"The Pentagon's New Map" and "A Blueprint for Action" by Thomas P.M. Barnett

[The Duke]

I first read "The Pentagon's New Map" in 2004 when it first came out, and read the sequel right when it came out a year later.

This is the most important book I have ever read, and while I have found many books informative and have been influenced by them, this book is the only one to really change the fundamental way I look at the world.

The essential thesis is depicted in the map above: The world is divided into two parts, the Core and the Gap.  The Core is that part of the world that is connected to the global economy.  Find a place that is connected, and you will find peace.  The Gap is that part of the world that is disconnected.  Find a place that is disconnected and you will find violence, poverty, and pandemics.

The map itself draws a line between the connected and disconnected worlds and plots out where the US has used military force since 1990.  What it finds a that we have shifted away from great-power conflict towards a role as the "system administrator" of the Gap.

This shift is due to global economic connectivity plus the end of the Cold War.  No more great power wars, Barnett says.

Instead, our goal is to connect the disconnected world to the connected world (Or at least it should be, says Barnett).

Barnett built the book based on a presentation he developed when he worked at the Pentagon (The book details in hilarious fashion the importance of PowerPoint briefings inside the Pentagon), and he has given a version of this talk in many other forums.  If you haven't read the book, you should watch the video below, because its basically a condensed version of the book.

Part One - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7El18wbBd4&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=thomas+barnett&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv&start=10

Part Two - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqJ1QJ9Kjd8&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=thomas+barnett&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv&start=10

Part Three - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7KGAvxjlUM&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=thomas+barnett&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv&start=10

I'd like to heavily recomend these books, and ask if anyone else has read them.

[jokerman]

Barnett built the book based on a presentation he developed when he worked at the Pentagon (The book details in hilarious fashion the importance of PowerPoint briefings inside the Pentagon), and he has given a version of this talk in many other forums.  If you haven't read the book, you should watch the video below, because its basically a condensed version of the book.

Yeah, Fiasco pokes some fun at this practice, and it's particularly embarassing in the context of the Iraq War.  There's a lot of intelectual shoddiness in the military and defense dept. these days, it's one of the reasons I'm relunctant to pursue a military career myself.

[dead0man]

Sounds like an interesting read, I'll try and pick up a copy.


I can also verify that the US military LOVES PowerPoint to a fault.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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Looking at that map. I doubt it. Of course things are peaceful now, but history has nasty habit of proving such theories wrong. Certainly I have my personal doubts about the future stability of Russia, China and India (Internally).

Also why is Mongolia part of the 'core' but not Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore?

[Verily]

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Looking at that map. I doubt it. Of course things are peaceful now, but history has nasty habit of proving such theories wrong. Certainly I have my personal doubts about the future stability of Russia, China and India (Internally).

Also why is Mongolia part of the 'core' but not Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore?

Generally, it would appear to be because including all nations that really could be conceived as part of the "international trade" world wouldn't make nearly as nice a map. There are other obvious omissions, some probably because they contravene the theory. Bangladesh is a good one: huge amounts of production for international sale by international corporations and thus connection to the international market, but certainly not particularly stable or developed. Indonesia also falls into this category. Despite large amounts of foreign investment and selling a great deal on the international market, Indonesia has no fewer than three distinct active militant separatist movements and a great deal of civil unrest.

Other examples are less extreme: the three you cited (although the recent Thai coup and rebels in the south might qualify for more extreme), Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, various smaller Caribbean islands. Some others are interesting exceptions, such as Botswana: extremely poor and ravaged by AIDS, yet with a stable democracy (in the long and short terms) and improving economic conditions.

It is also problematic to say the least to include Romania and Bulgaria in "the Gap" but not Russia, Belarus and even Ukraine. Although the map was made in 2004, at least before those nations joined the EU, they were still light-years ahead of Russia and Belarus at the time and significantly ahead of Ukraine.