For over 25 years the essays by David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith critiqued the ideology of the ‘end of history’. This belief, popular after the Cold War, assumed the West had ‘won’ and that the world would naturally converge towards liberal democracy. However, Jones and Smith, based initially on their experiences in Southeast Asia in the 1990s, challenged this idea, observing ethno-religious tensions, underlying economic instability, and clashing cultural values. They highlighted the fragility of the Asian economic boom, the rise of Islamist activism pre-9/11, and the dangers of Western military interventions. They argued that a secular progressive ideology was undermining Western culture and geopolitical awareness. Despite their gloomy diagnosis of the West’s trajectory, they still saw potential for the West to recover its purpose and confidence. However, world events have, tragically, evolved to validate much of Mike and David’s work. Their views, once marginalised, are now seen as prophetic. This volume reflects the best part of three decades’ worth of endeavour. Welcome to the uncompromising thought of scholars standing on the shoulders of giants.
Jadual kandungan
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Jo Cohen Jones
List of abbreviations
Glossary of non-English terms
Prologue: David, where the lion lay
1.
Where modernity and tradition collide: The rise of Asia and the new front line of history
Tigers ready to roar?
Identity politics in Southeast Asia
Islamists defeat the Asian way
Still active: Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia
The dragon stirs: China’s long shadow
Can ASEAN ever solve the South China Seas dispute?
How Islamic State established a franchise in Southeast Asia
2.
The war on terror misfires: Western illusions and self-deceptions
The Kentucky Fried Chicken of global jihad
Costly delusions
Who knows spins
The rise of the neo-COINs
The strategy of savagery: Explaining the Islamic State
The delusions of counter-insurgency
A strategy of contradictions
Game of drones
3.
Getting terror wrong: the follies of critical theory and radicalisation studies
We’re all terrorists now
Carry on empathising: The ISIS-crisis and Western political thought
How Western multiculturalism nurtures sacred violence
Can you talk to a death cult? 1
Crazy like a fool, wild about jihadi cool
Curbing enthusiasm: Radicalisation and fanaticism
Why deny? Terror stalks the academy
4.
Globalist myths: Brexit and British power
Brexit and the myth of European security
Orchestrating hooliganism: Russia, Britain and the EU
A trade strategy for United Kingdom Inc
Brexlit and the decline of the English novel
The Chinese Dream: China’s challenge to ‘Global Britain’
The European Union as the new Tower of Babel
5.
The West’s cultural revolution
When ideology displaces reason
College of fear
The West’s Maoist moment
Terror in the Western mind: Carnage and culture
Misreading Mill: On liberty and vaccination
We need to talk about trans politics: An oppressed majority
6.
History re-started: Geopolitics and the revenge of realism
The return of the Machiavellian moment
Are we witnessing a return to realpolitik?
Apocalypse soon?
Putin’s geopolitics: Making sense of the war in Ukraine
How does this end? Europe after Ukraine
At the Baal game: The World Cup and the clash of civilisations
The return of grand strategy in the Indo-Pacific
7.
The right state of the union: Democracy and dystopia
Making America miserable again
Democracy in the USA: Clarifying acts of violence
Democracy and dystopia: Part one – the intangible economy
Democracy dystopia: Part two – the revenge of politics
Contemplating phenomenology: UFO’s, technology and religion
From axis of democracy to axis of hypocrisy
8.
The endnote of history: Britain’s terminal decline?
A Union without Faith or Law: Part one: The post-Brexit game of thrones
A Union without Faith or Law: Part two – global Britain or vanishing kingdom?
The 1970s weren’t all bad
The suicide and conquest of Britain revisited
Woke Wales: From death to character assassination
Was the British Empire evil?
Epilogue: A ballad of disenchanted modernity – Reading Woke in Son Kul
Notes on authors
Index