[Marxism] An interview with Thomas Barnett on defense: the core and the gap

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Worldchanging Interview
WorldChanging Interviews

Prof. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Senior Strategic Researcher at the U.S. Naval War
College, is maybe the hottest military thinker in the world right now. His
work, which focuses on the connections between development and security, and
in particular his book, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the
Twenty-First Century, has become deeply influential with forward-thinking
members of the military. Whether or not Worldchanging readers agree with
what he has to say, Prof. Barnett's vision for the future of the U.S.
military is worth knowing about.

Alex Steffen: What do you mean when you talk about "the Gap" and "the Core?"

Thomas P.M. Barnett: Let me back up and explain how I got here.

A few years ago, I was doing some simple mapping of where we sent US
military forces since the end of the Cold War. We sent soldiers into
conflicts almost 150 times, seemingly around the planet, but when you
actually plot it out, you realize it's clustered, rather significantly, in a
series of regions.

When I drew a line around those regions on the globe, I realized there were
certain things about those regions that were similar, and in a burst of bold
data-free research I realized there was a pattern: when you look at the area
where we've committed our forces, you're seeing the parts of the world that
are least connected to the global economy. And I realized the shape I was
staring at I'd seen in many, many forms: biodiversity loss, poor soil
quality, where the most fundamentalist versions of religions are, where
there're no fiber optic cable, where there are no doctors.

And I wanted to describe this split without using a term -- like North and
South, say -- which resurrects a whole bunch of old arguments. So I just
tried to describe it plainly, calling the connected parts of the world the
Functioning Core of Globalization (or the Core)

Across that Core I see integrating economies, the regular and peaceful
rotation of leadership, and no real mass violence. All the countries that
the Pentagon's been planning for a big war with are all in the Core, but
oddly enough, these are all the countries that come to our aid after 9-11,
and the countries that find commonality in a struggle against global
terrorism.

Complete text: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001778.html


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