Customer Reviews

A Devil's Triangle: Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Rogue States

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If you don't follow the news often (like many of us who lead busy lives), this is a good, short book that explains how and why the world is so messed up today.

Brookes explains in detail how we got to where we are today with this "devil's triangle" of terrorists, available weapons of mass destruction and rogue states. Brookes, a former CIA analyst and U.S. Navy officer, writes with experience and authority on the subject.

The book is well-written among volumes of this genre. It has nice vignettes to introduce each chapter and well-researched history lessons (His "Quick History of Terrorism," for example, begins in the first century AD with Roman-occupied Judea).

However, be prepared to tackle some unfamiliar -- but not unintelligible -- acronyms such as CA, CW, BW, CWC, BWC, JRA, HEU, NPT, DPRK and MILF (teenagers, please stop snickering). There are a lot of them in this book and this makes reading it a little tricky in some parts.

But it's not impossible. Those who really want to know what's wrong with the world -- and how to fix it -- will get through them, and be smarter for it.

This book provides basic, yet informative overviews of historical and current agendas within "influential terrorist groups" that have made a profound impact on world-wide political, religious, financial and power agendas. The book mainly addresses fundamental Islamic issues with specific regard to popular political and religious radical groups motivated by influencing media, military and political Middle East agendas.

The information provided is something you might find on a reading list for a CIA class on "Terrorist History 101" with a primary context of "basic Middle Eastern political agendas, resources and overview of strategic weapons acquisition and uses." In great detail, the book covers many aspects of various radical groups, both successful and unsuccessful endeavors and methods of influencing the political arena, as well as associated business/financial aspects of related connections. Detailed information on weapons trade is also included.

Aimed towards fundamental Islamic political agendas in particular, the book lacks in-depth research of other related regional contributors to the world-wide aspect of global arms business, although there is some brief mention of related radical influences of Asian, Russian, European, African and Australian regions with regard to political interests and resources.

As the author represents a conservative think tank organization in Washington DC, readers must consider the book's agenda when reading certain elements of its political persuasions in popularizing political agendas. The overall essence of the book gives particularly good insight into certain political undertones.

It's a great resource book to have on hand with a brief history of Islamic religious, political and historical originations that have led to many current ideologies and factions that are interrelated or juxtaposed to current political agendas in the Middle East. It also briefly covers radical political examples during the Renaissance Era that influenced warring factions between Christian and Jewish religious oppositions.
The book offers basic historical and current research of related "terrorist factions and interests" and is a very easy read (1-2 days).

This book is very badly written, hardly contains a useable amount of background information, uses the kind of language you would expect from a white house press secretary, looks at things from a very present and unilateral perspective and works in a very non-scientific way. Brookes echoes Bush administration phrases, hardly quotes from scholarly work at all, uses colloquial language and skims over thousands of issues like someone who pretends to just want to give you a quick overview, but essentially, Brookes doesn't have anything to offer but a quick cash-in into a currently hot topic with a quickly-written book that isn't worth its money.