The Core vs. The Gap in a Flat World

Much of my reading during 2005 has been devoted to books on globalization. Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat is awesomely readable—a book that generates a lot of interesting discussion. I also like The Pentagon’s New Map and Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating, by Thomas P.M. Barnett. Although the authors come from widely disparate backgrounds, (Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist with the NY Times; Barnett is a military strategist and advisor to the Pentagon) the books complement each other well.

Barnett explains that, from the Pentagon’s perspective, the world is now comprised of Core states and Gap states. The Core states participate in the global economy and exhibit relatively stable political structure. The Gap states do not. And the Gap states are those that ultimately enable terrorists. Friedman’s explanation of globalization brings the world a bit closer to your living room. He views a flat world, where Bethesda and Bangalore are virtual next door neighbors and an IT worker in Texas competes for jobs with IT workers in China, India, Brazil, and other countries. (As an IT worker in Texas, I assure you he’s 100 percent correct!) As Barnett writes in Blueprint for Action, “The goals of winning the war on terrorism and expanding globalization are two sides of the same coin.”

I'm a media-fed American, and tend to believe that the United States should immediately and dramatically reduce our reliance on oil from the Middle East. Invest instead in alternative energy R&D. Save the planet and quit putting money into the hands of nations who incubate terrorism. Perhaps this is a knee-jerk reaction to the hatred and violence directed at us from that region. Nevertheless, it’s the way I feel and, I suspect, an opinion shared by many Americans. So I was caught off-guard by Barnett’s assertion that “calls for America to radically reduce its dependency on foreign oil are misguided in the extreme, because working to reduce our economic leverage in the region rather than increase it will only force us to rely all the more on military solutions over the long haul.” Barnett makes some good points to support his opinion, but two weeks after reading that comment, I’m still working to digest it. I’m trying to be open minded, but I just don’t agree. Of course, he’s the military strategist and I’m the mom from Texas…

An important sub-topic in the overall discussion of globalization is that of education reform in the United States. America is falling behind in the race to produce new scientists and engineers. Thus fewer Americans are qualified for the choice jobs that can now be filled by a qualified worker from any part of the world. So now I’m reading Richard Florida’s The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent. I’ve got quite a few years left until retirement, and I darned sure plan to remain in a well paying job. (I enjoy my TiVo, my Rio Carbon, and my iPaq phone—and I plan to enjoy the next generation of gadgetry as well.) As a parent and grandparent, I also want to see my family thrive and prosper in the decades to come. My goal is to answer the question, “What can I, as an individual, do to promote education reform in my community.” Stay tuned as I search for answers.