Thus article traces the appropriation of globalization concepts by American military strategists. It argues that the world views developed by the American military are ethnocentric, and draw heavily from a repackaging of modernization theory. This article draws on the professional military literature - speeches and articles by top military officers, articles in professional military journals, and military and other government reports - to map the strategy debates around globalization. By examining the role played by notions of globalization within American strategic debates, we can better understand how sociological concepts become appropriated and transformed by policy-makers, and how they act to frame policy debates. With the end of the Cold War, the US military was cast adrift, suffering from an extreme case of goal deprivation. With the Soviet Union no longer around to fulfill the role of arch-enemy, this massive bureaucracy needed a new definition of the principal threat. Of the various contending world views in the strategic community, popular notions of globalization came, by the late 1990s, to be seen by many to offer a coherent explanation of instability and threat in the post-Cold War world. This article provides a description and sociological critique of this strategic paradigm.
