Kirshner: The Changing Calculus of Conflict?

Kirshner, J., 2007. The Changing Calculus of Conflict? Security Studies, 16(4), 583-597.

Kirshner addresses Brooks Producing Security text in four parts. Firstly, he looks at what the book has added to the field. Next, he critically evaluates those potential contributions. Thirdly, he questions the underlying theme of the book: that the globalization of production has altered the cost of conflict. His main contention is that the argument si oversold. Finally, Kirshner argues about how globalization may be possibly altering the changing nature of conflict.

Brooks argues that the globalization of production is fundamentally a more important and causal phenomena affecting the world today, more important, than, for example, international trade. “In particular, the fragmentation of the production process across some states is fundamentally different from simpler forms of transnational production (and an entirely different animal from overseas investments in extracting raw materials)” (584). Brooks also points out that the embellishment of truly autarchic defense production is now so costly as to be prohibitive. “Interdependence is not uniformly good or bad but influences international politics in different ways depending on its interactions with additional variables” (586).

Kirshner does not believe that Brooks is ultimately successful in explaining how much the calculus of conflict has changed in the face of globalization. While Brooks is clear that globalization of production does imply three problems: namely, the impossibility of fully autonomous defense production, reduced benefit economically for military adventure and deep regional economic integration, he doesn’t make the case for how strongly these three security questions may affect the changing calculus of conflict in globalization.