Losing Control: Global Security in the Twenty-first Century

Abstract

'Losing Control combines a glimpse behind the security screens with sharp analysis of the real global insecurities - growing inequality and unsustainability.' The New Internationalist The attacks in New York and Washington on 11th September 2001 took most of the world by surprise. It showed that, for those living in the West, the threat of terrorist attack is now very real. Maintaining control of global security has become a matter of paramount importance to all Western governments. As the war against 'terrorism' widens into a war against particular states who may have played little part in the disaster, the idea that we can maintain global security by desperately clinging to our current security paradigm becomes increasingly improbable. In Losing Control, Paul Rogers calls for a radical re-thinking of western perceptions of security that embraces a willingness to address the core issues of global insecurity. This acclaimed book has already become an essential guide for anyone who wishes to understand the current crisis, and this updated edition contains a new preface and a new chapter which address the specific problems that have arisen since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Drawing on examples from around the world, Rogers analyses the legacy of the Cold War's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the impact of human activity on the global ecosystem; the growth of hypercapitalism and resulting poverty and insecurity; the competition for energy resources and strategic minerals; biological warfare programmes; and paramilitary actions against centres of power. The new edition brings the whole analysis right up to date, arguing persuasively that the world's elite cannot maintain control and that a far more emancipatory and sustainable approach to global security has to be developed.