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Grand Strategy, Leviathans & Sys Adm-Thomas P.M. Barnett

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  • Grand Strategy, Leviathans & Sys Adm-Thomas P.M. Barnett

    From the SWJ blog and Mark Safranski, ten questions for my fellow poli sci grad from Univ. of Wisconsin (Go Badgers!).

    With allusions to America's wild west, Barnett charts a continuum of American strategic thinking from Teddy Roosevelt well into B.O.'s administration. Nagl and Gentile make their appearance here as well. Good perspective on our global priorities and, therefore, a worthy read-

    10 Questions For Thomas P.M. Barnett- SWJ
    "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
    "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

  • #2
    Interesting perspectives... I think I may have read a few articles by him for a course of mine last semester (US Foreign Policy Toward the Middle East). Have you read any of his books, and if so, what would you recommend?
    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
      Interesting perspectives... I think I may have read a few articles by him for a course of mine last semester (US Foreign Policy Toward the Middle East). Have you read any of his books, and if so, what would you recommend?
      Pentagon's New Map defined what he called the "Core" and the "Gap" countries of the world. Overall it was a very good book because it could simplify some of the major problems of early 2000s without undue speculation. The new book, Great Powers, does try to simplify the strategic conditions in late-2000s, but the subject matter is too complicated for his approach. In truth I have only browsed the latter, but as far as I can tell it is lot more ambitious and hopeful than reality warrants.

      Comment


      • #4
        It seems Barnett is everywhere now-a-day


        Advertise on NYTimes.com
        Books of The Times
        U.S. as Parent to Countries in Their Teens


        Article Tools Sponsored By
        By DWIGHT GARNER
        Published: February 10, 2009

        Thomas P. M. Barnett, a former professor at the United States Naval War College, had a surprise best seller in 2004 with “The Pentagon’s New Map.” The title was mildly deceptive; Mr. Barnett’s book was as much about globalization as about military deep-think.
        Skip to next paragraph
        Connie Dawson

        Thomas P. M. Barnett

        GREAT POWERS

        America and the World After Bush

        By Thomas P. M. Barnett

        488 pages. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $29.95.
        Related
        Thomas P. M. Barnett's Web Site
        Excerpts From 'Great Powers': 1 | 2
        Fernando Ariza/The New York

        Mr. Barnett’s “new map” split the world into two basic categories: a “functioning core” of nations that are plugged into the global economy, and a “nonintegrating gap” of countries — in the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere — that are chaotic and dangerous because they are cut off from the world’s established markets and institutions.

        Mr. Barnett’s sane idea: bring the world’s rowdy, hormonal, emotionally tortured teenage countries to the adult table, and teach them to prosper through capitalism, cooperation and openness. The enemy “is neither a religion (Islam) nor a place (the Middle East), but a condition — disconnectedness,” he explained.

        “The Pentagon’s New Map” sold well for a number of reasons. It became popular with military officers, so much so that the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius called Mr. Barnett “the most influential defense intellectual writing these days.”

        Civilians liked Mr. Barnett’s talky, joke-filled, accessible prose, full of allusions to things like “Planet of the Apes.” He is also cheekily provocative. In “The Pentagon’s New Map” he suggested that the United States would add new members to its union in coming decades, leading some to wonder if he were advocating annexing Canada and parts of Latin America.

        Mr. Barnett’s new book, “Great Powers: America and the World After Bush,” picks up where “The Pentagon’s New Map” left off. His central argument, once again, is the importance of enlightened globalization.

        “We are modern globalization’s source code — its DNA,” he declares. We should “take everything we’ve learned along the way and sell it across the planet at suitably discounted prices.”

        He is clearly fluent in Thomas L. Friedman’s “flat-world” ideas, as well as in Fareed Zakaria’s notion of the “rise of the rest” in his book “The Post-American World.” Mr. Barnett tinkers with these writers’ theories while adding his own military-wonk spin.

        When it comes to globalization’s rough patches, particularly when America is confronting emerging countries or belligerent would-be superpowers, Mr. Barnett suggests that we need to realize that “we’re playing against ‘younger’ versions of ourselves in many instances.” He counsels a kind of parental Zen patience.

        “It took us 89 years to free the slaves and 189 years to guarantee African-Americans the right to vote,” he writes. “Women waited 144 years before earning suffrage. If a mature, multiparty democracy was so darn easy, everybody would have one.”

        One problem with playing parent is that, as the old saying goes, you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.

        If globalization is Mr. Barnett’s big hedgehog idea, as a thinker he’s decidedly a fox. In “Great Powers” he cleans out his mental closet, spinning out ideas about everything from religion to health care to transportation to milk supplies. He says so much that he’s in danger of saying nothing.

        As often as possible, Mr. Barnett wedges his ideas into user-friendly lists. He is, verily, obsessed with lists. In his new book he delivers “the seven deadly sins of Bush-Cheney” (lust, greed, pride, etc.), as well as a “12-step recovery program for American grand strategy,” based on the Alcoholics Anonymous credo that one needs to admit past mistakes and make amends.

        We’re also given “Barnett’s 14 points to remember,” a “seven-step recalibration process” to adjust the country’s faulty strategic trajectory and a list of 14 “shifts” or “tipping points” he sees in the near future.

        The inspirations for these lists can seem arbitrary. Why base the Bush administration’s mistakes on the Seven Deadly Sins? Why not the Ten Commandments, the five senses, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Pestilence, War, Famine and Death) or Freud’s three parts of the psyche? There’s always Mr. Barnett’s next book.

        As “Great Powers” rumbles forward, Mr. Barnett’s smaller, more granular ideas are the ones that catch your eye.

        He argues, for example, that history will judge former President George W. Bush’s dealings with China, in terms of encouraging that country to become a “stakeholder” in global security, as a success that is “greater than the Bush administration’s failures in Iraq.”

        He zings baby boomers, saying their generation has brought us “one of the weakest cohorts of politicians America has ever produced.” He compares the boomer era to that of 1875-90, the period of industrial and financial titans like Andrew Carnegie and J. P. Morgan.

        “Decades from now,” he says, “the key names most Americans will remember from our age will be Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch (yes, he’s a Yank now, too), while virtually all our politicians will slip into well-deserved obscurity.”

        Mr. Barnett is more foxy than hedgehoglike in other ways too. In the years since he published “The Pentagon’s New Map,” he has positioned himself as a busy, multiplatform pundit. He writes for Esquire magazine; he has a syndicated newspaper column; he blogs and Twitters like a madman. His PowerPoint presentations are popular on YouTube.

        In his new book, in fact, Mr. Barnett writes as if he were delivering a long, caffeinated PowerPoint lecture, pacing the stage with a microphone snaking around from the back of his head, Tony Robbins-style. Which is to say that his book is talky, glib, overly long and piled high with filibustering verbiage (“Circling back to my original point,” “I hope you’re beginning to see why I bothered telling you all this”) and clichés. In “Great Powers,” fences always need mending, chickens come home to roost, rubber meets the road, and tides are swum against.

        If it can sometimes be hard to take Mr. Barnett entirely seriously, he does not seem to have self-esteem issues. In “Great Powers” he relates how Gen. David H. Petraeus “e-mailed me one afternoon to say he was a reader of my weblog.” This, of course, has the effect of “confirming his reputation,” Mr. Barnett notes, “for a voracious and wide-ranging intake of analysis.”

        Give Mr. Barnett this much: his books are rarely humdrum. And it is hard to disagree with his nonfoxy observation that “the world desperately wants America back.”
        “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

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        • #5
          Amen brother!


          But even there, check out Lockheed-Martin’s purchase of Pacific Architects and Engineers, locating it within its newly configured profit-engine known as Information Systems and Global Services. That’s LockMart recognizing that its future will be more about infrastructure
          LOL
          “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

          Comment


          • #6
            Been reading the latest issue of the US naval college review and it seems that Michael Green shares similar views with Barnett when it comes to China.


            Green strikes a similar theme with Thomas Barnett regarding China on the latest issue of US naval College review.

            ASIA IN THE DEBATE ON AMERICAN
            GRAND STRATEGY
            Michael J. Green

            http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/review/review.aspx
            “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

            Comment


            • #7
              Does the China Maritime Studies Institute ever publish stuff from its conferences? I've been looking for some details for a VERY long time.

              Comment


              • #8
                of course they do. They converted their findings into book forms and the next one will be a good read, believe me on that.
                “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

                Comment


                • #9
                  Two days ago, I recommended his two newest books to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force's reading list. I don't slavishly follow each of his notions, but I think he's a brilliant strategic thinker, and ANYbody that attempts to be conversant in this subject matter needs to know his work. Not just the book reviews, they need to KNOW what he writes and thinks. Anybody else is a pretender and an amatuer.

                  Read these books. It's good for you.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Bluesman Reply

                    Concur.

                    At first glance he can appear topical and shamelessly self-promoting. They all are. See Steve Metz's latest momentary foray to our WAB.

                    The truth, though, despite the conversational approach, is that he conveys powerfully some very profound thinking that does require a bit more absorption than might be imagined.

                    Global connectivity is critical to our long-term success. Maintenence and expansion of the global trading network is our calling card to a brighter future.
                    "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                    "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Gents,

                      Given the nature of US politic, do you think it is making a long term grand strategy somewhat difficult?
                      “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        My copy finally arrived and so it has been a good read.
                        “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          His old Ted talk.


                          Thomas Barnett draws a new map for peace | Video on TED.com
                          “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Xinhui Reply

                            An outstanding presentation for which I can find little to argue against and only regret the interminable time to ever achieve such. Vested interests and "advise and consent" offer only a watered-down and ultimately ineffectual version that'll likely satisfy nobody.

                            The wonders of a Univ. of Wisconsin education never cease to amaze me!:))
                            "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                            "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I'm pretty good at public speaking, I think, but I really want to get as good as him. He really knows how to grab an audience.

                              Plus, a lot of his ideas make some damn decent common sense.
                              In Iran people belive pepsi stands for pay each penny save israel. -urmomma158
                              The Russian Navy is still a threat, but only to those unlucky enough to be Russian sailors.-highsea

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