Must connect, urges expert on world affairs

Must connect, urges expert on world affairs

Bush is doing better at making larger rationales

By David Flaum
October 7, 2005

Thomas Barnett draws the world map in blue and red -- not the same as U.S. political divisions but as areas he calls "core" and "gap" depending on how globalized they are.

The core areas -- functional, he calls them -- are mostly around the edges of the world, namely North America, Europe, Russia, China, Australia and Brazil.

The gap areas include the Middle East, most of Africa, Southeast Asia and northwestern South America.

"The connectivity (to the rest of the world) is less," said Barnett, an author, international security consultant and software company executive who was in Memphis Thursday.

"They are likely a problem for the United States. They make up 95 percent of the places we go (militarily) since the Cold War," Barnett told an audience of students at University of Memphis.

On Thursday night, he spoke at a meeting of the Economic Club of Memphis.

"In one third of the world we've been walking the beat 24/7 since 9/11," he said.

But leaders of core nations haven't come up with a way to deal with politically bankrupt states in a way that puts those countries back together successfully after the leader is gone, Barnett said.

"Any country in the gap, we can take down in two or three weeks," he said. "No one plans the transition between war and peace."

That's exactly what has plagued the United States in Iraq, he said.

Barnett outlined his ideas for doing that -- what he called an A to Z rule set for that task.

The process should start in the United Nations Security Council, acting as a grand jury. Pointing fingers is about the most the council is capable of, he said.

Then, world leaders need to pick a functioning executive for the target nation followed by the invasion by a United States-enabled force -- a leviathan, he termed it -- to change the leadership in the country.

Once the military mission is completed the nation needs a systems administrative force and, later, international reconstruction funding. Finally, the fallen leaders should be tried in an international criminal court.

Basically, this was done twice in the Balkans in the 1990s, Barnett said, but the model wasn't followed in Iraq.

Nonetheless, he said, he was impressed with President Bush's speech on the Iraqi situation Thursday.

"He makes the larger rationales much better than he has been doing," Barnett said in an interview, referring to the case for needed political change in Iraq and other countries with oppressive leaders.

But, Barnett said, "He doesn't connect the broader goals to what happens in the next six months. If he successfully pulled off the occupation in the first five or six months, we wouldn't be in this discussion."

-- David Flaum: 529-2330

THOMAS BARNETT

Position: senior managing director, Enterra Solutions, Yardley, Pa., software developer; international security consultant.

Age: 43

Home: Greenwood, Ind.

Education: PhD, Harvard University, 1990.

Family: wife, four children.

Professional experience: Arms control negotiator with former Soviet Union; director of Year 2000 International Security Project for Naval War College; author.

Recent book: The Pentagon's New Map, Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating, due out Oct. 20.