"Ploting a New Course for the Pentagon" (written transcript of NPR "Morning Edition" interview)
Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 19 January 2005
Originally broadcast 18 January.
Interview: Former Naval War College professor and researcher Thomas Barnett talks about the threat to the US from countries who are not yet in the global economy
1457 Words
18 January 2005
NPR: Morning Edition
RENEE MONTAGNE, host: With the inauguration of President Bush just two days away, there's much talk about what policy changes a Bush second term might bring. One of those watching for shifts in foreign policy is Thomas Barnett, until recently a professor and researcher at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. Thomas Barnett has offered his views to senior military officers who work in the world's trouble spots, and he presents his theories in a book called "The Pentagon's New Map." Among other things, he argues that most countries ceased to be a threat to the US when they joined the global economy. He's not worried much about China. Thomas Barnett is worried about countries that are less globalized as he explained to MORNING EDITION's Steve Inskeep.
STEVE INSKEEP, host: Your organizing principle is that you divide the world not exactly in half but in two camps. How exactly do you do that?
Mr. THOMAS BARNETT ("The Pentagon's New Map"): The concept of "The Pentagon's New Map" began simply with plotting on a map the almost 150 times that the US government has sent its military forces overseas to get involved in unstable or dangerous situations since the end of the Cold War. The regions that tend to attract US military interventions time and time again in the post-Cold War era are those that are the least connected to the global economy. So the argument of the book is if you don't want to send US military forces abroad, what we have to get good at in our foreign policy is basically to connect those disconnected regions with the global economy and, on that basis, foster the kind of stability that would obviate our requirements to go into those situations militarily.
INSKEEP: Well, you wrote hear not so long ago that you thought that the war in Iraq was, given everything, a good idea, a worthy cause to try to bring a troubled country in line with the rest of the globe. Now that some time has passed and the costs of that war become more clear, do you still think it was a good idea?
Mr. BARNETT: I still think it was a good idea, because I think Saddam had, in effect, multiple outstanding warrants, and I think, frankly, that if you want to win a global war on terrorism over the long haul, it has to be about transforming the Middle East, because if you can't change the Middle East, you're not going to change the roots of the conflicts, which are basically engendering this transnational terrorism that we're worried about.
I think the administration screwed itself up dramatically by--in effect, in its push to get compliance from allies in the run-up to the war. They basically told them, `If you're not strong enough to show up for the war, so to speak, then don't show up for the peace and forget about the contracts.' And I think that was basically a `cutting off our nose to spite our face' sort of response that haunts us to this day. I think where it puts us now in terms of not being able to draw on external powers to help us stabilize the region is that we face some very difficult choices with local powers there that we're going to have to get some sort of ownership or buy-in from in order to stabilize Iraq.
INSKEEP: There are a lot of people who are saying they think that the war in Iraq was strategically a good idea but that tactically there have been mistakes. Do you really think that it only amounts to a tactical problem?
Mr. BARNETT: I think it's the way that Americans and the Pentagon tend to think about war. We talk about winning the war, and we have sort of a short attention span and not a very good tendency to follow through in our thinking with regard to the follow-on peace. So this argument between Secretary Rumsfeld and then Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki about how many troops are needed to win the war, Rumsfeld said, `I have a trans-foreign military. I can take down Saddam's regime with a small number of troops.' I believe he was right, and I think he proved it. But Shinseki was also right. He said in effect, `I need a huge number of troops on the ground to deal with the country after you've taken down that regime.' In the media and in our own language, we tended to conflate those two things into the war, and we said, `How many troops do we need for the war?' when in reality we were talking about how many troops did we need for the war and how many troops did we need for the peace. And that has had huge influence for years now, for the last 15 years, in terms of what we bought for that force.
So a lot of the shortages--Rumsfeld's answer was sometimes you go through the war with the Army that you have, not the one that you want. Not exactly. You go to war with the Army that you've been wanting, and we've been wanting an Army for the last 15 years that doesn't do peacekeeping, doesn't do nation-building, doesn't do post-conflict stabilization. So it was the Army itself which refused to make the force structure choices to really field a force that can play in that second half. So, in effect, in terms of the choices we've made, what we field right now is a first-half team that plays in a league that insists on keeping score until the end of the game.
INSKEEP: When you've been brought in to work with and advise some of the senior US military officials who are running military affairs in the area of the world that you write about, what's your sense of the big unanswered questions that are on their minds?
Mr. BARNETT: I think the two big questions that are out there are really what we're going to end up doing with Iran and its push for the bomb, because Iran is such a key security pillar in the Middle East, that if it's not on our side, it's hard to see how we're going to affect a stable, peaceful, connecting Middle East. It's going to be a difficult time there as long as they're in the position of vetoing any effort we make in that region.
The second question is really the question of rising China. We have to look at them much like the British looked at the United States in the first several decades of the 20th century. We have to see them as a rising power to be co-opted, not confronted, because I think if you look at their strategic interests and you look at our strategic interests, the overlap there is absolutely tremendous. It's Asia whose energy requirements are going to double in the next 20 years. So in many ways, our quest for a more stable, connected Middle East serves the interests of a rising China far more in a direct sense than it does America.
INSKEEP: What's one piece of advice, a suggestion or caution that you would give to the Bush administration in the next four years?
Mr. BARNETT: I would avoid picking the fight with Iran over their quest for the bomb. I think we have to be realistic. Iran is sitting right between two countries we just toppled, Afghanistan and Iraq. And you have to understand that when you topple a country on the east and you topple a country on the west, if that country in the middle has the capacity to reach for the bomb, you're going to have to expect them to make that reach. I think there are ways to co-opt Iran because I think strategically in the region we have a lot of similar interests if we look at the situation with more objective eyes.
INSKEEP: Thomas P.M. Barnett has been until recently a senior strategic researcher and professor at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island. He continues to advise US military commands.
Thanks very much.
Mr. BARNETT: Thank you.
MONTAGNE: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News with Steve Inskeep. I'm Renee Montagne. |
