The other point that is implicit in calls for arms control, in President Obama’s speeches, and in very many other places, is the crucial specification of the world as a dangerous place, and hence in need of arms control. But precisely who is threatening to whom where is frequently less clearly specified not least because it is frequently taken for granted in political rhetoric. But as the rest of this paper suggests, focussing on those taken for granted contextualizations, on the implicit, and sometimes explicit, geographical framing of the world as needing certain forms of arms control, is a useful analytical way of clarifying how the politics of arms control works. Many of the new innovations in Washington retain the geopolitical assumptions of American hegemony. In Andrew Bacevich’s terms they follow the longheld foreign policy credo in which American thinking has ‘an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism’.3 Nonetheless, and this is the key point in the rest of this paper, the geography of violence, and the technological means of its application have changed very substantially since the Cold War.4 Thinking through how these new circumstances, only loosely caught in the terms ‘globalization’ on the one hand and ‘human security’ on the other, are tied into campaigns both by civil society and states to control arms matters both as a matter of policy and a matter of scholarly analysis of the new geopolitical circumstances of the 21st century. What is clear is that a combination of the inter-related phenomena of urbanization, climate change, migration, financial crises, technological innovation and the rapidly shifting geography of global production is changing how geopolitics works. The rise of multilateral institutions emphasizes how inadequate nationalist political visions are in these circumstances, however tempting they are for politicians mustering domestic support for various policies. (39-40)
The point that is implicit in calls for arms control, is the crucial specification of the world as a dangerous place hence in need of arms control precisely who is threatening to whom where is frequently taken for granted in political rhetoric. But , focussing on those taken for granted contextualizations on the implicit, and sometimes explicit, geographical framing of the world as needing arms control is a useful analytical way of clarifying how the politics of arms control works. Many of the new innovations retain the geopolitical assumptions of American hegemony the geography of violence have changed very substantially since the Cold War Thinking through how these new circumstances are tied into campaigns to control arms matters both as a matter of policy and a matter of scholarly analysis a combination of the inter-related phenomena of urbanization, climate change, migration, financial crises, technological innovation and the rapidly shifting geography of global production is changing how geopolitics works. rise of multilateral institutions emphasizes how inadequate nationalist political visions are in these circumstances however tempting they are for politicians mustering support for various policies