Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

One of my bits in the October issue of Esquire got cut, so only three from me in the 75th anniversary issue. Naturally, I considered it the best one. But the 4th sort of covered similar territory, so I understand. The cut one may run in November in a slightly expanded version.

I wrote a 5700-word first draft of an Obama-McCain voter's guide on foreign policy/national security for Good magazine's Nov-Dec election issue. It will likely be slimmed to 5k. About 850 intro and then 12 issue areas, where sometimes I pick Obama and sometimes McCain and sometimes they draw. Fun to do. Really helped me work out my thinking on both, so no surprises (the goal of systematic thinking about the future).

This coming week's column will be on Russia. Still working that one out--more forcefully.

Finally, penned 600-plus words for a compendium of essays by bloggers based on their online discussion of Frans Osinga's book on John Boyd, the American strategist. Just submitted to Safranski, who participates. Not sure I hit the green, but I gave the ball a good whack. Small publisher. Not sure when it'll come out, but with all the bloggers involved, rest assured you'll hear about it.

If you can believe it, my next book, beyond Great Powers, is already in the works. Meet with Warren on that one next week, along with the proposed co-author. I need some overseas travel (a bunch, really) to pull it off. Should have a sense of story by time GP hits stores, so maybe propose soon after and target early 2010. This book would be half-reporting in terms of production.