Alphachimp > Pop!Tech > Emerging Worldviews > Thomas Barnett

from the blog Down the Avenue:

"Out of the three speakers who presented on Emerging World Views, Thomas Barnett clearly provoked the majority of the audience - negatively and positively. He was a strong speaker with militant views but brought humor into his talk and had people on both sides of the fence laughing. Barrett, is Assistant for Strategic Futures, Office of Force Transformation Office of Secretarty of Defense as well as a Professor in the Warfare Analysis & Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College. Intense background is right.

"It doesn't end there. He's also on temporary assignment as the Assistant for Strategic Futures, Office of Force Transformation (OFT), and Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he is working with OFT Director Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski (USN, ret.) on a cluster of strategic concepts that link change in the international security environment to the imperative of transforming U.S. military capabilities to meet future threats. This guy even has a blog and has written for Esquire, the New York Times, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and published a book on Romanian and East German Policies in the Third World."

Listen to podcast of the presentation.

from Ethan Zuckerman's blog:

A country participates in globalization if:

- it's capable of coping with global connectivity and content flow. (An example of a country that isn't coping: Iran, which freaked out when Barbie dolls started getting imported. Evidently, the mullahs introduced a rival doll clad head to toe in black... she didn't sell as well, so a Barbie fatwah of sorts was issued...)

- it's ruleset is harmonized with the global ruleset. This sounds like Americanization, but that's more because America is the world's oldest economic union, not the EU

The direction of a nation's change is more important than the magnitude. China, despite being 30% marxist leninist, and 70% The Sopranos, is moving in the right direction even if the magnitude is not great.

Who's global and who isn't:

• Global: the NAFTA countries
• the EU
• Russia under Putin
• Coastal China
• Argentina Brazil Chile
• India, at least in parts
• South Africa

These nations total roughly 4 billion people. Barnett refers to these as "the core group"

Barnett is also a prolific blogger: http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/