Globalization and the National Security State, by Norrin M. Ripsman and T.V. Paul

Norrin M. Ripsman and T.V. Paul Globalization and the National Security State New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 296 pp. $ 29.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-19-539391-0Globalization is a defining factor of our time. Although the literature about it is extensive, generalizations about globalization are often made in a somewhat cavalier fashion. Efforts to treat it with theoretical and methodological rigour are thus welcome. This is what Norrin Ripsman, a young and upcoming scholar at Concordia University, and T.V. Paul, a respected senior IR scholar at McGill University, do in this fine book.An important corollary of the rise of globalization, or so it has been argued, is the decline of the nation state. Yet, is this the case?Ripsman and Paul carve out a particular dimension of the nation state-national security-and proceed to test the hypothesis implied in that corollary thoroughly and systematically. On the face of it, this is an overly ambitious and almost unmanageable task. With some 200 countries in the world, how does one go about it convincingly, while keeping a measure of parsimony and conceptual elegance?By organizing their units of analysis into manageable categories-the global security environment, on the one hand, and the major powers, states in stable regions, states in regions of enduring rivalry, and weak and failing states, on the other-they solve this particular challenge. A culling of the literature on "globalization-as-the-demise-of-the state," with a special focus on security, leads them to four key propositions at the global level, and 10 at the state level. At the global level, they are: 1) interstate conflict should decline; 2) worldwide defence spending and military manpower should be declining; 3) multilateral regional and global institutions should be increasingly important in the provision of security; and 4) the incidence of global terrorism should have increased dramatically.Space does not allow a full listing of the 10 propositions they set forth at the state level, but they are along the same lines: a shift from military doctrines favouring offence to those espousing defence/deterrence; another from hard to soft balancing; a third, having military establishments changing from war fighters to police forces; with all of these topped by the privatizing of security and the pursuance of security through regional institutions.The authors then proceed to test these propositions in each of their categories, in which they pick certain countries. This testing is done with actual data wherever possible, as well as with military doctrines and "defense white papers," which presumably show actual threat assessments and thus changing perspectives on national security in a globalizing world.Ripsman and Paul ask a monumental and significant question-arguably among the most important in the field of international relations (IR) today-and are remarkably sure-footed in their detailed discussion of how it plays out around the world, thus giving strong empirical foundations to the overall gist of their argument. Some may be surprised to read, as a finding, that Pakistan has not privatized some of its security functions, given that if there is one state that has outsourced some of its most aggressive actions to terrorist groups it is precisely Pakistan, but, by and large, the authors get their regional scenarios right.Perhaps counterintuitively, they find that, far from being on the way out, if not to its demise or at least some form of early retirement, the national security apparatus of the nation state is very much alive and kicking. …