... TB: I guess I’d call myself a conservative Democrat, or sort of a Tony Blair, Scoop Jackson sort of Democrat. So pretty much a hawk externally, and pretty much a Democrat internally.
... TB: Yeah, pragmatic Wilsonian, kind of an idealist/realist. I hate the binary choices. You know, when I was over in China the first time, they said you’ll never be accepted in America, because in America, they always want you to be either one or the other. And you’re very pragmatic in your short term analysis, but very idealistic in your long term analysis, and that’s a tough balance to maintain.
... HH: ... Now let’s get to the specifics of Chapter 6. The moral imperative of American intervention, we can and we must, because we can and no one else can. Is that a fair summary?
TB: Yes, in the sense that we’re the only military power in the world that can go someplace and be someplace and sustain itself and operate distant from our shores. Nobody even comes close to that. So if we don’t show up, basically nobody shows up. There are a lot of myths out there that other countries can wage war distant from their shores. They cannot. There’s a myth that the U.N. can step in and replace us. It cannot. If we don’t show up, the unspoken power of our leviathan force is, we basically decide when not only we wage war, but if and when other countries wage war. Any war on this planet is basically with our okay, because we’re the one country on the planet that can basically stop it, and that is a tremendous moral power that we wield. It’s an unspoken power. It’s not one we easily address, but when people accuse us of doing nothing in Sudan, and the only reason they can accuse America of something like that is because we’re the only country that if we want to, we can basically stop Sudan.
... HH: And so, when you argue that we are under an obligation to use force when we can in the priorities that you organize here, it’s a moral argument about our not acting in the face of evil
TB: Absolutely. ... We estimate maybe 13 million people have died inside my gap since the end of the Cold War. Much of it could have been prevented. I mean, that’s a couple of holocausts on our watch that we need to care about, because we need to identify our definitions of national security with a global definition of international stability. We had that in the Cold War. It was called mutual assured destruction. Our basic rationale was you attack America, by God, I’ll blow this planet up, okay, and that’s how we threatened the world, and made the world inherently interested not only in our security, but in the planet’s stability. That connection between America’s national security and international stability is gone. Bin Laden kills a million tomorrow inside Chicago, I say quick, name the country we can bomb in retaliation, because if you can’t name that country now, I can’t threaten them in advance. And if I can’t threaten them in advance, I don’t have deterrence, and we’ve lost the link between U.S. security and international stability.
... HH: I want to go back to the comment you just made, 13 million dead since the end of the Cold War, a couple of holocausts on our watch. Are you saying, Dr. Barnett, that because we could have stopped that, we ought to have stopped that?
TB: ... the slippery slope argument that says I can’t save them all, therefore I save none, is not just good enough in this day and age. ... But as events have unfolded and been proven time and time again, where we don’t fix things, we have to go back. And in between our visits, lots of death occurs. So where we have the most egregious instances of violence and civil strife and genocide, where we have any ability to motivate ourselves, and to motivate others into action, I say it’s our responsibility to do something, because to say we can’t do everything is not an excuse for doing nothing.
HH: There’s a second imperative in addition to the moral imperative. ... It’s that there’s a pragmatic, self-interest here. If we take holidays from history, as we did in the 20’s and the 90’s, the costs are too high, not just in dead people around the globe, but here in the United States.
TB: Well, absolutely. And you know, the more positive spin on this is the more we extend our networks, the more we extend globalization, and the transparency that comes with it, the safer we are. There was a famous statement by Catherine the Great that Bob Kagan quotes in his new book, Dangerous Nation, which is a brilliant book. Catherine the Great said of Russia’s borders, I can’t defend them, so I must extend them. And that’s almost the way we need to think about globalization. Our security, the security of our network called the United States, it’s only as good as every other nation to which we connect in this process called globalization. So it’s safer for us to extend our networks to put that kind of instability and danger more distant from our shores, then to firewall ourselves off from it and pretend we can stop things at the border.
HH: Dr. Barnett, you describe the United States as globalization’s bodyguard. Can you expand on that a little bit?
TB: Well, I think we have to understand that basically, we’re globalization’s source code. ...Our model of globalization, transparency, collective security, free trade, free markets, a kind of a leviathan over all of us in the form of the federal government, that’s the role that in effect, we walk into after the Second World War. So we played bodyguard to globalization’s spread around the planet. It doesn’t mean that we’re the ruler. I like to say globalization comes with rules, but not a ruler. ...
HH: Now you posed the question which I’m sure many anti-interventionists are having, are forming as they yell at the radio. Quote from Page 301: “What gives America the right to render judgment of right and wrong, or good versus rogue? If America takes on the worst offenders in order to extend the core’s rule sets, then why not take on all offenders? Why not just admit we run an empire?” Why not, Dr. Barnett?
TB: Well, because an empire is about enforcing maximal rule sets, what you must do. And what we do is we enforce minimal rule sets. That’s the nature of our political system, you know, what’s not written into law is everything you can do. That’s different from other parts of the world.
... You know, the most minimal rule set we’ve pursued throughout our history, and it’s the reason why we had a Navy all these years, is simple freedom of the sea, because in the global economy right up the Second World War, that was basically the only rule you needed. Just keep the seas free, and global commerce can move effectively. But it’s a lot more complex now. I mean, it’s not just sea travel, it’s air travel, it’s networks, it’s all sorts of connectivity that we can barely control, much less understand, and it just behooves us to understand that our role has expanded, and yet we’re not an empire. We don’t seek political control over places. We don’t seek to enforce maximal rules. We seek to keep a level playing field. And others like us in that role. That’s why nobody’s built a force to counter us over the last 17 years, despite all those predictions from realists that it was inevitable.
... HH: Now a key recognition in this chapter, I think it’s profound, actually, is that we need connectivity, because it guarantees our safety, and it is a moral choice that we’ve got to make, but you can’t buy connectivity with enough expenditure of treasure. Some of the world’s bad guys aren’t for sale, or if they are, they won’t stay bought. Now how understood is that…I mean, it’s obvious to me, it seems obvious to you, but I don’t think a lot of people on the center-left buy that, Dr. Barnett.
TB: ... I think it’s a matter of us understanding, increasingly over time, this is a story we have to tell and make clear to people. It’s not as sexy, and it’s not as obvious, and it’s not as binary as the Cold War. It says that when we make this effort, we make good things happen for everybody, and we generally benefit more than the rest, so it’s in our self-interests, it’s in our secure interests to make sure these networks extend, and as connectivity ensues, there’s a moral obligation here to invite those one third of humanity that are noses pressed to the glass…
... TB: ... you could train a 19 year old to do the leviathan war fighting on instinct. We’ve been doing that for about 4,000 years. But to train the sysadmin officer, the paradigm there is more like a 40 year old cop, serious wisdom.
... TB: ... When you realize what Petraeus and Jim Mattis did, coming back to their respective schoolhouses in Leavenworth and Quantico to revamp the entire counterinsurgency doctrine, and come out with this new reality that’s highly reflective of revolutionary war throughout history, saying in effect successful counterinsurgency is 20% kinetic, the shooting part, and 80% non-kinetic, the military recognizing they have to get better at that 80%, but also making it incumbent on us, the rest of U.S. society, the private sector, the rest of the U.S. government, we all have to step up for that 80%. I mean, that declaration of counterinsurgency, that division, 20-80, was a cry for help. That was the Army and the Marines basically saying you know, we can only do about 20% of this. We need help, which is why I argue that sysadmin concept, which I think Petraeus and Mattis and others are trying to build with great effort, and I think we’re seeing it in the combined joint task force Horn of Africa, and I think we’re going to see it in Africa command, which is going to be the future of the fight, and the fight of the future. It’s got to be a more holistic effort on our part. It’s got to be more civilian in uniform, and more private sector than public sector, ultimately.
HH: More next week. Dr. Thomas Barnett, thank you. Part number 7, same time next week on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
End of interview.
