Conversations With History: Philip Bobbitt
March 17, 2010 by biotechconnection.com · 2 Comments
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Philip Bobbitt, Herbert Wechsler Professor of Jurisprudence, Columbia University. Focusing on the transformation of the state and warfare, Professor Bobbitt offers a new interpretation of terrorism. He explains the emergence of the market state, compares it to the nation state, analyzes the unique features of warfare in the new century, and brings into focus the distinctive qualities of today’s terrorism. Professor Bobbitt also describes the challenges posed for national security and offers an agenda for changes that integrate strategy and law. Series: Conversations with History [8/2008] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 14820]
Kreisler is a gracious host but it’s going a bit far to say LBJ was “dragged into the war” in Vietnam. Staged events like the Gulf of Tonkin are matters of choice and worse.
If, as Bobbitt says, terror is the state’s inability to protect its citizens, then we haven’t left behind the nation state. And to what extent does the market state overlap with the corporate state, only interested in the opportunity of citizens in so far as it bennefits the most powerful? Are markets really free and rational or is the supposed commoditization of nuclear know-how among marginalized players a nationalistic response to corporate special interest?