Thomas P.M. Barnett
Thomas P.M. Barnett
Thomas P.M. Barnettis an American military geostrategist and former Chief Analyst at Wikistrat. He developed a geopolitical theory that divided the world into “the Functioning Core” and the “Non-Integrating Gap” that made him particularly notable prior to the 2003 U.S. Invasion of Iraq when he wrote an article for Esquire in support of the military action entitled “The Pentagon's New Map”. The central thesis of his geopolitical theory is that the connections the globalization brings between countriesare synonymous with those...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
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An economically confident America has - since becoming a world power at the start of the 20th century - tended toward global engagement. It is during times of economic stress (1930s, 1970s) that America has become more withdrawn.
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Washington has a tendency to hold other powers to standards that it routinely flaunts - plain and simple.
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Wikistrat is my ninth start-up, so I've been through this process a few times. You have to go with what works. The power of example is compelling, so model the ideas that you want someone to understand.
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There is no battle space the U.S. Military cannot access. They said we couldn't do Afghanistan. We did it with ease. They said we couldn't do Iraq. We did it with 150 combat casualties in six weeks. We did it so fast we weren't prepared for their collapse. There is nobody we can't take down. The question is, what do you do with the power?
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Homeland defense doesn't generate any force requirements beyond having enough National Guard to save lives in natural disasters and to baby-sit nuclear power plants on Code Red days.
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Run with what works: Sell to the people who believe in you and are willing to take the chances and make the experience happen.
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Crafty politician that he is, Obama was smart enough to set low enough standards for his administration to claim 'victory' by the summer of 2011 or so.
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Here's my favorite bonehead concept from the 1990s in the Pentagon: the theory of anti-access, area-denial asymmetrical strategies. Why do we call it that? Because it's got all those A's lined up I guess. This is gobbledygook for 'If the United States fights somebody, we're going to be huge. They're going to be small.'
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Great powers reserve the right to police bad actors in their neighborhoods.
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Frankly, the only thing China has in easy abundance is people and dirty coal. Neither is the asset they're made out to be.
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I don't think, post 9/11, we're going to wait for real obvious things like Country A attacking Country B - because Country A doesn't attack Country B any more.
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I have long argued that, if China and the United States were interested in pursuing a strategic partnership, Africa is the best place to start, as neither enters the situation with past colonial baggage, and both possess interests that are quite complementary.
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To ask a country with 750 million people living on less than a dollar a day to optimize their development for the environment as opposed to getting food in the mouths of these people and giving them a decent lifestyle, that's just a little bit too much to ask.
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The Department of Homeland Security is a strategic feel good measure. It's going to be the Department of Agriculture for the 21st century. TSA - thousands standing around.