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 enlarge | Author: Philip Bobbitt
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $20.10
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New (34) Used (9) from $17.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 11589
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 688
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.7
ISBN: 1400042437
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.320973
EAN: 9781400042432
ASIN: 1400042437
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Provocative and Problematic June 25, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Phillip Bobbitt has a big idea with many consequences. Terror is not just the result of acts of terrorists; it includes the acts of mercenaries, pirates, resistance movements, and Mother Nature (e.g., earthquakes and floods). States are not just nation-states; Al Qaeda is a State. War is not just war; pursuing narcotics traffickers or Terror is also war.
In Terror and Consent, Bobbitt wishes to fundamentally change the way we think about the problem of security in the new century. His prescriptions would have significant impact: changing the balance of powers among the branches of government, extensive "reform" of laws and regulations including more extensive surveillance, modified distinctions between internal and external security, and fundamental changes in the missions and powers of the armed forces. Hence, Bobbitt's arguments warrant close scrutiny.
His big idea is an "impending change in the constitutional order of states" (p544), a transformation of nation-states into market states. Changes in the constitutional order drive changes in globalization and vice-versa. These developments are driving the emergence of a global terror network, which is undermining nation states. If we are not sufficiently proactive in anticipating threats and preparing responses in advance, the parlimentary democratic order we favor may succumb.
Is the constitutional order changing? The strongest evidence for this proposition would have to be the European Union, yet Bobbitt tells us that the US is the leading state advancing the new order. But there have not been wholesale reforms in the US at the level of its formal constitution. The changes have occurred at the more ephemeral level of government policies and regulations. We indeed see the trends collected together in the hypothesis of emerging market-states: the emphasis on international trade, the outsourcing of government, even military functions, and a contested shift from welfare-state security to individual market-based opportunity - grandly, the increasing penetration of capitalist relations into the public sphere.
We also see, however, a push-back against these trends, notably in the drive for national health insurance and rising protectionist sentiment. The 19th century era of laissez-faire trade and migration demonstrates how trends may be reversed. Laissez faire trade peaked around the 1880s; social and economic dislocations provoked a rising recourse to various protections and migration regulations. Trade continued to increase, but with the boundaries of European imperiums as the leading powers raced to acquire colonies to expand their protected markets for labor, raw materials, and finished goods. This reversal of free trade and renewed imperialism should serve as a caution: It is simply too early to predict the triumph of a constitutional order of market states.
How necessary is Bobbitt's big idea to his policy analysis of the implications of Terror and his prescriptions for the Wars against Terror? Bobbitt's key argument is that because of the changing constitutional order we are facing new challenges. Terrorism is no longer the product of nationalist movements; it is international in scope and highly networked. The old ordering of strategy and law, where law concerns internal matters and strategy addresses external challenges, is insufficient for current circumstances. Strategy and law must be reformed to work in concert. Strategy without law de-legitimizes action and prevents the formation of the coalitions necessary to achieve strategic goals. Law without strategy may block effective actions, increasing the damage from terrorism. This in turn de-legitimizes governments unable to provide security.
The spread of WMD is a threat multiplier. Increasing levels of international commerce and communications exacerbate the threat of WMD, providing channels for proliferation which may allow terrorists to acquire these weapons. This undermines the old anti-proliferation strategies of containment and deterence; international-networked terrorism presents no concentrated center of gravity for containment or retribution. This presents a fundamental challenge to states where government is based on the consent of the governed. Terrorist attacks with WMD are likely to lead towards martial law as publics will be willing to sacrifice liberty for security. In Bobbitt's formulation, this is a victory for Terror, for consent, which implies the ability to chose, is precisely the target of terrorists: they do hate us for our freedoms, the choices offered by markets and democracy. Therefore, waiting for attacks before responding will not provide adequate protection for states of consent. Such states must be prepared to act preclusively or even pre-emptively to head off such attacks before they happen.
Bobbitt also adds natural disasters and threats to human rights to the regime of Terror. This is a matter both of legitimacy, i.e., the demand of the public for effective security; and pragmatics: only the military has sufficient forces, resources, and organization to respond effectively to the largest disasters or conduct humanitarian interventions.
Here is an irony: the de-centering of the nation state requires a centralization of powers: Internally, the executive must have increased powers of surveillance and intervention, including the power to deploy the military in anticipation of attacks or in response to disasters. Internationally, the UN, even NATO, diffuse power too much for effective action. We should form a League of Democracies, which if it constrains US actions nevertheless expands the power to intervene where non-conforming states or terrorist virtual states present threats. This League would be essentially a multiple-participant global hegemon. Despite Babbitt's special pleading, I doubt that this hegemon would arouse much less opposition from those states left outside of the club than a unipolar hegemon. How would threatened states desiring to preserve autonomy react? By driving to acquire WMD and supporting terrorist groups whose actions might draw the attention and sap the power of the hegemon, escalating the threat it is supposed to counter?
Bobbitt's calls for a War against Terror, not a struggle under some less dire cover term. Terror threatens the survival of constitutional order as states of consent; where survival is at stake, war is the appropriate response. What are the consequences of declaring war, indefinite in geographic and temporal extension, against a loosely defined enemy?
In a state of war, the president gains wide powers in the role of commander-in-chief. Indeed, George W. Bush sought a war against Iraq from the beginning of his administration, in part because he sought to expand his power to act outside of the checks of Congress and the courts. This is a problem Bobbitt overlooks. If he takes the administration to task for many errors, he assumes that the executive uses its expanded power only to prosecute the Wars against Terror. Declaring a Long War against Terror and centralizing more power in the executive weakens checks on the executive and harms the constitutional order of states of consent that Bobbitt wishes to preserve. Like the Bush administration, Bobbitt tends to exaggerate the threats and discount the importance of non-military responses.
In arguing the need for changes in the law, Bobbitt misrepresents the powers already available under FISA for surveillance, or for police to detain and inspect vehicles suspected of transporting WMD. In affiliating natural disasters to Terror and calling for intervention by the national armed forces, he overlooks the powers of governors to call up military forces under state control - the National Guard. Following Hurricane Katrina, the Bush adminstration withheld aid to New Orleans, attempting to discredit the Democratic governor and to force her to turn over command of the Lousianna National Guard. Power seeks more power, and power corrupts. If the goal is to preserve states of consent - democracies under the rule of law, responses to terror must be more narrowly tailored to the likely threats than Bobbitt's proposals.
Many of Bobbitt's points are well taken, particularly his insistence on combining law and strategy, our interdependence with other states in pursuing security, the need for a clear and coherent doctrine addressing terrorism, WMD, and humanitarian crises, and the need for a broad consensus on the legitimacy of our actions. His big idea adds a richness to his discussion by seeking grounding in historical contexts. Nonetheless, his big idea both overdetermines the unfolding of events and is not very necessary. Consent is necessary for any open state order, market state or nation state. Bobbitt asserts that legitimacy for markets states is particularly vulnerable to the threats of Terror, but offers little supporting evidence. The necessary responses to terror will be similar in either case. Successful responses may indeed forestall the necessity of changes in the constitutional order of nation states.
There are other problems. Bobbitt collapses vital differences between different players and events, leading to their conflation, elevating terrorism, control over WMD proliferation, and natural catastrophe into Terror. Many believe that it is necessary to maintain the kinds of distinctions which Bobbitt collapses in order to tailor more efficient and effective responses to threats at a more appropriate scale of action. Such responses with their smaller scope will generate more narrow opposition, more easily overcome. Divide and conquer - the principle that enabled Great Britain to form a global empire, leveraging its limited resources to exercise effective control over a far larger population. This is the essential element of the recent successes in Iraq, often attributed to the "surge" - recognizing the differences between various resistance, insurgent, and terrorist groups in Iraq, and using them to multiply our ability to project force. If Bobbitt calls attention to some of the failures of the Bush administration in the occupation of Iraq, he hails the doctrine of preclusive intervention, and integrates the conflation of threats into the core of his big idea. The pre-surge strategy in Iraq led to an escalating cycle of violence; we cannot risk applying Bobbitt's similar idea on a global scale.
The big idea of Terror and Consent and many of the arguments are problematic. Bobbitt nevertheless makes many thought-stimulating proposals and sometimes dead-on analysis of particular problems, particularly in his discussions of legitimacy and international law. Bobbitt's work will provoke much comment and debate, and that is to his credit.
 New Laws for Counterterrorism ? June 3, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Since the time of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the nation state has been viewed as a "sovereign entity," designed to protect and promote the general welfare of its citizens. Now, according to Philip Bobbitt, in the age of globalization, this sovereign entity is becoming increasingly "porous." As nation states integrate into the global economy, the constitutional foundations dedicated to protecting their rights and liberties are no longer adequate. The new entity that is emerging is what Bobbitt calls the "market state," a term he borrows from a previous work, The Shield of Achilles, in which he traced the evolution of the nation state.
This new market state Bobbitt describes is no longer confined to a sovereign territory, it is a decentralized and privatized network of relationships. It has all the characteristics of a multinational corporation and it treats its citizens much like a consumers. The market state has many upsides in that it presents its citizens with unprecedented freedoms and opportunities.
This book, however, is about the downside of the market state and the opportunities it provides terrorists. Today's terrorist networks are a byproduct of the market state, indeed they are an opportunistic parasite of the market state. They harness its technology and networks to wage war against it.
Bobbitt is not a neoconservative, he is a law professor who sees the need for a new constitutional order that reflects the needs of this new market state. Although he supported the war in Iraq, he now emphasizes the need for stronger international alliances and a "commitment to globalize the systems of human rights and government by consent." In other words, market states must collectively protect human rights and liberties.
On the counterterrorism side, Bobbitt calls for more invasive intelligence gathering, not only domestically but across national borders. Something along the lines of the Total Information Awareness program. He also calls for "preclusive" actions on the part of governments. Containment and deterrence are no longer adequate since terrorists now have access to weapons of mass destruction; they must be neutralized before they act. In short, terrorism must be fought more aggressively without undermining fundamental human rights and within the framework of international alliances.
This is a very well-researched and very well-argued work on how to fight terrorism in the 21st century. Bobbitt concludes that there is something in his proposals to offend everyone. Liberals will not like his call for preclusive actions by the governments and conservatives will not like his call to abide by some international standards. Achieving a so-called state of consent is already difficult in theory, it will be even more so in practice.
Excellent May 31, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
A great clarity on theses topics at a time of great confusion. Everyone who pretends to have an idea on terrorism, Bushism, etc.. should have read it!
Great book May 28, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Great book by a great mind. He may not have all the answers, but his analysis deserves to be viewed thoughtfully, not like these people giving it one star because he does not conform to their views. Thanks to an interview with Dennis Prager, I was turned on to this work.
crime terror and war inthe new market state May 24, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
terror and consent gives a powerful insight into 21st century global political strategy and how it is inextricably linked to terrorism war crime and the consent of the governed in determining the future of our world
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