Book Review: Blueprint for Action by Thomas P.M. Barnett

Concrete steps for a world you want to live in

Jun 24, 2007 by

Nick Chalko

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Blue Print for Action by Thomas P.M. Barnett

★★★★☆

Barnett's follow up to the Pentagon's New Map is a thought provoking book with detailed concrete steps we can take to "a future worth creating".

His main points are:

• Need a SysAdmin force (Police and Civil Service) not just a Leviathan(Unbeatable Military)


• The Marine Corps and the Army will focus on "Small Wars"


• The rest of the core will have to help with the Sys Admin tasks for things to work


• China will (and will have to) become a partner in the process

I really enjoyed the book and I am hopeful that I can be a part of creating that kind of future. However one part really worries me.
Barnett suggest we trade Taiwan to China for there support in removing Kim Il Jung.

I think this is a horrible idea. Selling out Tiawan is going to send the wrong signals to Japan, Thailand, and other Asian country. Barnett points out how China is in a position to waver between threats and trade to get what it wants and can deter most of our efforts in the area at will, but in this case thinks China will act in a way that benefits the United States. I hope the United States finds a way that deals with North Korea without selling out it friends in Taiwan.

Everyone interested in world politics should read this book because, for Good and Bad, it will shape international political thought in the United States for the next Decade

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I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it.

Graying duo keep passenger in check - The Boston Globe:

Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist. The man turned out to be a former US Marine.

"I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, 'Retired captain. USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden recalled. "So, basically, a couple of grandfathers took care of the situation."

Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.

"Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."

Semper Fi.

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