TERRORISM AS ANTI-GLOBALIZATION
"I know what they’re against but I have no sense of what they’re for" (Trevor Manuel)

    The war on terror started with an attack on a symbol of America's global economic power -- the World Trade Center, and much has been written since about the "Islamic invasion" of "them" coming to the West (Spencer 2003; Steyn 2006).  However, an equally important part of the story is the profound experience of "us" going there -- in the form of globalization.  The two are interrelated.  Islam's cultural invasion or "culture war" against the West can be seen as retaliation for the continual Western economic penetration of the Middle East and the rest of the world.  Noted geostrategist Thomas P.M. Barnett (2005; website) sees it this way: "the jihadist menace is, in reality, a global resistance that's really all about the Gap, where globalization is coming in and reformatting traditional societies that are unprepared for new rule sets.  Radical extremists rise up in resistance to globalization, believing it's evil and driven by infidels. They advocate the resurrection of an ancient caliphate stretching across the whole of the Islamic world.  Faced with a globalizing integration process, jihad goes global itself, putting globalization and anti-globalization in a race together."  According to Barnett's Core/Gap theory, the more disconnected a country is, the more dangerous it is.  By way of contrast, noted geostrategist John Robb (2007; website) argues that Gap (or poor) countries are already globalized via black markets or what is called "black globalization" involving criminal activities like drugs, human trafficking, weapons, exotic plants, animals, other illegal goods, and all the newer kinds of transnational crime that Glenny (2008) talks about.  Robb (2007) thinks terrorists in the new global world will still use the tactics of warfare, but he prefers to call them global guerrillas.  Bobbitt (2008), on the other hand, thinks nation-states and warfare as we know it will disappear, to be replaced by corporate surrogates, and the enemy (terrorists) of this new market-based world will be those who don't like the choices provided by new markets.      

    Globalization, or the "new world order" as it was once called (see below), has been said to bring many changes -- hybridity (Pieterse 2003), shrinkage (Friedman 2006), spicyness (Bhagwati 2004), and spikyness (Florida 2005).  From free trade to open borders to the Internet, and to a hundred other things, globalization has many meanings, but since about the 1980s, it has most commonly meant: "a complex series of economic, social, technological, cultural and political changes seen as increasing interdependence, integration and interaction between people and companies in disparate locations."  It should be noted, nonetheless, that continual debates ensue about definitions; the Wikipedia Entry on globalization being a case in point, and the Answers.com Entry on globalization showing no less than three common definitions.

    Other definitions include the one by Benedikt Kiesenhofer (source unknown) where the concept of globalization refers to "compression of the world and intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole."  The World Bank defines globalization as "the freedom and ability of individuals and firms to initiate voluntary economic transactions with residents of other countries," and the IMF defines globalization as "the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services, freer international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology."  In the news media, anti-globalization is generally associated with growing resentment toward the G8 (Group of Eight) countries who control about two-thirds of the world's economic output.  As the Wikipedia Entry on "Anti-globalization" tries to make clear, the anti-movement consists of protestors and demonstrators with diverse ideologies, not all of whom support terrorism.  This lecture is about that part of the movement which does support terrorism.

DEFINITIONAL ISSUES  

    The new world order concept is perhaps the easiest word to define.  Wikipedia has an entry on that, also, tracing the term to its well-known WWI vintage in the call for a League of Nations along with a call for WWI being the war to end all wars.  However, it is more commonly used in connection with speeches given by Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush.  Below are some excerpts from those speeches:

    These speeches imply that keeping things the ways they are (status quo or status-quo-plus) is no longer acceptable, and that with the Cold War over, new approaches are called for.  But what approaches?  Would the U.S. (as the world's sole remaining superpower) seek some sort of "peace dividend" in the name of self-determination and non-intervention?  Or, would the U.S. seize upon this "unipolar moment" to pursue its national interests more aggressively?  Some leadership by the U.S. would appear to be called for, in any case.  Politically, what happened in real life is that U.S. public opinion polarized, with the left-wing opposing any militaristic or imperialistic ambitions, and with the right-wing opposing any further multilaterial involvement with the U.N., either as that organization's policeman or as some sort of global judge and jury.  Meanwhile, severe international problems were presenting themselves.  Much of the third world was deeply in debt; there were still remnants of communism which had not self-destructed yet; and the Middle East was in turmoil.  Regardless of whether multilaterialism or unilateralism would be used to resolve these long-standing problems, it was apparent that new problems were being created or were just now recognizable; i.e., global problems instead of national or regional ones.                    

    Enter the need to come up with a "true" definition of globalization.  Taxonomies and typologies may be useful.  An oft-citied taxonomy comes from Appadurai (2001) who states there are five types of globalization:

• Ethnoscapes -- movements of people, tourists, immigrants, refugees, and business travelers

• Financescapes -- global flows of money, interconnected currency markets, stock exchanges, and commodity markets

• Ideoscapes -- the global spread of ideas, political ideologies, and social movements

• Mediascapes -- the global distribution of media images, celebrities, what's hot and who's who

• Technoscapes -- the movement of technologies around the globe

    Another typology comes from Naim's (2003) "Five Wars of Globalization" article in Foreign Policy [online pdf].  It sheds light on some of the newer transnational problems, as follows:

• Drugs -- smarter, richer, and more tech-saavy cartels and smugglers

• Arms trafficking -- an insatiable demand for weapons of all kinds

• Intellectual property -- rampant bootlegging, piracy, and WWW problems

• Alien smuggling -- illegal migration and organized crime's involvement

• Money laundering -- easier, cheaper, and more prevalent  

GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS   

    There are plenty of people who dislike globalization, and there are many more who want to dislike globalization.  For example, there is Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, the only academic to ever make the Time 100 most influential people list, who dislikes globalization because it doesn't produce sustainable development and the major nations don't provide enough aid to end the poverty trap forced upon the third world.  There are even some people who feel so strongly against globalization, they would kill over it.  Such "empowered angry people" (Friedman 2000) usually act out of fear, among other things, of the unknown, if not the danger of a homogenized society (Ritzer 2003; 2004; Fukuyama 2006).  Of course, there are intellectual criticisms against globalization, such as "The Race to the Bottom" argument, the "Corporatization" or "Thatcherization" argument, and the "Fundamental Scarcity" argument, but these are normally the concerns of trade economists who limit their view to the economics of globalization.  There are many other types of globalization, just as there are many types of anti-globalization.  It would not be totally incorrect to label this movement as spearheaded by the American dissident and libertarian socialist, Noam Chomsky, whose book, entitled Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, claims the U.S. defense of its interests is the greatest threat to world peace today.  One may remember this was the book that Hugo Chavez held aloft during a speech he gave at the U.N.  Members of the anti-globalist movement come from a variety of backgrounds -- some anarchist, some socialist, and others feminist or environmentalist.  Many are anti-war protestors with a chip on their shoulders going back to the Vietnam era, and in their minds, they connect the military and the economic together.  They first came to public attention during November of 1999 when they violently protested, including cyber-protested, a meeting of the WTO in Seattle (the Battle of Seattle).  Subsequent protests have occurred throughout the U.S. and worldwide since then, at meetings of similar international organizations or at offices of multinational corporations they think are profiting by exploitation.  Some of their common goals can be said to bring about justice in the form of more corporate responsibility and the dissolution or dramatic reform of international organizations like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO.                

    Globalization and anti-globalization go hand in hand. To a large extent, contemporary terrorism in the world today can be likened to this reciprocal process.  First of all, there are groups like al-Qaeda who represent "unintegratable" hardliners who tolerate no serious cultural change but also make pragmatic use of modern means in pursuit of anti-modern ends (Gray 2005).  Gerges (2005) also writes about al-Qaeda as some kind of transmutated hyperglobalist, aristocrat-turned-jihadist organization, and explains that anti-American globalism appeals to a certain upwardly mobile group of discontented intellectuals and college students in the Middle East.  Secondly, even if a terrorist group is only using anti-globalization as a prop, it is an attractive and powerful one since it helps portray them as freedom fighters.  They can portray themselves either as some cherished nationalist or as some kind of postmodern warrior like the Zapatistas (Hayden 2001).  Thirdly, even if a terrorist group is not aware of globalization (and few have the intellectual chops for mastering the complexities of it), they may be invisibly controlled by it since that is the nature of globalization.  Everyone thinks of it, after all, as some sort of ominous, spooky power which anyone with sufficient intellect or wisdom should dread.  One should always remember the proviso that not all terrorists are anti-globalists, and not all anti-globalists are terrorists.

    It can be said with some confidence, however, that most anti-globalists are anti-modernists.  That's the thesis of Mazarr (2007) who ties anti-modernist extremist movements in Germany, Russia and Japan of the twentieth century with the terrorism-spawning nature of radical Islamic extremism in recent decades.  Fascists and jihadists are somewhat alike in being anti-modernist, intolerant of dissent, and having mad, global ambitions toward totalitarian rule over all facets of life.  The German Nazis, for example, were quite puritanical about alcoholism and smoking.  Islamic societies are even more puritanical, and have a centuries-old tradition of resisting outside influence.  They are quite possibly, more prototypical of a "closed" society than any communist or fascist society (even Russia).  Radical Islam regards the present, globalized, cosmopolitan world as corrupt, spoiled, and evil.  Islamists think there is just "too much" in the world today -- opportunity breeds temptation -- and better than one should submit to a dictatorship, a cause, a single, solitary cause against hated enemies.  Belief in the value of commitment to a complete and uncompromising cause is not only what connects Islamic extremism to totalitarianism, but it's what is perhaps the most important thing to understand about the current terrorist assault against the world today.            

THE PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE

    Scholars often debate it, and argue over fine distinctions between the concept and related terms like superpower, hyperpower, and hegemony, but the fact of the matter is that global influence by any country is going to be perceived as EMPIRE -- an extension of dominion over another country's internal affairs.  It's hard to avoid charges of empire-building with today's global economy and interconnectedness.  Much unfair criticism has been aimed at President George W. Bush, the underlying critique being that there is some kind of distinct American empire, imperial ambition, or Pax Americana.  If only it were so because truthfully, America is not all that well-organized for such an endeavor.  The United States just rolls along the way it does because its individual citizens and businesses are free to pursue their self-interests wherever it takes them.  The U.S. does have a destiny to become the strongest nation on Earth, militarily and economically, but again, this is just the way we defend our freedoms, not an overt plan for world domination.  The degree to which the American way of doing things forces its ideology and way of life upon the rest of the world is what's in question.  Chomsky (2004) and his kind, of course, are fully convinced that the U.S. intends to take over the world, missionary-style, in the name of self-righteous American exceptionalism in some sort of Global War Against Evil.  Other Bush-bashers like Barber (2004), Chalmers (2004), and Newhouse (2004) attribute all sorts of idiocy to the President, like supreme ignorance of the Middle East, neoconservative bias, fundamentalist dogma, and a cowboy-like desire for confrontation.  There are even leftist conspiracy notions about back-room deals and capitalist exploitation of oil prices.  The idea is set in certain parts of some people's minds that there must be some hidden agenda of globalization.

    The truth is probably closer to what Niall Ferguson (2004) writes about in his book, Colossus, which argues that the U.S. really doesn't have the stomach for empire.  Americans are too soft and selfish.  They would suffer from "imperial fatigue" if they had to manage an empire.  Too bad, says Ferguson (2004), because imperial control by a distant power is probably a good thing for some unmanageable countries where they simply need a good lesson on how to run a decent and efficient state.  In the end, however, the U.S. may simply have to step up to the plate.  The U.S. will be in little danger if it leaves some threats alone; more danger if it ignores other threats.  It will have to get smart about that, and learn, among other things, how geopolitical realities influence grand strategy (Grygiel 2006).  All states have grand strategies, the phrase referring to three things:  (1) a conception of desires, interests, and potential; (2) the threats to those interests within international politics; and (3) the means to advance interests while protecting against threats (Layne & Thayer 2006).  You may not be interested in grand strategy, but grand strategy is interested in you because it determines whether you will fight in a war, how you fight it, and with whom.  Americans often disagree among themselves over grand strategy, the three basic choices being isolationism, selective engagement, and primacy.  However, the American spirit ever since its founding has always been about primacy, or advancing the ideology of democracy and free market enterprise.  All great powers naturally seek to advance and protect their interests.  That is what major powers do and small powers wish they could do.  In this sense, the U.S. has always been an empire and imperialistic to some extent.  America is no shrinking violet, and it will use both soft power and hard power to get the job done.  It has global interests to advance and protect, but is this really unlike what any nation has?  Is it true what the 1960's peaceniks said, that America is a "monster" which needs to be tamed?

    The answer probably depends upon whether one's political and economic leaders are perceived as scandalous evil-doers or not.  For sure, economic control tends to follow military conquest in almost every historical example of empire-building.  Mercury, the god of commerce, requires Mars, the god of war (James 2006), but (and this is an important "but") the American empire that Harvard professor Charles Maier (2006) says started in 1990 is unique and different from anything ever seen before.  America is not interested in taking over territory and subjugating people, but in seeing various troublesome regions of the world well-managed.  History teaches that management of the frontiers is the defining characteristic of a stable empire.  How an empire treats its borders is the defining characteristic of its longevity.  If the U.S. is engaged in some kind of post-territorial empire-building, then it certainly would manage its frontiers and borders better.  When the periphery is at risk, the core is at risk.  Successful management means managing not just the culture of production (what people make) but the culture of consumption (what people eat), and this is precisely the source of anti-globalization sentiment that Fukuyama (2006) zeroes in on -- that strange mix of fascination, envy, fear, and resentment that foreigners feel when America "invades" their personal shopping habits.  Americanization brings with it an unregulated, techno-bizarro, libertarian model of production and consumption.  This wild, freewheeling style of entrepreneurial individualism seems completely bizarre to the rest of the world.  Many nations have deliberately pursued extensively regulated economies or welfare states to hold off the "American invasion" and perceive our cultural offerings as nothing more than a "race to the bottom" -- a devolving, materialistic, crass culture of buying things one never needs.

A PRIMER ON GLOBALIZATION

   When people use the word "global" or "globalization" in the context of discussion, there are usually several meanings attached. One, it means that they prefer the word "global" to the word "international" because they believe that the nation-state system is dead, or at least discussion of a state-centric world is outdated. Two, and perhaps a corollary of the first, it means that they usually have somewhat unrealistic and completely different notions of "national security" because they prefer to focus on "human security" rather than the security of states and regimes (Aydinli & Rosenau 2005).  It's not necessarily the case that such people are overly strong advocates of human rights; instead it's the case that they see nation states as too weak to protect citizens from contemporary threats and disasters. Their thinking is that new technologies and modern challenges have rendered borders obsolete, and that something new, something different, is needed to carry out the functions of the state, something along the lines of a democratic global government which guarantees diversity and multiculturalism.  Three, it means that such people usually are concerned about free market, capitalistic forces that are firmly in the driver's seat.  On the one hand, they want equal distribution of wealth to be right around the corner, but on the other hand, they see inevitable capitalist expansion inherent in "forced globalization" as having certain flaws.  For those familiar with different theories in the field of international relations (see Lecture/Primer on IR Theory), these issues are part of what consists of neoliberalism debates (neoliberalism being a confusing term that both globalists and anti-globalists call each other).  In the most common variant of neoliberalism, it posits that a good globalization system will lead to absolute gains rather than relative gains in eradicating world poverty and enlarging freedoms.  What comprises a "good" globalization system is anybody's guess -- most experts agree that more wealth is created by free markets than by state-controlled markets, but social science doesn't know for sure if a strong middle class always leads to political pluralism and enlarged freedoms.  There is some degree of socialist thinking here, in that global/anti-global advocates often envision a future free from class and caste distinctions. This is the aspect of globalization illustrated when socialists like Hugo Chavez visit the U.N. and hold up copies of Noam Chomsky's book and say "Anyone wishing to understand what has been happening in the world lately should read this book."  The "no-global" movement plays well in Latin America publics and elsewhere around the world.  There are literally thousands of globalization organizations with an extensive web presence.  One website, called the New Economics Foundation, even has a world welfare index which presumes to measure the pluses and minuses of globalization.

    It's important to note that antiglobalism is not the same as any "clash of civilizations" thesis (Barber 1996; Huntington 1996).  With all due respect to that thesis, the idea is ludicrous that the world will either become a huge parking lot full of McDonalds and Hard Rock Cafes or else it will be torn apart by local identity conflicts.  Globalism and antiglobalism are not a "world war" type of process.  They are instead part of an integrative and disintegrative process wherein weaker states are eventually transformed into stronger states, or merged into regions, gaps, cores, or peripheries.  For those familiar with the old-fashioned term, detente (see Lecture on International Arms Restraint), globalization is a lot like detente, because detente involves change through connectivity rather than waiting on change to jumpstart connectivity.  Some people define globalization as connectivity, Thomas P.M. Barnett, for example, who represents the argument that even though connectivity is profoundly transforming, it cannot by itself maintain global security because connectivity typically leads to a host of tumultuous reactions, including heightened nationalism and vulnerability to terrorism.  The people at the A.T. Kearney Index disagree, and find no correlation between terrorism and a more globalized country.  In fact, it's even possible for globalization to prevent terrorism by drawing upon multilateral agreements and cracking down on terrorist financing.  However, in defense of the standard academic argument that globalism invites terrorism, it does make intuitive sense that as a country becomes more global, its borders become more open and freely-moving terrorists can use more technology to coordinate and execute attacks.    

    Interestingly enough, there are strong feminist overtones to the process of globalization.  Much of the social change imposed by globalization (i.e., its tendency to empower women relative to men) is arguably better that leaving the social injustices of traditional societies in place (tradition mostly being defined in history by male control over females).  In this sense, one could perceive that Islamic hatred of the West is more a hatred of the western woman than anything else.  There is a lot of gender bias in Islamophobia that most feminists would take issue with, as well as the war on terrorism in general (Hunt & Rygiel 2006), but it is truly an exaggeration for feminists to say that globalization is like the missionary's paradox, where we bring civilization to the savages even if we have to kill them.  This is not to say, however, that a feminist insight would be unwelcome.    

    It's important to distinguish globalization from imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism with a new face.  Those are dead-end debates (Appadurai 2001), and far too much Muslim anti-Americanism is driven by a conception of globalization as colonialism (Nassar 2005).  Imperialism is a system based on military conquest, territorial occupation, and direct governmental control.  Imperial powers are also dominant economically, but the mechanisms are extraction and exploitation of resources through expropriation, direct control, and coercion (including slavery in some cases).  Colonialism overlaps with but is distinguishable in important ways from imperialism.  Military conquest, settlement, territorial acquisition, and administrative rule—sometimes military, sometimes civil—is the essence, but in practice the administrative rule is not direct but indirect -- involving a symbiotic relationship between colonial rulers and indigenous authorities.  Nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonialism involved striking economic contrasts between the technological and industrial superiority of the (developed) colonial powers and the (undeveloped) colonial countries. The resultant pattern was the extraction of primary products necessary for industrial production (e.g., cotton from India and Egypt) or for consumption in the colonizing countries (e.g., tea, sugar, coffee, spices).  Other than an over-appetite for oil by the major powers, which granted, could be seen as some form of neo-colonialism, it is only a fluke or accident that the best reserves are located in unstable countries where most major powers have no other "national interest" (Klare 2004).  According to Energy Country Analysis Briefs, most political instabilities are unrelated to oil, but World Energy Hotspots exist where militants do occasionally threaten oil resources.  The strategic implications of energy geopolitics are explored at length in think tanks like CSIS.  Other commodities, like coffee (the world's second most traded commodity), tend to arouse anti-globalization resentment because a 150-pound bag of coffee bean might earn a farmer $50 while the "street value" of that bag is around $20,000.     

ANTI-GLOBALISM AS ANTI-AMERICANISM

    It is probably inaccurate to think of the United States as the last superpower, hyperpower, or hegemon.  It is more accurate to describe the world's dominant power structure as a complex mix of North American, West European, and East Asian forces, and the United States as unique in representing four particular types of globalization.  These types are easily mistaken as the only type of global dominance, and they are exactly the kind which give rise to a hatred borne of envy, a disdain for snobbery, and many other reasons for hating America.  The first type is the vision of greater wealth achievable through superior, science-based technology.  This image has repercussions in the markets of trade, capital, finance, and monetary systems, which are all volatile, sensitive markets easily susceptible to influence by image manipulation.  The second type is America's ideological commitment or conviction about the moral superiority of a particular (American) version of democracy and the benefits of personal liberty, constitutional rights, and mass political participation. This ideological dimension affects U.S. foreign policy, generally favoring nations like itself and distancing itself from or applying pressures on nations unlike itself.  The third type is the American projection of military domination, not realized thru conquest or occupation, but through a technologically superior arsenal of weaponry which seems to tempt troublemakers rather than deter them.  The fourth type is a cultural one, consisting of the export of cultural and materialist values through the worldwide American domination of the mass media, especially television.

    Projections of these four globalization influences have exposed the world, notably the non-Western world, to a range of materialistic values and aspirations that are unattainable in those societies.  As such "receiving" societies experience growth and development, some of the inevitable divisions to expect will be “class” in nature, for example, middle classes, laboring classes, and unemployed classes.  Other divisions will be cultural in nature, as different segments in that society work out how they want to be modernizers and in what ways they want to preserve a traditional way of life.

    The Islamic world has been a "receiver" of American forms of globalization.  In addition, they have had their own problems.  They have large populations of young people relative to older populations.  Their birth rate, on average, produces about 3% growth a year.  Islam is the world's most rapidly growing religion, doubling every 25 years at current rates.  Such conditions mean that inadequate resources for education, and strains can be expected on families to supervise children properly.  It is also hard for such countries to guarantee employment for their youth.  It is expected that high rates of unemployment would lead to criminal activity or gang violence.  Likewise, an increase is expected in migration to richer countries, where such migrants will likely find low-level jobs.

    The world’s Muslims are mainly poor and live in countries characterized by great inequalities of wealth.  These poor compare themselves with the rich in their own societies and with an unrealistic view of Western culture gleaned from films and television.  They therefore experience a high level of relative deprivation, a sure recipe for social unrest as well as terrorism.  Insofar as these conditions are blamed on the United States and the West -- as they typically are -- the optimal conditions exist for terrorists to recruit candidates to their cause.  This is not to say that poverty causes terrorism, but that it is one ingredient in a volatile mix of causes.

    Hatred of globalization is not the same as the hatred generated by imperialism and colonialism.  Hatred of the kind discussed here consists of ambivalence, a feeling characterized by a sensation of something being "half bad, half good" or the simultaneous feeling of envy along with hatred.  On one hand there is America the demon, the rich, godless, morally and sexually corrupt, imperialist country that has come to its wealth by exploitation, a power that dominates the world and forms alliances with the ruling elites in other countries, a nation that is hypocritical in its assertions of equality when it is plagued with racism and poverty, and the power that is primarily responsible for the existence and support of Israel.  Side by side with this, however, is the utopian image of America, where relatively happy immigrants come to places like Detroit, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles where stable migrant enclaves thrive and demonstrate America is the place to come to, a place of wealth and consumption where the payoff for hard work is leisure and opportunity, and greater freedom.  Psychologically, it is difficult to hold both sides of an ambivalent attitude at the same time.  It is usually resolved by rigidly accentuating one side to the exclusion of the other.

GLOBALIZED CRIME NETWORKS AND TERRORISM

    According to Shelley (2006), the effect of globalization is to create an "unholy trinity" of crime, terrorism, and corruption, which is to say that it's not just a simple matter of terrorists having global reach.  Instead, a distinct phenomena is being created where globalized crime networks work with terrorists and both are able to carry out their activities aided by endemic corruption.  "Blended terrorism" is possible in these global crime networks where people can easily move between criminal and terrorist underworlds.  For example, the same language school which provided the 9/11 hijackers with their false visa documents was the same place which provided false documents for Asian prostitutes in a major human trafficking ring.  Organized crime has, of course, always operated across borders, and terrorists have also globalized.  Globalization makes it possible for terrorists to recruit internationally and to obtain more financial support as well as expand their logistical operations.  Illicit markets of drugs, money, commodities, and people provide excellent cover for terrorists, enabling them to establish "branch offices" if you will in various crime- and corruption-ridden parts of the world.  It's always been the case in criminology, and one can go back to Shelly (1981) on this, that societal conditions which promote anonymity are criminogenic conditions.  Failed states, border regions, and other intersections or frontier zones certainly represent this condition.

    In contrast to Shelley's (2006) thesis that failed states are the sites of this new global nexis of terrorism and crime, there are other arguments which can be made.  Miskel's Naval War College article (2005), for example, coincides with much of Barnett's (2005) thinking that functional states offer as many opportunities for terrorists as failed states do.  Globalization has produced a "winner's circle" of economically advanced and stable states which make attractive targets for terrorists.  Following them are lever, or so-called "pivotal states" (like Brazil,  -- "when Brazil sneezes, Argentina catches cold") which, if aided properly, could become quite influential in the war on terrorism, especially by influencing their neighboring, nonpivotal states.  The problem is that pivotal states like Brazil often produce items for export like steel at cheaper cost than American factories, and a political (non-strategic) decision is made to slap things like steel import tariffs on such countries (to protect American workers).  Political and economic decisions are sometimes forced upon leaders by globalization with scant regard for combating terrorism, with agencies like the Office of Foreign Assets Control left to pick up the pieces.

    Barnett's (2005) model has been called the "seam states" approach where "seams" represent the so-called "fault lines" between civilizations or cultures as laid out in Huntington's (1996) Clash of Civilizations book.  Barnett's approach, however, involves fewer fault lines, more secular divisions, and the notion that fault lines are fluid and ever-changing.  Two tectonic-like plates are envisioned, with one plate containing states which are connected to the West through globalization, and the other plate representing states which are disconnected or deliberately trying to disconnect themselves (similar to the process of "downward assimilation" where immigrants do everything in their power to avoid picking up the habits and customs of their host country).  In Barnett's (2005) model, terrorism always originates from the second plate, and the only thing holding them back are those nations residing on the edges or "seams."  The twelve most important seam states (remembering that these are fluid) are: Algeria, Brazil, Egypt, Greece, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, and Turkey.  If properly supported in their homeland security efforts, these seam states could form an effective barrier or buffer against terrorist networks.  However, terrorists have already established strong havens in at least four of these states (Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Brazil).  While failed states do indeed create fertile breeding grounds for crime, human rights abuses, disease, and starvation, it is possible that terrorists do not see them as all that attractive because the typically uncontrolled security forces there may be unable to distinguish between a terrorist base of operations and an indigenous base of operations.  Instead, as the argument goes, terrorists are more likely to be attracted to seam states where there is at least some semblance of stability, security forces can be more effectively bribed, and there is access to modern, technological conveniences such as banking and Internet services.  In addition, seam states as well as core (Westernized) states represent a more target-rich environment for terrorists where mass-casualty attacks are more likely to get picked up by the media.  Globalization has not only produced motivations for terrorism, but has facilitated methods for it.

    There is no proof that "poverty causes terror" (Mousseau 2003).  However, there might be something to Shelley's (2006) failed states argument and "unholy trinity" whereby losers in the market globalization process can be expected to fight back anyway they can to preserve their little fiefdoms of criminal enterprise characterized by the presence of easily bribable officials.  Certainly more research is needed into the complex interconnectiveness between modern criminals and modern terrorists.

THE HOMELAND SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

     Globalization makes terrorism faster and more lethal (Echevarria & Tussing 2003).  One need only look at how quickly a biological pandemic spreads nowadays to understand this.  The increasing volume and speed of international travel, for instance, may signify more than just new tools for terrorists.  Globalization may raise the need to redefine what a "homeland" (rear area) and a "frontline" (forward area) mean.  As bold as it sounds, the notion of "defense-in-depth" sees terrorist threats along a seamless global continuum where monitoring may be necessary on global transport lanes via sensors deployed overseas or in airborne or shipborne capacities.  Likewise, better "tracking" of the movements, by passenger vehicle or other transit, of known terrorists should be possible in a more globalized world.  So-called "smart borders" (cameras and biometrics) and global interception points also represent ways in which the developments inherent in globalization could be used for security purposes.

    The U.S. need not go it alone.  Globalization means that the more globalized nations are all in this together.  Tracking down al-Qaeda and all its cells in 60 different countries is beyond the capability of any one military.  The major nations and those "seam states" need to step up to the plate, and multinational partnering needs to be more than on an occasional basis.  America need not become the world's globalization policeman.  Far too many nations like Britain, Spain, France, and Israel have benefitted from globalization while "experimenting" with tolerance of terrorism.  The "homeland security" concept is outdated if it means a retreat from the world.  As Friedman (2006) says, the terrorism we are facing in the 21st century is really a globalization of the kind of terrorism we saw in the 20th century.  Terrorist plots are hatched in one part of the world; recruits come from other parts; support from yet another part; and platform and execution may involve other parts.  What the world needs now are vetted "security zones" -- surefire places, or envelopes if you will, where cargo, people, and material can work and move safely from one point to another -- and that's going to require proper travel documents, proper screening, and proper monitoring.  There is only so much room for alternatives about the future when security is concerned.

    Allow me to spell out one possible vision of the future.  It's ironic, yet expected, that terrorism and the antiglobalism movement which fuels it may very well create some kind of "dualism" or "divide" in the world, where some people (those in the "security envelope") will be able to work and travel freely, unfettered by any continuous tracking or privacy intrusions, and then there will be some people (those not in the envelope) who are subject to all kinds of intrusions and inconveniences.  This isn't going to happen because political powers will protect corporations for the better exploitation of third world resources; it's going to happen because the anti-globalization movement failed to consider the security needs for protection against terrorism in all parts of the world.  You can't bring decent wages, health, and education to the poorer places on Earth when the recipients of those things get blown up in buses along the way.  The world may end up with not only a "security divide" but a real "civil liberties divide," unless the two can be reconciled somehow to allow for the better management of globalization along with opportunities for nonviolent, principled opposition to globalization.                                              

INTERNET RESOURCES
American University Transnational Crime Center
Answers.com Entry on Globalization
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Carnegie Endowment for Peace: Global Policy Program
CSIS Energy Geopolitics Publications
eJournal Global Issues: The Challenges of Globalization
Emory Univ. Globalization Website
Global Scenario Group for Alternative Futures
Globalism/Antiglobalism: A Critical Essay
Globalization: Threat or Opportunity?
GW Center for the Study of Globalization
International Forum on Globalization
International Labor Organization
International Monetary Fund
Martin Frost Article on Globalization
Measuring Globalization (A.T. Kearney Index pdf)
Miskel's Naval War College Article on the New, New World Order
Morgan's Army War College Article on The New Terrorism
National Academies Press
Thomas P.M. Barnett Weblog
Univ. of Denver Inst. on Globalization and Security
U.S. Agency for International Development
U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control
Wikipedia Entry on Anti-globalization
Wikipedia Entry on Globalization
World Bank
World Economic Forum
World Health Organization
World Trade Organization
www.freetrade.org

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