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April 17, 2008

Terror and Consent

Niall Ferguson describes Philip Bobbitt's Terror and Consent - a work encompassing history, constitutional law and military strategy - as "quite simply the most profound book to have been written on the subject of American foreign policy since the attacks of 9/11 — indeed, since the end of the cold war." Ferguson contrasts the new work with Bobbitt's "The Shield of Achilles".

“Terror and Consent” is less historical; indeed, it is more concerned with the future and how best we should anticipate its challenges. Did I say “the future”? Bobbitt has learned from the scenario-builders of Royal Dutch Shell the essential point that there is really no such thing as the future — only futures (plural). The task he has set himself here is to challenge nearly all our existing ideas about the so-called wars on terror (note, once again, the plural), in the belief that only a root-and-branch rethinking will equip us to deal with the problems posed by “the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, mass terrorist atrocities and humanitarian crises that bring about or are brought about by terror.”

Bobbitt’s central premise is that today’s Islamic terrorist network, which he calls Al Qaeda for short, is like a distorted mirror image of the post-Westphalian market-state: decentralized, privatized, outsourced and in some measure divorced from territorial sovereignty. The terrorists are at once parasitical on, and at the same time hostile toward, the globalized economy, the Internet and the technological revolution in military affairs. Just as the plagues in the 14th century were unintended consequences of increased trade and urbanization, so terrorism is a negative externality of our borderless world.

Ferguson claims Terror and Consent "should be read, marked and inwardly digested by all three of the remaining candidates to succeed George W. Bush as president of the United States." I trust Senator McCain to give it due attention, as for the Democrats: Good luck with that. If the review is an accurate representation of the book, this is all very interesting. The sticking points being Bobbitt's contention the Bush administration has acted outside the law and that a recalcitrant Congress and seditious press could have been brought on board to legislate the changes Bobbitt argues were necessary to avoid so doing, viz electronic communications intercepts, surveillance, detention, coercive interrogation, and preemptive force against the barbarians; such is the thought process of a Carter/Clinton era policy wonk. This is not just wishful thinking, it is angels on the head of a pin. Our adversary may conduct a nomadic war with reference to Dark Ages theology and magical thinking. Bound as we are by our hard won law - by our humanity - we cannot afford to do the same. Instead of imagining a Congress that would have supported the President in what he needed to do, Bobbitt should simply do so himself and condemn his own party for not doing the same.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at April 17, 2008 07:34 AM

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