Book Review: The Political Economy of European Security

The Political Economy of European Security, by Kaija Schilde, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 288 pp., (hardback), ISBN 978 1 107 19843 2

by Iraklis Oikonomou

Book Review published in European Security, Volume 27, Issue 4, 2018, pp. 537-540

The emergence of a distinct EU security and defence dimension is not just one more episode in European integration; it is a key development for Brussels, affecting the very essence of the European project: new institutions and mechanisms (e.g. European Defence Agency), new funding arrangements (e.g. security & defence research), new policies (e.g. military space, border security), and a new orientation for the EU as a whole, geared towards the strengthening of the European arms industry. The militarization of the EU is, to a great extent, the European integration of our time.

Any book that sets to study the making of this phenomenon, like Kaija Schilde’s The Political Economy of European Security, is a welcome addition to existing literature. The theoretical foundations of the study lie in transnational interest-group mobilization and the relative governing capacity of institutions. Its argument is compelling: security and defence policy integration in the EU is largely an outcome of the organized activity of transnational interest groups, which built informal European policy institutions that, in turn, accelerated the establishment of formal governing capacity and institutions. Following the dissection of the relationship between interest groups and institutions in Chapter 1, and the theorization of interest group mobilization in connection with outcomes in the EU in Chapters 2 and 3, Schilde then gives a politico-economic explanation of CSDP, in Chapter 4, emphasizing the role of defence industry lobbying in the emergence of this policy. Chapter5 and Chapter 6 thoroughly document the emergence and expansion of EU authority in defence and border security, respectively, as a relative outcome of the mobilization of interest groups – from the start of the process in the case of defence policy, or somewhere along the way in the case of border security. Finally, Chapter 7 studies the blurring of EU security and defence policies brought about by the desire of the industry to impose a market logic there.

Undoubtedly, this is an extremely topical book as the process of the expansion of EU authority to embrace security and defence is in the making and has far-reaching implications for the entire orientation of the Union. This is also a very useful book because it unites the realm of political economy with defence and security policy, highlighting the unity of strategic and economic considerations in EU policy-making. It is about time that we got rid of the model of a discipline that merely seeks to reproduce and legitimize official discourse, presenting the emergence of CSDP as an ‘objective’ and ‘rational’ necessity, and looked instead at the socio-economic rationale of the policy and the way it is embedded into industrial interests. Lastly, it is a balanced book, with a convincing combination of theoretical and empirical study, together with a sound blend of quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Still, the author’s argumentation could have been helped by an engagement with existing critical literature on the socioeconomic foundations of EU armaments policy, including Slijper (2005) and Hayes (2006) work of EU military-industrial and EU security-industrial complexes respectively. This is all the more essential as the theoretical connection between interest groups and EU authority remains unclear; on p. 5, the author argues that “There is … no direct causal link between interest groups and EU authority” while two pages earlier we read that “The very presence of interest groups changes the structure of EU governance”. The riddle remains ultimately unresolved; if this linkage is not causal, what exactly is it? The feeling one gets is that in her effort to avoid one-sided causal simplifications, the author does not provide an adequately specific theorization of the private interests / public authority nexus. Essentially, what Schilde’s work lacks is a theory of power – engagement with certain contributions in Kurowska & Breuer (eds.; 2012) could have been useful in this respect. For example, on p. 15 the author notes that informal institutions enhance the capacity of formal institutions when there is a matching of the respective policy agendas (as if there is a pre-existing public agenda which the private one fits into), but Chapters 4 and 5 point to a wholly different reality – the elevation of a private agenda to a public one via the intense political activation of arms manufacturers, driven by developments (competition with US industry, consolidation) in the industrial realm. This is also why the book could have benefited from a closer look at existing literature that theorizes the policy actorness of European arms manufacturers, including Mawdsley (2003), Barrinha (2010), and a couple of contributions in Karampekios & Oikonomou (eds.; 2015).

Elsewhere, the author admits that from the start of European integration till the end of the 1970s,the interest groups that engaged with the EU were basically business interests, but the explanation “because the EEC regulated industry” (p. 58) is just not convincing, as the EEC did several other things next to regulation. Also, it is acknowledged that industry groups “seem to enjoy a certain honeymoon phase in EU policymaking” (p. 58), pointing to the role of the industry as something bigger than merely interest group activity, but again the rest of the analysis dissolves the dominance of private capitalist interests into this idea of interest groups together with NGOs etc. The entire concept of ‘interest groups’ could be questioned if we take the evidence put forward by the book to its very end. The only ‘interest group’ discussed here is the arms and security industry and, thus, one could argue that the very notion of interest group is a veil that conceals the structural dominance of private business in EU policy-making ,implying that there are other social forces operating next to arms manufacturers – there aren’t. The book could have benefited from class analysis and from the removal of the concept of interest group from its pluralist context. This is all the more true since the author notes that “(t)here is an overrepresentation of business interests over social interests” (p. 83) and illustrates how the entire defence agenda of the EU was set by the European defence industry at least a decade prior to relevant EU initiatives at the end of the 1990s; in her own words, “‘first they (interest groups) arrived, and then it(the EU) was built’” (p. 71). Instead, however, of producing a class-based understanding of the connection between private and institutional power in the EU, the author opts for a tautological understanding of the role of interest groups along the lines of “the earlier interest groups mobilize in the life of an issue area, the more likely they are to establish close, informal relationships with EU bureaucracies” (p. 72), as if the establishment of relations of influence is a technical matter of timing rather than a socio-political matter of power. Once again, existing studies of the multiple ways in which the European arms industry has utilized European integration to promote its own interests, such as Manners (2006) and his conceptualization of a European “military-industrial simplex”, could have been considered.

Overall, the book’s emphasis on defence-industrial interests as a source of EU political authority is a fruitful reminder of the need to re-orientate social scientific attention towards the political economy of arms production and state-societal relations. Schilde tells us that the setting of the EU policy agenda in the realm of security and defence is a heavily politicized process, thoroughly informed by the interests of the European arms industry. It is not the strategic considerations or big power thinking or changes in the strategic environment or the nature of threats that brought about the elevation of defence as a top priority of the European project. Instead, the key according to Schielde lies in understanding the impact of interest group activity – in this case, the organized political actions of the European arms industry. The Political Economy of European Security is a must-read for every student of European Security and International Politics, and a key contribution to the debate on the origins and social purpose of EU security, defence, and armaments policies.

Notes

Barrinha, A., 2010. ‘Moving towards a European Defence Industry? The Political  Discourse on a Changing Reality and its Implications for the Future of the European Union’, GlobalSociety, 24 (4): 467-485.

Hayes, B., 2006. ‘Arming Big Brother: The EU’s Security Research Programme’, TNI Briefing Series No 2006/1, Amsterdam: Transnational Institute.

Karampekios, N. and Oikonomou, I. (eds.), 2015. The European Defence Agency: Arming Europe. Abingdon: Routledge.

Kurowska, X. and Breuer, F. (eds.), 2012. Explaining the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Theory in Action. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Manners, I., 2006. ‘Normative power Europe reconsidered: beyond the crossroads’, Journal of European Public Policy, 13 (2): 182-199.

Mawdsley, J., 2003. ‘TheEuropean Union and Defense Industrial Policy’, Paper 31, Bonn International Center for Conversion.

Slijper, F.,2005. ‘The emerging EU Military-Industrial Complex’, TNI Briefing Series No 2005/1, Amsterdam: Transnational Institute.

Book review: The Rise of European Security Cooperation

 

 

Seth G. Jones, The Rise of European Security Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Pp.301. £55.00. Hb. ISBN 9780521869744. £19.99. Pb. ISBN 9780521689854.

 

 

by Iraklis Oikonomou

 

Book review published in (2011), Intelligence and National Security, 26: 2, pp. 431-436

 

 

The study of security policy and intelligence, two realms where the state de facto occupies a privileged position as a policy actor, necessitates an understanding of the relations between states and the factors that influence them. Such an understanding has been traditionally facilitated by the discipline of international relations (IR). Realism, conventionally divided between a classical realist and a structural realist (or neorealist) variant, is a central paradigm of IR theory. Shaped by theorists such as Hans Morgenthau (classical realism) and Kenneth Waltz (neorealism), realism identifies states as the key actors and the constitutive units of the international system. These units seek to maximize their power and security, usually defined in military terms. While classical realists attribute this tendency primarily to human nature, neorealists locate it in the anarchic nature of the international system. Waltz identified the absence of an overarching power, i.e. a sovereign body that may protect states from each other, as the essence of anarchy and the criterion that separates the national from the international sphere. Neorealism treats states as functionally undifferentiated units, whose actual difference exists in terms of capabilities, not in terms of function. Thus, anarchy is presented as the most important factor that accounts for state behaviour towards other states. Due to anarchy, states live with the imminent threat of military action undertaken against them. Therefore, they seek to guarantee their own survival, security and protection from every potential aggressor. Their relative position vis-a` – vis other states is more important than their absolute power potential. For neorealist IR theory, the prospects of international cooperation and integration are vastly limited, due to the structure of international politics. Inter-state cooperation does take place, but mostly within the context of a balance-of-power logic against common enemies.[1]

 

Until recently, neorealism had not produced any significant theoretical output on European security and defence integration. John Mearsheimer articulated much of the neorealist position on the European security order after the Cold War.[2] European security was to unfold within a multipolar context, given the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of other big powers, a fact that threatened the peaceful European order. Mearsheimer reduced security cooperation in Europe to the continent’s patterns of deployment and distribution of nuclear weapons and military force in general. In an attempt to control the process of nuclear proliferation, European powers would supposedly demonstrate patterns of inter-state competition and conflict. The collapse of the Soviet Union and a potential US military withdrawal from Europe would lead to a resurgence of fear, suspicion and conflict among European states. If theorized through such lenses, the project of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) is flawed and not viable. However, the European state of conflict and military competition that neorealists predicted did not arise. Meanwhile, any representative of this school of thought did not predict the burst of integrative tendencies and initiatives that did arise.

 

Seth G. Jones sets to take neorealism out of its obvious incapacity to interpret European military integration. He does so by taking security and military cooperation seriously, i.e. by putting empirical evidence before neorealist predictions and dogmas, and by accepting that the process of cooperation is real. Jones examines four areas of security cooperation: security institutions, economic sanctions, arms production and military forces. He concludes that there has been a significant increase in intergovernmental security cooperation among EU member states since the end of the Cold War (pp.4–5). For Jones, the changing structure of the international system and its shift from bipolarity to unipolarity forced EU member states to cooperate in security affairs. This change in state behaviour is attributed to the willingness of European states to increase their power projection capabilities and their autonomy from the United States. In addition, this change was underpinned by structural changes in the regional European system, namely the unification of Germany and the decrease of US presence in Europe, which caused European states to adopt a cooperative strategy in order to ensure peace between Germany and the rest of Europe (p.11).

 

Jones’ analysis is a step forward from the pessimistic predictions made by Mearsheimer, providing elements of a neorealist theory of European security cooperation, as opposed to a neorealist theory of European security elimination and conflict. The book is well written, clearly structured and easy to follow, while being based on a wealth of evidence and information. It documents the empirical background of some extremely complex phenomena, such as arms–industrial cooperation and the missions of ESDP, without being descriptive. Furthermore, it engages with several levels of analysis, including the member states, the EU and the transatlantic dimension of cooperation. The book benefits from the methodological choice of multiple case studies, which allows for a detailed yet analytically rich treatment of the topic under examination. By selecting case studies that encompass political, military, institutional and economic characteristics, Jones provides a comprehensive overview of European security cooperation, not limiting its scope to the military dimension.

 

Nevertheless, Jones’ theoretical scheme is somewhat problematic. To begin with, he only discusses EU security cooperation at the intergovernmental level, while evidence points to the existence of EU security integration at both the intergovernmental and the supranational level. Emphasis on intergovernmentalism is a constant feature of neorealism. Such an emphasis was probably legitimate back at the times of European Political Cooperation, but is definitely not legitimate today. The European Commission has been heavily involved in shaping the security policy of the EU. It is funding security research as part of the 7th Framework Programme. It is a member of the Board of the European Defence Agency, in charge of much of EU armaments affairs. It has generated important legal outcomes in the military equipment market. It has been funding security-related space projects, such as Galileo and the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security. It is in charge of the European Neighbourhood Policy, a policy with profound security implications for the EU. Last but not least, it has been extremely active in issues concerning the internal security of the EU, in the policy realm termed as ‘Freedom, Justice and Security’. Therefore, the neorealist claim to the primacy of intergovernmentalism obscures a wealth of supranational initiatives that are at the heart of European security cooperation and that point to the existence of integration, parallel to cooperation.

 

Economic integration and the merging of separate national economic interests are ignored altogether, even when discussing phenomena that are profoundly economic in nature, such as the imposition of economic sanctions and the collaboration in arms production. The impact of domestic and transnational economic policy actors is not studied in any detail; therefore, Jones’ conclusion that ‘domestic actors had remarkably little impact and influence on European states’ (p.225) seems unfounded. Transnational actors with national linkages are left outside the analysis. How can one interpret the emergence of EU armaments cooperation without reviewing the central role of, say, the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe and other policy agencies in pushing it forward? In addition, certain developments in the realm of political economy are misread. For example, the major boost in intra-EU armaments collaboration did not occur only after the end of the Cold War (p.10), but also during the 1980s and the privatization and concentration boom in the UK and Germany. More generally, the political implications of the consolidation of the European arms industry exceed the neorealist emphasis on the role of governments. Arms–industrial internationalization occurring outside the control of the nation-state introduced policy actors at the EU level, whose impact is not necessarily mediated by state authority.

 

The account of the US factor is also contradictory here. On the one hand, EU member states supposedly sought to decrease reliance from the United States by increasing cooperation (p.18). On the other hand, when an instance of such decreasing reliance did occur, namely the decline of US presence in Europe, member states were alarmed by it and enhanced their cooperation (p.11). Why should these states care about US commitment in Europe, if their prime concern is their autonomy vis-a` -vis the United States? Jones does not clarify whether European states sought to balance the United States or to actually ensure the continuation of its dominance in the European continent. Therefore, he fails to account for instances of US–European cooperation that obviously impact negatively on European autonomy, such as the continuation of NATO, the participation of key arms-producing states in the development of the Joint Strike Fighter, and plans to install a missile defence system in some EU member states.

 

Lack of comparative analysis leaves its marks on the book. The European experience of security cooperation is presented as a unique case, although one would expect that changes in the international system would similarly affect other regions such as Latin America and South-Eastern Asia. The same stands true for the question of ‘learning’. Jones claims that the leaders of Germany, France and the UK internalized the lessons of past conflicts in Europe and promoted security cooperation as a means to secure peace (pp.11, 15). However, he does not account for the lack of such learning by leaders elsewhere. What went wrong there and they were not able to learn from the mistakes of the past? Jones’ scheme is tautological, since he claims that security cooperation in other regions has been obstructed by the existence of regional hegemonic powers (p.16). Still, this claim does not explain why these hegemons do not agree to cooperate, in the same way that France or Germany did after the Cold War. There must be some other reasons why leaders in the Middle East or Africa or South-Eastern Asia did not learn from the past the way EU leaders did. These reasons are structural, but not in the meaning that neorealists assign to structure. They are linked to the politico-economic structures and integrative forces of European capitalism, rather than to the structure of systemic polarity.

 

The treatment of ideas by Jones leads to a greater problem, the notion of ‘rationality’ in which the book is embedded. For the neorealist author, policymakers seek to secure their populations from threats, EU states seek to balance US power, and states in general strive to project power abroad. How and why do they do that? The power-projectionist turn in EU security cooperation is viewed by Jones as an almost natural, self-evident move. In fact, this turn to power projection is what the book should explain in the first place. There is nothing inherently ‘rational’ in power projection. According to Jones, states project power in order to increase their security and influence others (p.25). Comparative analysis would help clarify this claim. Why do some states project power abroad while others refrain from doing so? More importantly, Jones should explain why the trend towards collective power projection hit Europe at the end of the 1990s, rather than in the 1960s or 1980s. What appears ‘rational’ to Jones is basically a historical, politico-economic and social outcome that needs to be interpreted, rather than reified through reference to a supposedly self-evident, a-social and a-historical rationality.

 

The reader might wonder what this critique would consider a better alternative to neorealism, as a framework of analysis of European security cooperation. Let us indicate some broad lines of argumentation. European security cooperation is a politico-economic, rather than simply strategic phenomenon, and should be treated as such. Since the late 1980s, economic internationalization produced significant institutionalized outcomes, as exemplified in the creation of the Single Market, the Economic and Monetary Union, the Lisbon Strategy and other initiatives. This led to the emergence of a relatively integrated capitalist economic space in the EU and facilitated the formation of EU cooperative arrangements, such as the ESDP. Power projection is at the heart of these arrangements, reflecting the historically particular tendency of European capitalism to expand, not necessarily in a territorial sense. At the same time, security cooperation fulfils the needs of an internationalized arms industry eager to secure its global competitive status. In this context, US–EU competition is not a simple by-product of the end of the Cold War and the condition of unipolarity, but rather an expression of inter-capitalist contradictions and rivalry.

 

Two factors that are either missing from or fitting uncomfortably with neorealist thinking are ideas and class agency. Far from being the outcomes of rational thinking, dominant ideas about, say, what European security cooperation is and should be about, are produced socially and reflect particular collective interests. Ideas about cooperation have informed the practice of cooperation and have themselves been shaped by pre-existing interests that necessitated and allowed cooperation in the first place. In addition, cooperation is a profoundly politicized process, influenced by the conscious action of class agency. Far from being closed, homogeneous units, states are fields where diverse social forces exercise power and promote their interests, formed primarily by their position in the social system of production. The direction and purpose of European security cooperation has occurred within a context of politico-economic and institutional power, largely reproduced by the hegemonic class actors at the national and transnational level.

 

One would not expect neorealism to resemble dialectical thinking but to, at least, modify its own long-standing, mechanistic emphasis on systemic structures and polarity. By taking European integration seriously and by engaging with some crucial historical and politico-economic aspects of security cooperation in Europe, Jones succeeds in overcoming many of the shortcomings of neorealist thinking, while unavoidably reflecting others. One way or another, The Rise of European Security Cooperation is an original, insightful and solidly argued work that must be read by everyone interested in European security and military affairs as well as in European integration in general.

Notes

[1] The core text of neorealist theory is Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill 1979). For critiques of neorealism, see Robert O. Keohane, Neorealism & Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press 1986). For a recent succinct summary of the theoretical assumptions made by adherents of neorealism, see Joao Resende-Santos, Neorealism, States, and the Modern Mass Army: A Neorealist Theory of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007) esp. pp. 4, 5, 48–9, 19, 35, 52, 53–60, 310.

[2] John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War’, International Security 15/ 1 (1990) pp.5–56.

Stephen G. Brooks - Producing Security: Multinational Corporations, Globalization, and the Changing Calculus of Conflict

Stephen G. Brooks, Producing Security: Multinational Corporations, Globalization, and the Changing Calculus of Conflict (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005 Hb; 2007 Pb). Pp. 316. £ 13.50. Pb. ISBN 9780691130316.

by Iraklis Oikonomou

Published in (2010), Intelligence and National Security, 25: 1, pp. 114-117

In recent years, therise of globalization as a social and historical phenomenon has beenaccompanied by the rise of globalization as an object of social science.Numerous works have been written on all aspects of globalization (economic,cultural, political, social, etc.). However, no major work had appeared upuntil now on the impact of globalization on international security. This omissionshould probably be attributed to the fact that international political economyand security studies have long stood as aliens to one another.

Stephen G. Brooks’ ProducingSecurity: Multinational Corporations, Globalization, and the Changing Calculusof Conflict constitutes a powerful reminder of – and a welcome antidote to– the missing link between the concept of production and the concept of security.The book belongs to a rare tradition of serious engagement with the study ofthe security implications of global politico-economic developments. Thistradition, which can boast of hosting such eminent thinkers as Robert Gilpin,Stephen Krasner and Robert Keohane, was abruptly stopped by the noisy arrivalof post-structuralism and constructivism. As a result, and in the name ofproducing a supposedly ‘social’ theory of international politics, thediscipline of International Relations was availed of one of the elements thatrender it social in the first place: economic production. Therefore, Brooksshould be praised in advance for his courageous use of terms such as‘production’, multinational corporations’ and ‘competitiveness’ in an era when‘identity’, ‘norms’, ‘values’ and ‘discourse’ are increasingly becoming theonly acceptable objects and tools of analysis.

In fact, there aremany more reasons why this book should be praised. To begin with, it engageswith history, providing not only a historical narrative of the evolution ofglobalization, but also in-depth references to concrete historical case-studiesthat illuminate his arguments. Such case-studies include Soviet Union’sisolation from the globalization of arms production, the development ofMercosur and Argentine-Brazilian relations, and the evolution of Hungary’sexternal economic relations. Above all, Brooks’ main argument seems compelling:the status of global security has been significantly altered by the influenceof globalization, through the alteration of three central dimensions ofsecurity: the parameters of weapons development; the economic benefits ofconquest; and the prospects for regional economic integration among securityrivals. These three dimensions are shaped respectively by three current tendencies:a) the globalization of weapons production has generated an increased level oftechnology interdependence among developed countries; b) the transition to aknowledge-based economy has lowered a conqueror’s capacity to extract economicresources from an advanced  society; and c)the developing countries’ need to attract MNCs has increased their incentivesfor initiating regional integration. The final conclusion is that today’s greatgeographic dispersion of production structures and processes will havestabilizing effects among great powers, mixed effects on security relationsbetween developed and developing countries, and negative effects on thesecurity relations among developing countries. The prime reason for reaching thelatter conclusion is because the three mechanisms described in the book(weapons development, benefits of conquest, regional development) have noapplicability on the developing world.

Despite the book’ssophistication and subtlety, some key methodological and theoretical choicestend to undermine the strength and validity of its argumentation. The very useof the term ‘globalization’ is problematic and contradictory, especially whenaccompanied by the – right – claims that “the globalization of production isnot, in fact, ‘global’ but instead remains bounded in important respects” (p.12) and that “the geographic dispersion that occurs within production networksis not necessarily global in nature” (p. 30). This is not merely a quantitativequestion of geographical expansion. The use of the term ‘globalization’ asopposed to, say, the term ‘internationalization’, has tremendous theoreticalimplications for the conception of the relationship between the capitaliststate and capital as a social force, as well as of the relationship betweenrival national capitals.

The question thatlies at the heart of the book is essentially one of national and transnationalclass structures and power, upon which the whole Marxist scholarship has beenbuilt. However, the author is quick to pronounce the unsuitability of Marxismfor his own work, on the premises that “Marxist theories have never worked wellwith respect to security affairs” (p. 51). The evolution of IR theory, from theclassical theories of imperialism to Dependency theory, and from theWorld-Systems approach to neo-Gramscianism, has highlighted Marxism’s utilityfor security studies over and again. By ignoring the impact of national andtransnational class actors and the multiple ways through which a state’s securitypolicy is influenced by the necessities of a system of power in which capital asa social force maintains a hegemonic position, the book fails to identify theinherently social, i.e. class-based, nature of security. As Critical SecurityStudies have claimed, security is always for someone and for something.Instead, the book treats security as a general, a-social concept, whose shapingis isolated from the powerful effects of capitalist discipline. Besides, a part ofthe book’s main argumentation appears to maintain a degree of affinity with theMarxist emphasis on the forces and relations of production. The claim that“technological development is the key driving force behind the rapid increasein interfirm alliances” (p. 85) is basically compatible with a basic Marxisttenet, according to which changes in the forces of production generate changesin the prevailing social relations of production. This is even furtherconfirmed when the author discusses Soviet Union’s inability to compete with USweapons technology (p. 108) and attributes it to technological shifts, i.e.changes in the forces of production, that took place in the 1980s.

Brooks suggests thata conqueror that tends to alter property relations is likely to becomeunattractive to multinational corporations. This conclusion should be highlyqualified; in Iraq,MNCs were invited by the conqueror – and its affiliated domestic elites – tobenefit from the alteration in property rights. Economic stability is not aclass-neutral concept; pro-capital policies rather than mere stability ineconomic policy are the guarantee to the attraction of investment by MNCs.Therefore, the economic benefits of conquest depend on who the conqueror is andwhose interests it seeks to fulfill. The possibility of conquering a country inorder to attract and facilitate multinational capital escapes Brooks’attention.

The author seems tobe most at home when discussing global military-industrial trends. Theimpressive level of detail, the exemplary use of sources and the combination ofboth historical and politico-economic analysis produces one of the mostsophisticated accounts of developments in the field of arms production that hasbeen published in the last decade. Nevertheless, the conclusions drawn fromthis analysis are contestable. What Brooks understands as globalization isbasically internationalization; arms industries today are diversified in termsof production and sub-contraction, but remain rather homogeneous in terms ofcapital ownership and control. Lockheed Martin is a UScorporation and the USstate apparatus is more sensitive to respond to its needs than to the needs of,say, Dassault Aviation. Even EADS, the most highly internationalized armsmanufacturer in the world, is still a Franco-German-Spanish entity, rather thana global, a-national firm.

Therefore,interdependence in arms production does not nullify inter-state competitionthat stems from rival military-industrial capitals. It is exactly not clear whythe fact that “no state, including the great powers, can now effectively remainon the cutting edge in military technology if it does not pursue significantinternationalization in the production of weaponry (p. 6) should matter at all.This development is an economic-technological one, and its securityimplications are not as straightforward as Brooks implies. In fact, the readeris left wondering whether and why the internationalization of weaponsproduction enhances the prospects of global security. For sure, Russia was not restrained in its actions in Georgiaby the fact that Russian arms manufacturers maintain close links with Europeanones, such as EADS and Finmeccanica. Similarly, the USadministration did not consider deliberating with the EU to be an option beforeinvading Iraq, even thoughEU-headquartered firms act as prime contractors in major US programmes.

Given the emphasisof the book on MNCs, one would expect to find at least one chapter detailingtheir role as security actors in the broadest sense, and their impact on thetrend of interventionism that is traceable among developed states vis-à-vis theglobal periphery. Regrettably, this is not the case. Instead, the authorresorts to the dubious conclusion that “since at least 1970 there do not appearto have been any cases of great powers intervening militarily in response tolobbying by MNCs whose foreign holdings were threatened” (p. 247). Chile, the obvious example, is overlooked by theauthor, on the grounds that the 1973 events not involve the direct use ofmilitary force by the US;this is a highly contestable maneuver indeed. Besides, the question of the linkbetween capital and security is not simply one of lobbying. The state is anarbiter of conflicting capitalist interests and often retains a degree ofpolitical autonomy in order to maintain the hegemony of capital in general overthe particular demands of capitalist fractions. Therefore, US interventions in,e.g. Yugoslavia or Iraq,may have been driven by the goal of capitalist expansion irrespective of theparticular lobbying activities of the one or the other firm or sector.

To sum up, the book is a must for every student of Security Studies, and therefore of Intelligence Studies as well. The theoretical objections raised in this short note cannot and should not obscure the fact that Producing Security is one of the most fruitful and important books recently published on the study of, not only globalization, but international relations as a whole. The final judgment depends on each reader’s theoretical and – let us not be afraid of the word – ideological preferences. The liberally minded reader will find in this work a welcome confirmation of the basic conclusions of the liberal peace theory as far as relations between great powers are concerned. The rather more critical reader will feel that this work is much more successful in tackling the right questions, rather than in providing the most convincing answers. All readers, however, will be alarmed by one of the book’s major findings: “policymakers…should not base their future foreign policy decision on the notion…that the globalization of production is a strong, positive security force in the developing world” (p. 233). One way or another, Producing Security is a milestone work of IR theory that sets a radically new agenda, awaiting further elaboration in the years to come.