(2005-12-09) Richard Barnett Blueprint

Chet Richards critiques Thomas Barnett's new Blueprint For Action ISBN:0399153128 - The notion of state decline, by the way, lies at the core (pardon the pun) of the argument for FourGW. If states throughout some significant part of the world are not experiencing a crisis of legitimacy, then 4GW reduces to "insurgency on steroids," as one prominent Army thinker recently dismissed it. Arguments can be made both ways, but to the extent that Martin Van Creveld's forecast proves correct, attempting to turn Gap countries into New Core states (Nation Building) becomes a sisypherian task... If you like the idea of expanding connectivity and shrinking the Gap, but are put off by Barnett's residual fascination with Pre Empt-ion, then just ignore it. The Gap is shrinking before our eyes anyway - only about a sixth of the entire world lives in truly abject poverty - and most of Barnett's ideas for accelerating the process, especially those involving pulling Gap and New Core states along, will work even better once we forego the easy lure of bombings and invasions. Plus the odds of another War On Iraq go way down.