Losing Control: Global Security in the Twenty-first Century

by Paul Rogers

The attacks in New York and Washington on 11th September 2001 took most of the world by surprise. It showed that, for those living in the West, the threat of terrorist attack is now very real. Maintaining control of global security has become a matter of paramount importance to all Western governments. As the war against 'terrorism' widens into a war against particular states who may have played little part in the disaster, the idea that we can maintain global security by desperately clinging to our current security paradigm becomes increasingly improbable. In Losing Control, Paul Rogers calls for a radical re-thinking of western perceptions of security that embraces a willingness to address the core issues of global insecurity. This acclaimed book has already become an essential guide for anyone who wishes to understand the current crisis, and this updated edition contains a new preface and a new chapter which address the specific problems that have arisen since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Drawing on examples from around the world, Rogers analyses the legacy of the Cold War’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the impact of human activity on the global ecosystem; the growth of hypercapitalism and resulting poverty and insecurity; the competition for energy resources and strategic minerals; biological warfare programmes; and paramilitary actions against centres of power.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Paul Rogers is Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford and Global Security Consultant with Oxford Research Group (ORG). He has worked in the field of international security, arms control and political violence for over 30 years. He lectures at universities and defence colleges in several countries and has written or edited 26 books, including Global Security and the War on Terror: Elite Power and the Illusion of Control (Routledge, 2008) and Why We're Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2008). Since October 2001 he has written monthly Briefing Papers on international security and the "war on terror" for ORG. He is also a regular commentator on global security issues in both the national and international media, and is openDemocracy’s International Security Editor.

In the 1960s he worked with the Haslemere Group, an early pressure group on trade and development issues before embarking on an academic career first at Huddersfield and then at Bradford. [wikipedia]

Reviews

[Kenneth Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find this short book very fascinating to read. One must be aware, however, that many of the author's information are a little dated and may distort or even omit some new realities since its publication in the year 2000. North Korea was still not a nuclear state, Iraq was still believed to have pushed forward the development of "biological weapons," the US was still grasping its strategy against the rise of China (China was seen as the new Soviet Union), etc. The two things that stand out are the author's analysis of the effects of income inequality and climate change to the future of social and political stability. Overall, this is a dated book but it is still useful if one is seeking for an understanding of the US military developments prior to the events on 9/11.

[Tom Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the 4th edition which was out this year. This book focuses on the post Cold War landscape, a landscape where the 'enemy' would change from the USSR to a number of small radical groups. It follows through to the attacks on the Twin Towers, the subsequent 4 failed wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria), the rise of ISIS, and the COVID pandemic. A really good analysis of the west's infatuation with neoliberalism and their outright refusal to embrace environmental, economic, or military change.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written on the cusp of the new millennium this book tries to describe the great shift occurring in international security.

[Albin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting topic, but wastes too much time going into uninteresting details about various military equipment which ultimately quell the overall quality of this very short book.