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While I found Blueprint for Action a work of staggering genius and naiveté, tdaxp has been making fun of it lately.

Here's episode 1

Here's episode 2

Thomas Barnett is best for making you think in new ways about foreign policy, but following his strategies blindly would be well, like turning over the world to the French...

It is rare that I read something truly original in the realm of foreign policy. Every two months, I get a new Foreign Affairs, where the lefty academics will come out of their ivory towers to tell us the world is America's fault, the right will tell us that we're the biggest nation on earth we should take avantage of it, while others tell us in 20/20 hindsight what we should have done.

Thomas Barnett's first book was truly original, and pure genius. But its his second book I'm reviewing. The second book, while thought provoking, even world-view-realigning, is not the same thing as thought agreeing.

Yes, you read the title of this post right. The book I'm talking about is

Blueprint for Action : A Future Worth Creating

It simultaneously manages to be a work of great genius, and it makes me grit my teeth with his astounding naiveté. This book is a follow up to this previous book:

The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century

a book I've read in airport bookstores but didn't bother to actually purchase (I can read fast, and often have lots of time to kill in PHX).

Barnett's fundamental thesis from the first book is that all of the U.S. military actions have involved what he calls “the Gap”, even during the Cold War, and especially since the end of the Cold War in '89. The Gap is basically all the countries mostly untouched by globalization. Meanwhile, The Core which consists of Europe, and the New Core which consists of countries like China and India.

He's not the first to make this observation, as one wag put it:

No country with a McDonald's ever invaded another country with a McDonald's.

But Barnett ties it all neatly together. I find his arguments very convincing, because they are obviously historically true. We have intervened in more countries since the Cold War then during the Cold War, and most of those countries are the ones most disconnected from the rest of the world.

The interesting thing about Barnett's books is that you'll come to realize this: Everyone is right about our foreign policy to some extent, and wrong to some extent. The neo-cons are right that liberalism is a necessary thing to spread, but wrong about the cost (it will be expensive, messy). The left is right about needing world involvement, but wrong if they think we can keep our head in the sand about dictators and other “bad actors”. The right is right that America has enemies, but wrong if they think that enemy is China; China may be our best ally. The left is wrong about globalization being a bad thing, but right about it causing problems, the right is correct about the spread of liberalization being a good thing, but wrong about the utility of America's military might. I could go on, but the thing about Barnett's books is that his observations are so obviously true that just reading them first hand will shift your foreign policy perspective.

Of course, being right makes Barnett controversial. Lefties think he's a neo-con, neo-cons think he's an internationalist, righties think he's soft on communism. He's not, he's his own beast, which is what makes him interesting.

Additionally, as a Pentagon insider, Barnett gives interesting insight on what this means not just in a foreign policy sense, but in a practical military sense. Barnett argues that we need two military forces: A Leviathan force, which basically excels in killing people; and a SysAdmin force, which can occupy, rebuilt, reconstruct.

Barnett is critical of the administration, but fair as well. He criticizes Rumsfeld for not having enough troops in the occupying force, but also points out that Rumsfeld's work in transforming the Pentagon is exactly what is needed in the modern world and talks about how difficult it is to “move” the Pentagon. I learned from Barnett that the Army purposefully moved all of their “SysAdmin” forces into the reserves after Vietnam: Iraq is the bill we're all paying as a result of that “fuck you” to their civilian leadership.

All very interesting really.

There's a good review of Barnett's first book here.

This review is of Barnett's second book. This book purports to be a blueprint for how Barnett thinks we should accomplish the issues raised in the first book.

After reading his book, Barnett has absolutely convinced me of two things:

1. He's absolutely right about what we need to do. (Genius!)

2. He's absolutely wrong about how we need to do it. (Naiveté)

That is, Barnett has successfully convinced me that we need both a Leviathan and a SysAdmin force in the US military. He has convinced me that yes, the administration has made mistakes in conducting the Iraq war; though not the mistakes everyone thinks. He has also convinced me that we need to make overtures to the new Core (India, China, Brazil) to as he puts it:

Lock in China at Today's Prices

He's convinced me that the Old Core and New Core need to work together to shrink the Gap.

But where I find Barnett hopelessly naive is in his descriptions of how he sees the SysAdmin force working. At this point, Barnett starts to sound like John Kerry. (Though not quite so bad, he points out the UN is useless; that a G8 or G20 organization makes more sense). He argues that somehow, the US would only have to provide 20% of the SysAdmin cost, with the rest being made up by the rest of the world. Now granted, we've had problems for years with NATO with them shortchanging in the high-tech weapons department. Peacekeeping on the other hand is the kind of thing where people are more important then gadgets: I'm sure the Pentagon would trade 2,000 armored Humvees for 2,000 Arabic translators in a heartbeat. We need translators more then we need Humvees. So Turkey, for instance, could provide 2,000 badly needed peacekeeping troops to the US Military, and we could probably use them pretty easily.

But I'm truly skeptical of it actually working, because it never has in the past. Just as his Core/Gap map and Leviathan/SysAdmin metaphors are convincing to me because they obviously true historically, I find his Blueprint unconvincing because they are obviously untrue.

His examples of “successful” intervention by the international community were just awful. Kosovo? We still have troops in Kosovo 10 years later? This is success? They used to export electricity, now they import it?

Even ignoring that, let's say the US does form some sort of international SysAdmin force. Is France going to participate? If France makes up 20% of the force, what happens if they don't feel like joining in? Does that mean that every single country in the G8 has a veto? Even if it is put up to a vote, couldn't a single country pull their soldiers out anyways?

Barnett argues that this just means that the US needs to be better about convincing our allies when interventions are necessary. Uh, excuse me? The only thing that can convince the French of anything is when France itself gets invaded, and then they overreact. Getting unanimous consensus on anything with Europe is impossible. Come to think of it, unanimous consensus on anything is impossible.

So from a military perspective, Thomas' “Blueprint for Action” sounds like a “Blueprint for Inaction” to me. Fundamentally, I think Thomas is missing what I call the “Kosovo Lesson”. For an intervention to be successful, one country in particular will have to take responsibility for it succeeding. Otherwise, it just degenerates into a halfhearted feel-good circle jerk by the G8. “Look everyone, the people are starving, but they aren't killing each other any more”. So if we really want interventions to work, then the US will have to play a dominant role in coalitions of the willing; because nothing else has really worked in the past.

About the only way I could see his SysAdmin force plan working would be if the US started it out as a “disaster relief” force. There are multiple natural disasters every year, and its become the US Military's role to provide relief onsite during those disasters. Perhaps if we started small, where its easy to build consensus (earthquakes are bad), it would be easier to build consensus later (genocides are bad).

Now on the diplomatic front though, I think Barnett nails it. We should have a Pacific Treaty Organization in the same way we have NATO, or rather we should regularly dialogue with the Asian countries and work out some agreements that will bring this “New Core” into the fold. If China is buying oil from Iran, they'll probably have ten times the influence then we will; so if we can get China and Russia to help us suppress the crazy mullahs, that's a good thing. But anticipating that Norway will someday help us stabilize Iran when the mullahocracy collapses? I'm pretty skeptical of Norway doing that.

Now of course, I'm debating his message, which brings me to the moral of this book review. I heartily recommend both this book and especially Barnett's previous book. This is one of the most thought-provoking, and thought-realigning books on foreign policy I've read lately. You won't necessarily agree with it, but it will make you think down some unique paths.

Those unique paths are sadly needed in our foreign policy, we need some new ideas.

Awhile back I got on this kick of trying to read the Bible. It would have been slow going, except for this one book:

Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction

That book was really helpful. I remember reading Genesis. For most lackadaisical Sunday-School Christians (i.e. me), it’s all about how God makes up these weird rules, people break them, and then God gets mad.

Lawrence Boadt’s book put it into perspective for me. At the time the Bible was written, the people in that region believed that there had been a flood, and that the region used to be more fertile. There were competing creation myths that went something like “The gods had a party, got drunk, threw up, and that created the earth.”. Not very inspiring, but if you look at the religions at the time, all the gods were really caricatures of humans. When they say you have to quote the Bible in context, the historical context is important too.

So Genesis tells the same story from the Jewish perspective. The message from the whole story about the snake and the apple is actually:

Pretty much, the bad things that happen to you are your own damn fault, so stop blaming the whims of the gods and clean up your act you lazy, shiftless pervert.

The older I get, the more I see this is true. It may not be immediate, the consequences of something I do, but if you go around being an asshole, eventually bad things start happening to you. So that’s message 1, page 1 in the Bible: Stop blaming other people; your problems are your own.

This of course explains why the Jews have done so well throughout history, they don’t whine, not whining is in their religion. It also explains why the Jews and Christians have been kicking Muslim ass for the last thousand years, for some reason Muslims miss this message. Strangely, they end up blaming the Jews instead, but I digress.

Of course most Sunday School Christians don’t get that message either, because in my experience, most Christians don’t actually know anything about Christianity. The Jews are lucky, they have the Talmud where they write down all their questions about the Bible. Though, I don’t actually really know anything about Judaism, I’m just having fun talking through my hat today.

The other thing that made me more of a believer was reading the New International Version, which is a much better translation then the crappy King James one:

Zondervan NIV Study Bible, Personal Size

I remember reading through to the laws about cleanliness and thinking, “Holy shit, they’re talking about the germ theory of disease! When did this get written again? 1400 BC? And us humans didn’t figure that out until 1870? So that’s 3400 years of people dying because they didn’t read this?”

So my new rule is if there’s something in the Bible I don’t understand (like everything from Revelations except the part about stamping people with barcodes), I give God the benefit of the doubt. I mean, after all, 3400 years ago he said “By the way, its a good idea to wash your hands after touching dead things.” No doubt people argued about that too. So maybe that whole “You really shouldn’t sleep around” thing isn’t so bad.

Though come to think of it, that’s kind of my rule for everything; give people the benefit of the doubt, from Walmart to Kerry. I think about half the problems in the world would go away if people would just ask one another more questions instead of assuming the other person is an idiot.

God knows why I’m blogging about this today. Must be dizzy from all the Weight Watchers dieting.

I don’t really consider a feminist worth listening to unless she’s read the following four books:

Games Mother Never Taught You

This book is the best book on corporate politics ever, and while its written by a feminist for women, its an invaluable guide to corporate politics that all men should read as well. I easily credit this book with probably about 25% of my current salary over the years, and about 50% of every raise I’ve ever gotten.

• If you think raises go to the person who does the best work and is therefore most valuable to the company, you’re wrong, get this book.
• If you don’t know the difference between a “staff” position and a “line” position, get this book.

Bottom line, is that the barriers to advancement for women are often not knowing the rules of the game more then they are actual sexism.

How To Win Friends And Influence People

This book is just a classic. Anyone who takes these principles to heart will succeed no matter what color or sex they are.

You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation Talking from 9 to 5 : Women and Men at Work

Men and Women often just don’t communicate, no matter how hard they try. These two books explain why, and I think its especially valuable where she talks about how that affects women in the work place. If you are a women, and you constantly say “I’m sorry” during a staff meeting, meaning “I’m sorry that happened”, your fellow workers are going to see you as weak and lacking confidence, even the other women. So you’re less likely to get promoted.

Sexual Personae : Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson

Camille Paglia is controversial, but undeservedly so in my opinion. If you ask an art historian about sociology or politics, she’s going to tell you its all about art. In her case, since Camille has drawn some really interesting parallels between art and sex, she’s going to tell you its all about sex. That doesn’t mean she’s right, but its an interesting perspective.

In this case though, this book is a tour de force presentation of how there are two main themes in art: the Apollonian (which she associates with the masculine) and the Chthonian (which she associates with the feminine). Its the most interesting and thought provoking book on art I’ve ever read.