Betsy Devine has me thinking. She’s right about the
importance of Barnett’s The Pentagon’s New Map–in addition to a
new map of the “problematique” of the global security business–Barnett provides a
new map for the evolution of the role of the Pentagon.
Both maps, of the new problem set and of the new role needed to address the
problem set, are important.
First, we can help the global security establishment evolve toward
a
clearer recognition that the kinds of problems they have always dealt
with–social
problems in extremis–now concentrate mostly at the edges of the
known world. The Star Wars bar scene with Jabba the Hut
epidomizes this reality. Slavery, murder and organized crime as
the basis of edge social power.
Second, we can help the global security establishment transform its role,
building on its core competence in social and technologica
organization. We do need an establishment to deal with the edge
problem–and why not an organization based on large scale social
organization and technology–the American military? Who better to
recruit, train, lead and manage? Other institutions that try to
address this, such as NGOs and the UN and a handful of philanthropic
individuals such as George Soros can’t deal with the intense,
entrenched power that tends to control society at the edge.
In my earlier post I pointed out that integrating the edge into today’s
center just extends the problems of the center–such as environmental
unstustainability and inequality of social opportunity. But these
problems are not in the purview of the military, in any case.
Our broader social and technical–and spiritual–problems must be
solved whether or not the military effectively addresses the extreme
situations that are its special charge. The core problems of the
mainstream of industrial culture are problems front and center for
mainstream social organizations and leaders, for electoral politics and
political leaders–as well as for business and business leaders.
These broader issues have never been successfully outsourced to any
organization. They are ours.
