|
The New Western Way of War: Risk Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq
Martin Shaw
Polity Press 2005
ISBN 0-7456-3411-7
Describing himself as a sociologist or war and global politics, Martin Shaw is Professor of International Relations and Politics at the University of Sussex. In this book, he examines the development of a new way of conducting war since Vietnam, which he says focuses on containing the risks to lives of western soldiers to minimise the political risk to their governments. He argues that in Iraq and in its war on terror, the United States has flouted the key rules that enabled western states to fight earlier wars successfully. The results are not only political failure and a disaster in Iraq, but also a loss of credibility for the idea of western warfare.
Shaw believes that risk is transferred to civilians, whose deaths are explained away as accidental or collateral damage. Yet, the idea of managing risk is fundamentally at odds with the brutal, unpredictable nature of war. Ultimately, attempts to manage, govern and control the risks of war produce greater risks for those in power.
One of things that really annoys this reviewer is the wholesale hijacking of risk management terminology and concepts by people - who clearly do not understand the words and ideas they use - who then recoin and apply them indiscriminately to whatever subject they intend to talk about, thus giving it the imprimatur of credibility and disciplined thought. Make no mistake about it; this book is a thinly veiled polemic against the war in Iraq and against war in general.
This is evident in the sub-chapters entitled Human Rights and the Illegitimacy of War and Alternatives to War. These are lofty, utopian sentiments, but the author, like the blind man, feels around the elephant’s leg and proclaims it to be something different entirely. If this book were to achieve its purpose, it would need to be far more thorough in its application of a methodology and offer far more in a historical and contemporary understanding of events, nation-state actors and other significant groupings of people who wage war.
Everything interesting in this book can be found in the table of contents, particularly chapter 4, where the author lists the 15 ways in which technologically advanced countries now prefer to wage war. Professor Shaw calls these the “rules of risk transfer war”. These have nothing to do with risk transfer in a risk management sense, but rather could be explained as an application of risk control techniques, against the backdrop of a certain political risk appetite, that attempt to control the severity and frequency of loss of life and property.
These rules eventually draw criticism – leaving one with the view that either all wars should cease now because they are cruel and unfair (duh!), or we should go back to bludgeoning each other to death one by one. The book does have interesting insights, but you could fill a small pamphlet with them. Unless, one wants to reaffirm inch deep, mile wide political views, this book does not offer much to the IRM reader about risk management. Sorry.
Cary Depel, Deputy Chairman, the Institute of Risk Management
Back to Publications
- Book Reviews
|
