Thomas P.M. Barnett of the

Thomas P.M. Barnett of the US Naval War College, has a very interesting piece in this month's Esquire (a nod to LGFs for the link). On the one hand, Barnett's division of the world into the "Core" and "Gap" makes some sense (although it isn’t wholly unique), his argument about globalization and connectedness is worthy of consideration, and not unlike things Thomas Friedman often argues.

I also agree that the “gap” countries are more likely to be sources of conflict, but I think that he underplays one major issue, and that is that the amount of threat that a given country represents is more an issue of radical Islam, than it is of lack of connectedness. Haiti and Colombia, for example, top his list of trouble spots. I would argue that while Colombia in particular is going to loom larger and larger in US foreign policy, it is not a direct threat to the US the way radicalized Muslim terrorists are. Indeed, radical Saudi Arabians are more of a threat to the US than are members of the FARC. For one thing, the FARC (or their lesser known guerrilla compatriots, the ELN) doesn’t have the capacity to overrtake the Colombian state. The conflict in Colombia is a stalemate: the guerrilla can’t take the state, and the state can’t defeat the guerrillas. Further, the irony with the Colombian situation is that it is the very War on Drugs that we wage that inflates the price of cocaine, that makes fighting profitable. Sans drug money, the FARC whithers.

At any rate, the Barnett piece is worth a read.

Posted by Steven Taylor at March 4, 2025 08:55 PM | TrackBack