Title:US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations
Author: Sajjad Shaukat
Publishers: Ferozsons; Pp 245

Who has emerged to check the global super cop and affect a shift in international relations? To find the answer read this book.
At the end of 245 page long monologue interspersed with diatribe, the author Sajjad Shaukat tells you with conviction writ large on his face that the Islamist militants are today’s invisible balance of power.
Is this a new theory? Yes it is. A dangerous proposition? Well, in my view, it indeed is.
Says the author: Despite their weak position, Islamic militants have counterbalanced the power of the US and its allies who have been facing a stiff resistance across various volatile regions in the world.
Moving postulates thus: like the system of balance of power, sub-national groups are checking the hegemony of the US, the most powerful state on earth. The ‘moral force’ of Islamic activists has rendered the superior ‘physical force’ of the US troops obsolete.
Developments in Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq among many other post-9/11 trouble spots are an endorsement of this theory, according to Shaukat, who avers that Muslim radicals have started checking the hegemony of the US in the unipolar world created by the collapse of Soviet Union.
There exists a different balance of power between the states and the non-state actors, the author tells us blandly and goes on to see similarities in their tactics – hit and run, and ambush assaults and targeted killings.
There is some food for thought too in the book. Extremism is not exclusive domain of the Muslims and that it has developed in the land of hope and promise the Eldorado- the United States of America, says the author and adds that while the state of deprivation was the cause in Muslim world, the sense of special status gave raise to this tendency in the case of Americas.