Resistance in the Age of Austerity: Nationalism, the Failure of the Left and the Return of God

摘要

During the First World War, the stalemate situation on the western front in Europe had inspired a novel military strategy. Rather than relying on a strong and unified defensive line, defence-in-depth strategy was designed to initially weaken the momentum of the attack through spreading it over time or a large territory, and then preparing for counter-attacks at weak points of the attacker. The underlying rationale of this strategy was to force the attacker to lose momentum or spread their force over a larger territory through light and dispersed defence forces to cause attrition warfare. Today, social sciences in general, and the International Relations discipline in particular, debate over possibilities or different outlets for countering power a method similar to that used by to that used by politicians and military strategists of the first half of the twentieth century. It is highly possible that the direction and quality of this very debate on different meanings and practices of power and resistance will determine the future of both social science disciplines and quests for change. In this respect, the strength of Owen Worth's book lies in its analysis and assessment of the success or failure of reactionary movements against neo-liberalism, thereby inspiring us to reflect on whether 'defence-in-depth' strategies are feasible or not vis-a-vis global neo-liberalism.