War Amongst the People: Critical Assessments(1 Sandhurst Trends in International Conflict)

About the Book

Recent conflicts have required the armed forces to engage in what has been termed ‘war amongst the people’. Such conflicts increasingly require a type of soldier deployed to function as an ‘armed social worker’, as was seen most recently in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this increased focus on societal relations has – and should – become the area of prime concern for contemporary armed forces, this poses a series of conceptual and practical questions regarding the ‘people’ concerned and the nature of the society amongst which war is conducted.

Scholars and practitioners come together in this volume to explore how armed forces can make sense of such complexity in conceptual terms and how military actors have practically interacted with local power structures and relations, with both positive and negative effects. It examines armed forces’ engagement at the local level in a contemporary context and contextualises this within the broader political, strategic, tactical and legal implications this engagement has had at home and overseas.

About the Author :
David Brown is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He has written extensively on a range of security related issues, publishing books and articles on US and UK foreign and defence policy, contemporary power relations, aspects of European security and international intervention. His new research project is on understanding the development of Coalition foreign and defence policy in the UK. Previous Work War Amongst the People: Critical Assessments The Development of British Defence Policy: Blair, Brown and Beyond George W. Bush's Foreign Policy: Principles and Pragmatism Power Relations in the Twenty-First Century: Mapping a Multipolar World Multipolarity in the 21st Century   Donette Murray is a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. She holds a doctorate from the University of Ulster and an LLM in International Law from the University of Maastricht. Donette is the author of four books on US foreign policy, including US Foreign Policy and Iran: America-Iranian relations since the Islamic Revolution and Principles and Pragmatism: the evolving foreign policy of George W Bush 2001-2008 with David Brown and Martin A. Smith, and the co-editor of two volumes on Power in the twenty-first century. A former political advisor, she has also taught at Ulster University and the Queen’s University of Belfast. War Amongst the People: Critical Assessments George W. Bush's Foreign Policy: Principles and Pragmatism Power Relations in the Twenty-First Century: Mapping a Multipolar World Multipolarity in the 21st Century US Foreign Policy and Iran: American-Iranian Relations since the Islamic Revolution Kennedy, Macmillan and Nuclear Weapons America and the World since 1945   Malte Riemann is a senior lecturer in the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Dr Riemann studied in Bremen and Pietermaritzburg, and holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Reading. His research has been funded by the German Academic Exchange Service, the Earhart Foundation and the European International Studies Association. His fields of interest include the privatisation of war and its effects on the state’s legitimate monopoly on violence, the medicalization of security, and the historicity of non-state actors. He is currently in the process of writing a monograph in German on the transformation of war provisionally titled ‘War in the 20th and 21st Century’ and his most recent publication ‘Problematizing the medicalization of violence: A critical discourse analysis of the ‘Cure Violence’ initiative’ has just appeared in Critical Public Health. War Amongst the People: Critical Assessments   Norma Rossi is a senior lecturer in Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Dr Rossi studied in Rome and Paris and received her Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Reading on an Earhart Foundation fellowship. In her current project she explores how violent non-state actors challenge state sovereignty with a specific focus on the Italian state and the Sicilian mafia. Her research shows how the Sicilian mafia and the Italian state have historically built their identities through opposing spatial, temporal and social narratives, which enable contesting claims to political authority. She has also written on the rise of far-right parties in Europe, specifically exploring how the politics of anxiety fuel distinctive dynamics between mainstream parties and the far right. Recently, she has extended her research interests to include Security Sector Reform and the role of education in conflict-affected environments. War Amongst the People: Critical Assessments   Martin A. Smith is Senior Lecturer in Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Prior to joining RMAS he was at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, from where he received his Ph.D. in 1994. His main research interests are in the fields of international power, European security and US foreign policy. He is the author, co-author or editor of twelve books including most recently: The Foreign Policies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush: A Comparative Perspective, George W. Bush’s Foreign Policies: Principles and Pragmatism with David Brown & Donette Murray, Power in the Changing Global Order and NATO’s Post-Cold War Trajectory: Decline or Regeneration? with Mark Webber & James Sperling. His academic articles have appeared inter alia, in International Affairs, European Security, West European Politics, The Journal of Strategic Studies and Contemporary Security Policy. He is currently Guest Editing, with David Brown, a forthcoming special issue of Comparative Strategy. War Amongst the People: Critical Assessments George W. Bush's Foreign Policies: Principles and Pragmatism Russia and NATO since 1991: From Cold War Through Cold Peace to Partnership? Where is Nato Going? NATO in the first decade after the Cold War Building a Bigger Europe: EU and NATO Enlargements in Comparative Perspective NATO in South East Europe: Enlargement by Stealth On Rocky Foundations: NATO, the UN and Peace Operations in the Post Cold War Era The Kosovo Crisis and the Evolution of a Post Cold War European Security Whitney Grespin has worked in contingency contracting, professional military education, and international development on five continents. She received her PhD from King’s College London at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College, is a Lecturer at American University, and Director at Sloan Manor Consulting. Previously, she worked as an embedded advisor to the Somali Ministry of Defense, before which she supported the U.S. Army War College’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) as a Peace Operations Analyst and lead for the U.S. Army’s Women, Peace and Security agenda. Whitney is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of the United Nation’s Security Sector Reform Advisory Network.

Review :
RMA Sandhurst has long played a key role in the intellectual development of British Army and international officers. In this book, members of our Academic Faculty bring together a distinguished team of scholars and military practitioners to tackle a key concept which challenges those, military and civilian, who seek to better understand the evolving nature of contemporary conflict and how - or indeed whether - external interventions can improve matters.   Maj Gen PAE Nanson CBE General Officer Commanding and Commandant Sandhurst