The Pentagon's New Map

by Thomas P. M. Barnett

  Several hundred thousand citizens of Mumbai lined the harbor to witness the review, but in a typical Indian mob scene, tens of thousands more were kept out of the harbor district by police barricades, so as to avoid complete gridlock. So those who could not get to the harbor came en masse to the area around the naval base where the presidential yacht debarked, lining the street along which the official cars would pass as we exited the naval compound. My car, adorned with American flags on the hood, along with a sign on the side describing me in my entire titular splendor, followed that of a British naval expert in the exiting parade of limos. When the crowd saw the British flag flapping smartly in the breeze, a nice cheer rose. But when they spotted the American flag, the cheer turned into a frenzy as people jumped up and waved their arms ecstatically, shouting at the top of their lungs.

  At first, I was simply too stunned to do anything but stare out the window. Of course, it had nothing to do with me. A trained monkey in the backseat would have gotten the same response. This was the biggest party in Mumbai’s history, and average citizens were simply thrilled that America decided to show up. So after about a minute of watching the rolling wave of cheering Indians, my handler, a young Indian Navy commander, leaned over in the backseat and showed me how to wave my hand like I was the Queen of England. There I was with this asinine smile frozen on my face, rotating my right arm at the elbow to achieve that wonderfully robotic wave of my hand. This went on for several more minutes as we picked up speed along the avenue. When we were finally past the crowds, my cheeks actually ached.

  That was fun, but later that night I got to do something a bit more serious. At a cocktail party, the conversation became heated as the subject of Kashmir arose. Kashmir is the disputed region lying between India and Pakistan, and the two states have been fighting sporadically along this border for decades, the last true war occurring in 1971. More than a few separatist groups operating out of the Pakistani side of the border have been waging a very bloody terrorist campaign against Indian control over the territory, and Pakistan’s tendency to grant these groups free rein within its borders—in some instances supporting them tacitly—is a subject of great controversy and potential war between the two governments. America cares greatly about this situation, because both sides possess nuclear weapons in enough abundance to kill millions on each side if it ever really came to war again.

  Before I went to India I received some advice from my local intelligence unit: stuff I might look out for, questions I might ask, and good answers I might provide to tough questions from foreign officials. A basic primer on how to behave in conversation.

  So when Pakistan was raised as a security issue for South Asia, a lot of pointing fingers came flying out from my Indian hosts and most of them found their way to my chest. The basic message was loud and clear: “You Americans have no real sense of how dangerous the Pakis are. But someday, when the right trolley car comes rolling down the track, we’re going to jump on that car and show you truly how bad these people are! We only hope you have the sense to support the right side when it finally happens.”

  My reply was the same one I’ve been giving for years to both Pakistanis and Indians: “No one on our side wants to see this war, and if you think America is automatically going to jump in on your side and back your military, then you’re wrong. All we’re going to do is try our best to shut down the conflict as quickly as possible, then we’re going to send in the relief workers, diplomats, and radiation experts to sort it all out.” In my opinion, any nuclear exchange would be a horrific outcome for both sides, but worse for India because it would kill much of its connectivity to the global economy, whereas Pakistan—a truly disconnected state—would lose far less in the end.

  My message was my own personal variant of what the U.S. Government has been telling India quietly for years. Those sorts of messages are an important component of both diplomacy and what I call the exporting of security; they just make clear to our friends what we believe are the essential security rule sets. By making those rule sets clear, in countless exchanges between our nation and India, we draw a little closer to them and they draw a little closer to us.

  Does that export stream actually work? In the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan was in a world of trouble with the United States, because we knew al Qaeda was operating all over Pakistan’s northern sections bordering Afghanistan.

  America had no choice but to get back in bed militarily with Pakistan following 9/11 and our invasion of Afghanistan, but we also escalated our military-to-military cooperation with India, so both sides were feeling they had a big friend in the United States. Then Kashmiri separatists bombed the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13 of that same year, and that’s when things got very scary, very fast. India massed about a million troops on the border with Pakistan, both sides feinting that maybe—just maybe—this time they would light it up for good.

  Why didn’t it happen? Thomas Friedman of the New York Times argues that India’s great connectivity with the global economy made them think twice about the economic fallout of such a disastrous event, and I think he’s absolutely right.◈ But it was also clear that both sides did have someone in their corner who had immediate access to all the key security players and was able to mediate a peaceful outcome, working largely behind the scenes. That someone was the U.S. Government in the form of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, with an assist from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. These two officials conducted important exchanges with leaders on both sides, emphasizing the continuing commitment of U.S. security assistance to each, and—by doing so—helping both governments move beyond the moment of insecurity.◈

  That’s what exporting security allows America to do: we can step into virtually any tense security situation around the world and act as an honest broker, even when circumstances force us into the role of rule-set enforcer. The key thing that provides the United States access in any crisis situation is that our security product is a known commodity. Whenever you’re watching the TV news and the journalist is interviewing some ordinary citizen trapped in some Gap war zone, you will hear this again and again: “Why doesn’t America come in and do something about this?” We heard it from the Bosnians, the Kosovars, and the Macedonians in disintegrating Yugoslavia over the nineties. Today you hear it from Palestinians, West Africans, Colombians, and Indonesians—to name just a few. If you listen closely enough, you’ll hear it at some point from basically everyone in the Gap.

  Again, let’s look at some historical numbers to get a better sense of what I am describing here. As noted earlier, U.S. crisis-response activity has increased dramatically since the end of the Cold War, suggesting that the global demand for our security exports has likewise risen significantly. If we count up the number of days each of the four services logged in responding to these security situations, we basically tally the “billable days” for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps (but not the supersecret Special Operations Forces) in their exporting of security. I generated this data as a consultant to CNA, and I believe it accurately captures the stress factor many military leaders cite regarding the increased tempo of U.S. crisis-response activities in the 1990s. Simply put, many in the Pentagon have long—and rightfully—complained that the U.S. military was being stretched too hard by the rise in overseas activity across the decade, and these data capture that complaint better than any others I have come across.

  When we add up the crisis-response days (meaning all nonroutine operational days) for the four services in the 1970s, we come up with 10,415 total days—not including the ongoing war in Vietnam that effectively ended in 1973. In the 1980s, that total rises to 17,382 days, or an increase of 66 percent. That plus-up was hard, but not impossible, to accommodate. But look what happens when the Soviets go away in 1989: the total jumps fourfold, to 66,930 days.◈ What was the real global demand for our services? I think it is fair to say far above 100,000, but 66,000 was what we chose to provide.

  How did that
grand total break down across the nineties? About 10,000 of those days refer to the usual “cats and dogs” we deal with across the world: a coup d’état here and a show of force there. But almost all of the increase we track from that baseline total of the 1970s represented America choosing to export security specifically to situations we deemed most important, either because they involved the global economy (Iraq in the Persian Gulf) or key allies (Israel in the Middle East, NATO with regard to the Balkans), or because the suffering displayed simply moved us to do something about it (Haiti, Somalia, and—to a certain extent—Bosnia). Were there other places we could have exported security across the nineties? Central Africa certainly comes to mind, as does Colombia. But like any global consulting force, the U.S. military can handle only so many clients at a time. The question is, Did we choose wisely?

  That question is worth asking because U.S. security is the only public-sector export from the Core to the Gap that matters in the age of globalization.

  When I speak of exporting security, I am not talking about arms transfers or the number of cruise missiles fired. I am talking about the time and attention the United States spends on any region’s ongoing or potential security problems. Does that export of security make a difference? I believe it does. America has spent the last quarter-century quietly exporting security throughout East Asia, and we have better bilateral security relationships with states in that region than states there have with one another. That is an amazing accomplishment that has allowed governments there to focus less on a military hedge against the dangerous outside world and more on economic development. Japan was our first great success story in this regard, then South Korea. Once we got past the “domino theory” and Vietnam, you can thank the U.S. military—in no small measure—for giving the other Asian Tigers the confidence to focus on their economic development as China focused on its own. That’s the fundamental goal of U.S. security exports: filling both a physical and fiscal space in the region. We are the cop on the beat, making sure nobody feels too threatened by anyone else, and so their government budgets are put to better use than arms races.

  What did we get in return? The Asian miracle and China’s rise as a manufacturing superpower are not a bad return on our investment. Let’s not forget that Asia played a significant role in our economic expansion of the past decade. In the Core, nobody does anything by themselves. Increasingly, we rise and fall in tandem.

  But where America’s security exports have been hesitant, intermittent, or nonexistent, there you will find most of the violence in the world today: the Gap.

  Does this mean we need to invade a country to integrate it into the Core? In many ways, just the opposite is true. Of the thirty-seven major conflicts spread around the world in the 1990s, thirty-four occurred in countries with annual per capita GDP totals of less than $2,936.◈ So it is basically the case that when a country rises above that $3,000 mark, they seem to get out of the mass violence business. How do you get them above that line? Official developmental aid is a nice start, but it is mostly a Band-Aid to help stop the worst hemorrhaging, which invariably involves ongoing internal conflicts. Foreign direct investment is what moves you above that line, but FDI does not flow into war zones, because it is essentially a coward—all money is. So if you want to get those Gap countries above that line, you focus on those bad actors that account for the bulk of the insecurity in any country or region. Once that source of insecurity is removed and stable connectivity is achieved, corporations are always looking to move in and take advantage of cheap labor. But by and large, they will not enter states in which rebels are trying to break off a big chunk of the country—unless we are talking oil or precious metals.

  Are U.S. security exports necessary to shrink the Gap? Absolutely. Are they sufficient? Absolutely not. To employ a medical analogy, we must never confuse emergency response with long-term rehabilitation.

  As we wage this war on global terrorism, we really wage a war on disconnectedness, because it is the limited connectivity between Core and Gap that must be preserved and expanded for the latter to be progressively integrated into the former. Globalization must be kept in balance throughout this process, meaning certain crucial flows must be maintained. This chapter has outlined what I believe are four essential flows. Let me review each in turn.

  First, people will have to flow from the Gap to the Core. As the Core ages and youth bulges across the Gap, we must let that high water move naturally to the lower ground. The temptation to firewall off the Core from many Gap flows will be intense in coming years, and especially in the realm of human migrations. The Core will toy with immigration restrictions to keep them out. We will tinker with student and worker visa programs, fingerprinting some but not others, and—in doing so—send none-too-subtle signals that America is no longer the friendly place it once was. A certain amount of this rule-set tightening is both inevitable and good, but it is also very dangerous, because it will suggest a wall is rising between the Core and Gap, and nothing will diminish expectations of a better life faster throughout the Gap than this harmful perception.

  Second, energy will have to flow from the Gap to the Core, but especially to the New Core in Developing Asia, where energy growth will be most dramatic. The integration of that half of the world’s humanity into the Core is the greatest ongoing achievement of Globalization III. To surrender that achievement is to erase most of the connectivity developed since the end of the Cold War; it is to give away our peace dividend.

  Third, for that energy to flow, security must be achieved in the Middle East and Central Asia, and that means security must flow from the Core to the Gap, but most specifically from the United States—the world’s sole military superpower. For that flow to be effective over the long run, the Core as a whole must become deeply invested in the process. Here is where our collective—and not just the Pentagon’s—visioneering has failed us: we have yet to enunciate both the future worth creating and the realistic pathways toward achievement. I have little doubt that pathway begins in the Persian Gulf, but it must travel elsewhere—not just along the “Arc of Instability” but throughout the Gap—before globalization will achieve any lasting sense of balance.

  Finally, investment has to keep flowing from the Old Core to the New Core. Europe, the United States, and Japan need to keep financing the progressive integration of South Korea, China, India, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile—to name the most crucial economies. Historically, the global economy has expanded when there was excess money in the system, meaning investors were desperate for good returns and willing to take more risks to achieve them.◈ The Old Core puts money on the table in direct correlation to how positively it feels about the future. If Wall Street, for example, sees a future worth creating, they will finance it. But if they see dangers ahead, even if they be of America’s own doing, the money will come off the table and globalization’s advance will be starved for funds.

  Of that New Core group, China is the most worrisome, while India is the most promising.

  China is most worrisome because the hardest rule set still needs to be changed—the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party. The Party is leveraging its authority to the hilt, promising the emerging middle class all manner of new legal rule sets if only they will resist challenging that rule. The Party is also bribing the military with enough funds and—more important—just enough rhetoric about Taiwan’s “return” to keep the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) happily dreaming up its own war games of future conflict with the United States, in turn, emboldening strategists on our end to continue their desperate search for an enemy worth creating.◈ The final card the Party can play in this dangerous balancing act is, of course, nationalism. It redirects the energy of the emerging middle class outward, away from needed political change and toward an external enemy, while simultaneously securing the PLA’s obedient submission. But the rule-set fallout from a United States-China conflict over Taiwan would be enormous for globalization, effe
ctively barring Beijing from stable Core membership for the foreseeable future.

  India, as UN diplomat Shashi Tharoor argues, is probably “the most important country for the future of the world.”◈ If globalization succeeds in the United States or the European Union, no one will be too surprised. After all, globalization demands less change of these countries than it does of the world around them. And if globalization fails in China or Russia, few will be surprised, for it requires much change from both societies—perhaps too much too quickly. But whether globalization succeeds in India should interest just about everyone, for if it succeeds in a democratic society where half the population is impoverished and one-quarter is Muslim, then it can succeed just about anywhere. Conversely, if it cannot succeed in a free-market economy featuring the world’s largest pool of information technology workers, then there is little hope for the Gap.

  These four flows (people, energy, investments, security) are all crucial not merely to preserving the Core but to shrinking the Gap. Right now we are living through a period of intense rule-set change—a catch-up period. We are backfilling political rule sets to realign them with economic rule sets that had leaped ahead. The same is true for security rule sets in relation to the growing role of information technology in defining the connectivity associated with globalization’s advance. In the United States, this rule-set reset has already been framed by two very controversial but compelling new packages: Congress’s USA Patriot Act of 2002, and the White House’s National Security Strategy of that same year. In the former, sweeping new antiterrorism laws were put in place, and in the latter President Bush formalized the previously announced option of “preemption” as the preeminent military strategy in conducting the global war on terrorism.