Description
Book SynopsisLooking at partisan groups such as the FLN, the Vietcong, and the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, Ouroboros: Understanding the War Machine of Liberalism assesses how they convert their knowledge of self into tactical and strategic advantages that nullify the Clausewitzian advantages in the distribution of military power. Reynolds argues that liberalism has a global transformative mission that requires an ideologically democratic core and an illiberal periphery. By assessing the ouroboros, which sees action as definitive and final, the book explains how it powers the new strategy of preemption that intervenes in the periphery, ostensibly to set up democratic, security-centered adjuncts.
Trade ReviewWith Ouroboros: Understanding the War Machine of Liberalism, Phil Reynolds lays bare Liberalism’s inherent penchant for war. In a robust and ultimately scathing critique of Liberal strategies of preemption, Reynolds helps us think through this unfolding contradiction. Why does such incongruity arise? What drives this apparent paradox forward? By answering these questions, Reynolds encourages us to see Liberalism as serpentine, twisting and contorting as it swallows its own tail. Ouroboros is an important book that brings clarity and conviction in an age of doublespeak and deception. -- Simon Springer, University of Newcastle, Australia
“Reynolds has written a thoughtful and challenging work that reinterprets recent US foreign policy. Through his utilization of European critical philosophers, Reynolds provides a fresh lens through which we can make sense of the recent peripheral wars with which the United States and its allies have struggled.” -- Leo Blanken, Naval Postgraduate School
Table of Contents1. Liberalism, the State, and War 2. Explaining Clausewitzian Power 3. The Security Dispositif as an Ordering Framework 4. The Domestic and the Periphery 5. The Origins of the War Machine 6. How the War Machine Become Permanent 7. Key Components of Clausewitzian War 8. The Problem with Clauswitzian War and the Trinity 9. How the Singularity Is Revealed 10. The Uninhibited Partisan, Terror and Force 11. Algeria and the Ordering of Society 12. Vietnam and the Immediate Threat 13. Afghanistan and Killing a War Machine 14. 9/11 and Comparative Advantage 15. Crux 16. Problems with Preemption 17. Preemption as Method 18. Generating Certainty PART SIX -CONCLUSIONS 19. Liberalism and the War Machine 20. The Singularity 21. Preemption as Imperative 22. The Ouroboros
