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Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide
An award-winning expert on international affairs and military history reveals the astounding truth about Peacekeeping is working.
Read the newspapers, and you'll be convinced war is worse than it's ever more civilian deaths, more rapes, more armed conflicts all around the world. But as leading scholar and writer Joshua Goldstein shows in this vivid, dramatic book, the reality is just the opposite. We are in the midst of a general decline in armed conflict that is truly extraordinary in human history.
Winning the War on War is filled with startling observations,
- 2010 had one of the lowest death rates from war, relative to population, of any year, ever.
- No national armies are currently fighting one another--all current wars are civil wars.
- UN peacekeeping actually works very well, and 79 percent of Americans support the UN, according to a recent poll.
Goldstein has compiled evidence ranging from the histories of UN peacekeeping missions to the latest Swedish data on armed conflicts. He tells the stories of peacekeeping failures such as Bosnia and Rwanda, but also the less heralded success stories such as Mozambique and El Salvador. In this "boots on the ground" account, Goldstein shows why global peacekeeping efforts are working--how large-scale looting, sexual assault, and genocidal atrocities are being stopped--and how we can continue winning the war on war.
Read the newspapers, and you'll be convinced war is worse than it's ever more civilian deaths, more rapes, more armed conflicts all around the world. But as leading scholar and writer Joshua Goldstein shows in this vivid, dramatic book, the reality is just the opposite. We are in the midst of a general decline in armed conflict that is truly extraordinary in human history.
Winning the War on War is filled with startling observations,
- 2010 had one of the lowest death rates from war, relative to population, of any year, ever.
- No national armies are currently fighting one another--all current wars are civil wars.
- UN peacekeeping actually works very well, and 79 percent of Americans support the UN, according to a recent poll.
Goldstein has compiled evidence ranging from the histories of UN peacekeeping missions to the latest Swedish data on armed conflicts. He tells the stories of peacekeeping failures such as Bosnia and Rwanda, but also the less heralded success stories such as Mozambique and El Salvador. In this "boots on the ground" account, Goldstein shows why global peacekeeping efforts are working--how large-scale looting, sexual assault, and genocidal atrocities are being stopped--and how we can continue winning the war on war.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2011
13 people are currently reading
271 people want to read
About the author
Joshua S. Goldstein
28 books31 followersJoshua S. Goldstein is an International Relations professor who writes about the big issues facing humanity. He is the author of six books about war, peace, diplomacy, and economic history, and a bestselling college textbook, International Relations. Among other awards, his book War and Gender (2001) won the International Studies Association's "Book of the Decade Award" in 2010. Goldstein has a B.A. from Stanford and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. He is professor emeritus at American University in Washington, DC, and research scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he lives.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 15, 2014
Goldstein's very personal take on war is ultimately not persuasive; he imbues the UN with power it doesn't have and credits it with outcomes it was only partially responsible for. His recommendations are idealistic to the point of unrealistic.
December 17, 2013
This book is a gushing love letter about UN peacekeeping and the central argument is that the UN has directly contributed to the decline in worldwide armed conflict in the latter half of the 20th century.
I'm not entirely convinced by the author's argument that UN Peacekeeping ---> decline of armed conflict worldwide. In fact the causal arrow might be reversed and perhaps the decrease in armed conflict worldwide ---> to the establishment of the UN and UN peacekeeping.
Overall I think many more complex factors influence why armed conflict has decreased worldwide, rather than just attributing it to the UN.
I haven't read the author's academic work, but this book is not supposed to be geared towards 'academics' but rather to the consuming mass public. Because of that the tone of the writing is awkward; he has scholarly research and scholarly arguments but they are watered down by unnecessary and comical analogies. (Such as the time machine reference he continuously discusses in being able to 'go back in time to examine the decrease of conflict and violence from century to century.') Thanks...I can conceptualize different centuries comparatively without the illustrative description of a magical time machine.
The book also has a normative agenda (to promote peace and decrease armed conflict worldwide), which is certainly noble but just be warned that the author propagates a very pro-UN message in reaching that goal. The author argues that the UN should have increased budgets, less obstruction by member states, that US public opinion shouldn't be as sour towards the UN, that there should be larger support from the global community, etc, etc, etc. Also, the author provides tips to the worldwide peace movements and ultimately argues that they would be better served by not concentrating on 'social justice,' 'anti-globalization,' etc. but rather concentrate their efforts on supporting UN peacekeeping missions.
Overall the book fails to discuss IR theories even at minimum (I wonder how a realist or neo-realist would receive this book) and there's no discussion about what the changing role of International Organizations should be. For instance the recent economic collapse of the EU and the European economy is relevant because many global citizens might feel that supranational IOs (like the UN) should have LESS influence and not MORE. Ultimately this book provides no room for these counterarguments.
In the future I might use this book as a supplement to an upper division Poli Sci course just to generate discussion but outside of that I wouldn't recommend it.
I'm not entirely convinced by the author's argument that UN Peacekeeping ---> decline of armed conflict worldwide. In fact the causal arrow might be reversed and perhaps the decrease in armed conflict worldwide ---> to the establishment of the UN and UN peacekeeping.
Overall I think many more complex factors influence why armed conflict has decreased worldwide, rather than just attributing it to the UN.
I haven't read the author's academic work, but this book is not supposed to be geared towards 'academics' but rather to the consuming mass public. Because of that the tone of the writing is awkward; he has scholarly research and scholarly arguments but they are watered down by unnecessary and comical analogies. (Such as the time machine reference he continuously discusses in being able to 'go back in time to examine the decrease of conflict and violence from century to century.') Thanks...I can conceptualize different centuries comparatively without the illustrative description of a magical time machine.
The book also has a normative agenda (to promote peace and decrease armed conflict worldwide), which is certainly noble but just be warned that the author propagates a very pro-UN message in reaching that goal. The author argues that the UN should have increased budgets, less obstruction by member states, that US public opinion shouldn't be as sour towards the UN, that there should be larger support from the global community, etc, etc, etc. Also, the author provides tips to the worldwide peace movements and ultimately argues that they would be better served by not concentrating on 'social justice,' 'anti-globalization,' etc. but rather concentrate their efforts on supporting UN peacekeeping missions.
Overall the book fails to discuss IR theories even at minimum (I wonder how a realist or neo-realist would receive this book) and there's no discussion about what the changing role of International Organizations should be. For instance the recent economic collapse of the EU and the European economy is relevant because many global citizens might feel that supranational IOs (like the UN) should have LESS influence and not MORE. Ultimately this book provides no room for these counterarguments.
In the future I might use this book as a supplement to an upper division Poli Sci course just to generate discussion but outside of that I wouldn't recommend it.
August 11, 2013
The author is a propagandist for United Nations peacekeeping operations and feels the typical UN mandate to push for early elections and market liberalization as soon after intervention as possible has been successful in limiting war and promoting peace. He ignores, as he must, the signal failure of peacekeeping operations, Monusco, the UN force in Congo. Charged with protecting the citizens of eastern Congo, particularly in North and South Kivu provinces where neighboring Uganda and Rwanda sponsor guerrilla armies (or armed mobs) to help loot the mineral wealth of the area, the 19,000 strong UN armed force has been unsuccessful in stopping or even opposing large scale, ethnically based slaughter and the mass rape in refugee camps by both marauding rebels and deserters from the Congolese Army.
Peacekeepers often retreat to their barracks when under pressure, such as in conflicts between Sudan and South Sudan over the mineral rich Abyei region where civilians were abandoned by UN troops who locked them out of their bases after public pledges of protection. Peacekeeping troops have been involved in sex trafficking of women and children in Bosnia, selling weapons to rebels in Congo and there have been far too many examples of refusal to engage more lightly armed opponents.
Many (by no means all) of those involved in peacekeeping operations through the UN have the best intentions, the better to pave the road to hell for those poor souls they are charged with protecting.
Peacekeepers often retreat to their barracks when under pressure, such as in conflicts between Sudan and South Sudan over the mineral rich Abyei region where civilians were abandoned by UN troops who locked them out of their bases after public pledges of protection. Peacekeeping troops have been involved in sex trafficking of women and children in Bosnia, selling weapons to rebels in Congo and there have been far too many examples of refusal to engage more lightly armed opponents.
Many (by no means all) of those involved in peacekeeping operations through the UN have the best intentions, the better to pave the road to hell for those poor souls they are charged with protecting.
January 7, 2015
only because i had to read this for a class, otherwise, i wouldn`t have. just as the title implies, goldstein argues that we have won the "war on war" -- that wars are in decline and peacekeeping efforts have been effective. he`s backed himself up with "empirical data" and confused historical references to be able to declare this but, for starters (and arguably, this is enough to collapse his argument), he operates with a very narrow, outdated definition of "war." specifically, one that doesn`t encompass the nature of violence that occurs in most areas of conflict globally and one that does not acknowledge the distinct new methods and transnational financing of modern [armed or unarmed] violence/conflict. moreover, he attributes the decline of wars as a result of the u.n.`s peacekeeping efforts with some help of the liberal economic agenda. simply unconvincing and invalid in both fronts. the decline of conventional warfare is not indicative of a better and safer world. it is certainly not indicative of the success and power of the u.n. seriously, the u.n.? i get that he`s showering us with optimism but the message that we are "better off" now than before is clearly disingenuous. "wars" are simply no longer between uniformed, armed soldiers in a battlefield any more.
August 3, 2016
I have to admit that, like most people, I did not question the conventional wisdom that the world was going to hell in a hand basket, especially where war is concerned. Looking at Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and other places where horrible event are taking place, it's not hard to see why.
Goldstein challenges that belief with data. In fact, that's one of his main points. As Jack Webb used to say on TV's Dragnet, "I want the facts, ma'am, just the facts." That's this book's mantra. Forget what you think you know, look at the facts, and then decide.
The book likens our situation to having jumped "out of the fire, into the frying pan." The frying pan is hot, so we tend not to notice that things are improving. It also notes that the media has a tendency to highlight the violence and bloodshed, so it's understandable that, based solely on our emotional reaction to the news, we think things have not improved.
The book is surprisingly well written for one of its genre -- meaning I am enjoying reading it not just for the hopeful message it conveys, but that it's also fun to read.
Highly recommended!
Goldstein challenges that belief with data. In fact, that's one of his main points. As Jack Webb used to say on TV's Dragnet, "I want the facts, ma'am, just the facts." That's this book's mantra. Forget what you think you know, look at the facts, and then decide.
The book likens our situation to having jumped "out of the fire, into the frying pan." The frying pan is hot, so we tend not to notice that things are improving. It also notes that the media has a tendency to highlight the violence and bloodshed, so it's understandable that, based solely on our emotional reaction to the news, we think things have not improved.
The book is surprisingly well written for one of its genre -- meaning I am enjoying reading it not just for the hopeful message it conveys, but that it's also fun to read.
Highly recommended!
April 15, 2012
Despite all outward appearances, Goldstein is making the claim that the world is becoming a safer place. He examines the most recent decade (2001- 2010) and matches it up against the previous decade (1991 - 2000) and then he takes those combined 20 years and compares them to the 20 years prior to that, going back to the middle ages, Mongol conquests and even further. In sum, after centuries of ups and downs, never as bad as prehistoric times, war peaked in the 20th century with the World Wars.
His conclusion is this: Starting in the mid-20th century, armed conflict between state-sponsored armies has been in consistent decline. Most conflicts in the world today are of the civil war variety. What is to be credited for this shift? The U.N. Until the creation of the U.N. in the late 1940's, there had never been an international organization with the mandate to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war..." Obviously an imperfect tool, Golstein argues that the U.N. has, by and large, been doing its job.
His conclusion is this: Starting in the mid-20th century, armed conflict between state-sponsored armies has been in consistent decline. Most conflicts in the world today are of the civil war variety. What is to be credited for this shift? The U.N. Until the creation of the U.N. in the late 1940's, there had never been an international organization with the mandate to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war..." Obviously an imperfect tool, Golstein argues that the U.N. has, by and large, been doing its job.
January 31, 2012
I've been reading a lot of books related to wars or histories of wars etc recently, but this is definitely one of the best of the lot.
It's just broad enough and just in-depth enough to capture both the facts and his sensibilities on the topic.
Recommended, and may even give the most cynical person some hope for mankind.
It's just broad enough and just in-depth enough to capture both the facts and his sensibilities on the topic.
Recommended, and may even give the most cynical person some hope for mankind.
August 6, 2014
This book takes a very different and thought provoking approach. But even if the number of wars and war dead is declining - a positive - it is hard to escape the suffering that goes along with civil wars.
June 8, 2013
A good coverage on the theoretical and practical peacekeeping efforts made by the UN to end wars.
February 12, 2016
A very interesting and insighful book. Workin in a UN peacekeeping mission it was reassuring to hear someone from outside the UN say that the work we are engaged in has value!
October 29, 2024
This was a thick read if you know what I mean. Clearly took me forever to read but made me feel big brained. It really reminded me how interesting foreign policy is to me and although the trends of war have definitely changed since this book was published it was refreshingly optimistic without being too idealistic. Overall very informative and a good read if you’re into this kind of thing.
October 20, 2017
A quick overview on some key UN missions and a brief(even scant) analysis on some contributing factors to their failures/successes.
December 5, 2012
A much needed dose of optimism in our usually pessimistic news cycle. Certainly makes you question priorities and the way we view the UN.
December 1, 2015
I really like how Goldstein effortlessly dismissed the myth of a golden age of honorable warfare, but he got too into the unrealistic idea of world peace (probably the point of the whole work).
October 8, 2013
Cool thesis and some great chapters, but too much "let's tell the whole history of the UN!"
Read
April 5, 2017“The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country’s inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft”. That is how, the darkness of wars was depicted by Leo Tolstoy in the epic novel of 1869 ‘War and Peace’. Yet, the history of the universe is made of wars. War is a reality, but often overestimated. People are “swayed by number of fallacies and distortions” and are “convinced that, compared to the past, we live in particularly vicious, bloody times” (p. 241). Selection bias, i.e. “journalists’ tendency to present war dramatically to capture the attention”, and chronological bias, i.e. “improvements in technology now allow to collect more information about the wars from around the world” attribute to perpetuate this myth as well (p. 242). Joshua S. Goldstein, the preeminent scholar of international relations, debunks the myth of increasing war in his 2011 book ‘Winning the War on War: The decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide’. The main ideas are: world is becoming more peaceful, war is on the decline, United Nation peacekeeping is working, and, collective security is more successful in practice now.
Goldstein censures journalists, military organizations, morally concerned people, and peace organizations as the “villains” of the story. They have interests in portraying the world as more violent than ever. In some cases, the book sounds insensitive implying that those various groups are solely responsible for the myth of rising wars. Though “mortality rates, battle-related deaths, or combat aircraft, the ability to count things accurately provides a foundation for policies about war and peace” (p. 252), but the book often focuses on the relativeness of war and ignores the other effects of war. It is praiseworthy that the average American household costs two dollars a month for peacekeeping. But Goldstein puts the emphasize on the UN as “American’s moral face” in a presumptuous style, “It belongs to all of us- Americans especially- and we should let nobody steal it from us” (p. 327). It is evident that how the U.S. hegemony thus is inevitable in the UN system. As Barkin stated, “IOs reflect the existing balance of power and the interests of powerful states” (p. 11). For realists, Goldstein’s U.S. centric approach is the reflection of powerful states’ interests in the UN peacekeeping. Being “state-centric” is an innate element of UN system, not a flaw. But the author seems biased in defending this element and does not provide any recommendation to improve the hegemony of powerful states over the UN.
‘Winning the War on War’ follows not only a descriptive, but also a prescriptive style. Along with the historical analysis of peace movements, the book recommends deploying standing UN troop with the help from five permanent members of the security council. Goldstein pointed out that security council could be improved by “getting better consensus among the great powers, rather than by expanding the council and changing the rules” (p. 118). The book uses a normative tone to prescribe that war should be treated as an individual and important problem, but not as “a derivative of injustice” (p. 204). Furthermore, the use of data and statistics provides strong validity to the core argument that war is declining. The book is indeed a celebration of ‘winning the war on war’!
Goldstein censures journalists, military organizations, morally concerned people, and peace organizations as the “villains” of the story. They have interests in portraying the world as more violent than ever. In some cases, the book sounds insensitive implying that those various groups are solely responsible for the myth of rising wars. Though “mortality rates, battle-related deaths, or combat aircraft, the ability to count things accurately provides a foundation for policies about war and peace” (p. 252), but the book often focuses on the relativeness of war and ignores the other effects of war. It is praiseworthy that the average American household costs two dollars a month for peacekeeping. But Goldstein puts the emphasize on the UN as “American’s moral face” in a presumptuous style, “It belongs to all of us- Americans especially- and we should let nobody steal it from us” (p. 327). It is evident that how the U.S. hegemony thus is inevitable in the UN system. As Barkin stated, “IOs reflect the existing balance of power and the interests of powerful states” (p. 11). For realists, Goldstein’s U.S. centric approach is the reflection of powerful states’ interests in the UN peacekeeping. Being “state-centric” is an innate element of UN system, not a flaw. But the author seems biased in defending this element and does not provide any recommendation to improve the hegemony of powerful states over the UN.
‘Winning the War on War’ follows not only a descriptive, but also a prescriptive style. Along with the historical analysis of peace movements, the book recommends deploying standing UN troop with the help from five permanent members of the security council. Goldstein pointed out that security council could be improved by “getting better consensus among the great powers, rather than by expanding the council and changing the rules” (p. 118). The book uses a normative tone to prescribe that war should be treated as an individual and important problem, but not as “a derivative of injustice” (p. 204). Furthermore, the use of data and statistics provides strong validity to the core argument that war is declining. The book is indeed a celebration of ‘winning the war on war’!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews