Terror, Can We Win This War?
In the "Geopolitics and the Flat World" section of his best-selling "The World is Flat" book, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes: "One of the unintended consequences of the flat world is that it puts different societies and cultures in much greater direct contact with one another." He then goes on to explore the effects of modernization on the Arab-Muslim world, some parts of which have responded with rage to the challenges carried by the winds of global change. Friedman's delight in coining isms leads him to term two very distinctive Arab-Muslim reactions to globalization as Yamanism, after the Saudi minister who used oil as a cudgel to beat the West, and bin Ladenism, after the Saudi ideologue who uses suicide violence against the West. "The Saudi oil weapon is economic power without productivity, and bin Laden's terrorism weapon is military force without a real army," writes Friedman.
Another writer who has examined these issues is Philip Bobbitt. In his influential book, "The Shield of Achilles", Bobbitt, like Friedman, looks at globalization, but while the journalist is more focused on the economic and social impact of this seminal change, the academic is more concerned about what is happening to the nation-state. Bobbitt's contentious conclusion is that the nation-state is evolving into a market-state and the constitutional order of the 21st century will be determined in wars between market-states and virtual-states, such as al-Qaeda.
First off, not every would agree with Bobbitt's belief that the nation-state is yesterday's model. But, reading the headlines about countries as far apart as France and Zimbabwe, one must accept that the entity that bases its legitimacy on a promise to improve the material well-being of those within its national boundaries has seen better days in many parts of the world. So, get ready for the market-state, which will seek to maximize the opportunity of each "citizen" by opening up societies to trade, innovation and immigration. This, of course, is bound to engender conflict with those that want to enforce religious orthodoxy on peoples, or with groups that have ambitions to regional hegemony, such as al-Qaeda. By Bobbitt's definition, Bin Laden's organization already has the hallmarks of a virtual-state: an army, a hierarchy, alliances, finance, laws and a basic welfare system. And as we know, it has declared war on the US.
Philip Bobbitt's next book, "Terror, Can We Win This War?", will be published on 16 January 2007. Meanwhile, while we wait, we can read "Strategy for Victory". Fred Kaplan at Slate applauds the spelling out of specific stages of success where once there were ideals ("spreading freedom", for example) but wonders if it has not all come a bit too late.
