摘要：Michael Head and Scott Mann of the University of Western Sydney, Australia, note in this book their growing concern over the possibility that governments will use military force to respond to domestic tensions arising from the recent global financial crisis. Those concerns are heightened by what they consider a post 9/11 "global turn to militarism" (p. i). In their Introduction, Head and Mann lay out a list of issues that they believe have not been addressed with the appropriate level of official, academic, or media scrutiny. Among those issues they include an international trend towards increased government power to use military forces for domestic and political purposes. They further note that the U.S. and Canada have for the first time established military commands "tasked with preparing and conducting internal operations" (p. 1). The list of complaints continues in a similar vein, and some readers by this point in the Introduction may be wondering whether the authors have adopted an unduly alarmist stance. Keeping in mind they are speaking about a perceived trend among advanced democracies, they are right in calling attention to their main concerns: "the strengthening of the power of the state over citizens; the undermining of democratic and legal rights; the erosion of civilian control over the military; and the growing role of...the 'military-industrial complex'" (p. 2).
