Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation Builders [Hardcover]

Nathan Hodge (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 15, 2011

In May 2003, President George W. Bush declared victory in Iraq. But while we won the war, we catastrophically lost the peace. Our failure prompted a fundamental change in our foreign policy. Confronted with the shortcomings of "shock and awe," the U.S. military shifted its focus to "stability operations": counterinsurgency and the rebuilding of failed states. In less than a decade, foreign assistance has become militarized; humanitarianism has been armed.

Combining recent history and firsthand reporting, Armed Humanitarians traces how the concepts of nation-building came into vogue, and how, evangelized through think tanks, government seminars, and the press, this new doctrine took root inside the Pentagon and the State Department. Following this extraordinary experiment in armed social work as it plays out from Afghanistan and Iraq to Africa and Haiti, Nathan Hodge exposes the difficulties of translating these ambitious new theories into action.

Ultimately seeing this new era in foreign relations as a noble but flawed experiment, he shows how armed humanitarianism strains our resources, deepens our reliance on outsourcing and private contractors, and leads to perceptions of a new imperialism, arguably a major factor in any number of new conflicts around the world. As we attempt to build nations, we may in fact be weakening our own.

Nathan Hodge is a Washington, D.C.-based writer who specializes in defense and national security. He has reported from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, and a number of other countries in the Middle East and former Soviet Union. He is the author, with Sharon Weinberger, of A Nuclear Family Vacation, and his work has appeared in Slate, the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, and many other newspapers and magazines.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hodge (coauthor of A Nuclear Family Vacation), a journalist specializing in defense and national security issues, takes a critical look at the post-9/11 shift in U.S. foreign policy toward nation building in a timely and balanced account. Drawing upon firsthand reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan and extensive interviews with key figures behind the shift, the author traces how the initial failure to secure Afghanistan and Iraq led to the "military's embrace of counterinsurgency"--a shift to "armed social work" that blended force and humanitarianism and became the new face of American foreign policy. Hodge locates the origins of the new paradigm in the work of defense intellectuals like Thomas Barnett (The Pentagon's New Map) and the support of a cadre of military officers, led by Gen. David Petraeus, who embedded the doctrine in the military's counterinsurgency manual and oversaw its adoption during the 2007 surge. While acknowledging some tentative successes, the author argues that nation building detracts from the military's primary mission and is best left to development and diplomatic agencies. Hodge calls for a national conversation on the issue of nation building, and his carefully reported and sprightly written critique is a good place to begin. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

Journalist Hodge, who has spent more than a decade writing about the defense industry, addresses the twenty-first-century foreign policy shift that calls for the U.S. military to engage in “armed humanitarianism.” A necessary progression from the much-maligned “nation building” of the 1990s, this change stems from the Pentagon’s realization that soft power is required to address the economic struggles of disenfranchised peoples that are at the root of most international conflicts. Drawing on an enormous amount of location research in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, the Republic of Georgia, and elsewhere, Hodge exhibits a startling grasp of the primary challenges to our national security as he addresses corruption on the ground overseas, our bloated defense budget, and ongoing difficulties with the State Department’s overdependence on military contractors. Readers of Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea (2009) will appreciate repeated references to that title and how its philosophy of active civilian engagement is admired and emulated by military in the field. Equal parts inspiring and frustrating, this is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand U.S. foreign policy. --Colleen Mondor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (February 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 160819017X
• ISBN-13: 978-1608190171
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,043,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Description of the US Challenge in Early 21st Century Wars August 20, 2012

By David W. Southworth VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This short book by journalist Nathan Hodge covers the acceleration of the development over the last ten years of war of capabilities within the US military to do nation building. The US military felt that it had to undertake this effort because, in the view of the author, the civilian parts of the US government responsible for these issues of development, namely the State Department and the US Agency for International Development, had failed in its mission. In light of this perceived failure the military stepped in and created military and police training teams, the Human Terrain System, and the Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. These efforts still weren't great enough because of the scale of the task, so the US government contracted out security and intelligence functions to private companies, many of whom have had questionable returns on investment.

Overall this is an excellent review of a complicated and important issue. Hodge, a skilled investigator and writer, can occasionally lapse into writing that takes a too familiar tone. But overall this is an excellent story for those interested in the story of how the US government reacted to the continuing wars and Iraq and Afghanistan since the early 2000s.