Secular War

How have long-standing and unconscious secular assumptions about religion shaped the post-9/11 climate and its wars? Stacey Gutkowski explores this little-examined yet crucial element of British perceptions of and policy towards Jihadism over the last decade to draw critical conclusions about the relationship between war and the secular. She points to a surprisingly coherent body of secular beliefs that have fuelled policies in Iraq Afghanistan and counter-terrorism and that have had mixed results - responsible for both positive strategies and tragic errors. The theory Gutkowski develops on the impact of this secular approach to warfare holds a broader global significance and cannot be viewed as just a British phenomenon. This book addresses ongoing and critical debates such as the ''overreach'' of Western liberal interventionism in the Middle East and speaks to policy-makers security analysts and students of IR Foreign Policy and Security Studies.