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DOEE (Dept. of Everything Else)

Thomas Barnett [***] YouTube presentation
The Pentagon's new map for war and peace

A friend sent me this, very optimistic, and saw it as so non-political. Fine. How does this come about? How do we create a "New Leviathan" albeit, calling it "New Everything Else"? This is fine as long as we realize it is political or it is the same old thing, otherwise know as the battle between realism and idealism.

Transparency and secrecy do have their distinct applications,(especially in war and diplomacy) but accountability and rules are in the getting there. (Power is not good or evil only results are and even they are seen from more than one perspective.)

A-to-Z rules focused on dealing with everything? How does one get them? Of course that is not the idea. Excusing based on result, is that the excuse? Hmmm. He has some good metaphors. Networking force? Where does it start? Where does it end? Security? Funny?

I think that he has some good points, but it all could be hinged on a point the world would love to get to, and they would all love to be there, to be the decider. I do not minimize the need for something, and he points to many good ideas to separate expertise and responsibilities, but I would emphasize that there is much more to talk about that may need the same (or better) analysis. There is a "heckuva" lot of work getting the world to see that there is somehow going to be a "new world order", no matter who brings it about and what it is brought about for. And there is no denying the current balance of powers and just wishing or demanding or excusing them away.

This is a good approach for the military, the rest may be everything else. Including looking at how we came to learn this lesson and whether it was already plain to too few.

Having viewed the video several times, I am rather encouraged about his approach, as long as it is taken as broadly and evolving as he intends it. In that regard there are some weaknesses in his rhetoric when it comes to the U.N., the World Bank, the G20 and what he calls the Kantian[*] world. In what I call the outcome and the input or more broadly the rules and the process, we probably need more than bifurcation. He has separated force from administration, and it is in the latter that more work and input may be needed. In that regard I will hold up for now and provide a template that has been suggested more immediately and specifically for the mess we are in, due to some of this thinking not being applied in the first place. A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. **

[*] uncertain what his Kantian world is,
here are a few of my Kantian references:
Fearnauts
The Council of Nice
** Thanks to the "hard work" of Darcy Burner and what I call her Pentagon of Principles.

[***] earlier link to Barnett