Customer Reviews

Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was first introduced to Barnett's work with the famous PowerPoint presentation on C-Span. I then picked up <u>The Pentagon's New Map.</u> I've lent out both the DVD of the presentation and the book several times. I believe it's a must read for anyone who wants to fully understand just what the heck is going on in the post-9/11 world.

<u>Blueprint for Action</u> is the follow-up to PNM and in many ways is a response to feedback that the presentation and book inspired. If PNM was the answer to "what the heck is going on" then BFA is the answer to "why the heck are we doing this anyway?" But most impressively, the "why" Barnett gives us is not some doom and gloom of what needs to be avoided, but what glory can be achieved.

Barnett is joy to read as a writer, especially since many of his contemporaries like to bog down their works with a lot of jargon and 50-cent words that can alienate the average reader. Barnett needs no such tricks to make his work impressive. Audacious and bold by its very nature, BFA not only gives the big picture view of "where do we go from here?" but delights readers with glib analogies and (often biting) humor along the way:
"I ended up lecturing at both Beijing University and the China Reform Forum, the think tank of the Central Party School in Beijing...

One Chinese professor went so far as to say that since my work could never be received well in America but would naturally be understood in China, I should quit my job... to engage in the formulation of grand strategy for the Chinese, who, he noted, had more than enough grand strategic issues to deal with right now!...

My reply to this intriguing offer was to say that if these reformers felt they had their hands full explaining the Theory of Peacefully Rising China to the world, imagine how busy I was trying to explain my Theory of Benevolently Warring America!" (pp 138-140) What I think I like best about Barnett's work, however, is that his grand strategy has practical application. He doesn't get stuck or lost describing only one part of the elephant. He truly sees the whole animal of political, economic, military, cultural connections across the globe and, with accuracy, can say `if you do this action, you'll get this result.'

He isn't seeing situations just from the American side, or the military side, or the Wall Street side. He puts the reader in the other guy's shoes (well, if you were being approached like this, wouldn't you react the same way too?) and draws on our own history to show just how those situations played out last time. Barnett not only gives us "A Future Worth Creating," but shows us that he knows how to navigate from here and now to there and then.

If you want a useful, realistic hope for the future, this is the book to read.

It is rare that I read something truly original in the realm of foreign policy. Every two months, I get a new Foreign Affairs, where the lefty academics will come out of their ivory towers to tell us the world is America's fault, the right will tell us that we're the biggest nation on earth we should take avantage of it, while others tell us in 20/20 hindsight what we should have done.

Thomas Barnett's first book was truly original, and pure genius.

This book puports to be a blueprint for how to implement the things discussed in the first book. While I found myself disagreeing, it still forced me to thing about our foreign policy in new and interesting ways.

Like what if China was a trust ally?

Anyways, I reccommend the book for anyone interested in our foreign policy in this post-Cold-War,post 9/11 era.

[...]

(Something tells me the reviewer from Publishers Weekly didn't even read this book and instead just penned the review based upon some crib notes).


I won't debate any of Barnett's specific arguments as other reviwers have done.

He makes very understanadable that in the past generation the world has become majority with free market societies. This represents an incredible challenge to reactionary forces in the Middle East. How to help the modernizing elements of Arab, Persian, Asian and LAtin American socieities navigate their way into the global community is the key question in Barnett's arguments. This is called 'Shrinking The Gap'.

Rather than being a US led enterprise, Barnett makes if very clear this will be a cooperative efffort among the UN, the G-20 (20 largest economies), the ICC and the American military. The UN as your grand jury, the US military as your police force, the ICC as your criminal court witht the G-20 as your financier. A very intriguing possibility and one that should be discussed.

Once you dispose of bad actors (Kim Il Jong , Chavez, Castro) you have to follow up with intense development and reconstruction. Barnett notes that our failure to do this in Iraq is the chief source of our troubles today. The ultimate idea is to bring failed states quickly into connection with the global community so they can reap the benefits of globalization. If one can revamp and stablize a failed state, then foreign investment will flow into new lost-cost labor centers.

Overall, a very well thought out and provocative book. Barnett lays out his arguments logically and makes it easy to follow his train of thought.

A major drawback of the book is Barnett's constant use of his own jargon (one sees this in his blog also). One gets the sense he is very much in love with his own words. This is why I only give it four stars

.

After reading the reviews of The Pentagon's New Map (although I have not read the book itself), I was anxious to read Barnett's second book for implementing the ideas from his first book, especially now that they have been tested and revised by countless interviews, reviews and military briefings. Barnett does not disappoint. Blueprint For Action is the most original, outside-the-box, out-on-a-limb position I have heard in a very long time. Whether you think his ideas will work or not, I highly recommend reading it because it suggests new ways of thinking about politics, war and our friends and enemies. It's refreshing to see someone, as noted by another reviewer, who doesn't spout Democratic or Republican dogma, but goes off on his own. Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense, in most areas, and we'd be a lot better off if our leaders adopted these strategies (which it sounds like they may be starting to).

Some reviewers seem to get hung up on some facet of his book: "One part of his 400+ page book might be wrong" (gasp!), but if you are going to develop a blueprint for American strategy for the next few decades, who is not going to be wrong on some points? Another criticism I've read of Barnett is that he paints a rosy picture of how the world a priori is going to get better. He doesn't. He repeatedly hedges his vision, stating that there are many opportunities for derailment. (Otherwise, you wouldn't really need his book to help avoid them.)

After seeing our country blunder into many nation-building exercises since the end of the Cold War, with or without a antecedent war, it's not a question of whether we want to or will get involved with future nation-building, it seems to be a matter of how we do it. Better to have a plan, a system, like Barnett uses or someone else with long-term vision, rather than a half-hazard, poorly thought out one that both Clinton and George W. have used in Yugoslavia, N. Korea, Iraq, etc.

A must read for anyone interested in where our country should be going in the next decade.

A few months ago, I offered a review of Barnett's landmark book, "The Pentagon's New Map."

http://whiterhinoreport.blogspot.com/2006/03/understanding-age-of-terror-review-of.html

In his latest offering, Barnett takes the logical next step in offering scenarios and a roadmap for how we might go about fashioning what he calls "a future worth creating." What I like best about Barnett's writing is the fact that he communicates complex ideas clearly and succinctly - without "dumbing down" his arguments and chain of reasoning.

I found this book fascinating and very encouraging in terms of how the U.S. as a nation can lead the way in fashioning a 21st century world that shrinks the gap between the "haves and have nots" - and more to the point - between the "connected and the disconnected."

Given the fact that I do not have a military background, I do not always trust or rely on my own judgment in assessing issues of military or global strategy. Fortunately, I have a number of friends who have had long and distinguished military careers, and I often use them as sounding boards to provide me with reality checks. As I was finishing up reading, "Blueprint for Action," I had breakfast with Stan Genega, a West Point graduate who retired as a Major General in the U.S. Army. As I was seeking Stan's reaction to some of Barnett's groundbreaking and often iconoclastic ideas, I said: "From my vantage point as a lay person, I can find no flaw in Barnett's reasoning, logic, interpretation of the facts or prescriptive recommendations." Gen. Genega responded, in essence, by saying: "I agree; I cannot find any flaws in his logic or analysis."

Halfway through this book, I discovered a passage that clearly expresses Barnett's rationale for writing this book, and explains the bridge between "The Pentagon's New Map," and this sequel. The context of the following quotation is that Barnett is describing the overwhelming response he received when C-Span broadcast a PowerPoint briefing that is the essence of "The Pentagon's New Map":

"At first, you are kind of embarrassed with gratitude expressed on that level. I mean, you feel as though you found someone's wallet and nothing more. But over time, as I got more familiar with the emotions being expressed, I began to realize why it was so crucial to move beyond the first book's broad diagnostic approach to this volume's far greater focus on prescriptions - a plan of action. Eventually, that buzz wears off . . . Well, you can't just leave people hanging like that. You just can't get them all jacked up with no place to go. When people say they're a `convert' or `sold,' you'd better have a better comeback than just `That's nice to hear.' Moreover, your vision of the future can't just be some splendid description of a world they've got little hope of actually visiting. No, it needs to seem familiar enough that they can imagine themselves not just living there but also actually making the journey. The tale should be heroic, all right, because that imparts meaning to sacrifice, but it can't be fantastic, meaning no `flying cars' or any other imagined technologies that save the day all on their own. People don't want their future handed to them on a silver platter; they want to build it on their own. What they need from you, the futurist, is just enough information - just enough vision - to give them the confidence to start hammering some stakes into the ground. They want to get rolling, because in the end, they're not interested in following you. They just want you to point the direction and then get out of the way." (Page 204)

The timing of my sharing this review is interesting. Just this morning, my friend, Tony Lorizio, sent me a link to a column in last Sunday's New York Daily News. The column was entitled: "It's WWIII, and U.S. is out of ideas"

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Sunday, July 9th, 2006

The author of the piece, who may have been Chicken Little, cites a string of recent events and concludes pessimistically that World War III is upon us, and we are fresh out of ideas to know how to begin to win the war.

In stark contradistinction to this gloomy forecast - one that seems to be shared by many "average citizens" - Barnett offers a more informed and reasoned interpretation and analysis of current events and trends. And that is the genius and the hope of his "Blueprint for Action."

"al Qaeda, far from enjoying a winning streak, has instead sustained its movement largely by accepting defeat time and time again and shifting its center of gravity to some new locale . . . But the larger point is this: al Qaeda and the Salafi jihadist movement have won no battles over the years. Instead, they have lived as parasites within ongoing civil wars or easily corrupted failed states. Their history has been one long series of evacuations under duress. Like cockroaches in an apartment building, they are forced to flee to the next unit over every time the exterminator steps in to spray the current nesting place." (Page 119)

The gist of Barnett's thesis is that in the ongoing struggle to shrink the chasm that exists between the connected "Core" countries of the world and the disconnected "Gap" countries, the U.S. military and its allies must develop a two-part approach to solving problems. The warfare end will be conducted by what Barnett terms "the Leviathan" - the traditional might of the U.S. war machine. But when it comes to "wining the peace" - the kind of nation building that is proving to be such a bloody challenge in Iraq - a new kind of force, a System Administration force, must be stood up and take over when the Leviathan has accomplished its work.

Barnett also argues convincingly that part of the process of moving a society into a globally connected condition involves a migration of much of its population from rural isolation to urban connectivity.

"Terrorists have historically arisen from well-educated middle-class urban segments of society, not form the backward, disconnected rural segments, even as they often enlisted as the foot soldiers of these revolutionary movements. So it is managing that individual journey from the country to the city that lies at the heart of the Core's historic task of shrinking the Gap. If the Gap's populations cannot successfully make that trip, finding genuine economic and social connectivity, then there is little hope of making globalization truly global, for all that will happen with this migration is the concentration of disgruntled masses - the perfect source material for unrest, as noted by revolutionaries throughout history." (Page 279)

Barnett gives a reasonable and generationally based spin to his optimistic argument that the Echo Boomer generation - those born between 1980 and 1995 - represent a great source of hope:

"Natural multitaskers because they grew up in conditions of universal connectivity (the oldest came of age as the Internet blossomed into a global phenomenon), the Echo Boomers are, in the words of one demographic study, `totally plugged-in citizens of a worldwide community.' As such, they know multiculturalism not as something to be accepted, but as simply a fact of life, since over a third of this generation is nonwhite. Probably the least `churched' generation in U.S. history, they are nonetheless deeply interested in making the world a better place. As historian Neil Howe describes Echo Boomers, they are far closer in outlook to the `greatest generation' from World War II than their egocentric Baby Boomer parents. In short, they're `more interested in building things up than tearing them down.'" (Pages 322-323)

For this reason, Barnett is targeting his arguments at the emerging generation of military and political leaders who are Echo Boomers. The current generation of leadership, with rare exception, is too tied into the status quo, too committed to protecting their fiefdoms and too entrenched in the "military-industrial complex" to be able to listen with objective ears to the ideas being put forward by Barnett and his coreligionists who worship at the altar of "a future worth creating."

This book is a must read. You may not agree with all of Barnett's analysis and interpretation of history and current events, but to choose to ignore what he is saying would be a "sin of omission" that no thinking person should commit.

Al

I tried to go into this book with an open mind, but I came out thinking that Barnett simply doesn't understand the world or its problems. He is like the armchair quarterback who thinks he can win the super bowl even though he never really played or understood the game.

Barnett suggests, for example, a policy of total appeasment of China. All US strategic interests in the region are to be surrendered so the US can focus on fighting more wars like Iraq. Taiwan is to be sold out and given to China to make them "happy". Even thought China is a communist dictatorship, Barnett sees it as the great friend and partner of the united states. All the US needs to do is to stop opposing China's legitmate interest....and sell out every friend we have in East Asia...and we can fight more wars like Iraq to bring civilization to third-world garbage pits. Like certain people in the government, Barnett is willing to destroy the entire global strategic position of the united states to bring "democracy" to places like Iraq.

In the case of Iran, its even worse. The solution to all of our problems with the leadership in Iran will apparently be solved if they love Israel more. So we should launch a diplomatic initiative to beg Iran to love Israel more for which America will surrender to all Iran's regional objectives including nuclear weapons and domination of the Persian Gulf. As with China, what he is promoting is a policy of appeasement so the US can apparently have more resources to fight more iraq-like wars.

So what does America get in exchange for appeasing its strategic rivals in the world? Barnett wants the US go to war to oppose "socialism" in Venezuala and wherever else it appears. Somehow in Barnett's mind, China is not a threat or a rival to the US, neither is a nuclear armed Iran....but a third-rate nobody like Venezuala is a mortal threat to America that requires armed intervention, the overthrow of the government and thousands of Americans to teach them how to be free. Barnett is also in favor of "women's rights" in muslim as a cynical mechanism to be used to justify political intervention in muslim countries. Its not that Barnett cares about women. Their rights matter far less to him than using their rights as a means of forcing American-style secularization into the middle east. I might have called it original but for the fact that many neo-cons who have utter contempt for feminism have been promoting similar ideas for years.

As in the pentagon's new map - his previous book - Barnett wants to see America as the New Jerusalem leading the world. The only thing wrong with America in his thinking is that we need to be more up front in taking over and civilizing every messed up basket case of a country in the world. The costs or the implications of what he is proposing don't bother him in the least. He doesn't, for example, think about where all these Americans are going to come from who are going to move to places like Somalia to bring civilization. Or how big a military is going to be required to protect all those people doing civil affairs work. Implicit in his strategy of appeasement I guess is that the US will dismantle its "useless" high-tech army are redeploy most of the people/money associated with it. Tanks, Carriers and Jet Fighters will no longer be necessary once we surrender all our friends in Asia to China. Barnett never goes that far, but I get the impression he wants to. In the end he is unwilling to even recognize the price tag of what he is proposing.

My largest disagreement with Barnett is over the nature of America and what the mission of the American military is. To Barnett, America is a country whose destiny is to lead and save the world. The American military's mission is nothing less than to save the world from itself. To me, America is my country and the first task of Americans is to improve our country. The role of our military is not to solve the world's problems, but to defend the country against threats. A dictator in South America or Africa is not necessarly a threat to America. If a country harbours terrorists, thats a threat. If a country in South America nationalizes its telephone system, thats not a threat to anyone except the country itself.

I think the book fails because of its appeasment of real strategic threats to America (China, Iran), its failure to make a case for why its in America's interests to fight all these wars and its failure to examine in a serious way how his "blueprint" is to be made real. Higher Taxes? Higher Deficits? A draft? Gutting the current military? Anyone can play Napoleon and come up with all sorts of grand strategy. The difference between playing and having a real strategy is in presenting a plan for how you realistically make it happen. Barnett fails to do so.

I would suggest his other book "the pentagon's new map" over this one.

Two things are evident after reading Blueprint for Action: one, Barnett is an unrelenting optimist and two, he continues to demonstrate an ability to think big (or horizontally as he puts it). BFA, as the title implies, is a mix of policy recommendations and predictions as Barnett seeks to map out the strategic vision he laid out in The Pentagon's New Map.

In BFA, Barnett explains what it will take for the US to implement a global strategy for shrinking the GAP (the non-globalizing part of the world). He emphasizes that this process will start within the Pentagon, but must grow to encompass the US government as a whole and eventually the rest of the Core (nations that are pillars of globalization). Barnett envisions are re-organization of the US defense establishment that includes restructuring the force and the acquisition process to better fit the nation-building missions that have become central to US foreign policy. Similarly, Barnett also advocates for a cabinet-level post within the US government that would be solely responsible for post-conflict stability and reconstruction ops.

Barnett argues that as the US enunciates these new priorities within its own government, it will signal to the rest of the world that it is serious about creating a process to shrink the Gap and will finally create the impetus to formalize a process by which the international community can agree upon the problems that require action, fund the operations, remove the bad actors, and provide for the reconstruction. Barnett sees it happening now with the G-8 and argues that the G-20 will be an ideal institution for this process in the future. Additionally, Barnett wants to cement globalization's spread by cementing a US-Chinese strategic relationship (over the grave of the North Korean regime) and a NATO-like Asian security alliance. Barnett is given to the idea that like it or not China is increasingly going to define the future of globalization and that America needs to cement the relationship now while we can get something out of it (taking down the DPRK).

Barnett places less emphasis on democratic politics than most, instead believing that liberal economics will eventually pull the political processes of authoritarian states towards systems that we can live with. This, according to Barnett, is how we will have to shrink the Gap; actively working with some authoritarian regimes (China) and tolerating the existence of others as they open up their economies (Iran). Part of this is based on necessity (we can't do anything about it anyway so let's try and cut otherwise favorable deals) and part of this based on history (the richer people get the bigger role they demand in how their country is governed).

BFA might scare away some because it is bold in its prescriptions but generally the recommendations he makes are sensible. Not necessarily because those specific ones will work but because they correctly identify the faults in the US government and the international community that hinder us from shrinking the Gap. Where BFA gets a little out there for me is in predicting future events. Barnett is overly optimistic in my opinion, but that is not a knock on his description of the current international system or what it will take to change it, just on the likelihood that we will get a solution right the first time. I think the world will eventually get on board with Barnett's general strategy, but how post-conflict Iraq shakes out will have a huge effect on the willingness of the rest of the world to engage in a US-led rebuilding effort in the near future, a `Department of Everything Else' notwithstanding.

This book is not as stimulating as PNM, but I did not expect it to be as PNM broke ground with a lot of new ideas while BFA simply tries to demonstrate how those ideas could come to fruition. Barnett does achieve his goal though; he shows his readers what the process can look like, and more importantly identifies the changes that need to be made to set that process in motion.

I read this thinking it was a follow on to his first book. It really isn't. Its more meadering thoughts and projections about possible scenarios. OK reading, but not something I'd read again or recommend.

This book certainly answers many of the hanging questions of the former book, The Pentagon's New Map. It is a difficult read, however. I will be recommending it to the group I am convening later this Spring to discuss The Pentagon's New Map because it does provide many of the answers that book raises. I look forward to following the events which relate to these two books and appreciate the wisdom and creativity of the author, Thomas Barnett.

This book was full of revolutionary ideas on America's role in the future regarding its military and how it could work in the real world. It is about strategic and revolutionary thinking about developing disparate countries for the sake of benefiting ourselves and the rest of the world. It is truly a fascinating read.