The Pentagon's New Map

[Grits]

by Thomas P.M. Barnett. Anybody read it? If you haven't you need to, it explains where this country, and the world, is going with its foreign policy in the next 20-50 years. It explains why invading Iraq was a good idea (hint, its not WMD). I saw his Power Point presentaion on CSPAN last August and was just floored. Barnett is probably the most important strategic thinker in the world right now.

[Gunslinger]

this is the same subject....I dont have time to read it but I looks real interesting.

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/pentagonsnewmap.htm

 Esquire, March 2003 issue

Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up with an operating theory of the world—and a military strategy to accompany it.  Now there’s a leading contender.  It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them.  Since September 11, 2001, the author, a professor of warfare analysis, has been advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community.  Now he gives it to you.

LET ME TELL YOU why military engagement with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad is not only necessary and inevitable, but good.

When the United States finally goes to war again in the Persian Gulf, it will not constitute a settling of old scores, or just an enforced disarmament of illegal weapons, or a distraction in the war on terror.  Our next war in the Gulf will mark a historical tipping point—the moment when Washington takes real ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization.

That is why the public debate about this war has been so important:  It forces Americans to come to terms with I believe is the new security paradigm that shapes this age, namely, Disconnectedness defines danger.  Saddam Hussein’s outlaw regime is dangerously disconnected from the globalizing world, from its rule sets, its norms, and all the ties that bind countries together in mutually assured dependence.

The problem with most discussion of globalization is that too many experts treat it as a binary outcome:  Either it is great and sweeping the planet, or it is horrid and failing humanity everywhere.  Neither view really works, because globalization as a historical process is simply too big and too complex for such summary judgments.  Instead, this new world must be defined by where globalization has truly taken root and where it has not.

Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show you regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide than murder.  These parts of the world I call the Functioning Core, or Core.  But show me where globalization is thinning or just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists.  These parts of the world I call the Non-Integrating Gap, or Gap.

Globalization’s “ozone hole” may have been out of sight and out of mind prior to September 11, 2001, but it has been hard to miss ever since.  And measuring the reach of globalization is not an academic exercise to an eighteen-year-old marine sinking tent poles on its far side.  So where do we schedule the U.S. military’s next round of away games?  The pattern that has emerged since the end of the cold war suggests a simple answer:  in the Gap.

The reason I support going to war in Iraq is not simply that Saddam is a cutthroat Stalinist willing to kill anyone to stay in power, nor because that regime has clearly supported terrorist networks over the years.  The real reason I support a war like this is that the resulting long-term military commitment will finally force America to deal with the entire Gap as a strategic threat environment.
(contd.)

[Grits]

Yes, that is core of his arguement in the Esquire article. The Pentagon's New Map lays out the entire arguement in complete detail. His Power Point presentation was a revelation for me. I, even as a Republican, a conservative, and a part of a military family, had been very uneasy with the Iraq war and its consequenses. As I watched his presentarion on CSPAN it was like I was struck by lightning, it suddenly all made sense.

His core theory that disconnection from a modernizing world causes conflict, is also a school of though in History (which I subcribe to) that has come along to refute Marxism as an analytical contruct. The idea is, modernization happens  usually at controlable and even rates, but sometimes areas or groups of thought dont modernize at the same rate as the rest of the world and there must be a realignment, usually through violence or war.

[Gunslinger]

WARNING SUPER LARGE PICTURE!


Here is a world map marked by plots of US military involvment through the last 15 years.  (some of them I don't quite get but oh well)

Here he points out the "Core" and the "gap" areas.



It's a big picture so I will link to it externally

pretty compelling stuff when its layed out in this fasion.

[Eagler]

anyone who does not see the big picture in Iraq, lives in la la land

the question is, does America have the stomach to hold the course - Nov 04 says they do, today anyway

the media is doing everything in its power to make it another nam

[Gh0stFT]

this map could also be seen as "future attack points in 3rd world countrys, hotspots include extra oil".

wonderfull new world order.

[Glas]

Circumventing the language filter

[Glas]

Btw, who's 'lunch money' are you going to steal next?!?

[storch]

As I have been saying all along.  this concept is the logical geographic progression and the ultimate outcome must be that there is only one world ruling system.  who will it be?  The Chinese? Communism? fundamental mohammadism?  The 19th century saw the concept of manifest destiny become a reality in north america.  The 20th century saw science and technology progress geometrically.  This technological advance now enables us to move ahead as our species has always done.  paraphrasing the good Roosevelt, we have the "big stick" it is now time to move forward quietly, or not but certainly forward.  This planet is now a very small playground.  Americanism (gleefully waves old glory about his office) will be the governing system globally and my children will see it come to fruition.  you may read about the final outcome in a book I occasionally read.  

[Jackal1]

Originally posted by Glas
Btw, who's 'lunch money' are you going to steal next?!?

  Were considering a kilt rich location.

[Grits]

Europeans and some in the US may not like it, but you should read his book because that IS[/b] how its going to happen, like it or not.

[oboe]

Seriously what does he say about North Korea.   Now there is a  disconnected and truly dangerous regime...

[Grits]

He says that NK is bad, and is on the brink, but most importantly China will play a large role in resolving the issue. China, he thinks, is not a strategic problem for the US because they have joined the global economy, they joined the WTO and the IMF, and most importantly they are the largesy buyer of US debt. China is connecting itself to the global economy faster than any other country right now, and as long as that continues they will not be a problem, but a partner.

[lada]

You do not have AIDS in USA that he mention " And then there's AIDS. " Behind some of the countries ? (Like India, Russia etc... )



Its interesting reading , i didnt read it all coz i have no time right now, but from what i read, it seems to me, that he consider some of american propaganda theories as  a true. Will try to dig some of his work before Iraqi got vulched, what did he write about WMD & Iraq.

[Nashwan]

Here is a world map marked by plots of US military involvment through the last 15 years. (some of them I don't quite get but oh well)

Here he points out the "Core" and the "gap" areas.

What was the US "show of force" in Northern Ireland?