THINKING ABOUT THE PENTAGON’S NEW MAP – CONNECTIVITY AND THE FOUR FLOWS OF GLOBALIZATION
Tom Barnett’s book , The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century is hip deep in concepts which makes it both an intriguing read and a difficult review. But since this is a blog I’m free to tackle the book in parts and today I’d like to look at Barnett’s key concepts of Connectivity and his four flows of globalization that “connect ” societies and nation-states into an interdependent whole. If you have a copy of PNM handy I strongly recommend you take a look at Chapter 4 ” The Core and the Gap “. It’s the one where Dr. Barnett lays out the war on terror in ” the context of everything else” – which is the essence of strategic thinking.
Context is important because it’s what usually gets dropped in these types of discussions because most government experts and academics are by definition niche specialists. They resist moving their arguments and ideas into the realm of everything else because it messes up their crisp clean models with real-world complications in fields where they do not feel nearly so expert. This is a major reason why American national security, foreign policy and even military planning seldom rises above the level of tactical thinking…that is when we are not stuck in crisis management, ad hoc, muddle through mode. American strategic thinkers have been so few – Brooks Adams, Alfred T. Mahan, Woodrow Wilson, Walter Lippmann, George Kennan, Paul Nitze, Herman Kahn, Richard Nixon – that a book like PNM, like Kennan’s ” X” article, fills a crucial intellectual gap at the policy planning level of our government.
Dr. Barnett advocates a Global Transaction Strategy to “shrink the Gap” and promote Connectivity to integrate disconnected states into the Core, advancing the process of globalization – and in so doing extending the benefits provided by the ” Rule Sets” associated with liberal democratic capitalism and the rule of law, broadly defined. Barnett further refines the enormous historical phenomenon of globalization to ” four flows” between the Core and the Gap ( p. 192).
PNM MODEL OF GLOBALIZATION
“…four essential elements, or flows, that I believe define it’s basic functioning from the perspective of international stability. These four flows are (1) the movement of people from the Gap to the Core; (2) the movement of energy from the Gap to the New Core; (3) the movement of money from the Old Core to the New Core; (4) the exporting of security that only America can provide to the Gap.”
In other words, Barnett is defining globalization as a dynamic exchange relationship involving migration, resources, money and power.
He further elaborates on his model with ” the Ten Commandments of Globalization” (p.199-204):
1. Look for resources, and ye shall find
2. No stability, no markets
3. No growth, no stability
4. No resources, no growth
5. No infrastructure, no resources
6. No money, no infrastructure
7. No rules, no money
8. No security, no rules
9. No Leviathan, no security
10. No will, no Leviathan
“Leviathan” is the enforcer of rule sets, in all practical purposes the United States acting alone, with an ad hoc coalition or through international organizations where we have a preponderant influence.
Dr. Barnett concludes his chapter with a superbly insightful (i.e. I agree with him here 100 %) explanation that conceptually ties together rogue state dictators and non-state actor terrorists into the Gordian Knot of menace that they truly are in reality (p. 205):
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