A fox or hedgehog grand strategy?
Here is Tom Barnett on which type the U.S. Presidency needs now. I pass this on because of the GA motto. And because GAers would do well to become acquainted with Tom’s strategic vision.
– CSM
10 Responses to “A fox or hedgehog grand strategy?”
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January 28th, 2007 at 4:25 am
Thoughtful article. I saw Tom Barnett on CSPAN in the summer of 2004, doing the lecture version of his New Map thesis. (As a side note, I remember being extremely impressed at his use of interactive visuals in the lecture.) Barnett’s thesis seemed to make sense at the time, and his meta-political analysis, particularly of the vital place “gap” nations must have in any strategic vision, seemed right on the mark.
Looking back now, however, it seems that he was much too optimistic about the role of low intensity peace keeping operations run by forces from non-US and particularly developing countries. Many situations (Iraq, Lebanon, Niger, Sudan, UN Peace Keeping forces scandals, or for that matter Rwanda and the Balkans) seem to indicate that this component of Barnett’s thesis is truly a pipe dream.
January 28th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
It should also be noted that Barnett seems completely unaware or dismissive of the possibility that parts of the “Core” can be drawn back into the “Gap.” Europe seems solidly and permanently entrenched in the Core, which would be news to readers of Mark Steyn, Bruce Bawer, Melanie Phillips and by now quite a few others. He is also ridiculously sanguine about the prospects for Russia, which he also declares to be unproblematically tending toward the Core. Look at his discussions with the conservative talk show host and blogger Hugh Hewitt, who has been hosting a series of interviews with Barnett (http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/05e3d609-73f3-4b32-80e9-2067e6695c44) and who presses him on the question of Russia in particular. If you really want to, you can see Russia’s descent into secret police and Mafia rule, along with its catastrophically declining demographic spiral, as just its own “culturally specific” path to the Core–such claims are, I suppose, unfalsifiable until it’s too late. The fragility of the basic predicates of civilization seems not to be an issue for Barnett–in his hyper-optimistic vision, once you are over the hump there is no looking back.
January 28th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Well, in the Hewitt interview on PNM chapter 3, Hugh gets Barnett to discuss “re-Gap-ification”; so, c’mon, he’s not unaware of the possibility.
Allow me to quote the Esquire article that started it all:
“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.”
And Barnett explains in BFA chapter 2 why he deliberately chooses the “hyper-optimistic” path (as you put it), because the doom-and-gloomers can be found everywhere and have a disproportionate (and deleterious) effect on the formulation of grand strategy.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
But Hewitt doesn’t really get him to discuss it–he tries, several times, but Barnett just keeps insisting that China is “misunderstood”; and when he mentions falling off the bandwagon he seems to be referring to the process of moving from Gap to Core (like Latin America), not countries which he seems to assume have been firmly “core-ified.” And he ignores the problem of Russia altogether. The point is not to nitpick: the point is that he can present the U.S. military as the solution (I understand, a greatly expanded military which does much more than fight wars in the narrow sense), and I agree with him here, but he must assume this because the rest of the Core countries are nowhere near up to the task, and he can assume it because our strengths derive from some elements of our national culture that are still going strong (our commitment to free market economics, for example) but others which we can by no means take for granted (such as a patriotism and patience that makes us capable of such extended commitments). So the problem of shrinking the gap cannot be separated from the problem of restoring some of the core principles of the Core (are we moving toward Europe or Europe toward us?). I don’t know if this is a doom and gloom scenario, although it would probably lead the discussion in a more partisan direction than I think Barnett would like–the problem, to take on example among many, presented by a recent poll in which nearly half of the Democrats polled said that they didn’t want the “surge” in Iraq to succeed (didn’t WANT, not didn’t think it would) seems to be the kind of thing which, for understandable reasons, he doesn’t want to talk about. But what if grand strategy must talk about such things?
January 30th, 2007 at 12:04 am
Oh come on. You’re just talking nonsense about Barnett, who you obviously haven’t read. You are simply making stuff up based on superficial impressions. Do your homework. Go read the Esquire article.
Of Russia, he says there it’s one of the New Core members “I worry may be lost in coming years”. And I already quoted his line, “In sum, it is always possible to fall off this bandwagon called globalization.” Barnett doesn’t deserve to be mistaken for a straw man.
January 30th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I’m not sure what I’ve made up. There’s a Core, a Gap, and a Seam–the Seam can presumably go either way, and we could place Russia there. Regarding the Core, he points to the need to enhance its immune capacities regarding 9/11 style attacks, but I’ve read the Esquire article, the interviews with Hewitt (not, admittedly, the books), so if you could point me to someplace where he addresses the possibility of the Gap penetrating the Core and undermining it from within, of the Core losing its “Core-ness,” so to speak, I would be grateful, because it seems to me that that would have significant strategic implications. If you or anyone else would like to respond to that I’d further be glad to discuss what those implications might be. I’m not against Barnett, I’m just trying to line him up with other contemporary attempts to raise the level of the discussion to the question of the survival of civilization.
January 31st, 2007 at 8:55 am
OK, I get what you’re saying now. See his discussions of Super Empowered Individuals and the “Lesser Includeds” in the PNM book.
From the article:
“Those less-developed parts of the world have long been referred to in military plans as the “Lesser Includeds,â€? meaning that if we built a military capable of handling a great power’s military threat, it would always be sufficient for any minor scenarios we might have to engage in the less advanced world.
“That assumption was shattered by September 11. After all, we were not attacked by a nation or even an army but by a group of—in Thomas Friedman’s vernacular—Super Empowered Individuals willing to die for their cause.”
“In my mind, we fight fire with fire. If we live in a world increasingly populated by Super-Empowered Individuals, we field a military of Super-Empowered-Individuals.”
January 31st, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Check out yesterday’s Hewitt interview with Barnett and his prediction of Islamist parties in Europe.
February 1st, 2007 at 9:55 am
OK, so you tell me: what do you make of Barnett’s claim that Islamist parties will serve to assimilate Muslims into European society (and Hewitt’s gentle suggestion that Barnett read Steyn)?
February 2nd, 2007 at 9:29 am
He’s projecting best case scenario. Because, really, what are the other possibilities we should be rooting for?