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The Cordon Sanitaire: A Single Law Governing Development in East Asia and the Arab World
This work compares the development experiences of East Asia and the Arab world. It posits that in view of the collapse in socialism and its ideological retreat, their development performances are intensely over determined by their modes of integration with world capital. For East Asia, it's through manufacturing of civilian-end use commodities and for the Arab World, through militarism. The book is a unique attempt approaching the topic from the theoretical angle using an analytical comparative perspective.
187 pages, Hardcover
Published August 11, 2017
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About the author
Ali Kadri
12 books47 followersDr Ali Kadri is a Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy at LSE. Prior to his present position, he was a visiting fellow at the Department of International Development, London School of Economics and the principal author of several United Nations reports addressing the right to development in Western Asia. In his current as well as his previous works, Kadri has focused on the issue of accumulation through destruction, the production of waste and militarism. He had argued that alongside war for strategic control of oil, war is also a form of production and an end in itself
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 9, 2025
7/10
I wonder whether the only way to synthesize complex social processes is through dense verboseness, or if Ali Kadri needs someone to tell him to stop fucking writing like that.
Putting aside his prose, which if you read this, is not easy to do, I think Cordon Sanitaire is very insightful. Ideas I’ve only vaguely conceived of regarding capitalism and development are written out clearly. His conception of a states ‘security’ as its level of development is one example, a perhaps obvious yet illuminating insight, something I’ve only thought of but can now articulate clearly by referring back to this work.
Western policy towards the Arab World is simple: total annihilation of society and/or outright slavery to the benefit of our chosen allies/prison warden ruling elite. Kadri probably had Iraq in mind when writing, but in 2025, with Turk-backed gangsters and Sunni sectarians hunting down Alawite Syrians, slaughtering their own countrymen while Israel blows up any Arab industry and assassinates any Arab scientist, his writing rings especially true.
In East Asia, it was not so easy to simply bomb the oppressed masses, the enemy, back to the stone age, so compromises were made á la south Korea, Taiwan, etc. His writing is particularly reminiscent of Drums of War, Drum of Development, a sign your book is on the right track. His mention of China’s destabilizing effect on this global hierarchy of Arab destruction and rich Westerners is another prescient observation, one made long before U.S. - China conflict seemed all but inevitable. I have faith this conflict will bring about a reversal of fortunes for the Arab World, though that is off topic.
If this was written normally, and perhaps if more historical examples were used to ground all of his abstractions in concrete reality, I would hold this in higher regard. It does remind me to read Marx and Arghiri Emmanuel, though, so maybe it’s on me, non-theory reader, for thinking this is written in the most annoying way possible.
I wonder whether the only way to synthesize complex social processes is through dense verboseness, or if Ali Kadri needs someone to tell him to stop fucking writing like that.
Putting aside his prose, which if you read this, is not easy to do, I think Cordon Sanitaire is very insightful. Ideas I’ve only vaguely conceived of regarding capitalism and development are written out clearly. His conception of a states ‘security’ as its level of development is one example, a perhaps obvious yet illuminating insight, something I’ve only thought of but can now articulate clearly by referring back to this work.
Western policy towards the Arab World is simple: total annihilation of society and/or outright slavery to the benefit of our chosen allies/prison warden ruling elite. Kadri probably had Iraq in mind when writing, but in 2025, with Turk-backed gangsters and Sunni sectarians hunting down Alawite Syrians, slaughtering their own countrymen while Israel blows up any Arab industry and assassinates any Arab scientist, his writing rings especially true.
In East Asia, it was not so easy to simply bomb the oppressed masses, the enemy, back to the stone age, so compromises were made á la south Korea, Taiwan, etc. His writing is particularly reminiscent of Drums of War, Drum of Development, a sign your book is on the right track. His mention of China’s destabilizing effect on this global hierarchy of Arab destruction and rich Westerners is another prescient observation, one made long before U.S. - China conflict seemed all but inevitable. I have faith this conflict will bring about a reversal of fortunes for the Arab World, though that is off topic.
If this was written normally, and perhaps if more historical examples were used to ground all of his abstractions in concrete reality, I would hold this in higher regard. It does remind me to read Marx and Arghiri Emmanuel, though, so maybe it’s on me, non-theory reader, for thinking this is written in the most annoying way possible.
Displaying 1 of 1 review