The Pentagon's New Map

I recently stumbled across Thomas Barnett's theory about what the US War On Terror strategy should be or is.

Barnett breaks the big world into two parts:

• "The Core" countries - those that promote or align themselves with the larger global community through a relatively free flow of trade, people, direct foreign investment, and security
• "The Gap" countries - those that refuse to or can’t work with the core because of political instability, cultural rigidity, or extreme poverty.

1. Draw a map of the world.
2. Highlight our military responses of the past three decades: from Iran, Lebanon, and Libya to the Gulf war, Haiti, Kosovo, and Somalia
3. Conclusion: The U. S. military rarely needed to respond in "The Core" countries. "The Gap" is another story (i.e. warfare, terrorism, illegal drugs)
4. Goal: Bring "The Gap" constructively into "The Core" because that's what we have been doing, and the only question is how long it takes us to recognize it and articulate it.

After watching the C-SPAN video, surfing the net more extensively on the topic, I came to the conclusion that the Bush Administration has really fallen down on the job with respect to articulating the war on terror

To learn more I recommend:

1. view this C-SPAN video
2. read this "Esquire" Magazine article
3. read the reviews and/or actual book "The Pentagon's New Map"
4. visit Barnett's website

Books I'm Trying to Finish Reading

Kafka said, "Books are a narcotic" of which I have too many ;-)

In reverse order of purchase:
(1) "Physical Computing: Sensing & Controlling the Physical World with Computers" by O'Sullivan & Igoe ... I have both a deep interest in both embedded controllers and interfacing computers to the physical world. This book looked like a very good popularization suitable for a beginner
(2) "Computer Security for the Home and Small Office" by Greene
(3) "Telecommunications Demystified" by Nassar ... a whim online purchase
(4) "Chemistry Demystified" by Williams ... another whim
(5) "World Class Reliability" by Bhote & Bhote ... currently reading this one. A useful overview of the "Reliability" field but otherwise reads like an advertisement for their consulting service. Provided several buzzwords and names for a more detailed Google search
(6) "Six-Sigma for Managers" by Brue
(7) "Bebop to the Boolean Boogie" by Maxfield ... recommended by the folks at Embedded Computing
(8) "Writing Great Code" by Hyde
(9) "Juran's Quality Control Handbook" by Juran (actually a 'gift' from a FAB tool-owner ... he was tired of it occupying shelf space ;-);-);-)
(10) "China: A New History" by Fairbanks & Coleman
(11) "Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management"
(12) "The Knowledge Management Toolkit" by Tiwana
(13) "The 9/11 Commission Report"
(14) "Ethereal Packet Sniffing" by Orebaugh
(15) "An Embedded Software Primer" by Simon
(16) "The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook" by Senge et al
(xx) Ooops!!! I forgot some
(17) "The Ten Day MBA" by Steven Silbiger
(18) "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter
(19) "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey (effective or defective)
(20) "Medicine For Mountaineering" edited by James Wilkerson
(21) "Beyond Backpacking" by Ray Jardine
(22) "Building Scientific Apparatus" by John Moore et al

Google AdSense

Signed up for Google AdSense on a whim because "Technology is no place for wimps" (Dilbert Mousepad)

First Post

12/24/2004 - first post

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