Environmental Anarchy?: Security in the 21st Century
Mark Beeson
Abstract
Some of the most influential ideas about national and even global security reflect untenable, anachronistic strategic views that are simply no longer appropriate for contemporary international circumstances. At a time when climate change poses an existential threat to the continuation of life itself, there is an urgent need to rethink security priorities while we still can. This book provides an explanation of the failures and dangers of the conventional strategic wisdom, by examining the theoretical and practical basis of current security policies, especially in the United States and China. T ... More
Some of the most influential ideas about national and even global security reflect untenable, anachronistic strategic views that are simply no longer appropriate for contemporary international circumstances. At a time when climate change poses an existential threat to the continuation of life itself, there is an urgent need to rethink security priorities while we still can. This book provides an explanation of the failures and dangers of the conventional strategic wisdom, by examining the theoretical and practical basis of current security policies, especially in the United States and China. The book considers the possible importance of economic and psychological factors that are generally ignored in the ‘grand strategies’ of the most powerful states. The case for a new approach that takes issues like environmental and human security much more seriously is developed, although the author is not confident such measures will be adopted, especially in the limited time available to make a real difference.
Keywords:
security,
environment,
strategy,
United States,
China,
climate change,
psychology,
inequality
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2021 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781529209389 |
| Published to Policy Press Scholarship Online: January 2022 |
DOI:10.1332/policypress/9781529209389.001.0001 |
