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Chirol
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Chirol

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May 2nd, 2006

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Mapping the Gap IV: Canada, Germany, UK

[Prelude | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3]

Thomas Barnett says that the map from The Pentagon’s New Map came from drawing a line around America’s past military deployments which created the natural demand pattern for the exporting of US security. But what does that same demand pattern look like for our allies? Here’s a look using maps from the German and Canadian Ministries of Defense with Barnett’s Gap overlayed.

Click below for Germany’s current military deployments.

If you refer to a second post of mine on Germany’s past deployments, you see they also fall within the Gap.

Next, we have Canada. Click on the map for their current military deployments.

No surprises here. Again, all are within the Gap. I searched far and wide for an official map from the UK’s Ministry of Defense but couldn’t find one. The MOD’s site isn’t very user friendly. However, the British Army’s site does have a good list of its deployments albeit with a disappointing map. Nevertheless, here it is:

Also all within the Gap. The MOD doesn’t seem to coordinate well so I also found a map of the Royal Air Force’s deployments which is below:

And as usual, more of the same. All in the Gap.

There’s been a lot of stir lately in the blogosphere about PNM theory. Mark of Zenpundit has a fabulous post up as does Dave Schuler from the Glittering Eye on the Wave Theory of the Core and Gap. Dan “Magic Cloud” tdaxp is working on operationalizing the Gap, i.e. running the numbers of which countries exactly belong in the Gap. And last but not least, Chicago Boyz has two hefty posts picking apart PNM.

As our allies slowly look at Tom’s map and compare it to the ones I’ve listed above, they’ll realize preemption and active intervention around the globe isn’t as much of a “cowboy policy” as they think because in fact, they’ve been most all of the same places. Again, this is why you haven’t heard much from Europe lately, they’re starting to see we’re on to something. But even as governments start to slowly realize the same thing, it’ll be a very very very long uphill battle to convince the European public.

Comments to this entry

phil
May 2, 2006
11:44 am
"Marc Schuler from the Glittering Eye"

That's actually Dave Schuler.
Dan tdaxp
May 2, 2006
12:25 pm
The "operationalization" is done, and the posts should begin this Sunday. (Don't worry -- I gave away the results in the first post. ;-) )
snow
May 3, 2006
2:47 am
"they'll realize preemption and active intervention around the globe isn't as much of a "cowboy policy"Â? as they think because in fact, they've been most all of the same places. Again, this is why you haven't heard much from Europe lately, they're starting to see we're on to something."

Very interesting posts, Chirol. And thanks for the commentary at the end. Brings it all home. The Europeans know that they've got to get serious about security, they just can't tell they're constituents what this entails.
dude spellings
May 3, 2006
7:49 am
Great post, but IMO, "pre-emption" is not what PNM is about. Pre-emption by itself most certainly IS a "cowboy policy". Running around the world unilaterally bombing other nations, exempting ourselves from the same rule-sets that we impose on other nations will NEVER convince the European public or the American public (remember over half of America is not in favor pre-emption, especially not now after 3 years in Iraq) that "we are on to something". Its not about marching into the Gap and slapping around a few bad actors until they get their asses in line. Its about a global strategy that involves the entire Core coordinating with one another to reduce, if not eliminate, the Gap. And the only way to do that is through a huge multilateral effort where the United States demonstrates that we are truly in it for the benefit of those we claim to be helping. There was a GREAT article the NYT today sums it up nicely. Here are a few passages:

??But George W. Bush is not wrong to think that America's security depends on how other countries, particularly in the Islamic world, govern themselves. In the long run, more accountable government can help drain the fury upon which jihadism feeds. Where Bush — like Burnham before him — goes wrong is in believing that America can unilaterally declare a moral standard while exempting itself. For President Bush, freedom is a one-way conversation. The United States calls on other countries to embrace liberty; we even aid them in the task. But if they call back, proposing some higher standard that might require us to modify our actions, we trot out John Bolton. For the rest of the world, freedom requires infringements upon national sovereignty. But for the United States, sovereignty trumps all.??

and...

??Most Muslims, according to polls, do not consider democracy an alien notion; in fact, they hunger for it. They simply do not believe that it is America's real goal. And that is largely because they do not feel that America abides by the principles it preaches. As the Jordanian journalist Rami Khouri has noted: "George Bush talks in terms of the U.S. having a national mission to promote freedom in the world. . .everybody in the world looks at the U.S. and asks, Where is the moral and the legal and the political authority for you to do this? The authority has to come out of some kind of reference point, some legitimate reference point — treaties, international law, international conventions, U.N. Security Council resolutions, General Assembly consensus, some mechanism that has credibility."??

I do not necessarily think that the UN is the proper mechanism because it seems almost as broken as the Gap, but the point is that the ability to militarily destroy any country on the planet without any countervailing force is not what gives us the authority or the credibility to invade the Gap in the name of Democracy. Our authority and credibility can only come from our willingness to participate in the global conversation, not just merely dictate our demands. As the author of the NYT peice puts it: _America's power to intervene effectively overseas depends on its power to persuade and not merely coerce. The power to persuade depends on a willingness to be persuaded. _ Its more than just about the bombs!

Here's the rest of the NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30liberal.html
Dude’s Drivel » It’s not our Military Might, Stupid.
May 3, 2006
8:11 am
[...] I read a Great Article in the NYT today. It reminded me alot of Thomas P.M. Barnett’s work, so I went to go check out his site to see if he posted anything about it. I didn’t see anything there yet, but I did notice a link to a post called “Mapping The Gap” on another blog, so I followed it. It was a very interesting post that mapped out the military activity of several European nations, revealing that all of their recent deployments, like the US, have also been in what Barnett calls “the Gap”. That part of the post was very insightful, not to mention a fair amount of work to research all of that. [...]
snow
May 3, 2006
8:59 am
"Our authority and credibility can only come from our willingness to participate in the global conversation, not just merely dictate our demands. "

I would say that the criticism of the Bush admin in terms of their supposed unilateralism are overblown. It seems quite obvious to me that Bush has engaged heavily in diplomacy. Perhaps he hasn't put as much emphasis on it as others would like, but he's also refused to rule out military force, which many others (especially Europeans) basically do, either implicitly or explicitly. So Bush relies a little less on diplomacy and a little more on the use of military force, this is a bad thing when others refuse all military force? What good is diplomacy without military force to back it up?
w
Chirol
May 3, 2006
9:06 am
Snow: You're spot on. We've engaged in plenty of diplomacy. Recall the nonsense last minute meeting in the Azores before the Iraq War? The US didn't even need an additional resolution to attack Iraq but we tried to get one for our allies. As snow notes, we engage in just as much diplomacy as Europeans. The difference is that we aren't as spineless as jellyfish in dealing with threats.

The Europeans are like an old dog but only know one trick: roll over.
IJ
May 3, 2006
10:11 am
"Our authority and credibility can only come from our willingness to participate in the global conversation, not just merely dictate our demands." Unfortunately it has proved impossible for the US administration to persuade other nations, let alone most of its own people, that its foreign policy is best for the world.

Since the end of the Cold War, the power of the US hasn't really been balanced in the global system. The EU has shown little appetite to unite and balance it. However there is movement in the East: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (principally Russia and China) is being joined by Iran and India as full members. Checks and balances will no doubt develop.
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive »
May 3, 2006
9:31 pm
[...] [...]
tdaxp
May 8, 2006
8:19 pm
Redefining the Gap 1, Prologue

Note: This is a selection from Redefining the Gap, part of tdaxp's SummerBlog '06



Attempts to find empirical proof for Barnett's Core-Gap hypothesis have increases since I first attempted operationalizing the gap. Coming Anarchy has looked a...