The Pentagon’s New Map: Barnett responds.

Read the original DNI Review.
Read Barnett's response on his Weblog:  http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/ and scroll down to November 19th.

Sent to me by a long-time colleague (thanks, I think):
 


Reviewing the Reviews (Defense and the National Interest)
Dateline: Hedenkamp Ranch, somewhere north of Kansas City, MO, 19 November 2004

Spending some time with friends in KC at the end of my business trip, thinking about the way ahead. Very nice to spend time with people whom I rarely get to see F2F.

Here's a review of PNM that was sent to me by numerous readers over the past few days (thanks to you all). My comments follow, then the daily catch:

Find the original at http://d-n-i.net/dni_reviews/pentagon_map.htm

The Pentagon’s New Map
Thomas P. M. Barnett
426 pp., including extensive notes

Reviewed by Chet Richard (sic)
Editor
Defense and the National Interest
November 12, 2004

[Read the original DNI Review here. Omitted to get to the good stuff more quickly.]

[Tom Barnett's] COMMENTARY: I don't know where to go with this review. I guess I have to put it down as one of those Chinese reviews where you're "70 percent great and 30 percent horrible." Richards gets the main point of the book so well (in some ways, better than I do—meaning I learned some interesting things about my own book by reading his description), and then offers some truly lame criticism of the sort that just makes my jaw drop (e.g., map isn't perfect so it "must go," I mention my faith and therefore I zero out all my logic to anyone who's not Catholic, and then this bizarrely literal interpretation of troop levels for the SysAdmin). I mean, how can you buy the main thesis so well and then carp so loudly on the map, which is just a visual representation? As for the religion angle, that's just goofy. I read people of all faiths all the time, and I always appreciate hearing their expressions of that faith, not feeling myself automatically excluded from understanding their thinking simply because of that distinction. As for the 20 million calculation, that's just sophomoric. What's so weird about these weird criticisms is the otherwise highly sophisticated capture of the whole Core-Gap and SysAdmin arguments. I guess this is what you'd call a Jeckyl and Hyde review: brilliant one minute and oddly stupid the next. Then again, I guess that's how he views PNM, so perhaps turnabout is fair play.

My comment:  When my friend told me that Tom Barnett had put a commentary on my review on his weblog, I was excited.  He cautioned that it was not entirely positive.  No problem:  I was all prepared to write a penetrating and insightful reply to Barnett, but such would prove to be beyond my capabilities.  If you read over his commentary, there's nothing to reply to - how do you refute "stupid," "goofy," "bizarre," and "sophomoric"?  "IS NOT!!!"

I've queried Mr. Barnett, and should he write a substantive commentary, I will dutifully report it here, along with my clever and witty riposte.

Chet Richards

You should still order The Pentagon's New Map from Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Home