South Africa is a seam state

The Pentagon's New Map - By Thomas P.M. Barnett, U.S. Naval War College

Since the end of the cold war, the U.S. has been trying to come up with an operating theory of the world - and a military strategy to accompany it. Now there’s a leading contender. It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them. Since September 11, 2001, the author, a professor of warfare analysis, has been advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community. Now he gives it to you.

In the author's analysis, South Africa is a seam state and is grouped under the parts of the world called the 'Functioning Core': where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and features a stable government, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide than murder.

The only functioning Core country in Africa, but it's on the bubble. Lots of concerns that South Africa is a gateway country for terror networks trying to access Core through back door. Endemic crime is biggest security threat. And then there's AIDS.

We're a "seam state" because we lie along the 'Non-Integrating Gap' group's boundary. In this war on terrorism, the U.S. will place a special emphasis on cooperation with these seam states. to shrink the Gap by stopping the ability of terrorist networks to access the Core.

In sum, it is always possible to fall off this bandwagon called globalization. And when you do, bloodshed will follow. If you are lucky, so will American troops.

But despite what is said, to the contrary, "if the past 100 years were widely considered the American Century, this new one is fast shaping up as the Anti-American Century": Ugly sentiments sting American tourists

Ok, enough of this! :)