United Press International,
WASHINGTON, DC: Among the critics and reinterpreters of Fourth Generation war, the bad is most powerfully represented by Thomas Barnett`s two books 'The Pentagon`s New Map' and 'Blueprint for Action.' What Barnett advocates is bad in two senses: first, that it won`t work, and second, that if it did work the result would be evil.
In both books, Barnett divides the world into two parts, the Functioning Core and the Non-Integrating Gap. This is parallel to what I call centers of order and centers or sources of disorder, and I agree that this will be the fundamental fault line of the 21st Century. Barnett`s error is that he assumes the Functioning Core will be the stronger party, able to restore order in places where it has broken down. In fact, the forces of disorder will be stronger, because they are driven by a factor Barnett dismisses, the spreading crisis of legitimacy of the state. By ignoring Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld`s work on the rise and decline of the state, Barnett`s books end up anchoring their foundations on sand.
Barnett`s second error, manifested almost comically in 'Blueprint for Action,' is that he thinks restoring the state in places where it has failed will be easy. According to a Washington Post review of 'Blueprint for Action' by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., 'Barnett has a six-step plan to accomplish this: First, the U.N. Security Council acts as a grand jury to indict countries; second, the Core`s biggest economies issue ' `warrants` for the arrest of the offending party'; third, the United States leads a 'warfighting coalition'; fourth, a Core-wide administrative force (with the United States providing 10 to 20 percent of its personnel) puts things back together with the help of the fifth element, a new International Reconstruction Fund; followed by a sixth step, criminal prosecution of the apprehended parties at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. `That`s it, from A to Z,` Barnett notes cheerfully.'
To Read Full Article Click Here
