Articles written by Thomas P.M. Barnett
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
15 Mar 2010 |
World Politics Review
A recent report issued by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs
highlights an enduring but growing "God Gap" between America's conduct of foreign policy and the increasingly religious world beyond the West. The report decries Washington's "uncompromising Western secularism" as a self-imposed
obstacle to engagement of religious actors in
emerging economies and failed states -- and rightfully so.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
08 Mar 2010 |
World Politics Review
Congress' most prominent military vets hail from the
Vietnam era, which has led many to instinctively reject the necessity
and utility of nation-building and counterinsurgency.
Clearly, our lengthy interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan will alter
this generational equation, but how will the experiences of today's
veterans impact their votes in tomorrow's Congress? An Iraq war novel attempts to answer that question.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
01 Mar 2010 |
World Politics Review
The upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections loom large in the political
fortunes of so many players, both internal and external, that it
constitutes a historical referendum of sorts -- not just for Iraq, but
beyond as well. The election's outcome
will leave winners on some fronts, losers on others,
and will trigger plenty of bandwagoning by those worried about being
left out or left behind.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
22 Feb 2010 |
World Politics Review
The list of problems caused by globalization goes on and on. And yet, this is
humankind's best set of problems yet, because within them lie the seeds
of future successes -- but only if we maximize our definitions of "us"
and narrow our definitions of "them." For starters, that means
getting past our current fear-driven agenda and accepting that many of the solutions will be locally derived and not
globally mandated.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
15 Feb 2010 |
World Politics Review
Many of the course corrections President Barack Obama has made in U.S. foreign policy merely extended or expanded upon those made
during the last two years of the Bush administration. But now, in responding to growing populist anger, Obama seems dangerously intent on
re-vectoring what was arguably George W. Bush's smartest and most
sophisticated endeavor: U.S.-China bilateral relations.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
08 Feb 2010 |
World Politics Review
As one of the "last in" on globalization's bandwagon, China has naturally become an aggressive integrator of frontier economies. Nowhere is this expansion more apparent, and controversial, than in sub-Saharan Africa, where Chinese foreign
direct investment and trade have increased several-fold in the past
half-decade. That has triggered rising strategic interest in a region long-ignored by the West.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
01 Feb 2010 |
World Politics Review
If the 2008 Olympics were China's big coming-out party, and 2009 the
year that Beijing merely managed to save global capitalism with its
rapid -- and accurate -- stimulus package, then one might assume 2010
holds even better things in store for the People's Republic. But China's "golden moment" is slipping away, and fast. In short, time is most definitely on our side.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
25 Jan 2010 |
World Politics Review
It's taken as gospel by most pundits today that we live in an increasingly dangerous, deadly and unstable world. In retrospect, the Cold War has even taken on a nostalgic hue, reminding us of simpler, more manageable times. This creed is a complete lie, unforgivably peddled by fear-mongering "experts" as a way to justify their mindless schemes.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
18 Jan 2010 |
World Politics Review
We are heading toward a world in which pharmaceutically enhanced living will be the norm
throughout life,
and not just among the chronically impaired and the elderly. While there's plenty of upside potential here, one significant
challenge will be developing and enforcing a complex set of rules
regarding
who can do
what while using
which drugs.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
11 Jan 2010 |
World Politics Review
Thanks to the recent global financial crisis, we've heard much talk
about the coming "de-globalization." Increasingly, deals no longer seem to suffice: Direct ownership is now desired. That may appear to signal de-globalization, but if it
suggests anything, it is actually a deepening of connectivity -- dashed
horizontal lines replaced by solid vertical ones.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
04 Jan 2010 |
World Politics Review
Pundits across America seem committed to the notion that our
just-concluded decade deserves the moniker "worst ever," with the
formulations ranging from Time's demonic "decade from hell" to Paul
Krugman's self-flagellating "Big Zero." But if Krugman could call it "a
decade in which nothing good happened," much of the planet might find
our myopic bitterness a bit much.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
21 Dec 2009 |
World Politics Review
If you thought the neocons were gone, better think again. Charles Krauthammer & Co. see no reason to surrender America's dominance to the Chinese simply because Beijing holds the pink
slip on our national economy. And their mindset still
animates most of what the GOP offers in opposition to President Barack
Obama's magical apology tour.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
14 Dec 2009 |
World Politics Review
A funny thing happened on the way to China's presumed domination of the
world's natural resources: It ran into the same core problem that
America suffers -- namely, skyrocketing health care costs combined with
too many citizens lacking access. In fact, health
care reform stands at the center of both nations' efforts to address
the "rebalancing" challenge revealed by last year's global financial
panic.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
07 Dec 2009 |
World Politics Review
Defense hawks are accusing Democrats of an ulterior motive in addressing health care
in America: a longterm plot to curtail defense
spending. This charge is at once hypocritical and
correct, but not for the dark reasons ascribed to the Obama
administration. Instead, the Democrats' implied plot to rebalance domestic versus foreign spending merely responds to inescapable realities.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
30 Nov 2009 |
World Politics Review
"Rebalancing" has been the watchword of President Barack Obama's
foreign policy, and soon enough it will be applied to the international security burden among the
world's great powers. One number explains why: It costs the U.S. $1 million a year to keep a
soldier inside a theater of operations such as Afghanistan. With that as a bottom line, we must turn eastward and southward for future key allies.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
24 Nov 2009 |
World Politics Review
AUSTIN, Texas -- Official
representatives from the Tejas Confederation, the Northern Alliance of
Mexican States, and the U.S. government signed a comprehensive
treaty that will immediately "re-admit" the Tejas states
to the American union, and submit to Congress formal pleas for new
statehood on behalf of Baja
California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
23 Nov 2009 |
World Politics Review
The world today is experiencing an "awakening" of religious fervor, one triggered by globalization's rapid expansion around the planet over the past three decades. As the fear of assimilation takes hold in the global middle class, everybody wants to know, Who's running the show, and to what end? But when it comes to explaining the teleology of globalization,
religions face significant secular competition.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
16 Nov 2009 |
World Politics Review
By prioritizing economics above terrorism and climate change, President Barack Obama has begun to reorient America's grand strategy impulse back to its Rooseveltian roots. The one area where Obama has failed to maintain his pragmatic centrism is on the subject of nuclear weapons, arguably America's most successful 20th-century technological achievement.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
09 Nov 2009 |
World Politics Review
For roughly four decades, a clear foreign policy rule set has existed between the U.S. and Latin America: U.S. foreign aid in exchange for
aggressive efforts to curb illegal narcotics. By virtually all accounts, the strategy has been a massive failure. Now the old deal is off. New rules are on the way, whether we like it or not.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
02 Nov 2009 |
World Politics Review
Is the privatization of American development aid a case of the U.S. "outsourcing" sovereign functions, or of weak and failed states
insourcing them? The question is not simply one of semantics but of directional
causality: Is this stunning evolution the
result of a supply-push on the part of the U.S. government or a
demand-pull on the part of developing economies and failed states?
