The Fog Of Peace

No small number of books laud and record the heroic actions of those at war. But the peacekeepers? Who tells their stories? At the beginning of the 1990s, the world exited the cold war and entered an era of great promise for peace and security. Guided by an invigorated United Nations, the international community set out to end conflicts that had flared into vicious civil wars and to unconditionally champion human rights and hold abusers responsible. The stage seemed set for greatness. Today that optimism is shattered. The failure of international engagement in conflict areas ranging from Afghanistan to Congo and Lebanon to Kosovo has turned believers into skeptics. The Fog of Peace is a firsthand reckoning by Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the man who led UN peacekeeping efforts for eight years and has been at the center of all the major crises since the beginning of the 21st century. Guéhenno grapples with the distance between the international community's promise to protect and the reality that our noble aspirations may be beyond our grasp. The author illustrates with personal, concrete examples—from the crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Sudan, Darfur, Kosovo, Ivory Coast, Georgia, Lebanon, Haiti, and Syria—the need to accept imperfect outcomes and compromises. He argues that nothing is more damaging than excessive ambition followed by precipitous retrenchment. We can indeed save many thousands of lives, but we need to calibrate our ambitions and stay the course.

Institutions do not decide whom to destroy or to kill, whether to make peace or war; those decisions are the responsibility of individuals. This book argues that the most important aspect of conflict resolution is for antagonists to understand their opponents as individuals, their ambitions, their pains, the resentments that condition their thinking and the traumas they do not fully themselves grasp. Gabrielle Rifkind and Giandomenico Pico here present two very different experiences of international relations - Rifkind as a psychotherapist now immersed in the politics of the Middle East, and Picco as a career diplomat with a long and successful record as a negotiator at the UN. Should we talk to the enemy? What happens if the protagonists are nasty and brutish, tempting policy-makers to retaliate? How do nations find the capacity not to hit back, trapping themselves in endless cycles of violence?Presenting a unique combination of psychological theories, geopolitical realities and first-hand peace-making experience, this book sheds new light on some of the worst conflicts in the modern world and demonstrates, above all, how empathy can often be far more persuasive than the most fearsome weapons. By exploring the question of intervention versus non-intervention, and examining how the changing nature of warfare and technology has both armed the warmonger, whilst empowering the individual through social media, this is a highly topical, comprehensive overview on international diplomacy and the complexities of peace-making.

How military organizations trained for conventional war adapt—or fail to adapt—to nontraditional missions

How do we plan under conditions of uncertainty? The perspective of military planners is a key organizing framework: do they see themselves as preparing to administer a peace, or preparing to fight a future war? Most interwar volumes examine only the 1920s and the 1930s. This new volume goes back, and forward in time, to draw on a greater expanse of history in order to tease out lessons for contemporary planners. These chapters are grouped into four periods: 1815-1856, 1871-1914, 1918-1938, and post-Second World War. They progress from low-tech to high-tech concerns, for example, the first period examines armies, while the second period examines navies, the third asseses navies combined with air forces, and finally for the Kaiser chapter explores nuclear issues and decision-making.

This book examines America's evolving strategy on the international security environment, and comprehensively analyzes how different strategies position states to compete in the present and future, manage risk, and prevail despite uncertainty.

Are humans violent or peaceful by nature? We are both. In this ambitious and wide-ranging book, Agner Fog presents a ground-breaking new argument that explains the existence of differently organised societies using evolutionary theory. It combines natural sciences and social sciences in a way that is rarely seen. According to a concept called regality theory, people show a preference for authoritarianism and strong leadership in times of war or collective danger, but desire egalitarian political systems in times of peace and safety. These individual impulses shape the way societies develop and organise themselves, and in this book Agner argues that there is an evolutionary mechanism behind this flexible psychology. Incorporating a wide range of ideas including evolutionary theory, game theory, and ecological theory, Agner analyses the conditions that make us either strident or docile. He tests this theory on data from contemporary and ancient societies, and provides a detailed explanation of the applications of regality theory to issues of war and peace, the rise and fall of empires, the mass media, economic instability, ecological crisis, and much more. Warlike and Peaceful Societies: The Interaction of Genes and Culture draws on many different fields of both the social sciences and the natural sciences. It will be of interest to academics and students in these fields, including anthropology, political science, history, conflict and peace research, social psychology, and more, as well as the natural sciences, including human biology, human evolution, and ecology.

For the last thirty years Somalia has experienced violence and upheaval. Today, the international effort to help Somalis build a federal state and achieve stability is challenged by deep-rooted grievances, local conflicts and a powerful insurgency led by Al-Shabaab. Consisting of forty-four chapters by conflict resolution specialists and the world's leading experts on Somalia, this volume constitutes a unique compendium of insights into the insurgency and its impact. War and Peace in Somalia explores the legacies of past violence, especially impunity, illegitimacy and exclusion, and the need for national reconciliation. Drawing on decades of experience and months of field research, the contributors throw light on diverse forms of local conflict, its interrelated causes, and what can be done about it. They share original research on the role of women, men and youth in the conflict, and present new insight into Al-Shabaab--particularly the group's multi-dimensional strategy, the motivations of its fighters, their foreign links, and the prospects for engagement. This ground-breaking volume illuminates the war in Somalia, and sets out what can and should be done to bring it to an end. For policymakers and researchers covering Somalia, East Africa, extremism or conflict resolution, this is a must-read.

Robert S. McNamara is one of modern America's most controversial figures. His opinions, policies, and actions have led to a firestorm of debate, ignited most recently by Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning film, The Fog of War. In the companion book, editors James G. Blight and janet M. Lang use lessons from McNamara's life to examine issues of war and peace in the 20th century. McNamara's career spans some of America's defining events—from the end of World War I, through the course of World War II, and the unfolding of the Cold War in Cuba, Vietnam, and around the world. The Fog of War brings together film transcripts, documents, dialogues, and essays to explore what the horrors and triumphs of the 20th century can teach us about the future.