Richard Higgins

No Common War: Mundus Vult Decipi Richard Higgins

This monograph examines the impact of modernism on contemporary security strategy development for religious, non-violent threats in the context of the Information Age. The monograph focuses on the challenge of strategy formulation resulting from modernism?s interface with the threat from the Islamic Movement, the emergence of the digital terrain, and the US Department of Defense?s (DOD) organizational culture. The thesis is presented in a deductive manner and argues that modernism has created a strategic security seam that is being exploited by the Islamic Movement to create and perpetuate a strategic pseudo-reality. Based on Islamic functional doctrines of deception, the pseudo-reality is amplified by the digital environment and the DOD?s organizational culture. The thesis leads the reader to conclude that a new category of strategy must be created to free the US from this pseudo-reality and to compensate for the modernist shortfalls afflicting security strategy formulation.