Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon's new map for war and peace(video talk)

[winchester_down]

TED talk by Thomas Barnett

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for_peace.html


I found it pretty interesting but found it a little simplistic, maybe as it is an abbreviated video of the talk.
I found alot of the humour annoying too, I laughed once then was just wishing he'd get on with it.

What do you guys think?



Winchester

[IDF_TANKER]

Yeah, I posted it a while ago. What bothered me in this lecture is lack of "philosophical depth", so to speak. The typical technocrat attitude - concentrating on local technical problems while missing the bigger picture, like for example, whether it's possible at all to enforce the democracy on an inherently authoritarian tribal society.

[winchester_down]

oh gee mate, sorry, i did a seach with no results.

Yeah you make a good point.



MODS: if you want to close or merge this with the other existing thread on this, go ahead.

[Winger]

Yeah, I posted it a while ago. What bothered me in this lecture is lack of "philosophical depth", so to speak. The typical technocrat attitude - concentrating on local technical problems while missing the bigger picture, like for example, whether it's possible at all to enforce the democracy on an inherently authoritarian tribal society.

He talks about the "when" and "how". Not much talk about the "if". Thats an entirely seperate discussion.

[Solomin]

Sometimes it's better to have some plan addressing some of the issues at hand than to have no plan at all. Also, the Ivory Towers haven't been much help in the past decade so I don't see why we wouldn't being turning to technocrats.

[Ordie]

TED talk by Thomas Barnett

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for_peace.html


I found it pretty interesting but found it a little simplistic, maybe as it is an abbreviated video of the talk.
I found alot of the humour annoying too, I laughed once then was just wishing he'd get on with it.

What do you guys think?



Winchester

I've read his book.

Many similarities to Robert Kaplan.

He makes some valid points about the need to focus around the void areas. He also makes a compelling argument to view China as an ally.

He's simple because he was a former 'beltway jockey' where one has 10 minutes to present a powerpoint presentation and 'sell' a policy to the powers that be.

[BugHunt]

Or hes "simple" because hes a great well articulated speaker :)


Any muppet can make a complex subject very very complex and opaque - it takes a real effort and subject insight to make things simple and understandable.


I think his lecture more or less gives one of the more efficient workable solutions to currently almost "intractable" military problems like Iraq or Afghanistan. Without much of the cost and waste.


If his solutions were adopted (in some bizzare logical parralell universe) Zimbabwe and N Korea couldve be potential candidates....for democratization.

Thats "Democratization" where we bring regime change with a rebuild as opposed to blow lots of stuff and and kill oddles of people, let anarchy reign, and then wonder why they dont love us...


Dont agree with everything he says but i really think his SysAdmin force is a great concept - it fills that power vacum and allows NGO's to get to work...


Hes got a blog too -

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/

[Jmetal]

He usually speaks for an hour, hour and a half, so to distil that down to 25 minutes is quite an accomplishment, that leaves alot unsaid.


...while missing the bigger picture, like for example, whether it's possible at all to enforce the democracy on an inherently authoritarian tribal society.

Looking beyond this 25min brief, the big picture for Tom is Globalization and how to shink the Gap (places that are virtually disconnected from the rest of the world). His big push is not democracy but connectivity, especially economic but also technological, ideas, rules, etc. Democracy is a by-product of connecting the Core, not the starting point. He uses South Korea of the past (one party state morphing into a multi-party democracy as they connected economically to rest of the world) as an example. See Vietnam or China for examples going into the future. Take another look at his longer briefs or his book The Pentagon's New Map for more.