Drum on Barnett
Kevin Drum gets around to reviewing The Pentagon's New Map far quicker than I do. Kudos to him on that. But I think there's a nitpicky quality to Kevin's take.
Kevin concludes the book is more an assertion than a strongly built case about Barnett's view that globalization is the ultimate driver that connects the "Core" and "Gap" nations closer and closer. Sure, Barnett's style of writing lends itself a bit to that charge. I've thrown my own hands up in occassional bouts of frustration with the book in that it is too light where it needs heft and too profound where it lacks depth.
And there is a certain amount of simplicity in Barnett's argument that deserves a fuller treatment. Perhaps the second book will offer that. But Kevin's big beef seems to be in questioning why it is that the good ol U.S. of A. ought to be the ones dictating what is good and what is bad.
In my case, I don't have a problem with Barnett's idea that Gap countries pose a greater danger to America than, say, China ? although apparently this is a tough sell in the military. That takes care of his first 300 pages or so. But the final hundred pages have their own problem: a sense of destiny that goes way beyond mere optimism and turns into something little short of religious faith in America's ability to be right under all circumstances. For example, here is his argument about why America should feel free to intervene in Gap countries whenever we feel like it:What gives America the right to render judgments of right and wrong, or good versus rogue?....What gives America the right is the fact that we are globalization's godfather, its source code, its original model. We restarted globalization after World War II and we have made it largely in our image....This gift of global connectivity generating peace is one we must keep on giving, because to let the process stall is to risk its demise, to possibly lose all for which we have sacrificed so much in the past.This isn't an argument, it's just an assertion, and one that will convince no one aside from Americans who are already believers. Barnett spends a lot of time insisting that we need the support of the rest of the Core in our mission to eliminate the Gap, but there are damn few Core countries that are going to feel comfortable trailing along to clean up after our wars if this is the extent of our justification.
Well, like it or not, but globalization HAS been created in our image to date ... and if we aren't the ones to at least take the responsibility for expanding it as such, then who will? I think Kevin makes it a bit too easy to read into his take a bit of "Blame Americanism" even though I don't think that's his angle. But there has to be a sense (at least among some of us who pontificate on such matters) that there comes a responsibility with being the biggest economic kid on the block. Yes, we may occassionally make a bad call between good and rogue, but the quest for accuracy is one that involves learning from those mistakes, not avoiding them by inaction.
So yes, I do understand where Kevin is coming from when he describes the book as a frustrating read. But in the case of this particular central assertion, I think there's a bit of presumption that goes into it. Yeah, Barnett might have been wiser for making that case. But the presumptions behind those assertions deserve a bit of introspection themselves. That may limit the book's readership, but it doesn't necessarily take away from Barnett's point.
Comments
The problem isnt whether globalization has been created in our image to date (there is no doubt it was). The question is whether we are right to enforce it on other nations simply because we created it and, thus, think it's the right thing to do. Maybe those countries are following their own economic developpement pattern (a third way between globalization and communism)...Are we right when we enforce them another one?
It's all the more difficult to answer this question positively when you think that we (or at least our gouvernemts) only apply globalization whenever we feel like it (see taxes on steel, military contracts as subsidies for the aeronautic industry, etc.)
Posted by: Bill | January 24, 2005 09:12 AM
I'd go farther than Bill. It's not just a matter of whether we should enforce our version of globalization on Barnett's Gap, it's a question of whether we can. That's my real beef with the book. Barnett makes a sweeping case, and that obligates him to answer some of the tough questions associated with his case. But he doesn't.
If America takes on the role he envisions, will it work? That's the big question, and until he really takes that on, I think Barnett's book falls short. That's what I meant when I said it was more assertion than argument.
(BTW, I think you have the "blame America" thing backwards. I'm not blaming America, I'm objecting to Barnett's almost messianic sense of American destiny and rightness. There's a big difference between believing that America is a force for good, which I do, and thinking that America is so righteous that we can do whatever we want whenever we want. That's literally the case Barnett makes.)
Posted by: Kevin Drum | January 24, 2005 10:06 AM
I do not have Barnett's book but does he state where America has successfully pushed globalization in our image against the wishes of the host country?
If we are to reform the Gap, we either need the cooperation of the host country or we will enter a long, bitter war.
The foremost example of this, of course, is Iraq. If the insurgents and their supporters represent only 2% of the country's population, the costs incurred by both Iraq and the U.S. to date has been outrageous.
Posted by: EG | January 24, 2005 11:10 AM
Kevin, I'm not sure Barnett thinks we can do whatever we want, whenever we want. He certainly recognizes the necessity of alliances and getting Core support for our interventions - that whole bit about bond market financing, for example.
Rather, I think Barnett takes it as a given that:
1. The US military can defeat any organized foreign army,
2. Overwhelming military victories, coupled with rapid imposition of security and policing and follow-on peace-keeping and nation-building efforts, can preclude or minimize subsequent insurgencies,
3. Peace-keeping and nation-building missions can be successful, with sufficient troops and effort,
4. The US, with international support, can afford the costs in dollars and blood of those missions.
Are these correct? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. You're right that he doesn't support these assumptions, #2 and #3 being the most important, although #4 may be more on point: maybe we could be more successful if we weren't so short-sighted and cheap.
The US-UN record is certainly unimpressive in the 1990s. Bosnia and Kosovo are still unresolved, we re-invaded Haiti, and we bugged out of Somalia. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq are poster children for success.
So there's an important empirical question here about whether ANY nation building can work, but given the Bushies' incompetence, it may be irrelevant anyway.
Posted by: SIlent E | January 24, 2005 11:45 AM