Chapter 1 - Meditations on the Abyss: America’s Imperial Illusions
Chapter 2 - Past Prologue: Understanding Security in an Age of Terror
I. The Vagaries of Power: Cold War Theory, War on Terror Practice
II. Interpreting Sovereignty: Evolution of an Idea
III. Situating Security: Considerations of a Concept
Chapter 3 - A Tragedy of Errors: Neo-conservatism, 9/11, and Iraq
I. Cold Warriors without a War: Neo-conservatism in the Interregnum
II. Selling Security: Developing a Counter-Terror Culture
III. New Spheres, Old Problems: American Foreign Policy in the Persian Gulf
Chapter 4 - Not Fade Away: Revolving Actors and Evolving Tactics Under Obama
I. The Neo-liberal Imperative: On the Moral Cognition of Modern Warfare
II. Fight by Flight: Judging the Drone
III. A Tale of Two (Failed) States: Libya, Syria, and the Ethics of Intervention
Chapter 5 - Confronting the Abyss: Towards a Twenty-First-Century American Security
Biography
Dr. Edwin Daniel Jacob is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. Dr. Jacob has published various works on security in popular and scholastic forms. His unique collection, Rethinking Security in the Twenty-First Century was published in 2017.
"American Security and the Global War on Terror offers a sharp critique of the approaches that have shaped United States security policy in the aftermath of September 11. Jacob explains how the cold war legacy of realism and subsequent dysfunctional perspectives—neoconservatism, neoliberalism, and Trump’s misnamed "principled realism"— fed deepening Middle East conflict while leaving intact the roots of the terrorist threat. His compelling human security approach transcends ahistorical, "value neutral," and reactive policies, adapting to the diverse challenges of different regions. This incisive book will stimulate much needed intellectual reflection on the future of security studies in academic and policy circles." - Micheline Ishay, Professor, University of Denver, USA; and author of The Levant Express: The Arab Uprisings, Human Rights and the Future of the Middle East.
"This book expertly analyzes how Washington has remained constrained in a Cold War straightjacket over the past three decades, a prisoner of outmoded state-centric thinking. However, the book also proffers suggestions on how Washington could cut these mental chains, for the betterment of their own interests as well as those of the world." - Peter Hough, Associate Professor in International Politics, Middlesex University, UK; and Author of Understanding Global Security.
"In American Security and the Global War on Terror, Edwin Daniel Jacob provides a tightly focused, well documented critique of America’s incoherent, self-defeating post-9/11 foreign policies and the misconceived theories of international relations that gave them birth. Jacob shows convincingly that the "global war on terror" reflects a collapse of strategic thought as well as a mistaken reliance on outmoded Cold War and nation-state concepts. Equally unsparing of neo-conservative and liberal interventionist nostrums, this imaginative study calls for a new appreciation of post-imperial social realities and ethical imperatives in the making of US foreign policy." - Richard Rubenstein, Professor, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, USA; and Author of Reasons to Kill: Why Americans Go To War (2010).
