Hypocrisy and Terror in the Twenty-First Century

The Pentagon’s New Map:

Thomas P.M. Barnett’s The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century promises to give us an innovative vision of the current world order, the problems faced by the Pentagon, and the path to a bright future. Unfortunately, his ideas reveal themselves as mere reformulations of old biases, repackaged with new terms and lots of “end-of-history” rhetoric to distract the reader. His definitions suffer from the same confusion of purpose and misidentification of problems that the Bush Administration has so stubbornly clung to in the past seven years, and his solutions bear little evidence of innovation and follow rather haphazardly from his theory. He starts with the commendable identification of inequality and poverty as the basic problems that plague our world and foster the kind of frustration and hopelessness that breeds terrorists. After articulating his basic goals, though, his arguments become muddled and illogical, and lead him to the conclusion that the U.S. military is the instrument that will bring peace and development to the world’s poorest areas, and that the invasion of Iraq is the model we should follow. It goes without saying that in light of the events that have unfolded in Iraq, this solution is clearly flawed. In the end, Barnett reflects the same arrogance, cultural ignorance, and hypocritical exhortations that characterize the Bush Administration’s failures in the international scene today.

Barnett very appropriately opens his book with an explanation of the attitudes from the Cold War which have misguided our security policies into the twenty-first century. He claims that the United States adopted an isolationist tendency in the ’80s and ’90s, believing that “America’s status as the world’s sole superpower was something to preserve, not something to exploit, and because the future was unknowable, they assumed we needed to hedge against all possibilities, all threats, all futures” (1). Super-power rivalry continued to inform the mindset of the Pentagon, who watched keenly for the next rising threat, what he calls “the Big One.” This led to a preoccupation with “rising China” during the ’90s, which underlay all of the strategic planning and military development proposed (113). The administration then found itself woefully unequipped to deal with the very different security situation that arose with 9/11. Barnett asserts that “the terrorist attacks of 9/11 simply revealed he yawning gap between the military we built to win the CW and the diff one we need to build in order to secure globalization’s ultimate goal – the end of war as we know it” (2). I would be interested to see what kind of military (whose sole existence is predicated on the waging of war) will bring the end of all warfare, but unfortunately by the time he gets around to explaining his proposals, Barnett’s argument has so completely lost plausibility that they’re not even worth reading.

While he regales us with many stories about the absurdly bureaucratic politics of the Pentagon, which result in its characteristic inertia, intransigence, and insulation from the real world, he fails to convince us how this institution continues to have any relevance today. He makes a good case of why the military apparatus has become inefficient and unprepared for today’s security demands, and convinces me that the entire military budget should be scrapped from our expenditures. Yet he thinks that the military should be assigned to the tasks of nation-building and infrastructure creation (4) – activities that seem contradictory for an institution designed for destruction. The military takes normal people and re-defines their psychology into that of a soldier, by objectifying and estranging the enemy to make for easy killing – the kind of thing that leads to torture and humiliation of captured prisoners. How can these soldiers be the same people that are supposed to rebuild the nations of the people they have been taught to kill? Barnett’s proposal for peace becomes even more dubious in light of the military’s miserable failure to build state capacities in Iraq.

But let’s begin at the beginning. Barnett identifies the sources of the new security challenges in the forces of globalization. The effect of the spread of technology, communication, information and capabilities is decentralizing and democratizing – creating an environment unconducive to huge, hierarchical, centralised military machines, and changing the nature of state warfare. However, he uncovers an important point that has been glossed over by many of globalization’s supporters: globalization does not spread evenly on its own. Many are being left behind as parts of the world hurtle ahead indifferently. However, as is typical of conservative thinkers, he misdiagnoses the symptom, and inevitably implies that the poor are to blame for their own situations. He sets up his definition of the world, which divides it into two sides: the “Functioning Core” and the “Non-Integrating Gap” – which is basically all of the Third World, with a few interesting exceptions (which I will come back to). He points out that, shockingly, the US is more likely to have engaged in military action during the last decade in the Third World “Gap” than in the First World “Core.” In other words, impoverished countries are more likely areas for instability and violence. Having made this connection, he proceeds to identify a cause: countries that “reject” the “cultural content flows” of globalization (a phenomenon known as Americanization) are our new biggest security threat (3-4). People choose to be poor because they fear cultural colonization, and their failure to Americanize makes them more inclined to violence, and a possible threat to our security.

He correctly identifies the problems, but the links between them are misleading. Part of the process of unregulated globalization is a rise in inequality (read a United Nations Development Report if you doubt this), which leads to frustration, desperation, and violence. The poor are angry because they are starving while others sit in palaces; not because they are afraid of cultural domination. Instead, he concludes that lack of human development is evidence, not of the unjust nature of globalization and international markets, but of societies “failing to integrate themselves into the larger economic community and all the rule sets it generates” (26). This failure to play by the rules results in internal instability which threatens U.S. security. The new great power that the U.S. must face is now revealed as a condition, not a country: a condition Barnett calls “disconnectedness.” Economic, political and cultural isolation associated with the “rejection” of globalization forces people to solve their problems through violence, because there is no other outlet. On the other hand, in situations of “connectedness,” where people live by the globally accepted rules, he contends that the “‘losers’ or ‘unhappy players’ will find sufficient political opportunities, within the rules, to press their cases for adjustment, restitution, and the like (like Canada going to the World Trade Organization to protest U.S. tariffs on lumber – no soldiers, just lawyers)” (26). The only problem here is that it is global capitalism leaves quite a lot of “losers,” most of whom can’t afford lawyers and often have little recourse for help. This can be seen on an individual level even within the United States. And in many countries, those who can’t afford lawyers feel they have to speak with the only thing they have – their lives. It’s much cheaper and, unfortunately, easier to become a soldier than a lawyer.

Here Barnett encounters his most crucial challenge: defining the rules of the global system. Unfortunately, he does not quite hurdle it. His classification of a “good state” requires “a government that plays by the security rules that we hold dear – like “Don’t harbour transnational terrorists within your territory” and “Don’t seek weapons of mass destruction” (25). Sounds simple, until you try to apply it in a universal manner. Weapons of mass destruction? Many of the states that Barnett includes among the Core (i.e., “good states”) are nuclear states, most notably the U.S. itself, which probably has more weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world combined. Transnational terrorists? How about Emanuel Constant, who the U.S. refuses to extradite to Haiti; or Luis Posada Carriles, who will not be tried for his crimes in Venezuela – not to mention the issue that he, along with most of Al-Qaeda, were trained by our very own CIA. So, by both of Barnett’s definitions, the U.S. (and many of our allies) falls among the “bad states.” The US, by its own definition, is part of the axis of evil. See the problem? What we need to do is identify rules and categories that we can stand to live up to – if we break the very rules we are trying to enforce, who’s going to listen to us? We need a definition of “enemy” that doesn’t include ourselves.

The next step, after articulating a rule set that distinguishes between our allies and our enemies, is “rallying the former to work collectively to encourage the latter to change their ways, applying military power when diplomacy alone does not do the trick” (25). So it’s not so different from the Cold War after all – sounds a lot like containment to me. All we need now is a new set of definitions of good and evil, and new rules for people to break. “Communists” are now “terrorists,” and instead of carrying little red books, the new crime is to have dark skin and wear baggy clothes at airports. Barnett’s solution seems to create a new iron curtain and divide the world along that line. The central problem that defines both the Cold War and today’s era is the “us” versus “them” dichotomy. Moralizing about “good” and “bad” states, cooperative and incompliant societies, “Functioning” and “Non-Integrating” regions, will only foster more fear, misunderstanding, and “disconnectivity.” Barnett acknowledges that this division must change: “our definition of us must include all of them who now feel left out of globalization’s benefits, as well as the them who would employ all manner of violence to deny its advance” (124) – but his methods (applying military power) don’t match his morals. We want to include them, so we… kill them? Oh sorry, I mean us.

Barnett’s next recommendation is that “our strategic vision for national security needs to focus on growing the community of states that recognize a stable set of rules regarding war and peace.” Rules like “don’t attack unless they attack first?” Or principles like proportionality, war as last resort, and jus ad bellum? Or rules of jus in bello – don’t kill civilians, don’t torture prisoners? These “rule sets” have governed our international system since ancient Greek society, and are clearly codified in the many charters and treaties and agreements that form the basis of our international organizations today; charters that the U.S. has agreed to abide by. International organizations like the United Nations and international rule sets like the Geneva Convention serve precisely the role of defining the rules of global interaction and providing a forum to implement them. When the U.S. refuses to abide by those rules, refuses to conform to decisions arrived at by a group of its peers, and completely ignores the wishes and advice of its fellow nation-states, it completely undermines these rule sets. Why should anyone listen to us and follow our rules if we will not extend them the same courtesy? In a world characterised by “democracy, rule of law, and free markets” and their consequent interdependence – the kind of world that Barnett wants America to create – might does not make right. Consensus and procedure make right. Either everyone obeys the rules or no one does; a phenomenon that has long been understood by game theorists and security dilemma analysts.

Barnett’s definition of the Gap is also problematic. The basic division falls between developed and developing states – Europe, Russia, and North America versus South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East; except he consciously includes certain states like China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and South Africa. These countries have some of the highest poverty and inequality rates in the world, not to mention poor track records in terms of human rights. He explains that he chose to include these countries because they are attempting to integrate into the global order – they are casting aside “the debilitating inefficiencies that kept them largely disconnected.” This refers to “sustenance agriculture” (read: Communism) in China, the caste system in India, insecurity in South Korea (which we apparently protect them from by holding back North Korea), and all the conditions that prevent development and forward progress. When these circumstances are eliminated, “we expand for all those living within it the freedom of choice, movement, and expression” (124). Yet China remains one of the most closed and undemocratic nations in the world – their people have no freedom of choice, movement, or expression whatsoever. They do not have the right to leave their country, access global information and news, or express discontent with their government. So how can he count them among the free world, just because their government now allows foreign businesses to run factories on their land and exploit their cheap labor? I’ll tell you why: as usual in the recent history of U.S. policy toward China, we cannot identify China as an enemy because it serves our economic and political interests to keep their markets opening, even if their people do not see the benefits. Barnett defines disconnectedness, the condition characterising the Gap, as keeping people in poverty, while elites have “the ability to hoard wealth” and power (49). So why does he count Brazil and South Africa, two states with some of the highest rates of inequality in the world, among the Core states? Again, because they are our ideological allies, so our interests do not allow us to classify them as possible enemies.

Underneath it all, Barnett is saying that what separates the Core from the Gap is the acceptance of American ideology and methodologies. Like the Truman and Monroe Doctrines and the containment policies that led us to prop up terrifying dictators in Latin America during the Cold War, as long as they were against Communism, this approach makes government rhetoric more important than human lives. He includes Argentina, Brazil, and Chile because they followed the rules prescribed by the International Monetary Fund, the welcome wagon for American-style capitalism – but these rules failed miserably to redistribute wealth and improve the living standards of the poorest citizens. Yet he cannot acknowledge that countries like Vietnam or Indonesia, who follow their own path of economic development and now have a lower inequality index than the United States, might have the right idea. Barnett’s definition of the enemy doesn’t mesh with his identification of enemy states, so his argument falls apart and is revealed as yet another thin moral cloak to justify our national interests – just like Bush’s justifications for invading Iraq. Pragmatism is nothing for a state to be ashamed of, but when elaborate normative frameworks are constructed to explain them, it becomes dangerous because we are blinded to the drawbacks of supporting the countries we support. Furthermore, the division of the world into good and evil states ignores the fundamental reality that we have to come to terms with in the twenty-first century: that there are good and evil individuals within every state, and that states often do not act as coherently as they have in the past. States can no longer be thought of as unitary rational actors, because, as Barnett astutely recognizes, the challenges we face today come from non-state actors and internal conflicts, not conventional state warfare.

Finally, we come to Barnett’s crowning achievement: his strategy for remaking the world in America’s image. He says that “the security deficit is what drives the lack of connectivity” between the Middle East and the Western world, preventing economic development and social liberalization. This makes some sense if you think only in terms of the past, say, fifty years, during which instability in that region and others has prevented foreign investment and the development of a secure economic infrastructure. But to limit our view of history is to obscure the true roots of our problems. This is a “chicken or the egg” scenario: the security deficit does prevent economic development, but underdevelopment, poverty, and lack of infrastructure drives violence and instability. Barnett’s solution is a “Big Bang” or “System Perturbation” like the invasion of Iraq, to destroy the rule sets currently in place in the region and recreate our own rule set from the ground up (289). Not only is it extremely inefficient and counterproductive to devastate a country with a violent, destructive war, destroying what infrastructure and economic development that already exists; it is also unbelievably presumptuous to believe that our military is better suited than their own people to rebuild their nation and tell them how they should live. We can’t even eradicate poverty and destitution in our own country – how are we supposed to do it in another society whose customs, history, values, and beliefs we have not even tried to understand and have never been a part of? If “Operation Iraqi Freedom was a message to the region” that America’s rules will bring connectedness to the people (289), then something was lost in translation. Instead, the message that’s coming across is that the U.S. thinks it can do anything it wants, and will – and the only thing anyone in the Middle East can do about it is blow themselves up.

If Barnett used the same logic and arrived at a different conclusion, he would be right – in fact, he would be a liberal. But if he follows that argument and comes to the conclusion that the Bush Doctrine is working and Iraq is the way to go, then something’s wrong. He points out many of the flaws of the current way of thinking, but then uses them to justify it. He’s using all the liberal arguments to arrive at a Republican conclusion. Case in point: “The fundamental measure of effectiveness for any U.S. military operation inside the Gap must be: Did we end up improving local security sufficiently to trigger an influx of global connectivity?” (137) The answer to this is an emphatic no. Iraqis are every day becoming more isolated and disconnected by the violence that keeps them living in fear and prevents them from growing and working toward a sustainable future.

America’s greatest sin in the twenty-first century is hypocrisy. The fact is, the US cannot advocate global rule of law if we ourselves cannot live by those laws. Being a superpower may give us a special role in determining the “new world order,” but it does not make us omnipotent. If we are to convince other nations to abide by our rules, it is vitally important that we lead by example, not by imposition. In an international system characterised by danger, mistrust, and misperceptions, America’s intentions are easily misunderstood. Having so much military and political power gives us an even greater obligation to be especially responsible and transparent on the international stage. If other states do not agree with the course we choose to take, we must make a better effort to convince them. We must not act unilaterally, or behave in a suspicious or alienating manner. We must take our successes from the Cold War and apply them today: détente worked, and it is an idea that we need to continue to apply. We are still dealing today with a very explosive and volatile threat – it may not be a nuclear bomb, but what it can unleash is a global “clash of civilizations;” and 9/11 proved very well that America is no longer out of reach. As the world leader, America’s responsibility is to defuse global tensions, not exacerbate them. We cannot claim the right to destroy and remake states and expect anyone else to accept it. It’s like parenting: when your children are young, you need to take a firm hand in shaping, teaching, and guiding them; but when they grow into adults you have to let them make their own decisions and choices, or you will end up alienating them. Well, the leaders of Iraq and all the countries in the Gap are not our children, they are our peers. They have just as much common sense and as decision-makers in America, but with the added advantage that they have an intimate knowledge and understanding of their own country. They know what will work. We can play the role of advisor, helper, and even supervisor if we are asked, but we cannot presume to force other countries to live the way we want them to. “Freedom” cannot be imposed, it must be chosen.

The debate in the US seems to be between two options: stay and continue doing what we’re doing, or withdraw and forget it ever happened. Neither of these options is even considerable. We have made a mess, and we have screwed up this country unforgivably. We cannot even think about not cleaning up our mess and making amends for the crimes we have perpetrated in the Middle East. Now is a crucial time for America to prove to the world that its ideas can work and are worth listening to – since they have been failing for the last twenty years. We must phase out military operations and withdraw our soldiers in a responsible manner as quickly as possible so that the Iraqi society can begin to heal. But we cannot leave them to clan up the mess we have made alone – we need to help them build infrastructure and improve their people’s standards of living so that people will no longer live in the poverty and helplessness that breeds terrorists. The responsibility we owe to Iraq is not security, but money – the kind of money it takes to rebuild an entire country after years of war and destruction. Give every American soldier in Iraq a shovel instead of a gun, and tell them to build roads, schools, hospitals, wells, and homes for displaced refugees. We need to be winning hearts and minds – but our track record is not so good in that area, as evidenced in Latin America. We need to take a lesson from someone we have underestimated and misjudged for years: Hezbollah. That’s right. Hezbollah is wildly popular among Shi’ite Lebanese because during the Israeli occupation it was the only organization doing something positive. They rebuilt infrastructure that was destroyed in the war, and built free homes for displaced persons, courtesy of Iran. They helped people rebuild their lives in a meaningful, direct, real way; which is what the US now needs to do in Iraq. If a suicide bomber killed US soldiers who were building a school for Iraqi children, you can bet that the parents of those children would be upset. We would finally win the Iraqi people’s sentiment and support, rather than further alienating them every day.

Barnett explains that he is writing this book because the discussion of security issues has been dominated by experts who “love to use jargon, vague language that obscures rather than illuminates the issues at hand – like ‘national interest’ and ‘strategic threat…’” and like “connectivity” and “disconnectedness,” and “Functioning Core” and “Non-Integrating Gap,” and “lesser includeds” and “greater included”? Does he think no one will notice that setting up vague, value-ridden jargon is the strategy that underlies his entire argument? He notes that “since Sept 11, 2001, it has gotten a lot harder for even experts to speak authoritatively about the rule sets governing war and peace” (10); yet he has no problem doing it. He sets himself up as sole translator, your guide to a strange world which can only be understood through his codes – a long-used strategy which conveniently makes him the only authority with any voice, and takes all process of thought or judgement away from the reader:

“As I explain these rules, I will have to decode a lot of jargon, and explain the many long-running, insider debates that have shaped how the Pentagon views this new ‘global war.’ That means I will be explaining a lot of past history before I can walk you into the future; I have to make you a student of the game so you can appreciate just how much the rule sets have changed since 9/11.” (10-11)

If you haven’t already decided not to read this book, I hope that little bit of patronisation convinced you. Throughout the book his tone becomes more and more arrogant and condescending, alienating the reader just like America’s rhetoric alienates the rest of the world. I have already suffered through reading this entire book; now the only thing I can do is hope to save as many others as possible from the same fate.

If you really want to understand the world’s problems, watch Bush on CNN and then read about the real events in the Middle East on Al-Jazeera. Note the dissonance between what is said and what is done, and between what is believed and what is actually happening. We are not living in a clash of civilizations yet, but America’s alienating, polarizing rhetoric and actions will push us there soon enough. I too see a vision of a bright future, one characterised by understanding, openness, democracy, and prosperity; but it requires that America stop and take a look around, and maybe try listening to someone else’s ideas for a change.

Works Cited

Barnett, Thomas P.M. The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Berkley Books, 2004.