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February 2, 2005
Thomas Barnett Plays Fast and Loose with National Security . . .
. . . or, "The Pop Strategist Strikes Again"
In the latest issue of Esquire magazine, Thomas Barnett, much-publicized author of "The Pentagon's New Map," offers an article entitled Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term, Secure Your Legacy, and, oh yeah, Create a Future Worth Living.
Barnett's central contentions are:
1. Tell Iran we'll "let" them have nuclear weapons in exchange for their recognition of Israel as a state.
2. Remove our security guarantee from Taiwan in order to get on China's good side and
3. Invade or otherwise remove the regime of North Korea.
If you woke up tomorrow and any of these three options had become fact, would you feel more or less secure? More or less confident about the ability of the US to shape the world's agenda?
Barnett's rather nonsensical remarks begin with Iran:
Our offer should be both simple and bold. I would send James Baker, our last good secretary of state, to Tehran as your special envoy with the following message: "We know you're getting the bomb, and we know there isn't much we can do about it right now unless we're willing to up-tempo right up the gut. But frankly, there's other fish we want to fry, so here's the deal: you can have the bomb, and we'll take you off the Axis of Evil list, plus we'll re-establish diplomatic ties and open up trade. But in exchange, not only wil you bail us out of Iraq first and foremost by ending your support of the insugency, you'll also cut off your sponsorship of Hezbollan and other anti-israeli terrorist groups, help us bully Syria out of Lebanon, finally recognize Israel, and join us in guaranteeing the deal on a permanent Palestinian State. You want to be recognized as the regional player of note. We're prepared to do that. But that's the price tag. Pay it now or get ready to rumble."The reader is hard-pressed to see the upside for the US in this course of action. First off, he proposes to approach Iran from a bargaining position which admits weakness -- never a good idea. Next, he seems to place the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian difficulties ahead of US security. Peace in Palestine is certainly a US goal, as Bush made clear this evening in the State of the Union, but it seems like allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapons program is a bit of a high price to pay for it. Barnett is overly influenced by his own core/gap ideas -- he believes that "shrinking the gap" is more important than securing the US. Earlier in the article, he mentions that his rationale for a nuclear Iran vs a nuclear Israel is that mutually-assured destruction really does work. Perhaps, but such are the statements of one who has completely thrown in the towel on nuclear proliferation. Mutually assured destruction was only viable when there were two main power blocs. The world is too complex now for it to have any relevance.
In short, the Iranians would be stupid not to take this deal. They could then renege with no consequences whatsoever. After they've detonated test bomb somewhere in Baluchistan, the plate of US options toward pressuring Iran to do anything will have shrunken dramatically.
As far as the China-Taiwan question goes, Barnett writes thus:
I know, I know, China's still "communist" (like I still have a full head of hair if the lighting's just so), whereas Taiwan is a lonely bastion of democracy in an otherwise . . . uh . . . increasingly democratic Asia. So even though the rest of Asia, including Japan is being rapidly sucked into China's economic undertow (as "running dogs of capitalism" go, China's a greyhound), somehow the sacredness of Taiwan's self-perceived "independence" from China is worth torching the global economy over? Does that strike anybody as slightly nuts?Just what is China's form of government? Certainly it exists within a capitalist society, but Barnett falls far too easily for the claim that capitalism begets democracy -- this is the underlying assumption of his remarks: he feels he can wager the independence of Taiwan now because China will be more democratic, and therefore less threatening in the future. His assumptions are:
1. Capitalism begets democracy.
2. States with integrated economies don't war against each other.
3. Democracies don't war against each other.
But these are not written in stone anywhere . . . they are true up until the moment that one of them is proven false . . . like the idea that 19 men won't fly airplanes into symbols of American power. The only assumption that seems even slightly plausible is that democracies don't war against each other -- but it seems more that they are unlikely to war against each other than that they never will. Barnett's write-off of Taiwan is reckless and shameful, aside from the less debatable point that a Bush administration promising to stand with those who stand for freedom, but which then abandons Taiwan to the Middle Kingdom will have a bit of a credibility problem. Moreover, while he is correct, that Asia is increasingly democratic, how does he then explain an increasingly militant Japan, especially vis a vis China? The Japanese clearly view China as a threat. If China decided one day that Japan was merely a renegade province, should the US scuttle its security agreements with Japan, simply so as not to harm the global economy? More:
My point is this: In a generation's time, China will dominate the global economy just as much as the United States does today (don't worry, we'll be co-dominatrices.) The only way to stop that is to kill this era's version of globalization -- something I worry about those neocons actually being stupid enough to do as part of their fanciful pursuit of global "hegemony."Here yet again, Barnett shows his bias for the global economy and against the security of any given state. Barnett belives no single state should aim for hegemony because of another of his core assumptions: nation-states are doomed and cannot survive economic globalization anyway.
If he's wrong, and the US abandons Taiwan, how emboldened will China be to pursue other strategic aims?
Finally, North Korea. Barnett says,
Kim Jong Il's checked all the boxes: He'll sell or buy any weapons of mass destruction he can get his hands on, he's engaged in bizarre acts of terrorism against South Korea, and he maintains his amazingly cruel regime through the wholesale export of both narcotics and counterfeit American currency.Doesn't Iran also fit each of these criteria: pursuing WMD, terrorism against a regional democracy (Israel, via Hezbollah, by Barnett's own admission above), narcotics, counterfeiting, check and check. Why is it that Iran gets a pass, whereas North Korea gets the rough treatment? The answer is based on all of Barnett's above assumptions, and again, on his bias toward actions which enlarge the global economy, regardless of the results for security of any one state. Iran, he believes, can possess nuclear weapons, open its economy and prosper with the Mullahs still in power. North Korea, being a closed regime, cannot. Therefore, Iran is tolerated and North Korea is threatened with invasion. It is an accepted fact in most military circles that ANY action on the Korean peninsula would be exceptionally bloody. If the US wasn't still worried about the capabilities of the North Korean military, we would not still be there en masse. But again, Barnett's goals largely don't consider the good of one particular state -- the US in this case. Instead, he considers the good of the global economy.
This is his central flaw: Barnett believes that states are doomed to become irrelevant under the onrush of global capital. This is a dangerous presumption and his policy prescriptions are best left gathering dust.
Posted by Chester at February 2, 2005 10:44 PM
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