While humanity has made much scientific advancement, it is still the way that we deal with these tools and inventions that determines the shape of the world we live in. As Ashkar puts it, globalization has not only transformed the technical field, but the political, military, and cultural fields as well. He underplays the advantages of this global system and instead highlights how it provides several means for more widespread intervention among countries. Consequently, the fate of countries and people becomes limited in the hands of the few through ‘deregulation’, which he terms as making lawlessness lawful. This goes against the perceived objectives of globalization (a multi-polar world where power is balanced among players) and achieves a multiple polarity with powers sharing the right to oppress. The result is chaos of violence and confrontations in light of diminishing government control.

Intervention as such, is the behavior of the world’s super powers, with motives usually driven by self-interest. In this sense, these countries carry on the legacy of empires in what he calls the “globalization of imperialism”. Countries that have inherited this legacy, even today only approach or deal with the ‘other’ with aims of conquering it. Neo-Imperialism is trying, like the Roman Empire, to simplify the world into one global village that works by its rules. To this he compares the US, whose wars are conducted on other people’s land in order to keep the American people safe. In reality then, globalization has not been advancing the quality of life for people around the world, but rather maintaining a status quo.

Writing this shortly before 9/11, he warns America to not be surprised if it finds itself victim to violent threats within its very homeland. The violence it’s projecting in its so called ‘war on terror’ is only counterproductive as it promotes a globalized world that is based on violence. The interconnectivity of this system means that any player can form a threat, and that the use of force is no longer a state monopoly. The importance of his work lies in the bulk of chapter 3 where he predicts, and describes with detailed precision, a major attack by foreigners on American soil. Though in his imagination this would be an attack using biological weapons, he sets it in the center of a highly populated city. Reactions to such an attack would differ, and would develop with time and even cause surprises that no one could predict. He sets the complete scenario for his foreseeable attack, complete with the contents of the president’s speech following the incident, the changes that would hit American society, the UN resolutions and reactionary war that the US would also use as a prevention of further attacks.

As globalization has opened up all communities to each other, wars now affect societies more than they affect governments. The use of violence is no longer in the hands of a limited few; hence the threat of attacks on America. The US had failed to see a causal relationship between its policies towards other countries and the threat of attacks on its homeland. American academia concurs that American policies are behind such threats, but yet they somehow all seem to ignore this factor when making policy recommendations. But according to his analysis this should not have been ignored. Al-Ashkar has made very serious forecasts in his analytical and well-resourced book. The accuracy with which he describes the attack is very alarming, but the actual 9/11 attacks that occurred soon after his publication validate his argument about the dangers of US foreign policy in the midst of a system as interconnected as the one we live in.