Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This book, based on Barnett R. Rubins years of experience as director of the Center for Preventive Action (CPA) at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that initiatives aimed at preventing regional crises must form a key part of the U.S. global security strategy. The attacks on September 11 showed that dire conditions in seemingly isolated regions could become incubators for violence that hits America directly.
Synopsis
Throughout the 1990s, U.S. policymakers by and large thought they could insulate the country from the collapse of distant states and the spread of war and disorder in some of the worlds poorest regions. The attacks on September 11, 2001, however, showed that dire conditions in seemingly isolated regions could become incubators for violence that hits America directly. This book, based on Barnett R. Rubins years of experience as director of the Center for Preventive Action (CPA) at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that initiatives aimed at preventing regional crises must form a key part of the U.S. global security strategy. Drawing on his experience leading CPA projects in the Balkans, Central Asia, Central Africa, and West Africa, as well has his extensive work on Afghanistan, Rubin illustrates concretely how seemingly exotic and distant conflicts are deeply integrated into our global system through the effects of global strategies and markets. These conflicts, the author argues, are harder to contain once they flare up into violence and yet are potentially more subject to prevention by global actors than common wisdom claims.
Table of Contents
What is at stake? -- Conflicts and their causes: acres of desolation -- Burundi and the Great Lakes region of Central Africa: strengthless cures, in vain -- The South Balkans: landscape painted with blood -- Nigeria: the mirror of oil -- The Ferghana Valley: festering inner wounds -- Prevention: concept and scope -- Warning: risk assessment and monitoring -- Systematic prevention -- Targeted prevention - Organizing for prevention.