Tom Barnett Interview Part 5

Here is part 5 of my interview with Tom Barnett (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). I ask Tom about the bureaucratic battle in determining where security is going. Tom Barnett's recent book is Great Powers (and you can read it on your Kindle).

GP: In the chapter on "Security Realignment" you describe a bureaucratic battle between the big war crowd (air-sea forces) and the small war crowd (ground forces), where historically the big war crowd has received the bulk of the focus and budget, even though we are now decades into a small war reality. However as with any good bureaucratic battle, the decisions on budgeting and such is made at a level or two above these two crowds - how does the battle play out with civilian decision makers, and how do you propose changing the conversation to focus on actual security considerations rather than simply scare tactics?

Thomas Barnett: The battle is playing out quite nicely under Gates, with no outside intervention required by anybody.  He has come down clearly on the side of the small-wars crowd, indicating, as I have long argued, that he simply will not stand for poor support to today's warfighter in the face of inordinate support for tomorrow's over-the-top scenarios (where every service community justifies their big-war numbers on fantastic storylines that see them forced to fight entire wars on their).  Obama has clearly indicated that he does not buy into the "rising China" hype whereby their PLA is somehow our soon-to-be global equal (nor the truly ludicrous notion that Russia is "back" on the basis on that pathetic showing in Georgia), so his political top-cover is tight.  With neither the Iran nor DPRK scenario able to derail Gates' rebalancing, we're getting the entirely sensible argument from SECDEF himself that his budget is--in my vernacular--10 percent pure SysAdmin, 50 percent pure Leviathan, and 40 percent swing or dual-use.

So as far as I'm concerned, this battle is won.  And the longer Gates stays, the better the lock-down, with the next QDR serving as the new gospel.

I wanted to ask Tom this question because I think anyone in infosec can relate to the notion of needing a security realignment, and having to battle bureaucracies and competing priorities to accomplish said realignment. The bottom up decision making criteria that Tom alludes to is one I have a lot of sympathy for. Just because one set of priorities is entrenched in the organization doesn't mean they should guide future decisions. Decide in Latin means "to cut from", so to prioritize one thing you are choosing not to do another. We can't take on new security challenges without reprioritizing our efforts in other areas.