Global politicodynamics are much more complex than is understandable and are subject to the butterfly effect. A bomb here, a thoughtless word there, and alliances can change. Who, 50 years ago, could have predicted the current world? So it is foolish to extapolate linearly into the future. What can be said is that there will be winners and there will be losers, but who and when, many pontificate, but nobody truly knows. Never bet against the Americans, though.

Bennett provides a challenging analysis, and seems to have outlined the economic and political history insightfully. His paper is not directed at the same level as Barnett's book: each addresses different phenomena and different issues that exist on separate strata. That means, to me at least, that Bennett is not in a position to criticize (that's the verb, not "critique") the New Map. In fact I wonder whether he really understood Barnett. France, for example, may have "jumped ship," but it absolutely did not depart the Core for the Gap -- which means there will be no nuclear exchanges between the USA and France. That's Barnett's main concern -- a point Bennett seems to have overlooked. The Core - Gap model is not intended to describe everything in politics/culture/economics/technology, but to identify the world's danger zones; reducing them by connecting them more closely to the Core is the strategy that follows from the perception.

"reducing them by connecting them more closely to the Core is the strategy that follows from the perception."

The problems being:

1)Nation Building is a fraud,the only nation we've built has been this one and it,like all others,was as much or more a matter bottom-up evolution as top-down planning.....

....which leads to...

....bringing the Gap closer risks chaos spilling over into the Core,as is happening now in Europe(and will happen here,sorry,borders,like culture,do matter.)

It may be,as one analyst(who's name just went out of my head!)proposed,that we'll have to triage,first secure the "Core",then seek connections to second tier states and regions as we quarantine regions of chaos.And it will have to be done on a piecemeal basis.How much blood and treasure are you willing to spend to "nation-build" Somalia or Sudan?Or will "connecting" them to the "Core" require us to tackle all of central Africa at once?
And what happens if the(unstable)experiment in economic globalization turns out as successfully as our experiment in multiculturalism has been?Are there still enough buffers between national economies to cushion some regions or do we go down all together?
China and India have enormous potential but also enormous problems,will they make it over the "Hump"?What if one,the other or both don't?

Lot's questions,not really many good answers.

Interesting article. A couple of related articles of interest:

• Four economists conclude that countries with legal systems based on English Common law have better performing markets than countries with legal systems based upon French Civil law. Reason? Judicial independence correlates to economic freedom.

• Ireland becomes one of the wealthiest countries in the world by adopting Anglosphere economics and leveraging its use of the English language, while at the same time using the EU to market its goods and attract European investment.

Bennett hits almost all the high points, but strangely misses a key one: The European fantasy can only exist under the umbrella of American arms.

What should have been the most disturbing event to Eurocentrists since the Cold War went by with basically a yawn, that being the glaring reality that no combination of European states could bring tiny Serbia into line. Worse, the United States was the only nation that could. This should have been a splash of cold water.

In order for Europe to live their quasi-socialists/pacifist fantasy, the United States must keep the peace. Not just in Europe, but with the global economy all over the world. The United States navy may be the most important economic force no-one ever thinks about in the world today.

It's not just the Europeans that are protected by Americans. In their recent defense white paper the Chinese acknowledged that the overall security situation in their region is good while missing the fact that it's a security largely secured through U. S. arms. How does China get its oil? Through sea lanes protected by the U. S. Navy.

"...The Core - Gap model is not intended to describe everything ..."

The Core/Gap model is useful to discuss the world situation at a very general level, one powerpoint slide, which makes it necessarily limited. The issues Bennett identifies demonstrates that to operationalize Barnett's aims you must must increase the focus and move to a more granular level of detail. When you do, the "Core" is no longer unitary, nor is the Gap. The Core powers have, in a very general sense, an interest in shrinking the Gap. Barnett is right about that. But in the more immediate term, where, when, how and by whom any such activities will be undertaken is determined very much by the current political situation in, for example, France. Similarly, what parts of the Gap are candidates for "help" from the Core turns on historical relationships such as former colonial status with the resulting economic and personal ties. Nation-building in West Africa will be led by former colonial powers with ties to the particular countries, not by a generic "Core". Barnett's model can only be of use if it can be applied, and it can only be applied in particular, real, specific instances. Barnett's model needs much more such elaboration.

But can a "connectivity" index serve as a predictor, beyond a gross level? Could a crisis planner in 1989 or 1990 have predicted that Yugoslavia and not Bulgaria or Romania would have been the big trouble spot, using only "connectivity" as a metric? By almost any means of calculaton, Yugoslavia was more "connected" than the rest of its Balkan neighbors in 1990. I'd like to see Barnett offer a connectivity metric in his next book so that we can really evaluate the theory.

As for France not "leaving the Core" because it hasn't nuked the US, that's not the point. Ppakistan hasn;t nuked us either and and it's not in the Core. The real question is whether the Core is a meaningful enough category to serve as the basis for a long-term Grand coalition. maybe. But Barnett hasn't offered an analysis of why a Core coalition should be stable long term, given the temptations for the weaker partners to backslide in their duty. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" I hope that analysis will be in the second book as well.

This URL appears in a WOC post that is quite recent --
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001778.html
Barnett is one or two steps ahead of his detractors, most of whom refuse to read his book.

This is what we belive

I disagree on Bennett's theory of anglosaxon superiority.

Until 1976 Britain was just a socialist (welfare) country like any other West European. It's economy was then stagnated, almost surpased by french's, and Brittons were disturbed with no empire. The most important builder of the monetary policy that supported those inneficient welfare states and hurt so much the world development was a Britton, an anglosaxon and a individualist: John Maynard Keynes

The individualist leaders of the people that fought keynesianism in both sides of the Atlantic were neither Brittons nor Americans, they were... well, Austrians. Read this:

"Shortly after Thatcher became Leader of the Conservative Party, [1976] she "reached into her briefcase and took out a book. It was Friedrich von Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty. Interrupting [the speaker], she held the book up for all of us to see. 'This', she said sternly, 'is what we believe', and banged Hayek down on the table." (John Ranelagh, Thatcher's People: An Insider's Account of the Politics, the Power, and the Personalities. London: HarperCollins, 1991.)"

Ludwig von Mises, a jew, and Friedrich August von Hayek (Nobel Prize 1974) were arguably the most prominent academic freedom fighters of the 20th century. They predicted the fall of communism in the late 1920's (!). Their ideas slowly but steadly defeated the socialism and keynesianism that ruled the academic and economic world. Hayek was a lecturer in London and then he had to teach in the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago, the only educational institution in both sides of the Atlantic that did not succumbed to keynesianism after the second world war. Among his pupils was Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize 1976), whose 1965 Capitalism and Freedom sparked a revolution in America. His ideas were soon applied by Ronald Reagan in California and then in the whole country. Thatcher followed in Britain and the first world's economy boomed during the 1980's. After seeing victory not far away in the late 70's, Communists had to accept their defeat (they called it Perestroika). Hayek lived to see what he had predicted 60 years before, he died in 1992.

So it is unfair, unbalanced and it is just not the truth to claim that the "anglosaxon" world is appart and in a supperior level: Thatcher put on the table Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty" and not Keynes' "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money".

More about Mises and Hayek

Mises' and Hayek's ideas are applied now also in South East Asia with great results. In America, libertarians are their descendants. In Spain those ideas, which are just classic liberalism, were put in practice by Mr. Aznar, till his government was blown away by a leftist coup. In eastern europe they are working too. The benefits are evident.

What made Britain different from Continental Europe (until socialism and keynesianism swept away classic liberalism) was its political evolution. Britain politics evolved undisturbed during centuries. They had no foreign invasions, but some civil wars. Classic liberal thinking arose as a result of their search for a balanced and efficient government system. Scots had much to do with the love of freedom embeded in this thinking. Methodism was another factor. The gold the spanish brought from America allowed capitalism and, as a result, the industrial revolution. Innovative thinking was foster by the fact that they could defend themselves with well trained and wisely used navy rather than a numerous and fierce army. Those ideas were carried to America and are the basis of the American culture.

And those ideas can be applied succesfully, as Mr. Aznar showed, in Continental Europe. There are not two opposed worlds each on one side of the Atlantic, that is french dreaming. There is one western civilization based in classic liberal thinking and America is its champion.

In my opinion, Continental Europe will have to undertake sooner on later, no matter how many train bombings and dioxine poisoning happen, the changes Mrs. Thatcher did in England during the 1980's. The battle of the ideas is already going on. Everybody sees now that socialism is a empty ideology whose actual aim is to keep alive some privileges.

Politically the path is not clear. Europeans don´t want a more powerful European government. The European Union was set up to resolve some important economic issues (economic nationalism, lack of a big internal market, monetary unstability...). Today those problems have been eliminated. Many Europeans don't want to go further, although France is campaigning in the opposite direction, in spite of french public opinion. Taking into account also that Turkey may join the Union in 2015, I think the political proces will stall sooner or later. There is no common ground for a political union.

As this happens, America (and China and India) will grow stronger. The transatlantic link will be even more necessary than before. When America and Europe work together the world is a safer place.