Deploying Ourselves: Islamist Violence, Globalization and the Responsible Projection of U.S. Force

Abstract

A noted theorist of globalization offers a complete reconstruction of our national security institutions and strategies to better match today's realities. David A. Westbrook shows how "deploying ourselves" – as statesmen and – women, as citizens can better achieve U.S. national security.

Westbrook explains why today's national security establishment is outdated, entrenched in a model of defense befitting the post–World War II Cold War era. Today, without military peers, the U.S. must re-create its institutions around wielding influence globally, based on the cooperation of other states and groups. Even when we deploy troops today, our goal is the construction of order, not "defense."

Westbrook explores radical (including Jihadist) challenges, the "long war" on terror, and other current topics to show how defense institutions could be reconceived in order to become both more responsible and more effective. His measures include a wholesale revision of the National Security Act of 1947 to radically reform intelligence work by reintegrating it into democratically responsible military and diplomatic bureaucracies.

Keywords: CIA, intelligence, international law, Islam, law of war, military, military strategy, security policy, terrorism