation with a truly transnational military, must lead the way in shrinking the Gap.

Barnet believes the U.S. has a moral responsibility to provide a "security export" to the rest of the world and to spend its time NOT just envisioning ways to mitigate disaster and global conflict, but to envisioning a "future worth creating." "There is no denying that problems in the Gap reflect a tremendous legacy of past abuse and unfairness on the part of the Core in general," he argues, "but shrinking the Gap as a strategic vision is not about making amends for the past. Instead, it is a practical strategy for dealing with the present danger that will -- on regular occasion, I believe -- reach into our good life and cause us much pain if we continue to ignore it. But more than just looking out for ourselves, shrinking the Gap is a strategy that also speaks to a better future for the roughly one-third of humanity that continues to live and die in the Gap."

Consider this compelling analogy from Barnett: I believe that history will judge the 1990s much like the Roaring Twenties -- just a little too good to be true. Both decades threw the major rule sets out of whack: new forms of behavior, activity, and connectivity arose among individuals, companies, and countries, but the rule sets that normally guide such interactions were overwhelmed. These traditional rule sets simply could not keep up with all that change happening so quickly . . . Eventually the situation spins out of control and nobody really knows what to do. Economic crashes effectively marked the end of both tumultuous decades, followed by the rise of seemingly new sorts of security threats to the international order. In the 1930s, it was fascism and Nazi Germany, while today most security experts will tell you it is radical Islam and transnational terrorism. In both instances, the community of states committed to maintaining global order was deeply torn over what to do about these new security threats -- try to accommodate them or fight them head-on in war? . . . My shorthand for rule-set divergence in the 1990s is roughly the same one I would offer for the 1920s: economics got ahead of politics and technology got ahead of security . . . We didn't construct sufficient political and security rule sets to keep pace with all this growing connectivity. In some ways, we got lazy, counted a little too much on the market to sort it all out, and then woke up shocked and amazed on 9/11 to find ourselves apparently invited to a global war."

Which brings us to today. Regardless of your political and religious persuasion, regardless of your support or opposition of the current Administration, you cannot secede from this debate. The decision cannot be made by default or by a political process that does not include the collective voice of our citizens. Barnett appears to be the only person telling us the full truth about this engagement and its cost: " . . . we are never leaving the Gap and we are never 'bringing our boys home.' There is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking the Gap, and if there is no exiting the Gap, then we'd better stop kidding ourselves about 'exit strategies.' No exit means no exit strategy."

Whether you can reluctantly accept this result as inevitable, or it frightens you to the core, there is no denying that we, as a nation, cannot shrink the Gap and care for our own citizens in any reasonable way IN THE FACE OF continued tax cuts and deficit spending. We must wake up, consider the challenges ahead of us, force our leaders to address these challenges and our options in more substantive and coherent forums than those allowed in an election year, and make our voices heard. I urge you to read the book and join the debate.

Rating:
Summary: New Maps, New World, New Ideas: A TEXTBOOK
Review: Having seen the CSPAN presentation, I acquired and read the book. All criticism aside, and I am a student (of 65) on this playing field, I found this book a very clear exposition (descripiton) of Planet Earth in political, economic and philosophic terms. As a life-long scientist and ersatz 'teckie', I look for the reality in political discourse in an attempt to unravel the polemic from the nutrients. I have feasted on Dr. Barnett's image of the world of 'now', and felt quite comfortable after such a BIG meal of political science that is, to my mind generally insubstantial, vague and loaded with an agenda. Dr. Barnet, however, holds fast to his visualization of the curent state of things, and I left the table with a manageable concept of what is going on; not unimportant in these times. The consequence of what I have learned from him is that I feel engaged in a new way when I watch the evening news and listen to the 'experts'. A very interesting and enlightening read, it is the only book of this type I have been drawn to read that has altered my view of the world by organizing it for me. I am much the better for the experience, and appreciate seeing the 'New Map' prominently displayed on my bookshelf. Any book that is both informative and lubricates my gears is one that I keep.

Rating:
Summary: What he writes explains a lot
Review: I saw his interview 5/30/04 on C-SPAN, and then tracked down the book. I am a retired military officer who could not understand why our country's leadership was taking us in the direction they are. It is against the very basis of our constitution we all swore to uphold and defend.

This book explains a great deal about why we are heading in the direction we are. Barnett articulates the world's hot spots, and why he thinks we should be a global aggressor-to connect those third world unconnected regims with our society.

If nothing else, it helps explain what our leaders are thinking and doing. While morally we may quesiton what is the purpose of invading other countries, this book explains the theroy well, and for the first time I understand what we are doing.

God help us all if the current political leaders truely believe that they can alter the world by conquering those disconnected countries. If there is one book to read to get an understanding of our position in the world, and what our political leaders are doing killing others and destroying our Army in the process, this is the book to read.