Ungoverned Spaces

"Ungoverned spaces" are often cited as key threats to national and international security and are increasingly targeted by the international community for external interventionsboth armed and otherwise. This book examines exactly when and how these spaces contribute to global insecurity, and it incorporates the many spaces where state authority is contestedfrom tribal, sectarian, or clan-based governance in such places as Pakistani Waziristan, to areas ruled by persistent insurgencies, such as Colombia, to nonphysical spaces, such as the internet and global finance. Within this multiplicity of contexts, the book addresses a range of security concerns, including weapons of mass destruction, migrants, dirty money, cyberdata, terrorists, drug lords, warlords, insurgents, radical Islamist groups, and human privacy and security. Ultimately,Ungoverned Spacesdemonstrates that state-centric approaches to these concerns are unlikely to supplant the many sites of authority that provide governance in a world of softened sovereignty.

Anne L. Clunan is an Associate Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs and Director of the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School. She is the editor, with Peter R. Lavoy and Susan B. Martin, of Terrorism, War, or Disease? Unraveling the Use of Biological Weapons (Stanford University Press, 2008).
Harold A. Trinkunas is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is the editor, with Jeanne Giraldo, of Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective (Stanford University Press, 2007).