] A country’s potential to warrant a U.S. military response
] is inversely related to its globalization connectivity.

There are some excellent observations in this article about the way that 911 focused the US military establishment on real problems and the way that military organization is changing. However, I'm not sure if I buy the primary premise, that lack of connectivity produces threats. The guy lists Yemen as an "end of the earth" from a globalisation perspective. I'm not expert on the middle east, but I'm pretty sure that observation is about 180 degress from correct. If I recall correctly, Yemen is one of the most cosmopolitain places in the Middle East, where immigrants outnumber naturalized citizens like 10 to 1. They are really really well connected.

So why are they a threat? Because, and really he does get to this in the essay but I think this point deserves much more emphasis, telecommunications and transportation technology have ended the relationship between ideology and geography. To be sure, if you grow up in a place that is poor, oppressed, and war torn, you are more likely to consider violence as an option then someone who grows up comfortable. However, is it really possible to remove right wing militia or left wing black blocs from the global security equation? Are these people less dangerous then Al'Q?

The lines will be drawn idealogically and not in terms of nationality, whether we like it or not. I think the fact that this guy is still leaning toward drawing lines on a map is evidence that he hasn't fully groked what is going on.

To paraphrase the Matrix, "There is no map."

The Pentagon's New Map