Children at War [Paperback]

P. W. Singer (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520248767 | ISBN-13: 978-0520248762 | Publication Date: April 10, 2006 | Edition: 1

From U.S. soldiers having to fight children in Afghanistan and Iraq to juvenile terrorists in Sri Lanka to Palestine, the new, younger face of battle is a terrible reality of 21st century warfare. Indeed, the very first American soldier killed by hostile fire in the "War on Terrorism" was shot by a fourteen-year-old Afghan boy. Children at War is the first comprehensive examination of a disturbing and escalating phenomenon: the use of children as soldiers around the globe. Interweaving explanatory narrative with the voices of child soldiers themselves, P.W. Singer, an internationally recognized expert in modern warfare, introduces the brutal reality of conflict, where children are sent off to fight in war-torn hotspots from Colombia and the Sudan to Kashmir and Sierra Leone. He explores the evolution of this phenomenon, how and why children are recruited, indoctrinated, trained, and converted to soldiers and then lays out the consequences for global security, with a special case study on terrorism. With this established, he lays out the responses that can end this horrible practice. What emerges is not only a compelling and clarifying read on the darker reality of modern warfare, but also a clear and urgent call for action.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Over six million child combatants were killed or injured in the past decade. In this groundbreaking and comprehensive study, Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and former adviser to the U.S. military, explores the rise and expansion of child soldiery. Children, Singer finds, enter armies and militias in numerous ways: as voluntary soldiers, indoctrinated to kill; as involuntary soldiers, forced into the militia or military by cruel adults; as child-terrorists; as members of all-child armies (such as the Hitler Youth); and as sexual slaves for superior officers. Singer (Corporate Warriors) explores different means of training and indoctrination, often through interviews with child-soldiers, as well as with adults who have fought against them and others who have tried to rehabilitate children forced into warfare. In the concluding section, Singer notes that instruments of international law such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibit the use of child-combatants, but that these treaties have been ineffective in actually reducing the prevalence of child-soldiers. One hope is that the new International Criminal Court will be empowered to punish those who recruit children and send them into battle. However they seek to accomplish their goal, activists will be aided by the diligent research and reasoned analysis provided by Singer's study, as will those who fund their work—i.e., anyone who gives to international aid organizations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* "The rebels told me to join them, but I said no. Then they killed my smaller brother. I changed my mind," explains "L," age seven, in Singer's chilling study of the now-conventional use of children in modern warfare. Some 43 percent (157 of 366) of all armed organizations around the world--from Sierra Leone to Colombia, Sri Lanka to the Congo, Liberia to Sudan--use child soldiers, 90 percent of whom see battle. In the last decade, more than 2 million children have been killed in combat, a rate of some 500 per day. Singer, National Security Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, came upon the phenomenon when the soldiers he interviewed for his first book, Corporate Warriors (2003), told him of seeing so many child adversaries. Here he details many of the underlying causes of the practice, and he explains how the children are recruited, often simply by whether they are strong enough to carry a weapon. He explores the full implications for using children in combat and discusses how the problem can be addressed, such as treating it as a war crime and punishing those leaders responsible. He neglects to say, though, that the abuse is first and best addressed by exposing it to world scrutiny, which this thoughtful and heartfelt book will do. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (April 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520248767
• ISBN-13: 978-0520248762
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate Child Abuse, February 24, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Children at War (Hardcover)

This book talks about the active recruitment of children in many areas of the world today. He covers how they are recruited, abducted or conscripted, trained and finally set off to fight in whatever hot spot is active at the moment.

The one surprising thing about this book is that it treats this as a new problem. War has always been a young persons game. To read the biographies of woldiers of World War II, a surprising number lied about their age to join the army at fifteen or sixteen years of age. In the American Civil War around 100,000 soldiers were fifteen or younger. A surprising, but unknown number were under ten. The pictures of the end of the Third Reich show young boys greeting Hitler. The first American killed in Afghanistan was shot by a 14 year old sniper.

On the other hand, by bringing attention to the fact that our Army will have to face children in the battlefield Dr. Singer may help prepare our forces and our public for the real world.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Changing Face of Warfare, March 28, 2006

By 

Matthew P. Arsenault (SW Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Children at War (Hardcover)

The face of warfare has changed dramatically in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In the first years of the new millennium, we rarely find state-led armies clashing across the boarders of sovereign nations. Rather, most wars occur within the boarders of an autonomous state. Civil and guerrilla conflicts have replaced the international and colonial wars of the recent past. All too often, the armies fueling these new internal struggles for power are composed of children.

Dr. Singer has created an excellent and through study of the new phenomenon of children at war. Singer looks at the variety of ways that child soldiers are recruited across cultural and political arenas, the perceived benefits of child soldiers to their political patrons, and the long-term repercussions of inundating the world's children in to an existence based upon violence and death.

Singer's work is based upon personal interviews with child soldiers, adults involved in the raging conflicts, as well as international aid agencies, the UN and others closely involved in the "new warfare." Such a work is an invaluable contribution to the emerging cannon on the changing face of warfare. Only with such studies will the world begin to see the problems of children at war, but also begin to create solutions.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheaper wars mean more wars, February 14, 2007

By 

52 weeks, 52 books (ID) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Children at War (Paperback)

As far as I know, Singer is the first to point out that child warriors are making possible a new kind of war, a war without ideology or purpose other than taking something someone else has. Adults fight better with a cause and a purpose--children are more easily drugged, brainwashed, and cut off from other support. They can also be far crueler in battle and harder to rehabilitate. Singer points to responses to lessen the problem, but she is far from optimistic.