FWers - If you haven't seen this, it certainly offers food for thought. Sally http://www.nwc.navy.mil/newrulesets/ThePentagonsNewMap.htm
Sally, thanks for posting this for review. It appears at first reading that the new paradigms Barnett uses, the Core countries vs the Gap countries, are economic and political terms more familiar to some as Good vs Evil. The Core nations have mutual interests that prevent or restrict them from terrorism and unilateral actions against one another. The Gap nations do not have a network and as such are "disconnected" from the "fruits of" globalization and stabilization. I purposely use biblical language. You will notice that for the most part the Gap nations that Barnett maps out on the globe correspond roughly to Philip Jenkins' outlines about the future struggles between the global North and the global South. Even when he listed them individually, the Balkans are in the north but they have substantial Muslim populations. EXCERPT: "So how do we distinguish between who is really making it in globalization's Core and who remains trapped in the Gap? And how permanent is this dividing line? Understanding that the line between the Core and Gap is constantly shifting, let me suggest that the direction of change is more critical than the degree. So, yes, Beijing is still ruled by a "Communist party" whose ideological formula is 30 percent Marxist-Leninist and 70 percent Sopranos, but China just signed on to the World Trade Organization, and over the long run, that is far more important in securing the country's permanent Core status. Why? Because it forces China to harmonize its internal rule set with that of globalization-banking, tariffs, copyright protection, environmental standards. Of course, working to adjust your internal rule sets to globalization's evolving rule set offers no guarantee of success. As Argentina and Brazil have recently found out, following the rules (in Argentina's case, sort of following) does not mean you are panicproof, or bubbleproof, or even recessionproof. Trying to adapt to globalization does not mean bad things will never happen to you. Nor does it mean all your poor will immediately morph into stable middle class. It just means your standard of living gets better over time. In sum, it is always possible to fall off this bandwagon called globalization. And when you do, bloodshed will follow. If you are lucky, so will American troops." (end of excerpt) Barnett's operating assumptions seem to be that all nations will think and dream in homogenous concert following the American ideal of free market capitalism and democratic institutions. EXCERPT: "In many ways, the September 11 attacks did the U.S. national-security establishment a huge favor by pulling us back from the abstract planning of future high-tech wars against "near peers" into the here-and-now threats to global order. By doing so, the dividing lines between Core and Gap were highlighted, and more important, the nature of the threat environment was thrown into stark relief" (end of excerpt). These are scary words for those of us who fear any global institutional hegemony but also the limits of independent thought. It is one thing to have a current philosophy in power within your government, which still can be unelected or weakened by democratic means (or so we still believe). National moods and institutionalized philosophies have waxed and waned through many national histories. But what I interpret here is much deeper, a conversion to a philosophy that the one superpower in the position to do so must now act not only in an aggressive manner to preserve what it beliefs to be global security, but do so with a self-congratulatory self-righteousness - "you are lucky that we can do this for you, people" Even Caesar answered to the Senate in Rome but the US Congress gave Pres. Bush carte blanche and the idealogues that have been groomed for this moment for perhaps 25 years are in place to make it happen. EXCERPT: "The Middle East has long been a neighborhood of bullies eager to pick on the weak. Israel is still around because it has become-sadly-one of the toughest bullies on the block. The only thing that will change that nasty environment and open the floodgates for change is if some external power steps in and plays Leviathan full-time. Taking down Saddam, the region's bully-in-chief, will force the U.S. into playing that role far more fully than it has over the past several decades, primarily because Iraq is the Yugoslavia of the Middle East-a crossroads of civilizations that has historically required a dictatorship to keep the peace. As baby-sitting jobs go, this one will be a doozy, making our lengthy efforts in postwar Germany and Japan look simple in retrospect. But it is the right thing to do, and now is the right time to do it, and we are the only country that can. Freedom cannot blossom in the Middle East without security, and security is this country's most influential public-sector export. By that I do not mean arms exports, but basically the attention paid by our military forces to any region's potential for mass violence. We are the only nation on earth capable of exporting security in a sustained fashion, and we have a very good track record of doing it." (end of excerpt) With examples such as this highly trained man expounding a righteous global empire is it any surprise that the POTUS is confident in the decision he has made? There is no nuance here, no acknowledgment of the decades of slow evolutionary change in cultures, or other forces at work here besides commerce and military power, just the assurance that all of our efforts have been worthy and positive in the long run and so shall they ever be, once again promising that the ends justifying the means. Karen Watters Cole _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
