Millennium - Journal of

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Book Review: Peter Hough, Understanding Global Security, 2nd edn

(Abingdon: Routledge, 2008, 294 pp., £21.99 pbk)
Yuliya Zabyelina
Millennium - Journal of International Studies 2011 39: 896
DOI: 10.1177/03058298110390031709

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896 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 39(3)

Peter Hough, Understanding Global Security, 2nd edn (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008,
294 pp., £21.99 pbk).

Since the end of the Cold War, fundamental changes have transformed the global secu-
rity architecture. Not only has the international community witnessed the dissolution of
a bipolar structure centred on NATO and the Warsaw Pact, but there have also been new
challenges stemming from civil wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and economic
crises. Understanding security both in the objective interpretation (‘hard’ security,
concerning military threats) and in the subjective sense (‘soft’ security, associated with
developmental maintenance of non-military security for societies, groups and individuals)
is fundamental to this book, which grasps both the old and the new paradigms of global
security arrangements.
Hough’s work is a broad analysis of these changing paradigms, which successfully
manages to avoid both excessive generality and excessive elaboration. Not only does he
summarise, but he also synthesises, key arguments into a new whole, building intellec-
tual linkages between various strands of thought. A key contribution that results from this
approach is the author’s analysis of which issues can usefully be incorporated within
contemporary security at the beginning of the new millennium. In this respect, he
embraces the fluidity of the major debates and encapsulates thinking and research at a
particular point in space and time.
According to Hough, interstate relations are just one aspect, albeit an important one,
of the security dynamics that characterise contemporary global security. States are not
the only important actors, nor are they the only important referent objects for security.
He argues that the end of the Cold War ‘has not changed the military security threats to
the governments or peoples of many states’ (p. 60), but has made ‘political non-state
violence … far more common and persistent than state-to-state conflict’ (p. 88). Hough
also maintains that the shift towards a wider interpretation of security that incorporates
non-military issues, such as human security, is crucial to understanding contemporary
threats and the means of fighting them. Elaborating this view, he includes chapters on
the War in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the Israeli–Lebanon conflict, the global spread of
HIV/AIDS, famine and global crime.
Of particular interest is the chapter on accidental threats to security, in which Hough
provides a succinct analysis of how man-made accidents, such as transport, industrial
and personal accidents, may contribute to understanding global security. Importantly, he
focuses not only on security threats, but also on potential global solutions, emphasising
that understanding global security necessitates thinking about security as a global com-
mons that one state alone is not able to solve. ‘A restoration of the natural balance
between human ethics and actions in global policy, by the promotion of more “rounded”
globalization, would enhance global solidarity and permit the advancement of human
security’ (p. 259).
Providing the reader with a whirlwind tour of a fascinating topic – a kaleidoscope
subject whose key concepts and core assumptions are under continual re-examination –
Hough nevertheless avoids confusion, managing instead to illuminate the challenging
and yet inspiring complexity of the security issue. Students of international relations,

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Book Reviews 897

security studies and international politics will value this book for its exceptional laconism,
clarity and comprehensibility.
Yuliya Zabyelina

Yuliya Zabyelina is a PhD candidate in International Studies at the University of Trento,

Italy.

Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller and Mark Ledwidge (eds), New Directions in
US Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2009, 277 pp., £75 hbk).

Understanding foreign policy decision-making and implementation is still an open-

ended process, which seems to change direction after any major event. The foreign
policy of the United States (US) is no different. The edited volume New Directions by
Parmar, Miller and Ledwidge interprets US foreign policy through different theoretical
perspectives (Part I), examines the influence of political parties, think tanks and reli-
gious organisations on US foreign policy (Part II), and explores new policy directions,
ranging from the war on terror to relations with the United Nations (UN) (Part III). The
open and contentious debates surrounding US foreign policy are characteristic not only
of this volume, but also within US foreign policy decision-making, especially after the
11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. The volume analyses the origins and the future of
US foreign policy from the perspectives of its contributors, as the book is intended to
function as ‘a textbook with a difference’ that combines the works of scholars who
‘have their own particular standpoints … and who frequently disagree’ (p. 1). In this
volume the intended audience of scholars and students finds new conceptualisations of
US foreign policy within different theoretical realms, new empirical areas of research,
and new policy directions ranging from reconciliation with the Middle East to refrain-
ing from aggressive democracy promotion. New Directions goes beyond the simplified
textbook format, however, leaving it to the reader to decide which theoretical or empir-
ical approach(es) to adopt.
The book does not make grand generalisations or arguments, but rather lets the
‘opinionated’ (p. 2) voices of the authors speak for themselves. The first part of the book
concentrates on US foreign policy after the 11 September 2001 attacks through the prism
of different and often rival theoretical perspectives. Thomas Kane argues that the ‘stag-
gering quantities of [military] power’ (p. 6) make US foreign policy in the 21st century
a provocative case for realism, with a concentration on the Machiavellian approach of an
end justifying the means. Richard Jackson and Matt McDonald see the potential of con-
structivism to provide ‘a powerful lens’ (p. 28) for investigation into the decisions of the
US and to highlight its ‘often overlooked capacity’ (p. 28) to understand change based on
an examination of social interactions and ideas. The demise of neo-conservatism is
‘decidedly premature’ (p. 34) according to Rob Singh and Tim Lynch, who argue that the
democratic peace is ‘likely to endure’ into 2010 and beyond (p. 57), not only because of
the dependence of the incumbents on electoral volatility, but also due to the high costs of
waging wars. The theoretical section concludes with a chapter by Doug Stokes on

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