May 1, 2000-June 4, 2001: Workshops at the WTC Consider How Globalization Is Affecting National Security

A number of “sophisticated war game workshops” are held at the World Trade Center, which apparently help prepare the American financial and national security communities for the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. [C-SPAN, 5/30/2004; Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 11/4/2004] The workshops are part of a unique research partnership between the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and Wall Street bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald, called the “New Rule Sets Project.” The New Rule Sets Project aims to explore how globalization is altering America’s definitions of national security. Thomas Barnett, a senior strategic researcher at the Naval War College, is its director. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 5, 46; C-SPAN, 5/30/2004]
Three Workshops Are Held at the WTC – The project involves three day-long workshops being held at Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the WTC, where Cantor Fitzgerald has its main offices. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Naval War College, 11/5/2001] Each workshop is attended by about 30 participants, including “Wall Street CEOs, subject matter experts from academia and think tanks, and national security heavyweights from the White House and from the Pentagon,” according to Barnett. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005]
Workshops Examine ‘the Threats That Could Derail’ Globalization – The first workshop focuses on “Asian energy futures” and is held on May 1, 2000; the second workshop is focused on “foreign direct investment” and held on October 16, 2000; and the third workshop, focused on “Asian environmental solutions,” is held on June 4, 2001. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Naval War College, 11/5/2001] In the workshops, according to Barnett, participants look at “what it meant to integrate developing Asia in this ever-expanding global economy and how that would impact our definitions of the future of the world.” [Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005] They discuss “globalization’s future and the threats that could derail it.” The briefings that result from the workshops are issued throughout the Pentagon. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 5, 46]
Unidentified Spies Attend the Second Workshop – Three mysterious spies turn up at the second workshop. They do not participate in the event or interact with anyone, but just observe. Despite having a top secret clearance, Barnett is not allowed to know their identities. He will later suggest that the reason the spies attend is because this particular workshop is about the future of foreign direct investment in Asia, and since the Pentagon and the intelligence community have developed “a laserlike focus on China as the ‘rising near-peer competitor,’” the spies are there to give their employer “another chance to line up China’s future in their sights.” [Barnett, 2004, pp. 224-225]
Project Director Regularly Visits the Pentagon – Barnett visits the WTC two or three dozen times between 1998 and 2001 due to his work with the Naval War College in collaboration with Cantor Fitzgerald. The last of these visits will take place around four days before 9/11. He also visits the Pentagon regularly due to his work with the New Rule Sets Project. He will originally be scheduled to hold a briefing a week after 9/11 at the Navy Command Center—an area of the Pentagon that is mostly destroyed when the building is attacked on September 11. And he will originally be scheduled to attend a meeting at the WTC two weeks after 9/11. [Washington Post, 1/20/2002; Barnett, 2004, pp. 46-47; C-SPAN, 5/30/2004]
Director’s Research Becomes ‘Grand Strategy’ after 9/11 – The New Rule Sets Project apparently serves as good preparation for the challenges of the post-9/11 world. Barnett will describe 9/11 as a “shock to the system for the US political system and the national security community” that effectively tells them, “Here’s a new way of thinking about crisis and instability and threats in the world, and we have got to have new rules for dealing with this.” [C-SPAN, 5/30/2004] He will write that after 9/11, his research with the New Rule Sets Project “immediately shifted from grand theory to grand strategy.” Within weeks of 9/11, he will be installed as the assistant for strategic futures in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s newly created Office of Force Transformation (see October 29, 2001). [Esquire, 12/2002; Barnett, 2004, pp. 5-6]
Many Cantor Fitzgerald Employees Die on 9/11 – The New Rule Sets Project has evolved out of a series of “economic security exercises” run by the Naval War College and Cantor Fitzgerald, which explored the relationship between national security and economic issues (see October 1997-May 1999). [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001] Cantor Fitzgerald will suffer the greatest single loss by any company on 9/11, with 658 of its employees dying in the North Tower of the WTC. [Business Week, 9/10/2006] But Barnett’s two mentors at the firm—William Flanagan, a senior managing director, and Philip Ginsberg, an executive vice president—will be out of the building at the time of the attacks for “accidental reasons” and therefore survive. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 199; Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005; Virginian-Pilot, 9/11/2006]