For Shaw, the new way of war focuses on containing risks to the lives of Western soldiers in order to minimise political and electoral risk to governments. Risk is transferred to innocent civilians, whose killing is explained away as 'accidental'. Yet the idea of managing risk is fundamentally at odds with the brutal, unpredictable nature of war. Ultimately, attempts to manage, govern and rule over the risks of war produce greater risks for those in power.
The New Western Way of War is a moral and political statement as well as a major contribution to sociology and international relations. It will make compelling reading not only for students and scholars of these disciplines, but for anyone concerned about Western political and military power, and the future for global justice.
* Exam copies only available to lecturers for whom the book may be suitable as a course text.
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“The New Western Way of War is about new ways of interpreting war. By engaging innovative concepts like “global surveillance” or “risk-transfer”, Martin Shaw offers us an intriguing glimpse of a world beyond war.”
Mary Kaldor, London School of Economics and Political Science
“Roll over Clausewitz: in the global war on terror, politics has become a continuation of war by other means, including global surveillance, disinformation, unlawful detention, abrogation of civil liberties, faith-based violence, pervasive fear, accidental killing, and the transfer of risk to an increasingly vulnerable citizenry. Martin Shaw targets this new western way of war with the kind of discriminate intelligence and discrete passion that makes all the smart bombs and latter-day Slim Pickens riding them look very dumb indeed.”
James Der Derian, Brown University
