I find Thomas P.M. Barnett an interesting writer full of many good insights.  He is also a true cheerleader of globalization.  I think that he he is more nuanced than Thomas Friedman and acknowledges challenges.  However, I also think he is too positive about the future.  He is very dismissive that anything can radically alter the direction of globalization which he defines as integrating "non-functioning" states and regions that form a "gap" into the functioning "Core" of states like the U.S., Europe and now places like China and India.

He seems unwilling to acknowledge the possibility that all of our recent advances could well be temporary.

After one of his latest blogs on America's place in the world, I responded with comments and he obliged me with a response back to me.

"Me: I think that your overall thesis as advanced in your works such as the Pentagon's New Map is both sophisticated and very useful in terms of gameplanning US geostrategy. However, though I may be somewhat of a contrarian, how can you be so sure these rule sets will become permanently ensconced in international relations?

Contemporary trends may favor your overall argument, but discontinuities throughout history have taken place, usually because something unanticipated happened.

Niall Ferguson has a fascinating new piece in the current Foreign Affairs (March/April 2010) about how stunningly quickly collapses in order (including imperial orders) can transpire. In a sense, this piece is the anti-Gibbon, Spengler and Toynbee. Rather than long-term trends of decline that become obvious in retrospect, he raises the prospect that relatively small disturbances within systems can destroy the balance of those system and yield chaos.

Obviously, redundancy in any system can ameliorate this, but how do we really know what the impact of a nuclear or biological attack on a major American city be? What will that do to international trade? What will it do to America's already ballooning deficits?

Will a future generation of Chinese leaders feeling more confident be less pragmatic and see "Western" weakness as an opportunity to be exploited as opposed to a challenge to be overcome?

I do not think it is histrionic to be concerned with these possibilities. No order in the history of the world has yet proven itself permanent. Why is the order of this era any different?

If Rome could collapse, the empire of Qin Shi Huangdi collapse and the Sun set on the British, how can we be so sure we have found the "solution?"

I ask this in all earnestness and not to be controversial. Given your reputation, I would be most interested in your response.

Barnett:  Greg,

Echoing David Stewart, the major difference--and it's gargantuan, is that ours is the first "empire" (if you must use that term) that's empowered and enriched masses of individuals instead of merely elites. As such, its spread is achieved as a demand function, not a supply function, so it expands, it needs us less and not more.

Are we yet used to this reality? No. But growing up is a constant process.

As for why ours is the oldest continuous constitutional democracy in the world?

Same reason."

Check out the full blog and other comments for a full airing on some of these issues.