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