Why should the U.S. establish a Treaty-Based Free City Development Program?
Because it would make America more secure, more influential globally, and a lot more prosperous. More Secure: The overwhelming military and economic supremacy of the U.S. today has made it seem unlikely that we would be seriously challenged by a peer nation for some time to come. But 9/11 dramatically demonstrated our continuing vulnerability to asymmetric attacks by terrorists, who see no stake or future for themselves in the global economy. Countries that cannot, or will not, join the global economy are breeding grounds of poverty, repression, terrorism and disease. As author Thomas Barnett explains in The Pentagon’s New Map, “It is disconnectedness that defines danger. Disconnectedness allows bad actors to flourish by keeping entire societies detached from the global community and under their control. Eradicating disconnectedness, therefore, becomes the defining security task of our age.”[3] Free Cities are a powerful strategy to fight disconnectedness, and drain the global swamp of
