Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict [Hardcover]

William Shawcross (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 2000

Reporting from war zones around the globe, acclaimed journalist William Shawcross gives us an unforgettable portrait of a dangerous world and of the brave men and women, ordinary and extraordinary, who risk their lives to make and keep the peace.

The end of the Cold War was followed by a decade of regional and ethnic wars, massacres and forced exiles, and by constant calls for America to lead the international community as chief peace-keeper. The efforts of that community -- identified with the United Nations but often dominated by the world's wealthy nations -- have had mixed results. In Africa, the West is accused of indifference or too little, too late. In Cambodia, the UN presides over free elections, but the results are overridden. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein continues to defy the UN, and in Bosnia and Kosovo, the West acts hesitantly after terrible slaughter and ethnic cleansing.

Shawcross, a veteran of many war zones, has had broad access to global policymakers, including UN secretary general Kofi Annan, high American diplomats, peacekeepers and humanitarian-aid professionals. He has traveled with them to some of the world's most horrifying killing fields. "Deliver Us from Evil" is his stark, on-the-ground report on the many crises faced by the international community and its servants as they struggle to respond around the world. He brings home the price many have paid attempting to restore peace and help alleviate terrible suffering. He illuminates the risks we face in a complex and dangerous world.

Some critics have concluded that some interventions may prolong conflict and create further casualties. The lesson we learn from ruthless and vengeful warlords the worldover is that goodwill without strength can make things worse. Shawcross argues that recent interventions -- in Kosovo and East Timor, for example -- provide reason for concern as well as hope.

Still, the unmistakable message of the past decade is that we cannot intervene everywhere, that not every wrong can be righted merely because the international community desires it, or because we wish to remove images of suffering from our television screens. Nor can we necessarily rebuild failed states in our image. When we intervene, we must be certain of our objectives, sure of popular support and willing to expend the necessary resources -- even lives. If our interventions are to be effective and humane, they must last for more than the fifteen minutes of attention that the media accord to each succeeding crisis.

That is a tall order. As Shawcross concludes, "In a more religious time it was only God whom we asked to deliver us from evil. Now we call upon our own man-made institutions for such deliverance. That is sometimes to ask for miracles."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Foreign-affairs journalist William Shawcross travels around the world--Bosnia, Baghdad, and elsewhere--to paint a messy portrait of the post-cold-war world. Deliver Us from Evil is very much an on-the-ground book, full of reportage and descriptions of world leaders such as UN chief Kofi Annan. It includes a strong point of view: the dewy-eyed, do-gooder mentality that drives so much contemporary international relations is, as far as Shawcross is concerned, deeply wrongheaded. Peacekeeping missions often find that there's no peace to keep, and expectations of what they can accomplish soar far too high. "Today 'humanitarianism' often rules. It becomes a sop to international concern, and then it can be dangerous," writes Shawcross. Coupled with a world of instant media, where CNN broadcasts live from the killing fields, humanitarianism fuels a strong desire to have immediate reconciliation between warring factions. But it's a delusional goal, says Shawcross, pointing to the American Civil War and how long (even after Appomattox) it took North and South to reconcile fully. There's no reason to think other torn nations will respond more quickly. Peacekeeping missions often promise a heaven on earth they cannot deliver. "In a more religious time it was only God whom we asked to deliver us from evil," concludes Shawcross. "Now we call upon our own man-made institutions for such deliverance. That is sometimes to ask for miracles." --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

The end of the Cold War may have reduced the threat of nuclear catastrophe, but shooting wars continued to ravage the planet throughout the '90s. Shawcross (Sideshow, Murdoch, etc.), an award-winning journalist, takes inventory of a decade's worth of conflict, ranging from Cambodia to Rwanda, Croatia to East Timor, and assesses the reactions of governments, the U.N. and humanitarian agencies to the carnage. The book proceeds chronologically, treating several crises in each chapter. In this way, Shawcross replicates the experience of those responsible for organizing the world's response to these fast-breaking, vicious little wars as they broke out, often simultaneously, all around the world. More significant than Shawcross's chronicle of these conflicts and their respective atrocities is his analysis of the ambiguities and paradoxes produced by the wars. He identifies the political forces shaping how the world selects some crises for effective intervention, while others merit platitudes and palliatives. Shawcross also explores how in some instances humanitarian aid, such as food shipments, serve only to supply the combatants and so prolong the suffering of the starving people for whom the food was intended. He gives evidence that while nations claim to rely on the U.N. as a peacekeeping mechanism, they withhold funds and complain of U.N. ineffectiveness. As Shawcross argues in this thoughtful and balanced account, we in the developed world "want more to be put right, but we are prepared to sacrifice less." Shawcross calls for greater consistency in how the developed nations react to '90s-style ethnic wars, so that nations can do something better than merely make the world "a little less horrible." In surveying the past 10 years, he makes a clear-sighted contribution to the policy debates of the next decade and beyond. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st ptg. edition (March 23, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068483233X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684832333
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,790,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > Law > International Law > International Disputes

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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As it is.. as it shouldn't be, June 14, 2000

By 

hugh riminton - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict (Hardcover)

For most of the last decade, it seems to me, the world has been busy taking in the implications of the post Cold War environment. Out of this gestation there has recently arrived a flood of books. Geoffrey Robertson's "Crimes Against Humanity" details the development of the legal arguments for humanitarian intervention; Susan Moeller's "Compassion Fatigue" explains its political limits in terms of domestic apathy (blaming, rather too heavily I think, the media); Michael Ignatieff has written compellingly on humanitarian intervention from the perspective of a muscular-minded moral philosopher.. but Shawcross - more than anyone in my view - "tells it like it is."

Shawcross says his is a story of hope. It is hard to see how. With commendable clarity he charts the history of humanitarian-inspired interventions, focussing on the post Cold War world, when the end of superpower rivalries seemed briefly to make all things possible.

Encouraged by the apparent (though only partial) success of UNTAC in Cambodia, the "international community" (please God, let us find another phrase!) rushed naively and disastrously into Somalia (for more on this I recommend Scott Peterson's lively new memoir "Me Against My Brother"). The world powers then turned to water when confronted by the terrible challenge of Rwandan genocide. Shawcross writes powerfully of this, as Gourevitch among others have done. He also writes with chilling force of the events leading to the fall of Srebrenica, and the global pusillanimity that allowed Foday Sankoh his free and terrible reign in Sierra Leone.

As the century turns there are slim victories for those who believe the "good guys" of the outside world can bring peace to the blighted. The Australian-led INTERFET force in East Timor secured a shattered territory to give some hope of genuine transition to peaceful democracy. Mozambique, too, has been a quiet success story, making the recent devastating floods all the more tragic.

But the lessons of Shawcross's dispassionate analysis are those that the political powers least want to hear. If the US, France and other Western powers want to live up to the fine sound of their humanitarian rhetoric, they must stop playing their policies to their domestic audiences. If they want to approve impressive-sounding mandates, they must be willing to back them with men and material. They must be willing to risk the lives of their soldiers. They must look upon their cowardice in Srebrenica and Rwanda with shame (and I don't speak of the individual Dutch and Belgian soldiers who, respectively, were there). They must be more ready to see in Kofi Annan perhaps the last best hope the UN has.

If they are not willing to do those things, Shawcross makes clear, they might as well admit that humanitarian intervention is an emperor without clothes, and that the worst suffering in the world is irremediable.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamental Primer on Real-World Security Challenges, August 29, 2000

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict (Hardcover)

EDIT of 23 Feb 08 to add links. This remains a priceless reference work.

This book is serious, scholarly yet down to earth, compassionate, insightful, terribly relevant and most useful to any citizen, overseas practitioner, or policymaker. By the books own rendering, "good will without strength can make things worse." Most compellingly, the author demonstrates both the nuances and the complexities of "peace operations", and the fact that they require at least as much forethought, commitment, and sustainment as combat operations. Food scarcity and dangerous public health are the root symptoms, not the core issues. The most dangerous element is not the competing sides, but the criminal gangs that emerge to "stoke the fires of nationalism and ethnicity in order to create an environment of fear and vulnerability" (and great profit). At the same time, humanitarianism has become a big part of the problem-we have not yet learned how to distinguish between those conflicts where intervention is warranted (e.g. massive genocide campaigns) and those where internal conflicts need to be settled internally. In feeding the competing parties, we are both prolonging the conflict, and giving rise to criminal organizations that learn to leverage both the on-going conflict and the incoming relief supplies. Perhaps more troubling, there appears to be a clear double-standard-whether deliberate or circumstantial-between attempts to bring order to the white western or Arab fringe countries and what appears to be callous indifference to black African and distant Asian turmoil that includes hundreds of thousands victim to genocide and tens of thousands victim to living amputation, mutilation, and rape. When all is said and done, and these are my conclusions from reading this excellent work, 1) there is no international intelligence system in place suitable to providing both the global coverage and public education needed to mobilize and sustain multi-national peacekeeping coalitions; 2) the United Nations is not structured, funded, nor capable of carrying out disciplined effective peacekeeping operations, and the contributing nations are unreliable in how and when they will provide incremental assistance; 3) we still have a long way to go in devising new concepts, doctrines, and technologies and programs for effectively integrating and applying preventive diplomacy, transformed defense, transnational law enforcement, and public services (water, food, health and education) in a manner that furthers regionally-based peace and prosperity instead of feeding the fires of local unrest.

See also:
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The Future of Life
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Warlords and Peacekeepers in an Epic Battle, April 12, 2000

By 

Prauge Traveler (Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict (Hardcover)

This book more than adequately explores the utility of international intervention from the mid sixties to the near present. Shawcross makes a point of the difference between our desire to end ethnic war and starvation and our willingness to risk the lives of our own military. This dillema is at the heart of most peacekeeping missions. I was amazed to learn that the numbers of troops promised rarely ever show up on time- if ever! Equipment is also often lacking. The collective attention span of our society is also part of the problem. Simply taking a crisis and making it a 15 minute phenomenon to be quickly forgoten when the press gets old will not create a long term solution. More commitment on the behalf of our politicians, and ourselves will be required in the future.

Perhaps most frightening is a thesis that slowly emerges which would indicate that sometimes a happy ending is not possible, that evil will occasionaly triumph despite our best efforts and that in some situations our best efforts will only serve to prolong a conflict.

These and more are some of the issues that Shawcross covers by taking the reader to multiple real world situations that most of us have heard something (but not enough) about. The chapters on Africa's wars were very revealing of the extent that our views can be shaded by the light that the media casts on them. While I knew that there were and are conflicts there, I had no idea of their extent and ruthlessness; almost to an extreme that makes the Balkans seem mild.

One criticism of this book is that I have been able to keep a distance from the events that it describes. Some books have the ability to hit you in the stomach with meaning and this falls just short. However, when taken in combination with other recent books on modern history, Shawcross has made an invaluable contribution. "My War Gone By I Miss It So" is a book would make an excellent companion to this one, as would "Black Hawk Down" and "The Coming Anarchy".

After reading "Deliver us from Evil", my respect has been increased for those individuals in the UN who give their careers and lives up to a higher ideal of peace. Kofi Annan is now a name that means much more to me. He is a man who deserves all of our thanks.

The lesson that this book has to offer can be summed up by Edmund Burke, who is quoted at the beginning:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."