We see that Barnett’s four flows (People, Values, Security, Money) are seriously out of whack in my city’s Gap. As in a previous post, I’ve changed the Energy flow to “Values,” the most complicated of all (which includes culture). People enjoy freedom of movement, the same legal rights and protections as others and access to public services. Yet, a mix of historical and cultural problems are preventing the inhabitants of this urban Gap from “broadband connectivity” with the city’s core. As noted in the many comments of the second part, whether these problems are causes or effects remains unclear in some cases. Nevertheless, they are serious barriers to integration.
As Robert Kaplan noted in our namesake, The Coming Anarchy:
Slum quarters in Abidjan terrify and repel the outsider. In Turkey, it is the opposite. The closer I got to Golden Mountain, the better it looked, and the safer I felt. I had fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of Turkish lira in one pocket and a thousand dollars in traveler’s checks in the other, yet I felt no fear. Golden Mountain was a real neighborhood.
[...] My point in bringing up this rather wholesome, crime-free slum is this: its existence demonstrates how formidable is the fabric of which Turkish Muslim culture is made. A culture this strong has the potential to dominate the Middle East once again. Slums are litmus tests for innate cultural strengths and weaknesses. Those peoples whose cultures can harbor extensive slum life without decomposing will be, relatively speaking, the future’s winners. Those whose cultures cannot will be the future’s victims.
I saw more of the same during my time in Syria. Many cultures of the world such as West Africa which Kaplan mentions have bleak prospects for success. Neither military might nor foreign investment can make a serious dent in that. As Amy Chua notes, democracy and free markets (more connectivity) is often the cause of many states’ breakdown because it empowers a majority which is unfit to make any decisions at all regarding their fate. Thus, they often choose to destroy their own country, regardless of the economic and social costs. Democracy aside, the point to be taken is that money doesn’t buy everything. Yugoslavia threw away everything for ethnic reasons and it was neither the first nor the last to do so.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Solutions to my hometown’s Gap are difficult. The local equivalent of FDI, which Barnett often mentions, is the renovations of the historic district. According to locals, about one city block a year is renovated. What does this mean? Looking back at the Core/Gap map from my first post will show you that this will ultimately connect the two parts of the Core. But where will the denizens of the Gap go? They will simply be pushed out, unable to afford life in an increasingly expensive area. The same already happened for some of the Core’s residents. Yet, physically breaking up the Gap isn’t the answer.
What exactly they are is a topic for a book, yet as Barnett concludes, the situation demands action. In a domestic context and on the local level as I’ve demonstrated, there’s absolutely no question that my city’s Core has to take active measures to solve the problem. Firewalling ourselves off isn’t possible, nor will the problem solve itself. Intervention is necessary.
Those with little or no stake in society, in this case the functioning Core, will have no reason to follow its rules, respect its values or respet the rights of its citizens. The Gap’s small but competing rule-set generates enormous friction which often is expressed through violence. A map of real estate prices will clearly demonstrate the Seam States and the gravity of instability and if that’s not concrete enough, walk around after dark.
Just as the ghetto in a single city presents a clear danger to those who live outside of it, not to mention those who reside there, so to do the states of Barnett’s Gap. There aren’t any suburbs to move to. A resident of South Dakota may not have much to fear from terrorism, but his wallet does as gas prices skyrocket. The Core can choose. They can take the fight to the Gap, or let it come to them. But make no mistake, there’s no escaping it whether its rising gas prices or helping a friendly Nigerian businessman with money he needs you to front him. The best defense is a good offense and despite temporary flare ups after interventions, global stability and prosperity depend on it.
As for PNM Theory, its descriptive accuracy is astounding and its biggest strength whereas its prescriptions still leave something to be desired. For someone ultimately focused on grand strategy this is fine, but for those on the ground, ethnicity, religion, culture and historical circumstances can give connectivity a real run for its money and sometimes ultimately “defeat” it. The USSR may have been defeated by connectivity, but why has Eastern Europe fared so well and Russia not? I guess we’ll have to put down Blueprint for Action and ask The Man.
I guess we’ll have to put down Blueprint for Action and ask The Man.
Oh, the ignominy! ;-)
You ask, “why has Eastern Europe faired so well and Russia not?”
I would argue that Eastern Europe has hardly “fared well”. The CIA World Factbook indicates that a great many Eastern European countries have much lower PPP GDPs per capita than Russia. It’s just one indicator, but it’s the one we can most easily use to compare countries. (Search for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Belarus, Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina, Romania, and others.)
Unless you are counting Central Europe (former Austro-Hungarian states) with Eastern Europe, I would say that economically, Eastern Europe is actually doing worse than Russia on average.
To those who would say that this wasn’t the point of the post, I would ask, what is a theory that isn’t supported by details and cases in real life?
Elizabeth: As I noted here, my official policy is not responsible for spelling, but thank you =) And you’re correct, I meant your Central Europe: Poland, Czech Republic, Baltics, Slovaka, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania.
Sean: I wanted to spare your feelings I really did! But as Barnett so often quips, Kaplan offers no grand strategy. On the same token, Tom offers no on the ground experience to back up the practical application of his theory. This is why I choose to look at them as two sides to a coin, instead of trashing the other (as Tom does!).
Chirol- Sorry, I didn’t mean to point out the spelling, was only trying to quote. Anyway: If you are referring to Central Europe, one wonders why Eastern Europe is doing so terribly poorly? In the next analysis, I would like to see that as well…
Chirol: thanks for wanting to spare my feelings ;-)
Tom is ‘aggressive’ toward views he thinks are wrong ;-)
“Tom is ‘agressive’ towards views he thinks are wrong”–or who disagree with him, perhaps as well?
g: maybe. i can’t be objective about it. i’ll have to leave you to the CA boys for a more objective take.
without conducting a systematic survey, i think there have been times when Tom has admitted he was wrong about something. so that’s something.
i don’t think he conflates ‘wrong’ with ‘disagree’, but…
Having thrown the first punch in Round I of this battle, and sat out Round II, I just have three comments in response to the final post -
1) I agree with Curzon’s point that Kaplan’s Empire Wilderness is much more useful for this subject than PNM theory. Although it doesn’t deal with int’l affairs, it is actually one of Kaplan’s better books I think.
2) I agree that PNM theory is strong on description and weak on prescription. The problems are in the application. The apparent failure to execute PNM domestically seriously undermines my confidence in its utility abroad (this was my original point in the first post). That said, I do want to make a distinction on why it matters, because I think that the significance differs in the two cases.
I think that the significance of the Core/Gap divide globally arises from economics and security, but in the U.S. it is more political and, to a lesser degree, social. That is, globally the two work together because where the Core provides capital and know-how, the Gap often provides labor. So there is a synergistic relationship.
I don’t think this is true domestically. Investors bypass inner city areas domestically for one reason, and its not racism – they don’t believe that it offers them an optimal return on their investment. There are multiple reasons for this, but it really comes down to that. Not only are urban slums economically of little relevance, but American communities have shown time after time that they can keep the crime out by hiring private security, renovating areas, paying the police more – in a word, gentrification. This has happened very recently in the DC area. The district has become a safer, nicer place to live, not because the underlying social problems have been eliminated, but because they have been walled off.
This creates one more point of dissimilarity – when it comes to stopping terrorism, one of the main reasons for the PNM theory, this is much harder internationally than domestically.
The biggest problem revolves around what I would call the “social consensus” problem. Democracies thrive because there is sufficient social consensus and mutual identity of interests such that challenges to the dominant view are not an existential threat to the state. This makes tolerance easier. But when mutual identification ceases to exist, public debates revolve around identity rather than the substantive issues of the day. Also, the “echo chamber” effect, which exists among whites as well, is almost total as between whites and blacks. They almost inhabit two separate informational worlds.
This in turn undermines foreign policy, by making more difficult the national consensus necessary for sacrifices which are essential to the long-term national interest. Indeed, there almost is no “national interest,” at least as far as many voters are concerned.
3) As to why Eastern/Central Europe has succeeded and Russia hasn’t, this is where a straightforward Kaplanian analysis is strongest – the ones which have done well – Poland, the Czechs, Hungary, Slovenia – were part of Western Europe, Catholic Europe, prior to the rise of communism, where as the slavic societies are all flocking together more or less; they are all doing badly. People forget how Prague was considered one of the major intellectual centers of the Renaissance. Poles and Hungarians – think Copernicus – also played an important role. These societies are returning to their historical norm.
Kirk,
I think that the theory you’ve proposed about Central Europe was first proposed not by Kaplan, but by Huntington. Kaplan tends to focus more on the imperial heritage of the Austro-Hungarians. The Catholic-Orthodox divide (not Slavic-Other: the Czechs, Poles and Slovenians are Catholic Slavs, while the Romanians are Latin Orthodox) corresponds more directly with wealth, though.
E,
I refer to a “Kaplanian analysis” to indicate one which attempts to explain current events as being heavily influenced by historical and cultural heritage. I think that it is fair to say that Kaplan was influenced by Huntington, certainly there is some overlap there, but perhaps we read the two differently. I tend to think of Huntington as having been one of the first to propose a new paradigm following the collapse of the Soviet bloc, with Kaplan attempting to propose a separate paradigm focused less on the clash of civilizations and more on a reaction to the post-Cold War euphoria. But if you want to view Kaplan as a development of Huntington, I think that is defensible.
Terminology: You are correct, my terminology was messed up there. I should have used “Orthodox” rather than “Slavic.” Catholicism, in my view, acted as a conduit of Western culture since it gave the Poles, etc. a common culture with more developed parts of Europe, while East Orthodoxy (and Islam) acted as a barrier; it wasn’t the religions per se that blocked progress, but rather the fact of religious difference blocked the transmission of new developments.
That said, I think the argument still works (with amended terminology). The relatively better progress of certain Central European countries was due to the fact they shared a common cultural space with the West prior to WWII.
Kirk- When I said Huntington, I meant the religions / civilizational analysis (Catholic vs. Orthodox) that I thought you were referring to, as a specific. Kaplan tends to take a more holistic view with more emphasis on the ethnic and long-term historical and environmental factors, and modern pressures, taking it group by group rather than lumping all people together. Anyway, I agree that it has to do with a shared space with the “Western” Europeans before WWII, but what is it about that space? Catholocism? How come Protestant countries are much richer on average than Catholic countries? Is it certain ethnicities? Geography?
The ethnological socio-historical analysis of current political trends I think was invented before Huntington- Herodotus comes to mind.
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