Needs Inside the Book for Fifth Star
April 3, 2010
Audrey Kurth Cronin
If and when the publisher provides the table of contents and a sample chapter (easy to upload using the standard publishing tools offered by Amazon Advantage) or works with Amazon to achieve Inside the Book access, I will consider buying this book.
In the meantime, I will observer that this book has been highly recommended by Berto Jongman, the top European observer of terrorism and the creator of the World Conflict & Human Rights map, and is so featured at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where the Amazon reader can find an easy to access section on Jihad and Terrorism with all my reviews on this subject.
My one reservation about this book, lacking a sufficiency of Inside the Book information, is that it appears to assume that if one just does the “right things” such as kill leaders, terrorism will eventually die out. Robert Arkoff would turn in his grave over this thought. Terrorism is a tactic, a manifestation of discontent so grave as to indict the state as a failed state in relation to the needs of the segment adopting terrorism. Hence, this book may be more about doing the wrong things righter instead of doing the right things: assuring every group a prosperous world at peace.
Corruption, not terrorism, is in my view the primary curse of all governments and the global network of interests that seek to optimize wealth for the few at the expense of the many. Terrorism, in my view, is a logical in extremis response, a demand to be taken seriously that governments continue to treat at face value (violent crime) rather than as a root value being expressed (seriously angry people with brains and willpower).
See also:
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainaabilty
