Tom Barnett Interview

For my money, Tom Barnett is the most interesting thinker on security because he approaches security in a mutli-track synthetic way that combines technology, globalization, and economics. Too often people get locked into binary "secure vs insecure" thinking, when in reality the technology, globalization and economics drivers factor into security in the real world. Note that Ross Anderson in his second edition of Security Engineering picked up on the theme of incentives in addition to our standard - policy, mechanism and assurance. Incentives obviously taken from economics.

Barnett's work avoids the binary "secure vs insecure" trap, combines the above factors with a perspective on where this is all leading. His first book Pentagon's New Map was breakthrough material which showed among other things how security models differ in the "core and the gap", you can watch  video briefs here. Barnett's latest book which I highly recommend you read is Great Powers (and you can read it on your Kindle). 

I had a number of questions for Tom on his work which he answered via email, and I will spool these out over the next couple of days as his answers come in.

GP: One of the themes, I found compelling about "Great Powers" was the historical parallels you draw between early America and developing countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China - you wrote: 

"In this world we find  no strangers, just younger versions of ourselves, who are prone to  all the same sins and manias we once suffered even as they teach us  magnificent news ways to improve our lives and secure our tightly shared future. We must neither fear nor dismiss them , but encourage their pursuit of happiness, and in doing so, , we'll find their main goal is one very familiar to us - the attainment of a middle class existence."

It seems that the emerging middle class is the main factor that separates the developing countries' past and future, they always had some very rich people and many very poor people, but now depending on how you measure it, India's middle class is 200 million people. What trends should we watch as the global middle class emerges? What milestones will mark key events along the progression?

Thomas Barnett: The one of greatest interest is when per capita income gets in the range of $5,000 per year.  Somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 is where you see previously authoritarian, single-party-dominated states move into the process of increasingly pluralism, typically started when a reformist faction breaks off from, and begins to challenge, the dominant party.Obviously, India is already blessed in that regard, so China is the one to watch there.  Until China reaches such a level of development, all talk about authoritarian capitalism being superior to democratic capitalism is historically premature.  Authoritarian regimes do well with extensive growth (simply adding in more resources) but then tap out when it comes to shifting into innovation-based, intensive growth.

More generally, the rise of a global middle class raises the big question of the "direction" of rule:  as in, is it from the Left (radical rule from below designed to prevent the rise of the bourgeosie--akin to Bolshevism) or from the Right (authoritarian rule from above designed to protect the bourgeosie from the radical Left--akin to fascism) or from the middle (American-style republicanism or representative rule)?  When industrialization brought about a middle class in the West across the latter decades of the 19th century, Europe came up two extreme answers and America, thanks to its Progressive Era, came up with a moderating one.  But remember, our Progressive Era was preceded by an angry and unstable Populist Era (1870s and 1880s) which featured many of the same dynamics inside America that we now see inside the BRIC--both good and bad.  So it will not be a dull journey for them.

The key for the United States is to remember that it is natural for these rising powers to develop strategic visions for how they should interact with the world as great powers, along with the capabilities and willingness to use those capabilities, meaning we should not be surprised--indeed we should welcome--their natural desires to rebrand their militaries as forces for "international stability" in a manner that protects and advances their economic interests.

Why should we welcome these developments?  We are experiencing an age of frontier integration all over the world in terms of globalization's rapid advance. Integrating frontiers is manpower-intensive, as America has discovered in this persistent struggle against violent extremism.  All of our traditional allies are demographically moribund and are shrinking their militaries.  In general (and Russia is  big exception here), rising great powers tend to feature strong demographics and rising defense budgets.  So if America wants to see--to the logical conclusion--its grand strategy of extending an international liberal trade order (now known as globalization), it will need to shift its alliance dependencies away from the West and toward the rising East and South.

Average annual income is an interesting indicator, China is at around $6,000/year, Turkey is about $12,000, and Indonesia $3,900. Cambodia (where the annual income is about $2,000/year) is set to get its first stock exchange before the end of this year.

Part 2 of the interview will be tomorrow. 

Comments

[Roland Dobbins]

I've met and corresponded by Dr. Barnett, and while I like him personally, I find his policy prescriptions appalling.

He's an unrepentant advocate of empire who's also a major supporer of and apologist for the tyrannical Chinese Communist regime in Beijing. He contemptuously brushes aside concerns about human rights, political rights, freedom of expression, et. al. as mere distractions in his crusade to bring about a strategic grand alliance between the U.S. and China - an alliance which perforce would end up with China as the dominant partner, and ultimately the arbiter of geopolitics worldwide.

I believe he's fundamentally misguided and plain wrong about what's best for both the Chinese and the U.S., and also believe that because there's no party in the U.S. government/military offering a competing strategic vision, that he has undue influence over a substantial segment of the young officer class and defense-oriented policy apparat.

I like him, but I think he's plain wrong.

[Gunnar Peterson]

I don't see any brushing aside of human rights, I see a recognition of massive changes in the last 30 years. There is still work to do in China, as there is in the developed world btw, but given the amount of change in such a small amount of time I am not sure its fair to only focus on the things that are still undone without giving credit to the good work that's been done.

As for the alliance, why is this bad? the old saying that borders that are not crossed by trade are crossed by armies...

[Roland Dobbins]

Because the Chinese aren't interested in an 'alliance' - for them, it's a zero-sum game of world geopolitical/cultural domination.

Having spent a deal of time in Asia and in China, I don't see a lot of good work that's been done. I see slave-labor factories churning out goods for the West, but I don't consider that to be 'good'.

[Gunnar]

wrt zero sum game - I disagree, and anyhow its pure speculation that runs counter to a lot of Chinese history.

wrt factories, I don't think anyone believes early stage capitalism is pretty. My ancestors lived 8 to a room and worked 7 days a week in a shoe factory. Future generations lived better.

[Roland Dobbins]

On the contrary, it's *precisely* in line with Chinese history and their worldview, expressed over the millenia. There are Han, and there are barbarians who're to be exploited, and nothing in between.

[Ken Hoop]

I'll tell you why the alliance is bad, Peterson. The New York/Hollywood/Washington axis of International Capitalism corrupts the world with least common denominator gangsta-rappin trash, charitably put. China would do well to play this monster for everything it can get while allying in the long term with Russia which in turn should push the monster out of Europe exactly as portrayed by Alexander Dubin, a real conservative.

[Ken Hoop]

sorry for the typo. Alexander Dugin.

[zenpundit]

"He's an unrepentant advocate of empire who's also a major supporer [sic] of and apologist for the tyrannical Chinese Communist regime in Beijing"

No and no. I've been following Tom for quite a while and he last thing he is arguing for is an "American empire". Secondly, Barnett actually has argued that China will get old before it becomes great because it is locked into a demographic fall-off from the one-child policy.

[Ken Hoop]

Anyone who doesn't take something of a Ron Paul or Andrew Bacevich stance on foreign policy-or Chalmers Johnson on the Left, is an advocate of Empire.

[Account Deleted]

"wrt factories, I don't think anyone believes early stage capitalism is pretty. My ancestors lived 8 to a room and worked 7 days a week in a shoe factory. Future generations lived better."

My only concern is that timescales are now different than what they were. We don't have a hundred years to get China up to speed, as it were.

Tom's vision is important for anyone wanting to understand what is happening in the world -- he's not an advocate for empire -- but there is still the great gaping hole in his theory [1] which Roland Dobbins may have (or not) intuitively hit upon without being able to isolate it or otherwise avoid the US vs Them style of strategy. The "rights" issues etc. will continue to perturb the world, and even domestic China, and may throw the Barnettian plan out of whack here and there. Given enough time, these things may work out well enough without being directly addressed.

None of this is to dismiss what Tom writes, because what he writes is very good. But there seems to be a certain some-something missing from it.

[1] http://www.dreaming5gw.com/2007/06/on_the_barnettian_5gw.php