To ask a country with 750 million people living on less than a dollar a day to optimize their development for the environment as opposed to getting food in the mouths of these people and giving them a decent lifestyle, that's just a little bit too much to ask.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

I don't think, post 9/11, we're going to wait for real obvious things like Country A attacking Country B - because Country A doesn't attack Country B any more.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

An economically confident America has - since becoming a world power at the start of the 20th century - tended toward global engagement. It is during times of economic stress (1930s, 1970s) that America has become more withdrawn.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Transnational terrorism, in the form of the Salafi Jihadist movement, is fundamentally a function of globalization.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Having grown up on 'Star Trek,' I've had one great dream since childhood, and that is to see my life end somewhere other than here on Earth.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Is there anything about cyberspace that particularly screams Air Force? Not really. If cyber warfare is going to be as all-encompassing as it's made out to be by its vigorous proponents, then it will disseminate throughout the services even more than the drone phenomenon has.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Homeland defense doesn't generate any force requirements beyond having enough National Guard to save lives in natural disasters and to baby-sit nuclear power plants on Code Red days.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

China's headlong rush to industrialize was pursued with the most Marxist of prejudices - bending nature to man's will. That's a desperately hard trick to pull off when one fifth of humanity, having previously subsisted on 7 percent of the world's freshwater supply, decides that it wants to instantaneously increase its caloric intake.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Once Europe's colonial empires were sent into deep decline, thanks to World War II, America became globalization's primary replicating force, integrating Asia into its low-end production networks across the second half of the twentieth century - just like Europe had integrated the U.S. before.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Wikistrat is my ninth start-up, so I've been through this process a few times. You have to go with what works. The power of example is compelling, so model the ideas that you want someone to understand.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

There is no battle space the U.S. Military cannot access. They said we couldn't do Afghanistan. We did it with ease. They said we couldn't do Iraq. We did it with 150 combat casualties in six weeks. We did it so fast we weren't prepared for their collapse. There is nobody we can't take down. The question is, what do you do with the power?

Thomas P.M. Barnett

During the cold war, it was easy for the Pentagon to justify its budget, as the Soviets essentially sized our forces for us. We simply counted up their stuff and either bought more of the same or upgraded our technology.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Women waited 144 years before earning suffrage. If a mature, multiparty democracy was so darn easy, everybody would have one.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

You can't drag people from understanding to action. A customer isn't actually at the last mile if you're the one dragging her to the finish line.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

The most important thing you need to know about the Pentagon is that it is not in charge of today's wars but rather tomorrow's wars.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Historians are going to look back on rising China and say America, at least under the Bush years, did not get that wrong.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

To ask a country with 750 million people living on less than a dollar a day to optimize their development for the environment as opposed to getting food in the mouths of these people and giving them a decent lifestyle, that's just a little bit too much to ask.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Frankly, the only thing China has in easy abundance is people and dirty coal. Neither is the asset they're made out to be.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

The Air Force has it far worse than the Navy in terms of existential fears, primarily due to the rapid rise and unbelievable dissemination of drones, where seemingly now every military unit has their own miniature air wing of what would have recently passed as toys.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Here's my favorite bonehead concept from the 1990s in the Pentagon: the theory of anti-access, area-denial asymmetrical strategies. Why do we call it that? Because it's got all those A's lined up I guess. This is gobbledygook for 'If the United States fights somebody, we're going to be huge. They're going to be small.'

Thomas P.M. Barnett

The Department of Homeland Security is a strategic feel good measure. It's going to be the Department of Agriculture for the 21st century. TSA - thousands standing around.

Thomas P.M. Barnett