Global Transaction Strategy [author of the Pentagon's New Map #3 at Amazon]

Operation Iraqi Freedom could be a first step toward a larger goal: true globalization.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is on temporary assignment from the Naval War College as the assistant for strategic futures in the Office of Force Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense. Henry H. Gaffney Jr. is a team leader with the Center for Strategic Studies, The CNA Corp., Alexandria, Va.

The Bush administration's response to the terrorist attack of Sept. 11 was both swift (the global war on terrorism) and profound (the Department of Homeland Security). With last year's publication of the National Security Strategy, the White House went even further and described - rather boldly - a global future worth creating. By doing so, the Bush administration embraced the notion recently put forth by many experts: that Washington now stands at a historical "creation point" much like the immediate post-World War II years.

When the United States finally went to war again in the Persian Gulf, it was not about settling old scores or simply enforcing U.N.-mandated disarmament of illegal weapons or a distraction in the war on terror. Instead, the Bush administration's first application of its controversial preemption strategy marked a historical tipping point - the moment when Washington took real ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization.

This is why the public debate about the war has been so important: It has forced Americans to come to terms with what [the authors] believe is the new security paradigm that shapes this age: Disconnectedness defines danger.

Saddam Hussein's outlaw regime was dangerously disconnected from the globalizing world, from its rule sets, its norms, and all the ties that bind countries together in mutually assured dependence. Understanding this distinction is crucial for our understanding of the tasks that lie ahead as the United States not only wages war against global terrorism but also seeks to make globalization truly global.

As globalization deepens and spreads, two groups of states are essentially pitted against one another: one, countries seeking to align themselves internally to the emerging global rule set (e.g., advanced Western democracies, Vladimir Putin's Russia, Asia's emerging economies); the other, countries that refuse such internal realignment - and thus remain largely "disconnected" from globalization - due to either political/cultural rigidity (the Middle East) or continuing abject poverty (most of Central Asia, Africa, and Central America). [The authors] dub the former the "Functioning Core" of globalization and the latter countries the "Non-Integrating Gap."

Although the United States is recognized as both economic and political-military leader of the Core, our foreign policy did not reflect much unity of vision regarding globalization until the Sept. 11 attack triggered the ongoing war on terrorism. Rather, globalization was treated as a largely economic affair that the U.S. government left to private business, with the government promoting the tariff cuts and regulations that support free trade both at home and abroad. The U.S. security community worried about globalization only to the extent that it fostered the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the actions of certain nefarious transnational actors.

The perturbations of the global system triggered by Sept. 11 have done much to highlight both the limits and risks of globalization, as well as this country's current and future role as "system administrator" to this historical process. For example, the vast majority (almost 95 percent) of U.S. military interventions over the past two decades have occurred within the Non-Integrating Gap. That is, we tend to "export" security to precisely those parts of the world that have a hard time coping with globalization or are otherwise not benefiting from it.

Fulfilling this kind of leadership role will require a new understanding on our part as to the Functioning Core's essential transactions with the Gap, which is - unsurprisingly - the source of virtually all the global terrorism we seek to eradicate.

Living large

Although the United States represents only one-twentieth of the global population, its environmental footprint is dramatically larger. This country consumes roughly a quarter of the world's energy while producing approximately a quarter of the pollution and garbage. Economists will point out that we also produce roughly a quarter of the world's wealth, but frankly, a lot of that stays home, while we tend to import our energy and "export" our pollution. Simply put, we live well beyond our environmental means.

Our economic footprint is equally skewed. As our consistently huge trade deficit indicates, we also tend to live well beyond our economic means. Basically, we count on the rest of the world to finance our sovereign debt, which most countries - like Japan - are willing to do because the U.S. government is such a good credit risk, and the dollar is the closest thing there is to a global reserve currency. There is not a whole lot we should complain about in this deal - basically trading pieces of paper for actual goods. Put these two transactions together and it is easy to see why the United States has benefited from the rise of a global economy.

So what has the United States provided the world in return? Clearly we are a leader in technology and cultural exports, but these are fundamentally private-sector transactions that any advanced economy can provide.

The one U.S. public-sector export that has only increased its global market share with time is security. We account for nearly half the global public spending on security, and unlike any other state, we actually can export it to other regions on a substantial and continuous basis. And that is our fundamental transaction with the global economy: We import consumption and export security.

Sharing our surplus of security with the world is what makes us unique. Any advanced industrial state can sell arms, but only the United States can export stability. Yes, it does engender plenty of anger from some quarters, but from far more it elicits real gratitude - and allowance for our "living large."

Beyond containment

During the Cold War, our policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Bloc was one of containment. The Globalization Era presents a different challenge: The Non-Integrating Gap does not just need to be contained, it needs to be shrunk. Doing so will take decades, however, and in the meantime we need to "firewall" off the Core from the Gap's worst exports: terrorism, narcotics, disease, genocide, and other violent disruptions.

The good news is we already have plenty of experience working the Gap - in fact, it has been the major focus of U.S. military crisis response for the past generation. Four key events in the 1970s marked our fundamental shift from Cold War containment to Gap firewall management:

Prior to this quartet of events, the patterns of the U.S. military's permanent forward deployments and crisis responses were largely in sync - clustered in the Cold War foci of Europe and Northeast Asia. But by the early 1980s, we were clearly out of balance. Most of European Command's response activity had shifted to the Eastern Mediterranean, while most of Pacific Command's responses had slid toward the Persian Gulf.

Logically, the United States created the Central Command at that point, signaling the effective shift of our focus from Cold War containment to Gap firewalling. According to the Center for Strategic Studies (css), in the 1980s the Middle East already accounted for just over half of the four services' combined situation response days (9,288 of 16,795, or 55 percent).

Turning to the css' response data since 1990 gives us an even clearer outline of the Non-Integrating Gap. The maps on this page and the next display U.S. military responses in the post-Cold War era (1990-2002). When a line is drawn around roughly 95 percent of those responses (isolating responses involving Taiwan and North Korea in an otherwise stable northeast Asia), it captures those portions of the world that are either losing out to globalization or rejecting much of the content flows connected with its advance.

Looking at this experience, a simple logic emerges: If a country is either losing out to globalization or rejecting much of the content flows associated with its advance, there is a far greater chance that the United States will end up sending forces at some point. Conversely, if a country is largely functioning within globalization, we tend not to have to send our forces there to restore order or eradicate threats.

Flowing globalization

Four major flows must proceed over the next several decades if globalization is to continue its advance and the Gap is to be shrunk. The U.S. government and its allies in the Core must enable and balance all four of these flows, for the disruption of one will damage the others, leaving the global economy and security environment vulnerable to the sort of system perturbations witnessed in connection with Sept. 11.

Flow of people from Gap to Core. According to the United Nations, by 2050 our global population should peak somewhere around 9 billion people and decline thereafter. This will be a huge turning point for humanity in more ways than one. Take graying: By 2050, the global 60-and-over cohort will match the 15-and-under group at roughly 2 billion each. From that point on, the old will progressively outnumber the young on this planet.

In theory, the aging of the global population spells good news regarding humanity's tendency to wage war, either on a local level or state-on-state. Today, the vast bulk of violence lies within the Gap, where, on average, less than 10 percent of the population is over 60 years of age. In contrast, Core states average 10 percent to 25 percent of their population over age 60. Simply put, older societies are associated with lower levels of conflict because these older societies are emerging out of the success of globalization, with prosperity and fewer children per family.

The big hitch is this: Current U.N. projections say that by 2050, the potential support ratio (psr, or people aged 15-to-64 per one person 65-and-older) in the advanced economies will have dropped from 5-to-1 to 2-to-1, while in the least developed regions the psr still will stand at roughly 10-to-1. That means that worker-to-retiree ratios in the Core will plummet just as the retirement burden there skyrockets - unless the Gap's "youth bulges" flow toward the older Core states. Japan will require more than half a million immigrants per year to maintain its current workforce size, while the European Union will need to increase its current immigrant flow roughly fivefold - but both have great difficulty acceding to that need.

In effect, emigration from the Gap to the Core is globalization's release valve. With it, the prosperity of the Core can be maintained and more of the world's people can participate. Without it, overpopulation and under-performing economies in the Gap can lead to explosive situations that spill over to the Core. One hopeful sign of the future: The Philippines has demonstrated that such flows can be achieved on a temporary deployment or "global commuting" basis without resorting to permanent emigration or generating increased xenophobia in host nations.

Flow of security from Core to Gap. For now, the war on terrorism and our long-term commitment to rehabilitate Iraq have superseded previous Bush administration talk about an East Asian security strategy. These continuing interventions underline the reality that the U.S. military remains in the business of working the bloody seam between the Gap and the Core. In the 1990s, that seam ran from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf, but today it also extends into Central Asia, where we have built a number of "temporary" military bases in former Soviet states to support our operations in Afghanistan - with Russian acquiescence - in a remarkable turn of history.

The reality is that the United States will end up exporting security (e.g., bases, naval presence, crisis response activity, military training) into Central and Southwest Asia for some time to come. For the first half of the 21st century, the primary cluster of security threats will lie in these areas - which also happen to be the supply center of the global energy market (we identify them as a cluster because the ultimate resolutions of individual conflict situations there are highly interrelated):

While the United States already is pursuing an ambitious plan to rebuild much of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, there is little doubt among regional experts that the world is really looking at a lengthy rehabilitation period similar to post-World War II Germany or Japan. The United States might well establish permanent military bases in Iraq, moving them from Saudi Arabia to relieve the political situation there.

The Israeli-Palestinian issue is heading toward a Berlin Wall-like separation. It may eventually involve a United States-led demilitarized zone occupation force. Then we simply would have to wait out a couple of generations of Palestinian anger as that society ultimately is bought off through substantial Core economic aid and the Palestinians reduce their family size as they achieve some economic viability.

Saudi Arabia's dramatic slide in per capita income during the past 20 years signals a downward spiral that will trigger radical political reform and/or substantial internal strife. Forestalling this may require a lot more prodding by the United States if institutional reforms are to occur and the Core is to avoid organizing yet another peacekeeping force. The course of events in Iraq will bear strongly on this evolution.

Assuming the United States remains deeply involved in the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, Iran's mullahs will fear Tehran is next and likely step up their anti-Americanism - if that is possible. The United States therefore will continue its long-term containment strategy until the restive Iranian public prevails in its desire to join globalization.

The combination of prosperity stemming from globalization and the export of U.S. surplus military power has taken "great power war" off the table in region after region. As the 21st century begins, such warfare is essentially unthinkable in the Western Hemisphere, in Europe (where nato members and Russia have joined in a common effort), or for that matter anywhere on the high seas. We hope that in a couple of decades, the same combination of efforts - a mix of economic and security cooperation - makes war unthinkable throughout developing Asia. But for the foreseeable future, it is the export of U.S. security into the Islamic regions of Southwest and Central Asia that remains our most serious international security task. We are witnessing the beginning of a long-term integration effort there, one that will ultimately rival our Cold War effort in Europe in its strategic centrality.

Flow of energy from Gap to Core. Sometime in the next 20 years, Asia will replace North America as the global energy market's demand center. That is because U.S. energy demand will increase rather slowly in the coming decades while Asia's will double. Asia has sufficient coal but will import the vast majority of both natural gas and oil as demand skyrockets.

The great source for all that Asian demand will be Central and Southwest Asia plus Russia. A codependent relationship is already in the making: Energy-strapped Asia increasingly depends on political-military stability in the Middle East, while the no-longer cash-rich Middle East increasingly depends on economic growth in Asia. According to Department of Energy projections, by 2020 Asia will buy just under two-thirds of all the oil shipped out of the Persian Gulf, and the Gulf will account for roughly four-fifths of Asia's oil imports.

Disrupt the flow of Middle East oil, and Asia's full integration into the Core is put at risk as its economies falter. India or China could feel the need to play "great power" in the Gulf if the United States drops that ball. That could create an awkward competition among the Core countries, putting us all at the mercy of the Gap's chronic conflicts.

The United States must enable the smooth flow of energy from the Middle East to Asia because the latter is such an important partner in our global transactions. China and Japan are the two greatest sources of our trade deficit, and Japan long has been a leading buyer of our sovereign debt. China's domestic market may become our greatest export opportunity as it opens up under the World Trade Organization's guidelines. India, meanwhile, supplies half the world's software. In the end, it may not be our oil supply but it most certainly will be our prosperity that we protect when we export security to the Middle East.

Flow of investments from Old Core to New Core. Unprecedented flows of foreign direct investment are required for Asia's energy and other infrastructure requirements, approaching $2 trillion by 2020. Asians themselves will shoulder much of the burden, but plenty more long-term money will have to come from private investors in the United States and Europe, which in combination control roughly two-thirds of the annual global flow of approximately $1 trillion. So not only is Asia (the "New Core") dependent on the Gap for energy, but it is also dependent on the "Old Core" countries (the United States, European Union) for the financing. Put these two realities together, and you begin to understand that China's "rising" is far more about integration with the global economy than Beijing seeking some illusory power or hegemony.

The major problems with Asia's energy demands and investment climate are threefold: Asian governments, especially in China, still play far too large a decision-making role, delaying the rise of private-sector markets; national legal systems are still too arbitrary, meaning the rules are not applied equally to all players; and there are still too many chronic security flash points.

Continuing U.S. military presence in Asia helps deter the "vertical scenarios" of war (e.g., China-Taiwan, India-Pakistan, the Koreas), while enabling markets to emerge and tackle the harder, long-term "horizontal scenarios," such as meeting the region's ballooning energy demands while mitigating the already profound environmental costs. So long as markets can deflate buildup of pressure associated with all this development, none of these horizontal scenarios should segue into vertical shocks, i.e., conflicts. In effect, our military forces occupy both a physical and fiscal space in the region, encouraging Asian states to spend less on defense and more on development - the ultimate security.

Transaction Strategy

The "Transaction Strategy" is nothing more than a U.S. national security vision that recognizes the primacy of these four global flows. That means the U.S. government cannot pursue any national policy - such as the war on terrorism, the preemption strategy, missile defense, or exemptions from the International Criminal Court - in such a way as to weaken this fragile, interdependent balancing act across the globe as a whole. Instead, all security initiatives must be framed in such a way as to encourage and strengthen these system-level bonds. We will accomplish this best by being explicit with both friends and foes alike that U.S. national security policy will necessarily differentiate between the role we need to play within the Core's ever-strengthening security community (i.e., more assurance/deterrence-oriented) and the one we must assume whenever we enter the Gap (more dissuasion/preemption-oriented).

If that is the overarching principle of the Transaction Strategy, then its macro rule set on security can be summarized as follows:

Is this a strategy for a Second American Century? Yes and no. Yes, because it acknowledges that the United States is the de facto model for globalization - the first multinational state and economic union. And yes, because it asserts that U.S. leadership is crucial to globalization's advance. But no, in that it reflects the basic principles of "collective goods" theory, meaning the United States should expect to put in the lion's share of the security effort to support globalization's advance because we enjoy its benefits disproportionately - hence this is a practical transaction in its own right.

The author makes a nice summary of information already hashed and rehashed. Perhaps he will make himself into a cottage industry of Beltway-ThinkTanking pundit preaching.</I.

Boy did you miss the point about what he says, what questions he is asking, who he is and what he does. You are not even close.

The author drones on and on about America's export of 'security'. He could have saved everyone alot of time and mentioned the old cliche that America's chief exports are guns and butter.

You see - you missed his point entirely. It is not about selling or giving away guns. It is about having and using the ability to send several hundred thousand troops 1/2 around the world and use them to overthrow a bad political actor. No one else can do that.

the author is obviously disrespectful of the chief distinguishing characteristic of America, freedom. He is also unwilling to connect that distinguishing trait with technological innovation and business prosperity.

Where do you get that notion? I think you are putting words in his mouth.

Very well said, and thank you!

Oh really. I thought it shallow and banal and stuff that we all already know. This wasn't an essay about freedom passed down from our founding fathers. It was an essay to explain the U.S. role in an altered security environment and to explain it in enough detail that decision-makers can think clearly.

Let me try a different tack. Since you seem to find him shallow, silly with a pejorative attitude towards American values, explain to me why military commanders chose to have him teach at the Naval War College, at the National War College and other command and staff colleges. Explain why Rumsfeld would use him as a leader in the transformation of the military.

Andy -- I wish, right now, to admit that I am completely in error. There is no possible way that I have offered any sensible commentary on this thread. I was completely in the wrong in every bit of commentary offered, and I was thoroughly off-base in complimenting any view of any poster on this thread.

Stick with your hero worship, laddiebuck. Good luck to you.

No reply required -- or even desirable. I'll just have to make my own way through all the muddles of life without your valuable help.

Ta-ta.

Mr. Chips, a Latin teacher in Georgia, noticed this about the book and its origin...

"It says By Thomas P.M. Barnett and Henry H. Gaffney Jr. . . . and I think I saw Gaffney on CSPAN the other day in a "debate" with Gary Hart, and Gaffney was brilliant."

I didn't mean to imply that Barnett was not brilliant, I meant to imply that he may simply be a better organizer or presenter than some of the others in his group. One of the reasons to organize into think tanks is so that thinking can be additive.

"What you try to argue ... " -- Me?!! Argue?! Perish the thought.

"The alleged injured co-analyst[s] might have popped off about this academic injustice, were it to have occurred." -- Well, yes, perhaps, but I would not be surprised to find that Dr. Barnett may have heaped lavish praise in his book for the contributions of his comrades.

I would be surprised to discover that his brilliance outshone that of the combined intellect of his companions, but I suppose it is possible.

And I might even be coerced into the admission that an admitted Democrat could be intelligent, but I won't go that far right now.

I saw most of the presentation, and I was duly impressed. I felt as if someone had given my stool a kick, and spun me around to see the actual objects that were casting those confusing shadows into Plato's cave. It really was illuminating.

I think he is probably even smart enough to pick other smart people to hang around with.

And quite possibly he might be the single entity who proves that Military Intelligence is not always an oxymoron.

No, I think you missed the point.

America's success has nothing to do with government policies or individuals such as the author of this summary of old news and facts.

It has everything to do with innovation and prosperity. Those two things rest on the energy, spirit and drive of America's free markets and the individuals that keep those markets on the cutting edge. It has nothing to do with the War College, Rumsfield or the current view that Chiina needs more energy and less centralization, etc.

The War College and its league cannot invent a prosperous society as a means of supplanting a warlike culture. To see this, note that the policies and strategies the author summarizes have existed for decades.

The problem is that the American prosperity model is rejected in cultures that are vertically concentrated. Although injections of economic products and services can help erode this vertical concentration, such injections more often than not must be imposed by force.

So the author has found himself a bone from which he can generate what I described before as generic chit-chat, suitable for filling conference schedules with something that appears somewhat current, i.e. he's a boe.

Yes, I am guilty of authoring a couple of books and a few dozen articles.

They're possibly worth the read, if you happen to trade in a certain fashion. Do as you wish on this, certainly.

Opus? What opus? Who's leaving FR? Not I. I'm merely discontinuing commentary on this thread, conceding that I haven't the faintest clue whereof I speak regarding this and related topics, and geopolitical historical trends in general, and thus leaving the field of discussion entirely open to the agape of AndyJackson for Doctor Who.

Is there some rule here that says that one cannot simply become tired of having his ankles bitten on a given thread? (N.B. ... for the SLOW here (I expect the number of which to be either 2 or 3, btw), that was a rhetorical question.)

I was using the word opus in the sense of a bail-out. In this case from a conversational connection. I was bending its meaning.

But I meant the word classy. (Note Well, It seems to be difficult to pick up Latin these days. It used to be so much easier to do that when Rome was the System Administrator.)

America's success has nothing to do with government policies or individuals such as the author of this summary of old news and facts. It has everything to do with innovation and prosperity.

I am not sure where you think you have a disagreement with the author. Is it that he points out the obviously true fact that increasingly we consume goods produeced outside of the U.S., paid for by debt that is purchased by those countries (evidence is the balance of trade figures and the figures on who buys our debt). He asks a question worthy of answer, which is why do foreign entities buy so much of our debt? His answer is because we provide global security.

Dr. Barnett is voting for Kerry.
2 Torie

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Oh really? It did not sound like it when I heard the presentation last night. For several reasons. First he had nothing but high praise for Rumsfeld's conduct of the war and efforts to transform the Pentagon. Seconde, given his ennunciation of international strategy it would make no sense, whatsover, since, it is the strategy the Bush is following and Kerry would more or less abandon.
4 -Andy Jackson-

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Thanks for posting a great article Andy. -- And torie, thanks for your comical reply.

As to Kerry abandoning our current military strategy, - don't bet on it. -- If elected Kerry will flip his 'opposition' position in a minute. The republocratic regime in charge in DC is commited to the 'Global Cop' tactics as outlined by Barnett.

Kerry/Bush, it makes no real difference; we will play out the hand as dealt.

bumpkin

He isn't the only one. One despairs of folks who cannot accept a good new idea for a good new idea because its proponent claims to support some democrats. This is not old hat, since most of this is about how to understand and think about the US role in the post 9/11 world and what that conotes for force structure. One thing Barnett is not is a socialist.

There is a vast gulf of folks in the middle who balance back and forth between democrat and republican based on which they fear most - the left wing taliban or the right wing taliban. Intelligent, free and open dabate on the directions of our society is crucial and a point of view should not be rejected because someone associates himself with the democrats out of fear of the obvious strain of anti-illectual authoritarianism that infects the republican party.

In fact I have a prediction. The next big political move in the U.S. is going to be one of the principal parties ejecting its radical extreme, and when that happens there will be a seismic event in U.S. politics. It is likely to be the democratic party that does it first, and shortly after this election, just in order to survive. Done right it will instantly create a party in the middle with the authoritarian socialists and the authoritarian right left out in the political cold. If that were to happen it would be a very good thing.

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