US Domestic and International Regimes of Security: Pacifying the Globe, Securing the Homeland

Description

This book maps the increasing convergence of US domestic and international security regimes, analyzing the trend towards global pacification in the name of 'security'. The dream of liberal world peace after the Cold War is on the verge of collapsing into permanent global pacification – not only in the global south but also in pockets of the ‘Third World’ within the territory of Western states. In this volume, the author explores the ways in which regimes of security have been extended into increasingly large aspects of social life and shows that their expansion has been driven by a constant broadening of the notion of 'war'. Filling a gap in the literature, the book demonstrates how US security agencies have sought to develop indeterminate security capabilities aimed at distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate flows of people and resources. This analysis of regimes of security is tied to a more general discussion about the persistence, or even multiplication, of illiberal forms of power within liberal governmentality. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, war and conflict studies and international relations in general. Contents US Domestic and International Regimes of Security 3 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction 9 From ‘defense’ to ‘security’ 9 Threats to the global homeland 11 Method 14 The book 18 The ‘reality’ of insecurity 19 1 Liberal security and the biopolitics of global pacification 21 Security beyond the inside/outside divide 21 A permanent state of exception? 22 Political power as war and/or government 25 Liberal government 27 Liberalism and its others 29 Biopolitics and the pacification of illiberal life 31 Governmentalities and agents of liberal security 37 2 Expeditionary pacification 39 Introduction 39 The rise of counterinsurgency doctrine 40 Security, development and the management of modernization 42 The military contribution 47 Vietnam and the ‘end’ of US counterinsurgency doctrine 51 Counterinsurgency revamped 55 How new is the new doctrine? 57 Conclusion 61 3 Domestic pacification 62 Introduction 62 Nixon and the war on drugs 63 COINTELPRO 66 The war on drugs under Reagan 67 The war on drugs under Bush and Clinton 70 Managing risky populations 72 Paramilitary policing 75 Domestic pacification 76 Conclusion 79 4 Geographies of security 81 Introduction 81 Command, control, surveillance and reconnaissance 82 Interdicting ‘risky’ circulations 84 Global borderlands 84 Domestic borderlands 87 The securitization of urban design 90 Warehousing ‘risky’ populations 94 The violence of detention 99 Conclusion 101 5 Organizing security 103 Dreams of omnipotence through omniscience 103 A changing security environment 106 Violent non-state actors 106 The militarization of policing and the ‘policization’ of warfighting 109 The privatization of security 111 Losing hearts and minds 115 Plugging cultural knowledge into the US military 117 Conclusion 122 6 Legitimizing security 124 Introduction 124 The biopolitics of human (in)security 124 Biopolitical pacification 128 Legitimizing expeditionary pacification 132 Legitimizing domestic pacification 136 Enemies of humanity 141 Conclusion 142 The problematic of liberal violence 142 How to challenge liberal violence? 143 Notes 147 Introduction 147 2 Expeditionary pacification 147 3 Domestic pacification 150 4 Geographies of security 150 5 Organizing security 151 References 152 Index 184