This book places armed conflict in the broad frame of reference of the confrontation between those with kratotropic leanings (towards dominating others) and those with eleutherotropic leanings (towards surrendering to others’ control) that characterise relations between groups of human beings. In our world today the kratotropic tendency corresponds to western neoliberal expansive capitalism, acting through ideological influence and economic pressure and, as a last resort, employing force. Meanwhile various kinds of eleutherotropic movements are emerging, some of them genuine threats to security, such as jihadist terrorism.
After a first chapter explaining these concepts and a second describing the current international situation, the book looks at the western interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq (chapter 3), the genesis of and reasons for jihadist terrorism (chapter 4) and finally (chapter 5) the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas.