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There are currently dozens of ongoing violent conflicts across the globe, from Colombia to Somalia, including civil wars that have lasted for decades. At a global level the Cold War has been succeeded by a war on terror that continues to rage more than a decade after 9/11. Why has war been so persistent, when we know how destructive it is in both human and economic terms? And why do the efforts of aid organizations and international diplomats so often founder?
In this eye-opening book, David Keen investigates why conflicts are so prevalent and so intractable - even when one side has much greater military resources. From collusion between rebels and government forces in Sierra Leone, to brutal civil war in Sri Lanka and the NATO quagmire in Afghanistan, he analyses current and recent conflicts worldwide, arguing that powerful interests - in less developed countries and also in the West - may see endemic disorder and a state of permanent emergency as more useful than peace.
Drawing on many years of research, Keen asks who benefits from wars. It s a disturbing story that takes in government officials siphoning off aid, militias ejecting civilians from oil-rich areas, companies looking for markets for arms and security products, and politicians reinforcing their power-base by defining any opponent as the enemy . As this fascinating and disturbing expose makes clear, unless we have a genuine understanding of the complex vested interests that shape contemporary wars, we are unlikely ever to achieve lasting peace.
- Sales Rank: #6322966 in Books
- Published on: 2014-04-08
- Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
Review
"An important perspective on the most troubling dimensions of recent local and regional wars."--Antony Harwood, "Publishers Weekly"--Antony Harwood "Publishers Weekly "
"By applying the same lens to war in both developed and developing countries, and highlighting how they are often driven by similar political, economic and psychological dynamics, Keen undermines the comfortable distinction between violence in failed states and the modern - or even post-modern - wars of the West."--Dominik Zaum, "Times Higher Education"--Dominik Zaum"Times Higher Education" (06/21/2012)
"David Keen is a specialist in African conflicts and his coverage of these is robust and compelling./i>--Adrian Weale"Literary Review" (06/01/2012)
"While Keen's analysis highlights the various functions of war, it also makes clear why policies based on those insights are unlikely to be adopted.#160;"Reason Magazine"
--Christopher Coyne "Reason Magazine "
"The book's real contribution lies in compiling the hidden functions of war in a comprehensive way and in making them accessible to a broader non-specialist public." Sibylle Scheipers, "International Affairs"--Sibylle Scheipers"International Affairs" (11/01/2012)
"David Keen provides an insightful analysis concerning the complexities of current global conflicts and the factors continuing them long after international attention has moved on""--"James Cricks, "Military Review"--James Cricks "Military Review "
About the Author
David Keen is professor of complex emergencies at the London School of Economics. He lives in Oxford, UK.
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Useful Enemies: When Waging Wars is more Important than winning them
By Fabian
Useful Enemies is a well written, accessible and fast paced analysis of wars in the contemporary world, with reference also made to earlier conflicts such as Vietnam for useful historical context. Its primary strength lies in Keen's evident expertise in the material discussed, grounded in years of research. The text is full of fascinating quotes, anecdotes and statistics. (Did you know, for example, that in 2010 the US accounted for 43% of global defence spending?)
The work's scope is also impressive, with substantial analysis devoted to conflicts such as Sierra Leone's civil war, Vietnam, the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, along with thematic chapters addressing the political, economic and psychological motivations of actors for waging war.
Crucially, Useful Enemies is a work that succeeds in making convincing academic arguments, whilst also retaining an accessible prose style, ensuring it is an excellent introduction into such debates for the general reader. Above all it is a very humane work, in which the voices of soldiers and civilians, perpetrators and victims, lie at the core, not periphery of its analysis. Useful Enemies deserves a wide audience, and is a highly enjoyable read as well as an enlightening one.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A Must Read - Thorough Review of the Complex State of Modern Conflicts & Warfare
By kconlon
Keen challenges the reader to look deeper into the nature of modern conflict. Wars are not just about winning, in fact, for certain actors prolonging and continuing war is more beneficial. Through Keen's thorough research and analysis, the reader is made aware of the complex sets of interests that play and have played into modern warfare and prolonged conflicts around the world such as Afghanistan, the DRC, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Rwanda, Colombia, and the US's state of "permanent emergency." Keen also touches upon the controversy that aid money has been found to prolong and contribute to conflict. He also examines the psychological functions of violence in wartime, and the case of wars within wars. Keen concludes by noting, "Among the factors that can encourage a shift towards less violent behavior are: the severe depletion of resources that had previously attracted looting; a desire on the part of `warlords' to protect their `ill-gotten gains;' a change in the behavior of governments or rebel groups in neighboring countries; a substantial - or threatened - decrease in the quantity of international aid; the arrival of an international peacekeeping/aid regime, particularly on e that offers a large amount of patronage in relation to the size of the country; and the implementation of a far-reaching reform of the security sector. But however it is achieved, the end of a civil or regional war is unlikely to be very `pure' or `nice': it is more likely to institutionalize corruption. In fact, if it did not institutionalize corruption in some form, those who had previously been violent would be unlikely to accept it." Essentially, there are no easy answers to lessening the effects and duration of modern conflicts, but being aware of their complex nature will better help us be able to find the suitable means to address the problems strategically and pragmatically. Being blind to the undercurrent of interests in modern conflict zones will only allow subversive actors to perpetuate their crimes and war games.
Useful Enemies was required reading for the Master's class `Foundations of Peacebuilding' at Notre Dame. This book stirred much class debate, and I highly recommend Useful Enemies for those interested in understanding further into the international complexities that are affecting International Relations, Political Science, Humanitarian Studies, Development Studies, Conflict and Negotiations, and Peace Studies.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Wars That Aren't Meant to Be Won
By David Swanson
In War Is A Lie I looked at pretended and real reasons for wars and found some of the real reasons to be quite irrational. It should not shock us then to discover that the primary goal in fighting a war is not always to win it. Some wars are fought without a desire to win, others without winning being the top priority, either for the top war makers or for the ordinary soldiers.
In Useful Enemies: When Waging Wars Is More Important Than Winning Them, David Keen looks at wars around the world and discovers many in which winning is not an object. Many of the examples are civil wars, many of them in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, some of them dragging on for decades. Wars become sources of power, wealth, and prestige. Exploiting civilians can take precedence for both sides over combatting each other. So can exploiting international "aid" that flows as long as wars are raging, not to mention the international permission to commit crimes that is bestowed upon those fighting the communists or, more recently, the terrorists. Of course a "war on terror" is itself blatantly chosen as an unwinnable goal around which to design a permanent emergency. President Obama has just waived, again, sanctions on nations using child soldiers. Those child soldiers are on our side.
"The weak (or nonexistent) criticism by aid agencies of human rights abuses in Afghanistan and Iraq in the context of a 'war on terror' -- for example, the massacres of prisoners of war in Afghanistan in November 2001 and the torture at Abu Ghraib -- was used by the government in Sri Lanka (as well as by governments in Russia, Colombia, Algeria and Pakistan) as evidence of 'double standards' on the part of aid agencies that tried to criticise them."
Keen treats Western wars with the same analytical eye as any other wars, and with similar results. The wars to combat "terror" in Afghanistan and Iraq have actually increased terrorism. If the overriding goal were to reduce terrorism, we wouldn't continue making war on Muslim nations. Killing Afghan farmers for supporting the Taliban turns more of them to the Taliban. And so, more of them are killed. Paying for safe passage for U.S. materiel funds the Taliban. Humanitarian aid is tied to the military occupation and resisted as such, fueling corruption and resentment rather than good will. It also fuels an interest in prolonging a war without end on the part of locals profiting from it.
Is winning the objective? Sometimes appearing to be winning in the short term overrides and actually impedes the work of winning in the long term. One reason this goes unnoticed, I think, is that there is no coherent concept of what winning would look like. We're less aware, therefore, of not having reached it. Rather than winning or losing, we think of wars as merely "ending." And if they end following a "surge" by our side, we imagine they've ended well, even while averting our eyes from the results.
Do U.S. war makers want their wars to end? Perhaps if they can end without slowing the flow of war spending, and if they can end violently -- that is, in a manner seeming to justify war. Leading up to the recent NATO war on Libya, a U.S. weapons executive was asked by NPR what would happen if the occupation of Afghanistan ended. His reply was that he hoped we could invade Libya. During President Clinton's second term, this ad was posted on a wall in the Pentagon:
"ENEMY WANTED: Mature North American Superpower seeks hostile partner for arms-racing, Third World conflicts, and general antagonism. Must be sufficiently menacing to convince Congress of military financial requirements. Nuclear capability is preferred; however, non-nuclear candidates possessing significant bio chemical warfare resources will be considered. . . ."
Jokes? No doubt. But not funny ones and not meaningless ones.
Drastic increases in U.S. military spending in the early 1950s, early 1980s, and early 2000s all followed economic recessions. Money could have been spent on schools or solar panels or trains, and the economy would have benefited significantly more, but that would have been Socialism.
One reason for the U.S. bombing of Laos: the halting of the bombing of North Vietnam left a lot of planes and bombs without targets. One reason that Keen offers for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait: Iraq had an oversized military in desperate need of a war. And when the U.S. occupation recklessly disbanded that military, fuelling the resistance, the goal may not have been to fuel the resistance, but clearly an irrational drive to de-Baathify took precedence over achieving peace.
Beyond profits, wars create support for rightwing politics, and excuses to eliminate civil rights. This is true at home, but also abroad. Sanctions on Iran are moving the Iranian government away from where liberal reformers claim to want it. Providing limited aid to a hopeless opposition in Syria that does not aim for democracy won't produce democracy, but it will produce war. And not just immediately, but lastingly. U.S. backing of jihadists in Afghanistan in the 1980s fueled war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, the Philippines, and the attacks of 911, just as the recent war in Libya is fueling war in Mali.
What lessons can be drawn? Aid should go first and foremost to places free of war. Rather than prioritizing the militarization and bombing of areas suffering human rights abuses (militarizing Bahrain when it backs the Pentagon, bombing Libya when it doesn't), our top priority should be disarmament and demilitarization, that is to say: conversion of economies and societies to peaceful sustainable production. One part of this work should be the enforcement of laws against war. This week we can look to Guatemala and Italy for signs of hope, and to Washington for evidence that plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
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