The Limits Of The Global Village

Porter challenges the powerful ideology of "Globalism" that is widely subscribed to by the US national security community. Globalism entails visions of a perilous shrunken world in which security interests are interconnected almost without limit, exposing even powerful states to instant war. Globalism does not just describe the world, but prescribes expansive strategies to deal with it, portraying a fragile globe that the superpower must continually tame into order. Porter argues that this vision of the world has resulted in the US undertaking too many unnecessary military adventures and dangerous strategic overstretch. Distance and geography should be some of the factors that help the US separate the important from the unimportant in international relations. The US should also recognize that, despite the latest technologies, projecting power over great distances still incurs frictions and costs that set real limits on American power. Reviving an appreciation of distance and geography would lead to a more sensible and sustainable grand strategy.

According to security elites, revolutions in information, transport, and weapons technologies have shrunk the world, leaving the United States and its allies more vulnerable than ever to violent threats like terrorism or cyberwar. As a result, they practice responses driven by fear: theories of falling dominoes, hysteria in place of sober debate, and an embrace of preemptive war to tame a chaotic world. Patrick Porter challenges these ideas. In The Global Village Myth, he disputes globalism's claims and the outcomes that so often waste blood and treasure in the pursuit of an unattainable "total" security. Porter reexamines the notion of the endangered global village by examining Al-Qaeda's global guerilla movement, military tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and drones and cyberwar, two technologies often used by globalists to support their views. His critique exposes the folly of disastrous wars and the loss of civil liberties resulting from the globalist enterprise. Showing that technology expands rather than shrinks strategic space, Porter offers an alternative outlook to lead policymakers toward more sensible responses—and a wiser, more sustainable grand strategy.

Already highly acclaimed as a seminal analysis of the "New World Order," Professor Falk's Law in an Emerging Global Village clearly establishes a new arena of international law where three distinct historical forces meet and contend: the old Westphalian nation-state model, the global civil society as represented by international human rights conventions, and transnational market forces that pervade nearly every area of life as well as legal practice. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

A book like no other in the field of veterinary medicine with pertinent information every student and practitioner will find beneficial. Veterinaries have access to a great variety of texts, journals, and continuing education opportunities to keep them on top of the tremendous technological advances in clinical care and preventive medicine. Outside of the technical realm, however, there are many global trends, which exert profound effects on how the veterinary profession serves society and how veterinary professionals define their role in a rapidly changing world. This new and unrivaled book delves into these influences in impressive detail, identifying new challenges and opportunities for the veterinary profession in a global context. Unique topics covered include: The important global trends with implications for veterinary medicine. Different cultural attitudes towards the human use of animals, their impact on the human-animal relationship, and the challenges this poses for veterinarians. The role of livestock in food security, rural development, and sustainable agriculture and the opportunities for veterinarians to improve the lives of people who depend on animals around the world. The relationship of global environmental change to animal health and production. The emerging field of conservation medicine and the important role of veterinarians in protecting biodiversity and conserving wildlife. A global perspective on veterinary service delivery and the opportunities and challenges for improving animal health care worldwide. The growth of international trade, its relation to food safety and animal health, and its impact on animal agricultural and veterinary medicine. The growing risk of foreign animal disease, the national and international institutions involved in animal disease control, and the role of the private practitioner in controlling foreign animal disease. Nontraditional career paths for veterinarians interested in working internationally and how to identify and prepare for such international career opportunities.

The word village has the evocative power of ancient shared social values based on solidarity, equality, and common expectations for the betterment of life. The book's title is borrowed from McLuhan's apt metaphor, but questions its underlying assumptions. The contributors recast some of the basic elements of the complex phenomenon of the so-called globalization. Trade laws, industrial relations, economic and political systems are analyzed in a critical perspective. Moreover, environment and sustainable development, languages' rights, education, mobility and migrations are discussed in view of contemporary changes that societies are undergoing throughout the world. The vulnerability of societies caught up in new networks of interdependence due to reduced distances also are put to the fore, in the context of the new accelerated circulation of information, ideas, goods, and human beings. Provacative reading for scholars interested in a multinational, Euro-Atlanticist perspective on globalization. The international discourse is most recently focused on some negative outgrowths of world economy, especially after the Seattle Round (December 1999) and its unexpected uprising of protests. The researches of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies (University of Genoa), in cooperation with scholars from Europe, Canada and the United States, offer in this collection of essays a multinational contribution which is part of their work in progress on the multifaceted issue of the contemporary global village. The book features some optimistic outcomes, and some worries about what the new millennium will not achieve, despite the common and transnational efforts, that is to say a fair re-distribution of resources to reach what R. W. Fogel defines a post-modern equality, based on values as well as on material wealth. In sum, the essayists wonder if some of the hidden promises of globalization will develop in a better new century.

In clear, accessible language, Brecher and Costello describe how people around the world have started challenging the New World Economy. From the Zapatistas of Chiapas to students in France to the broad-based anti-NAFTA and anti-GATT coalitions in the United States, opposition to economic globalization, Brecher and Costello argue, is becoming a worldwide revolt.