By THOMAS P.M. BARNETT, Knoxville News-Sentinel

This week I testified before the Seapower Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee regarding the Department of Navy's long-range strategic planning. This is what I told them.

In my latest book "Great Powers," I advance the controversial notion that America's success in spreading our model of globalization around the planet will force us into many compromises with local extremists seeking cultural sanctuary from its revolutionary norms of individual emancipation.

This week's Economist features a special report on the "burgeoning bourgeoisie," referring to the emerging global middle class that now encompasses -- by generous estimate -- roughly half the world and is centered in the emerging markets of the East and South.

The United States has been the demand center in the global economy for so long that we can't remember when that wasn't true. And yet global corporations increasingly view us as just another market among many as the global middle class expands dramatically and rising India and China collectively compete with America's demand function.

The Bush administration dug a deep hole for our new president. In the best tradition of self-help programs, here are 12 steps to get back to where we once belonged.
-- 1. Admit that we Americans are powerless over globalization.

My company, Enterra Solutions, has performed development work inside northern Iraq for close to two years, proving out an economic "connect-up" model we call Development-in-a-Box. That experience leads me to believe that the Kurds' success in nation building could ultimately be their undoing when it comes to President Obama's plan to rapidly withdraw our troops.