Losing Control

Rogers Paul

Description

'Outstanding ... combines a glimpse behind the security screens with a sharp analysis of the real global insecurities - growing inequality and unsustainability' - New Internationalist

Written in the late 1990s, Losing Control was years, if not decades, ahead of its time, predicting the 9/11 attacks, a seemingly endless war on terror and the relentless increase in revolts from the margins and bitter opposition to wealthy elites.

Now, more than two decades later and in an era of pandemics, climate breakdown and potential further military activity in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Paul Rogers has revised and expanded the original analysis, pointing to the 2030s and '40s as the decades that will see a showdown between a bitter, environmentally wrecked and deeply insecure world and a possible world order rooted in justice and peace.

Preface

Abbreviations

1. A Violent Peace

2. Learning from the Cold War

3. Taming the Jungle

4. A Different Security Paradigm

5. Losing Control

6. A War-Promoting Hydra

7. The Thirty-Year War

8. ISIS and After

9. Lost Decade

10. Future Possible

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Military Science
• Security International
• Security National
• Environmental Policy
• Public Policy
• International Relations
• Political Science
• HISTORY
• Weapons of mass destruction
• ISIS
• USA
• United States of America
• Military history
• World Trade Center attack
• Energy and society
• Natural Resources
• International security
• Modern warfare
• Isis (disambiguation)
• General officer
• Military
• Weapon of mass destruction
• Terrorism
• Strategy
• Peace
• North Africa
• Middle East
• Biological warfare
• Image and Scanner Interface Specification
• General
• États-Unis
• Stratégie (patron de conception)
• Paix

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780745343747
• Langue: English

Extrait

Losing Control
Outstanding ... combines a glimpse behind the security screens with a sharp analysis of the real global insecurities - growing inequality and unsustainability.
- New Internationalist
Paul Rogers is one of those dangerous people who can change your mind.
-Rear Admiral Richard Cobbold, CB, FRAeS, Former Director, Royal United Services Institution for Defence Studies
A highly respected academic, absolutely committed to grassroots change.
- Peace News
No other book sets out so comprehensively the dangers attached to military security - described as unsustainable and self-defeating - when fundamental rethinking about the real solutions to global insecurity is crucial.
-Bruce Kent, Vice-President of CND
This fourth edition more clearly than ever demonstrates the connections between the neoliberal economy, environmental degradation and the false assumptions of security as a state rather than human-centred problem. This book makes the argument with clarity for a total rethink of how we live together.
-Jenny Pearce, Research Professor at the Latin America and Caribbean Centre, London School of Economics
With a magisterial overview of the last half century, this book offers a prophetic yet ultimately hopeful political and social challenge: to re-think economics, the environment and security for the sake of future generations. A compelling read, it is bold and realistic, principled and pragmatic.
-The Rt Revd Nicholas Baines, Bishop of Leeds
Paul Rogers tells it as it is. If you want to really understand the global security challenges we face, then read this book. His analysis is an urgent call to act against rampant inequalities, the diffusion of violence, ecological crisis, and the militarism that underpins a security paradigm of elite control.
-Nick Ritchie, Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of York
For twenty years now, Losing Control [has] been analysing how the economic, environmental and security paradigms that dominate world politics have become increasingly brittle. Paul Rogers writes with realism, radicalism and, ultimately, with optimism.
-Michael Clarke, Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, UK
A passionate, personal and, above all, thought-provoking case for a fundamental rethink of international security in the twenty-first century. I would strongly recommend this book to new students of security and international affairs.
-Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director-General of Royal United Services Institute, UK
Losing Control
Global Security in the Twenty-first Century
FOURTH EDITION
Paul Rogers
First published 2000 Fourth edition published 2021 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright Paul Rogers 2000, 2002, 2010, 2021
The right of Paul Rogers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 4368 6 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 4367 9 Paperback ISBN 978 0 7453 4376 1 PDF ISBN 978 0 7453 4374 7 EPUB ISBN 978 0 7453 4375 4 Kindle


This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
For Amber and Felix
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
1. A Violent Peace
2. Learning from the Cold War
3. Taming the Jungle
4. A Different Security Paradigm
5. Losing Control
6. A War-Promoting Hydra
7. The Thirty-Year War
8. ISIS and After
9. Lost Decade
10. Future Possible
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Losing Control was originally written in the late 1990s when the United States was the world s sole superpower, Russia was only just starting to emerge from the chaos of the Soviet collapse and a decade of hyper-capitalism and widespread poverty, and China was still in the early stages of authoritarian capitalism. Even so, the main focus in international security studies was still with interstate relations. Losing Control took the view that the more important trend was the combination of a world beset with widening socioeconomic difference combined with impending limits to growth, especially climate breakdown.
It further argued that powerful states were far from immune to the actions of movements, some of them extreme, that were often motivated by anger, bitterness and resentment in a deeply unjust world. Such states were losing control of what they thought was a secure global order. The book took the failed attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 as one of many examples of this potential and further suggested that if that attack had succeeded the United States would react with considerable military force while failing to understand the motives of those who supported the attackers.
The book was published in early 2001, a few months before 9/11, to mixed reviews and modest sales but attracted much wider attention in the aftermath of the attacks. A second edition with an additional chapter was written in early 2002 just before the start of the Iraq War and was translated into Chinese, Japanese and other languages. Finally, a third edition written in 2008-09 added two further chapters analysing the early years of the war on terror. A year ago, I approached David Castle at Pluto Press and suggested a fourth edition in view of all the developments over the two decades since 2000. This would reproduce the original text and replace the three extra chapters with a new and longer Part II. He wisely argued against this option and suggested a more comprehensive rewrite, starting with a substantial reworking of the first few chapters. This new edition is the result and was written through the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, itself a chastening experience.
Concerning the original text, the chapter that has changed the least is Chapter 2 which looks at lessons to be learnt from the Cold War. It was developed from a book edited by Alan Dobson at the University of Swansea, Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Cold War , and originally written for a seminar at the university. Some of the material in Chapter 3 stems from a paper published by the British American Security Information Council co-written by Simon Whitby and Stephen Young. In Chapter 5 , the work on the Provisional IRA s campaign of economic targeting in the UK in the early 1990s was much aided by Simon Whitby who was a research assistant at Bradford when I was Head of Department.
Pluto Press were kind enough to publish two books in the mid-2000s drawing on my weekly articles for Open Democracy, A War on Terror: Afghanistan and After (2004) and A War Too Far: Iraq, Iran and the New American Century (2006), and these provided material for this book, as did a more recent text Irregular War: The Threat from the Margins (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017). Where an endnote specifically points to part of a text being developed from analyses published by Oxford Research Group or Open Democracy, the originals have hyperlinks which further indicate sources used. I would like to thank David Castle, the Editorial Director at Pluto Press, for guiding me through the work and to Robert Webb, Managing Editor, and Melanie Patrick, Design Manager at Pluto.
Over the past 40 years I have been very fortunate to be closely linked with the Peace Studies group of academics at Bradford University, currently part of the Division of Peace Studies and International Development. It has been a privilege to work with many staff and students from all over the world in an environment that was invariably an education in itself. I have also been lucky to have been able to teach at the UK s senior defence colleges and to engage with many different policy and campaigning groups across the country with hugely diverse knowledge, opinions and experience.
Claire and I have five grandchildren and this edition is dedicated to the two youngest, four-year-old twins Amber and Felix. They, and our other grandchildren, Charlotte, Benjamin and Zoe may well live to see the start of the twenty-second century and, if they do, I hope they will look back on the early and middle years of this century as the period when people at last learnt to live in an environment of cooperation, peace and justice
Paul Rogers Kirkburton, West Yorkshire January 2021
Abbreviations
ABL
Air-borne laser
ABM
Anti-ballistic missile
ACC
Air Combat Command
AFB
Air force base
AIG
American International Group
ALCM
Air-launched cruise missile
AQI
Al-Qaida in Iraq
ATACMS
Army tactical missile system
CALCM
Conventionally armed cruise missile
CEP
Circular error probable
CENTCOM
Central Command
CFC
Chlorofluorocarbon
CND
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
COBRA
Cabinet Office, Briefing Room A
COP
Conference of Parties
CPA
Coalition Provisional Authority
CTBT
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
EMP
Electro-magnetic pulse
GIA
Armed Islamic Group (of Algeria)
GCHQ
Government Communications Headquarters
GLCM
Ground-launched cruise missile
ICBM
Intercontinental ballistic missile
IDF
Israeli Defence Force
ILO
International Labour Organisation
ISIS
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
JSOC
Joint special operations command
LOW
Launch on warning
LTTE
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
LUA
Launch under attack
MAI
Multilateral agreement on Investments
MIRV
Multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle
NAFTA
North American Free Trade Area
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NCMI
National Center for Medical Intelligence
NSA
Negative security assurance
NSRA
National Security Risk Assessment
OPEC
Organisation of Petroleu