Garry Golden

An Association of Professional Futurists colleague Kaipo Lum (CEO Vision Foresight Strategy) has turned me back onto presentations by Thomas Barnett - author of the Pentagon’s New Map and Blueprint for Action.

I remembered Barnett’s 2005 TED Conference presentation quite well - but it always struck me as a specific look at the Iraq war and was too conflict centric. (It is still highly relevant and a wonderful presentation…)

A year later at PopTech he delivers a much wider, longer term view of global integration. He explains (better than anyone else, IMHO) that global integration is possible. Barnett gives us his strategies - but in the process, challenges widely held ssumptions about globalization (e.g. China, Iran, Europe, India, et al). I have watched the presentation five times in two days! (I recommend listening to it more than once to really get your head around it..)

Barnett is as funny as he is intellectually engaging. Read the book - or watch this 38 minute presentation. Regardless of his delivery format, he will change how you look at the future of global integration.

Barnett might help us all get a little closer to cultivating a genuine 21st century approach to globalization.

Click directly on the video below:

Depending on his audience, Barnett delivers a very different style but same message. Others are certainly worth the time:

• Audio presentation via ITConversations - here
• 2005 TED Conference presentation - here [23 minutes] More military/battle strategy oriented; The PopTech is more about culture/economic relationships

My highlights:

• We are likely be closer to countries that are ‘most like us economically, not politically’. Don’t try to build democracies. Recognize that many countries transition to market-based economies around strong centralized governments! (e.g. Japan, Singapore, Korea) In thirty years we might be closer to ‘China than Japan, India more than Britain, Russia more than Germany, Iran more than France’
• Peace making forces (SysAdmin) are more expensive than war forces (’Levianthan’) - but will also make you more money in the end. (China is the world’s best SysAdmin; the US is the best Leviathan. We need to leverage this!)
• Interested in security (e.g. trade/ports of entry) Give away the ’standards’ for peace-making just as you give away ‘plug and play’ standards for connecting to the Internet.
• Start looking at Iran with fresh eyes. Today, the people love us, the government hates us’. Iran is ‘ripe for the soft kill of connectivity’… Get connected. Strategy for next twenty years is to just not screw up! Demographics is in our favor - the aging of (young men) is a good thing - older men are less likely to support jihad strategies.
• Look to more pluralistic and market-oriented Asian Muslim leaders/populations to balance worlds
• And finally - the China-US relationship is the key for globalization. Expect transparency, not democracy from China. Appease them and avoid conflict. Resolve Thailand issue sooner rather than later - ‘Archduke Ferdinand lives in Thailand’. Partner with China (as SysAdmin force)- - they are already ‘all over Africa’