11 March 2003

Cartograpolitics: New Pentagon map explains why we will keep going to war New, very nation-state-centric/geopolitically-centric security paradigm (what of borderless, nation-stateless politics?) being pushed by the Pentagon. Possible summary: We are "the core", which is a good democratic, networked place. The bad people are in "the gap" [corporate pun not intended sadly], where things aren't networked or democratic. Thesis: shrink the Gap to stop bad things. Or to recapitulate, the thinking seems to go like this: Globalisation is good (because we in the West are at "the core" of it?): "Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show you regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide than murder" "But show me where globalization is thinning or just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists. These parts of the world I call the Non-Integrating Gap, or Gap". Therefore: "Disconnectedness [to globalisation and the networks that exemplify it] defines danger". The borderline (or "Seam states") is where terrorist activity is disseminated from the Gap to the Core. Conclusion: "Shrink the Gap". [via ?] 4:09:36 PM     comments