I’m just coming up to speed on Thomas M. Barnett’s very interesting work on the functioning Core and the non-integrating Gap presented in his Esquire article The Pentagon’s New Map (and his book of the same name) but I already have some questions. For those of you who are better-informed than I, why are Russia and China part of the Core while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is part of the Gap? History? Geography? What are the decision criteria which cause a particular country to be assigned to either category?
Very quickly ( cause I’m multitasking) those states are ” New Core ” because they are adapting to the rule sets that make the Core a place of peace, order and prosperity. While China and Russia are not totally there yet they are certainly committed to continue moving toward integration.
Gap states reject connection except on the very limited terms permitted by their rulers in order to maintain control over their populations.