Barnett, Harari: the Map and the Storm

Two important articles have been making the rounds in the blogosphere and I wanted to touch on them. Israeli physicist Haim Harari argues in A View from the Eye of the Storm that the current conflict - the product of a wholly disfunctional Mideastern society - rests on four pillars: suicide-murder, lies, money, and anarchy. Thomas P. M. Barnett of the US Naval War College, in his March 2003 article titled The Pentagon's New Map, points to the conflict between "the Core" of functioning, integrated, prosperous countries, and "the Gap" of non-integrating nations whose climate of "repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts" provides the breeding ground for the next generation of al-Qaeda followers. More to follow.