And didn't that work nicely?

Let's see. The last few in front of me:

Cold Service / Robert B. Parker
The Motive / John Lescroart
Blink / Malcolm Gladwell
Shadowmarch, Volume 1 / Tad Williams
The Pentagon's New Map / Thomas PM Barnett
Shadow of the Giant / Orson Scott Card
All the Flowers Are Dying / Lawrence Block

I have no useful thoughts about Blink. Very, very superficial, but interesting in a popcorn kind of way. Gladwell kind of lost me when he took on the Diallo case and determinedly refused to present any point of view about it.

Pentagon's New Map was by far the most optimistic foreign affairs book I have ever read. I don't want to go into his entire argument -- though I find the overall concept pretty compelling. Core States are stable, the States in the non-integrating Gap are unstable and are the source of much of current turmoil and violence. Integrating those Gap States is a goal that can be achieved through many means, including trade and war, but the idea is to give them clear views of evolving futures instead of constant instability. Frankly, Barnett probably had me convinced when he presented Core v/s Gap as Locke's hopes versus Hobbes' nightmares.

Two thoughts I had when reading it. Not issues, not arguments, but concerns based on my own knowledge and experience.

1-- I am not clear on how Barnett sees the Leviathan and SysAdmin forces being comprised, but he seems more sold on the capabilities of Special Forces than I am. That said, he only covers force composition briefly, and I feel like I'm setting up straw men even thinking about this in detail.

2-- Barnett's description of the free flow of capital around the globe -- especially from the Core ito the Gap -- feels like the right idea, as does the free flow of Labor -- especially from the Gap to the Core. But the model he describes is prone to the basic drawback that Walter Reuther would recognize: Capital unfettered abuses Labor.

Are there ways around that? Sure. But I distrust that corporations, left to themselves, will make much effort to improve the lives of those in the Core.

But again, Barnett sees economic transformation as just one of three ways in which countries can evolve. So I am curious to see his full view expanded upon.

As I look over both these points, I suspect that both of them come down to my reaction to Barnett's language. On the Gap enforcement force, he sounds remarkably like the counterinsurgency advocates who talked Kennedy into a viewpoint on how we could fight in Vietnam. And his language about economic transformation sounds too similar to the dot com bullshit that I worked through from '95 to, uh, now. Doesn't make him wrong, just makes his language trip the wrong levers in my head.