New Western Way of War: Risk Transfer and Its Crisis in Iraq

In this seminal new work, Martin Shaw, a leading expert on thesociology of war, argues that the new Western way of war is incrisis. He charts the development of a new warfare, after Vietnam, through the Falklands, the Gulf, Kosovo and Afghanistan. He arguesthat in the Iraq (mis)adventure (of which he provides a detailedanalysis) and the War on Terror, the US has consistently floutedthe key rules that enabled Western states to fight these earlierwars successfully. The results are not only political failure and adisaster in Iraq, but also a loss of credibility for the very ideaof Western warfare.





For Shaw, the new way of war focuses on containing risks to thelives of Western soldiers in order to minimise political andelectoral risk to governments. Risk is transferred to innocentcivilians, whose killing is explained away as 'accidental'. Yet theidea of managing risk is fundamentally at odds with the brutal, unpredictable nature of war. Ultimately, attempts to manage, governand rule over the risks of war produce greater risks for those inpower.





The New Western Way of War is a moral and political statement aswell as a major contribution to sociology and internationalrelations. It will make compelling reading not only for studentsand scholars of these disciplines, but for anyone concerned aboutWestern political and military power, and the future for globaljustice.