Book Review: THE ULTIMATE WEAPON IS NO WEAPON Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace
Abstract
Armed conflict is undergoing a swift transition from traditional warfare between government militaries to vague, undefined violence occurring inside and outside state borders, against civilians, aid workers, companies, and other targets. The line between combatant and civilian is blurring, which requires militaries, humanitarian aid workers, intelligence communities, and development professionals to devise new approaches for protecting peace and defending global security. In The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace, Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Shannon Beebe and Dr. Mary Kaldor examine this transition from one paradigm into another. Through their extensive professional experiences working in peacekeeping and conflict resolution around the world, Beebe and Kaldor construct an impressive argument for the reform of military and peacekeeping instruments in order to more effectively respond to evolving security threats.
Book Reviewer’s Note
This book review commemorates the memory of LTC Shannon Beebe. LTC Beebe left an impressive legacy of service to his country: a graduate of West Point Military Academy, a leader in combat and stability operations in the Balkans, a Commander in Iraq operations, as well as an Assistant Army Attaché at the US Embassy in Angola. He taught Post-Conflict Reconstruction at The George Washington University in the spring of 2010, captivating his students with anecdotes of his military experiences and infectious spirit. He made a conscious effort to engage his students on both a professional and personal level. He will be remembered as an accomplished Lieutenant Colonel, an innovative thinker for the future of humanitarian aid, a talented educator, and, above all, a stellar human being.
The twenty-first century has ushered in a new era of global conflict where traditional instruments of combat are less effective against non-state threats and internal instability. Manifestations of new forms of conflict are evident and evolving from soldiers and battlefields to suicide bombers and terrorists using the Internet to facilitate and execute criminal acts, such as bioterrorism. This shift requires a flexible and proactive response from the international community to secure the safety of people around the world. Aware of this urgency, Lieutenant Colonel Shannon Beebe and Dr. Mary Kaldor embarked on an innovative and game-changing mission to convince global actors to move beyond classical conceptions of state-to- state conflict to a more nimble, adaptive, and efficient approach.
In their ground-breaking text, The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace, Beebe and Kaldor draw from their combined expertise of military strategy and civil society empowerment. They present an approach that would allow for the pro- tection of global populations against emerging threats such as terrorist acts over the Internet and criminal drug trafficking organizations. A seemingly paradoxical feat, the authors bridge the gap between humanitarian sensibilities and military knowledge, arriving at a pragmatic vision of international engagement that holds the safety and well-being of people at its core.
The text is innovative in several ways. First, it examines conflict through a global rather than a purely Western perspective. This global perspective captures security needs as stated by a diverse group of stakeholders to collectively resolve conflicts. In stark contrast to most development literature, which focuses on the destitute poverty of nations and their dependency on foreign aid, the authors celebrate a country’s sovereign ability to identify its own impediments to development and formulate pragmatic solutions. For example, Beebe learned a profound lesson about the misallocation of United States’ military assistance when an African statesman communicated the importance of addressing basic human needs to prevent conflict rather than technical inputs of heavy artillery. This insight enabled Beebe to develop a framework to promote human security, emphasizing judicial and military reform, the provision of public healthcare, poverty reduction, and environmental conservation. By addressing the needs of developing countries as stated by the countries themselves and providing increased opportunities for their engagement, the international community would be better positioned to develop core strategies that achieve global security.
Secondly, Beebe and Kaldor move beyond critique and identify opportunities for the international community to improve human security. To fill the gap between combat operations and “soft” development initiatives such as women’s literacy, the authors propose the establishment of a new security and development apparatus dubbed “engagement brigades.” Engagement brigades, a hybrid of the Peace Corps and Provincial Reconstruction Teams, would have the capacity to respond to all areas of need in fragile states, including livelihoods, security, governance, and development. The authors argue that engagement brigades would both foster community trust in development initiatives and encourage a more adaptive climate of security. They would lead an effort that could be personalized to the unique contexts of differing states – a stark departure from conventional military strategies that more closely resemble a rigid blueprint. This effort would strive to interact with local partners, with the goal of encouraging local ownership of development projects. Through an entity resembling Beebe and Kaldor’s engagement brigades, external actors would be better positioned to assist in establishing preliminary safe areas with a semblance of order, providing platforms for locals to exercise grassroots reform.
Finally, both authors discuss the inconsistencies between the reality of conflict and how Western militaries prepare for combat in a way that both educates readers and inspires them to critically assess government programs aimed at promoting military strength. The authors point to the F- 22, which is at once a grand example of US military capacity and an enormous waste of taxpayer money. Beebe and Kaldor scrutinize the worth of the F-22 and similar ventures that continue to be developed, despite the reality that conflicts, threats, and spoilers are acting in completely different environments than those to which this technology is designed to respond. In short, Western powers continue to stubbornly prepare for twentieth century-style wars, while modern-day conflicts continue to thrive in an international climate of pseudo-impunity.
The message of The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon is all the more powerful when one considers both the professional and personal courage the authors demonstrate in defying the ways in which security and international engagement are currently conceptualized and implemented. With this book, Beebe and Kaldor challenge ingrained bureaucracies and the untold thousands of military and civil servants worldwide whose careers and reputations depend on the perpetuation of twentieth century security apparatuses and international entities. It is a testament to Beebe and Kaldor’s commitment to the establishment of more peaceful societies that they not only scrutinized the shortcomings of the military status quo, but also vehemently argued for specific reforms within international security approaches.
This text does not open and close the human security discussion. Rather, readers should be encouraged to use The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon as an introductory text for a series on human security. The topic merits further investigation into each of the human security subfields highlighted in the text: sustainable governance, leadership and legitimacy, sustainable development, and human rights. Each of these topics calls for its own investigation, analysis, and guidelines to help promote the safety and well- being of populations around the globe. Perhaps in future volumes, researchers could delve deeper into the topic by focusing on regions left untouched by this preliminary publication. Latin America and the Caribbean received almost no mention in the text despite the region’s perfect storm of narcotics trafficking, government corruption, indigenous discrimination, growing gang activity, and endemic poverty – elements that require the steadfast, comprehensive, and collaborative approach called for in Beebe and Kaldor’s analysis of human security.
The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace is as informative as it is gripping. The book effectively underscores the urgency with which global military powers and civil society must reframe the security discussion and establish more holistic, adaptive, and people-centric strategies for quelling violent revolts and conflicts. Beebe and Kaldor have opened the floodgates to a new debate on security reform. In doing so, they have placed themselves at the head of a controversial but vital movement to transform kinetic-centered missions into flexible engagements that work in conjunction with local populations to create human security. In focusing energies on preventative measures, such as establishing basic infrastructure, revitalizing tired economies, and addressing basic needs, states and civil society groups will be better positioned to refocus international energies back to their original purpose, which is securing and protecting the safety and well-being of the people who need it the most.