What the War is All About

Many of the people that I've had the pleasure of discussing the Global War on Terror find the purpose of this war difficult to grasp. Part of this is clearly due to President Bush's inability to articulate the necessity of this conflict in words other than a fetishizing of freedom (not that I don't have a fetish for freedom, quite the contrary, I do). But the majority of the confusion that I have encountered to date is the inability of people to understand the deeper strategic dimensions of the current war. Afghanistan made sense: Bin Laden attacked us, Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, therefore, attack Afghanistan. Iraq was a little bit of a stretch, and when combined with the disingenuous false questions and politically-motivated selective memories of the Left, explanations for why we invaded Iraq are nearly pointless.

But, explanations for how Afghanistan and Iraq are related in a strategic sense, and not just in a they're-all-Arabs-so-let's-kill-them-and-let-God-sort-them-out kinda way. That's where Thomas P.M. Barnett, Ph.D. comes in.

In his book, The Pentagon's New Map, Barnett argues that the real goal of the Global War on Terror is, in fact, spreading the benefits of globalization to every corner of the globe, but most importantly, to the most neglected and god-awful armpits-of-the-world and failed states.

A more concise version of his vision can be read here.

Flit(TM) scores a wonderful interview with Dr. Barnett. While I agree with him on a number of his points, I do believe that he is wrong when it comes to Kerry and his foriegn-policy team. While that might be a personal prejudice -- okay, it is a personal prejudice -- the fact remains that having read Barnett's book, and carefully pored over the passages where he takes about World History in a teleological sense, I can't help but conclude that he is, for the most part, left of center. This, however, is an ad hominem attack. The fact remains that Kerry does not care for either globalization or for democracy. He doesn't care for human rights. He has always reserved his praise for dictators and his scorn for democratizers. He, furthermore, has consistently shown an inability to think outside of the Vietnam box. What Barnett advocates could never actually be advanced by a Democrat president or administration, if only because their welfare statist policies and their commitments to enlargening the public sector on behalf of friendly trade unions precludes a serious, internationalist effort. I mean, fercryinoutloud, Kerry wants to renogotiate the WTO and free-trade treaties. That's not only a losing idea, but it runs counter to the predominant theme in Barnett's book -- bringing all of the nations of the world into globalization because the socio-economic flows in globalization are good for people.

Still, what you'll find from Dr. Barnett are some challenging ideas, and ideas that need to be articulated so that this coming century is a century of increasing peace and prosperity, not spiraling violence and poverty.

Comments

[TM Lutas]

Actually, Dr. Barnett does not hide the fact that he is a member of the Democrat party. One of his points has consistently been that his vision will fail if it is partisan, that is, there must be a center-left version of the vision as well as a center-right version of the vision for it to survive the tensions and trials of US domestic political competition. I agree with him in that. We urgently need for the Democrat party to have something of a sane foreign policy and adopting Barnett's strategic vision would set them well on the road to doing it.

[Andrew Schouten]

TM,

I know. I've read the book, and it's a great book. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that the Democratic party is the party of that (or indeed, any) strategic vision. And, while I've heard echoes of Barnett's vision in some of the President's comments, it's hard to say that his administration has signed on to it as well.

I admire Barnett for his liberal, humanitarian values. I admire him even more for linking them to globalization. But, I share the same opinion of one of the comments on your blog: I think that he is overly optimistic about the prospects of a Kerry administration.

They have sounded all of the wrong notes on trade. Trade and foreign direct investment is the way by which globalization improves the lives of people around the world. Kerry and Edwards have espoused a protectionist view of the world that is more damaging that reckless unilateralism.

Nonetheless, I agree with you, a bi-partisan effort must be made to support globalization. But I don't see that effort coming out of the Democratic party for quite some time.

Kerry talks a good game on the multilateralist, shared "rule-sets" angle, but he sends all the wrong signals on free trade. How can he develop a foreign policy to support globalization, even as he fails to express a sufficient enough commitment to the free trade that underwrites it?

[Andrew Schouten]

Oh, and TM:

Good stuff!