Description
Book SynopsisAccording to security elites, revolutions in information, transport, and weapons technologies have shrunk the world, leaving the United States and its allies more vulnerable than ever to violent threats like terrorism or cyberwar. As a result, they practice responses driven by fear: theories of falling dominoes, hysteria in place of sober debate, and an embrace of preemptive war to tame a chaotic world. Patrick Porter challenges these ideas. In The Global Village Myth, he disputes globalism's claims and the outcomes that so often waste blood and treasure in the pursuit of an unattainable "total" security. Porter reexamines the notion of the endangered global village by examining Al-Qaeda's global guerilla movement, military tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and drones and cyberwar, two technologies often used by globalists to support their views. His critique exposes the folly of disastrous wars and the loss of civil liberties resulting from the globalist enterprise. Showing that technology expands rather than shrinks strategic space, Porter offers an alternative outlook to lead policymakers toward more sensible responses - and a wiser, more sustainable grand strategy.
Trade ReviewIn this beautifully crafted critique of globalism, American foreign policy, and much current thinking about the impact of modern military technology on security, Patrick Porter offers a compelling reassessment of the idea that the world is "shrinking." ... An important work that offers insight into a strategic setting that will only grow more complex as the information revolution plays out in the decades ahead. Political Science Quarterly Patrick Porter's new book offers a cogently argued, smoothly written, exhaustively sourced, and desperately needed counter to this normally unquestioned narrative... Where this book has its greatest strength: the questions it poses and by extension the ones it forces its readers to ask. Proceedings Thought-provoking Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Strife in the Village 1. So Near, So Far: Physical and Strategic Distance 2. Wars for the World: The Rise of Globalism: 1941, 1950, 2001 3. Lost in Space: Al Qaeda and the Limits of Netwar 4. Access Denied: Technology, Terrain, and the Barriers to Conquest 5. Wide of the Mark: Drones, Cyber, and the Tyrannies of Distance Conclusion: The Geopolitics of Hubris Index
