awhile back
I remember thinking....this guy is comPLETELY megalomaniacal.
I'm in the midst of reading the Stromberg article, and found some other things, including this Karen Kwiatkowski review of the book that put him on the "map". Less far ranging than the first piece, but easier to digest.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/kwiatkowski.php?articleid=2762New Map, Same Bad Destinations
A Review of The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the 21st Century by Thomas P.M. Barnett
by Karen Kwiatkowski
Dr. Thomas Barnett, Harvard trained political scientist and self-described Pentagon futurist, has a bone to pick with the Bush administration. America's invasion of Iraq was a great achievement, but the President hasn't yet shared with Americans why we are staying there, for … well, forever. Barnett's latest book, The Pentagon's New Map, cheerfully explains that there is no exit strategy for Iraq or Afghanistan. He writes, "We are never leaving the Gap and we are never 'bringing the boys home.' There is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking the Gap … and we better stop kidding ourselves about 'exit strategies.'"
Barnett's view is this: The world is divided into a culturally and economically connected Core and a disconnected Non-Integrating Gap. It needs a post Cold War "rule-set reset" to ensure that the disconnected ones – states and individuals – are not excluded from the game. The security of the international system is the new American responsibility. We must organize and act in a way to combat violence originating, for the most part, from individuals and groups operating from the disconnected Gap. He believes the good news of our rule-set should be actively shared, and that this sharing is natural, good, moral and non-imperialistic. Barnett is a self-described optimist who fully intends to leave behind a far safer and better world for his children and mine.
Using market, computing and advertising idiom, Barnett explains that there are two key roles that United States must play in the 21st century – that of rule-setting Leviathan and that of System Administrator. His book lays out how the Department of Defense must bifurcate accordingly into two robust capabilities: a killer app that is speedy, stealthy, powerful, young, male, deadly and used overseas only, and its mild mannered opposite, a policing-oriented force that uses military and civilian law, works at home and abroad and is not bound by posse comitatus restrictions. The Leviathan force and the System Administrator force are the main ways of getting America's greatest export commodity – security – out to the "customer."
As in any other free trade, we are as benefited by the exchange as is our "customer." Barnett explains, "This exporting of security is, in large part, nothing more than a by-product of the U.S. military's continuous worldwide operations. We are the only military in the history of the world to possess a planet-spanning command scheme." Barnett's book explains how this capability can and should be used to create a global future "worth creating."
Reading this book took a tremendous amount of fortitude on my part. The staff officer and strategy analyst in me enjoyed the strategic debate, reminisces about PowerPoint and the tribulations of a being a mid-level apparatchik-cum-smartass, and reading about Pentagon personalities. But the Burke-loving libertarian in me was increasingly gripped by a strange combination of amazement and terror. Barnett mustn't take this personally; I feel the same way when I read Sam Huntington.