Thomas P.M. Barnett is a leading security geopolitical strategist and bestselling author, who has worked in U.S. national security circles since the end of the Cold War.
He is known for his work at the Naval War College and at the Office of Force Transformation in the Department of Defense under the direction of the late Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski (U.S. Navy, Ret.) – the father of “network-centric warfare.”
After 9/11, Thomas joined Cebrowski’s new Office of Force Transformation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as his Assistant for Strategic Futures. In that capacity, he developed an influential brief on globalization and international security, which later morphed into a New York Times-bestselling book, The Pentagon’s New Map (2004). Thomas extended his “New Map” series with the volumes Blueprint for Action (2005) and Great Powers (2009).
The New York Times-bestselling author and nationally-known public speaker has been profiled on the front-page of the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Barnett is in high demand within government circles as a forecaster of global conflict and an expert of globalization, as well as within corporate circles as a management consultant and conference presenter. A prime example is his TED Talk, which has received over 1.3 million online views.
An award-winning professor, Dr. Barnett has written for Esquire, Foreign Policy, Wired, National Review, and the Washington Post, and has been interviewed by Rolling Stone, Economist, Time, BBC World Service, CNN, Fox News, NPR, and many foreign media. Thomas has been described by U.S. News & World Report's Michael Barone as "one of the most important strategic thinkers of our time."
He worked for years as a journalist, both as a Contributing Editor at Esquire and authored a nationally-syndicated print column for Scripps Howards News Service. Barnett served as a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee’s Howard Baker Center for Public Policy and as a visiting strategist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Thomas was likewise a Visiting Strategist at China's first-ever government-approved NGO on national defense and international security – the Knowfar Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies.
Thomas now serves as Principal Business Strategist at Throughline, Inc., where he is focused on scenario planning. His current work and thinking about the converging forces of geo-political security, climate change, technology, supply chain, and America’s ability to lead are valued by the Throughline’s clients, including the U.S. national security community, major U.S. government agencies, multinational corporations, and non-profits.
Throughline, Inc. is a privately held enterprise design strategy firm headquartered in Washington, DC with a global reach, a presence in 10 states, and an office in Leonardtown, MD. Since 2005, Throughline has supported more than 90 clients, including associations, federal government agencies the U.S. Postal Service, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, and the Department of Defense—and commercial leaders, such as Campbell Soup Company, Northrop Grumman, and World Wildlife Fund. Throughline specializes in harnessing the power of visual communications to transform established organizations into adaptive enterprises using design strategy, iterative co-creation and creative business solutions.
