Articles written by Thomas P.M. Barnett
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?
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
26 Oct 2009 |
World Politics Review
Most Western corporations cannot eke out that much more profit in
increasingly saturated home markets. Instead they need to consider the
"fortune" of disposable income that's being amassed at lower
socio-economic levels, in both emerging markets and still
underdeveloped economies, thanks to globalization's advance.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
19 Oct 2009 |
World Politics Review
Our nation was blessed to have a generation of reformers rise at the turn of the 20th century to tame our
exceedingly rapacious style of capitalism. Without their efforts and
the resulting new rules, our union would have once again come apart at
the seams. That difficult and tumultuous journey is worth remembering as we contemplate China's stunningly similar trajectory today.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
12 Oct 2009 |
World Politics Review
America awoke last Friday to the stunning news that President Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As with all such awards, more was revealed
about the selectors than the selected. So if the choice of Obama is
inarguably premature, then what signal does the prize send? Simply put, Thank you, America.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
05 Oct 2009 |
World Politics Review
Will humanity be ready for what happens when realizable lifespan jumps from 100 years to 150 in a generation's time? Science fiction
naturally prefers exploring the "no" answer, because therein lies great
drama. But my professional opinion is a lot more optimistic, so long as
we understand the likely sequencing of this planet-shaping trend in
relation to several others also now in the works.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
28 Sep 2009 |
World Politics Review
President Barack Obama's most telling statement at the United Nations last week spoke
volumes about the limits of U.S. power in an interdependent world:
"Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world
cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems
alone." Atlas has put down the heavy globe and has neither the
intention nor the wherewithal to pick it up again.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
21 Sep 2009 |
World Politics Review
The rise of a global middle class that lies primarily outside the West creates substantial investment opportunities in
alternative energies, because electricity demand is the sine qua non of a middle-class
lifestyle. What's most interesting about this generational race to electrification
is that we're running four very different regional experiments, making for a diverse and competitive landscape to try out darn near everything.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
14 Sep 2009 |
World Politics Review
We continue to debate our involvement in Afghanistan as though this is "America's war"
alone, when it is nothing of the sort and never has been, even if its
triggering tragedy -- 9/11 -- is. Despite the widespread interest in the war's outcome, especially
among Afghanistan's many regional neighbors, we conduct our
conversation as if the only interests that matter are those of United
States.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
07 Sep 2009 |
World Politics Review
Pundits like to decry the "have/have not" gap in this world. But
the emergence of a global middle class, demanding protection from the future
and its uncertainty, is the dominant,
system-shaping trend of our age: Yesterday's aspirations
become today's standards become tomorrow's requirements. These people will want a
better
everything, starting with their diet.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
31 Aug 2009 |
World Politics Review
A prime lesson learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has
been that a "whole of government" effort is both required and quite
impossible so long as Defense remains the only department capable of deploying personnel. That's why the State Department's Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization was created: to provide a
bureaucratic center of gravity for stockpiling plans and personnel.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
24 Aug 2009 |
World Politics Review
When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the
blogosphere was ablaze with all sorts of scary predictions of ensuing conflict and wars. Now, as global economic
news brightens and recovery is the talk of the day, it's interesting to look back over
the past year and realize how globalization's first truly worldwide
recession has had virtually no impact whatsoever on the international
security landscape.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
17 Aug 2009 |
World Politics Review
Asia now enjoys -- for the first time in modern history -- the simultaneous rise/strength of China, India, Korea and Japan, and it's obvious that structural imbalances are no longer sustainable. America is far too leveraged financially and militarily, while "rising" China is beginning to regret outsourcing the management of its burgeoning currency and security risk-portfolios to a decidedly erratic and undisciplined Washington.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
10 Aug 2009 |
World Politics Review
Instead of being viewed as an attempt to promote regional stability, U.S. military presence around the world is increasingly seen as "imperial overstretch," or "empire." Despite these critics, the United State's global command scheme in the post-Cold War era is reflective of a new and evolved military presence, and one that has grown more area-specific with time.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
03 Aug 2009 |
World Politics Review
Too much of U.S. aid philosophy today centers on the concept of
sustainability, or the ability to handle continuity, when what America
should be promoting in fragile states is resilience, or the ability to handle disruption and still thrive. Making resilience central to our reconstruction and stabilization efforts will help lock in the broader shifts in emphasis now taking place at both the departments of Defense
and State as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
27 Jul 2009 |
World Politics Review
The recurring theme of "Hard Lessons," the recent report by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, is that of somebody
finally
"taking charge." The description is patently disproven, however, by the sheer volume
of its use to describe the procession of all those who tried to do so. In fact, moving "from crisis to crisis,"
and creating "ad hoc offices and systems" along the way, U.S. officials reinvented the Iraq wheel darn near annually.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
20 Jul 2009 |
World Politics Review
Last week's major policy address by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
was as noteworthy for the strategic concepts she dismissed as for the
ones she embraced. Clinton provided Americans with a strong sense of how she plans to conduct U.S. foreign policy. In doing so, she explicitly rejected the emerging conventional wisdom that portrays a
world inevitably divided into antagonistic poles.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
13 Jul 2009 |
World Politics Review
For those in the West eager to uncover another Tiananmen-like crackdown by Chinese authorities last week in Xinjiang, the true story disappoints, even as it points to a potentially far-more-destabilizing social phenomenon: the emergence of race riots inside allegedly homogenous China. The makings of this unrest should strike us Americans as painfully familiar.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
06 Jul 2009 |
World Politics Review
As a kid, I was subjected to fear-mongering on population growth, which was not only out of control, but certain to lead to widespread conflict. Now, I find myself increasingly assaulted with the opposite "dangers": too few babies, and a rapidly aging world. Somehow the dire predictions have remained the same.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
29 Jun 2009 |
World Politics Review
Back before the Iraq surge, "military operations other than war" were treated as "lesser includeds," filed deep under subsections of big-war plans. Today, by contrast, the U.S. national security establishment is increasingly embracing what I like to call the "greater inclusive" paradigm, which recognizes such operations, not as some rare exception, but as the new rule.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
22 Jun 2009 |
World Politics Review
China's global priorities might not match up that well with those of your average American policymaker. But they do match up quite well with President Obama's agenda. That's the sense I got after spending last week in Shanghai with a bevy
of China's top foreign affairs academics. In short, China worries about how things seem to be coming together, while we worry about how things seem to be falling apart.
