Tuesday, April 15, 2003

From Foreign Policy: The Five Wars of Globalization  The illegal trade in drugs, arms, intellectual property, people, and money is booming. Like the war on terrorism, the fight to control these illicit markets pits governments against agile, stateless, and resourceful networks empowered by globalization. Governments will continue to lose these wars until they adopt new strategies to deal with a larger, unprecedented struggle that now shapes the world as much as confrontations between nation-states once did. 11:27:29 AM

From Z+Blog:  Disconnectedness Defines Danger The globalization "gap". Click image for larger map. "DISCONNECTEDNESS DEFINES DANGER  Problem areas requiring American attention (outlined) are, in the author's analysis, called the Gap.  Shrinking the Gap is possible only by stopping the ability of terrorist networks to access the Core via the "seam states" that lie along the Gap's bloody boundaries.  In this war on terrorism, the U.S. will place a special emphasis on cooperation with these states. What are the classic seam states?  Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Indonesia." Thomas Barnett, a professor of warfare analysis at the U.S. Naval War College, posts an interesting perspective on the future state of geopolitical conflict. It neatly synthesizes an emerging consensus on the role of the US/Global military in the next quarter century. Barnett posits a "Gap" - regions where globalization has not taken root or has faltered - as the inevitable locus of future U.S. force deployment. These regions (highlighted in the map above) are disconnected from the "Core", where systems of trade, alliance and other interdependancies inhibit nationstates from going to war. In other words, globalization itself is a hedge against conflict, and the faster it spreads the better.   11:10:53 AM

Tracking Down Iraq's Treasures Archaeologists are trying to track down items plundered from Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities. "They can't put the sculptures, statues, and coins back on the shelves from which they were wrested. But they can put together a database of what was lost in the looting that followed the fall of Baghdad. By gathering as much detailed information as possible, they hope to render unsellable the thousands of artifacts stolen from Iraq's largest museum, one of the region's most important. The more that is known about the lost pieces, the less likely they will be able to pass into private hands on the black market, scholars and curators say." Boston Globe 04/15/03 US Says It Will Help "Restore" Baghdad Museum The United States says it will help restore the Iraq National Museum. "Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Baghdad museum was 'one of the great museums in the world' and that the US would take a leading role in restoring it. Coalition forces were criticised for not protecting the institution, which housed many treasures from 'the cradle of civilisation', when it was ransacked on Friday. But critics say it's too late. 'And it's gone, and it's lost. If Marines had started before, none of this would have happened. It's too late. It's no use. It's no use'." See pictures of damage to the museum here BBC 04/14/03 Mobs Burn Down Iraq's Libraries Having destroyed Iraq's art treasures in the museums, mobs moved on to Iraq's libraries, destroying the country's written history. "The National Library and Archives ­ a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents, including the old royal archives of Iraq ­ were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the library of Korans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze." The Independent (UK) 04/15/03 10:46:48 AM

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