Army Reserve in Wartime

“One weekend a month, two weeks a year, my a**!” was the way the cardboard sign read on the side of truck I saw traveling through Iraq sometime in the summer of 2004 while deployed for Operation Iraqi   Freedom.   This is just one example of a Reserve Soldier who may not understand how the military (including Reserves) will continue to be heavily engaged in operations around the world supporting both combat and civil support missions.   Mr. Thomas P.M Barnett, is a War College professor who spent many years in the “five sided puzzle palace” briefing his strategic view of the future of the military and foreign policy.   Much of his philosophy is summarized in his 2002 article: “The Pentagon’s New Map,   It explains Why We Are Going to War and Why We’ll Keep Going to War“.   In this paper I will discuss Mr. Barnett’s theory and how it increases my potential for mobilization and deployment as an Army Reservist myself, for years to come.
      Mr. Barnett theory takes the world map and divides it into two main parts: The fist part is "the functioning core" which consists of “economically advanced or growing countries that are linked to the global economy and bound to the rule-sets of international trade” like the United States.   The second is called the “non-integrating gap” and includes all of the countries and nations that do not conform to any of the rules of international trade and are basically outside the global economy, and “led by dictators and tyrants that support terrorists” like (the former) Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Barnett, predicting we would go to war in Iraq the second time, said the U.S. will take “ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization”.   He suggests we must continue to engage with countries like Iraq that are still in the gap and create military and foreign policy to "shrink the gap".
      The United States will continue to maximize its use of Military forces, including Army Reserve, to keep the “gap” countries in check.   Military...