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15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"On Lawfare": Short and Focused, September 18, 2006
This review is from: Of War and Law (Hardcover)
In this short book, David Kennedy refers to what military commanders call "lawfare", the use of law, particularly humanitarian law, as a shield and a sword, by organized militaries, partisans, insurgents, and terrorists alike. In a much longer but less effective book, the Shield of Achilles Phillip Bobbitt has recently written in different terms on the mutual relation between law and strategy. In the realm of emergency, the distinction between the two becomes relatively thin. Bobbitt's book demonstrates that at certain times, strategic "imperatives" have generated legal regimes. A point that Bobbit has overlooked, however, is the use of law as a strategic instrument. This is what might be called, not so much the instrumentalization, but the "weaponization" of law, and a focus on this is Kennedy's contribution to contemporary discussions on law and strategy.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Law as an Operational Level of War, September 4, 2008
This review is from: Of War and Law (Hardcover)
Professor David Kennedy's book is a ground-breaking study for strategic theorists since he opens to theory the operational level dimension of law in war.
"War is still the continuation of politics by other means. In broader terms, modern war reflects modern political life. In large measure, our modern politics is legal politics: the terms of engagement are legal, the players are legal institutions, their powers expanded and limited by law. . . to understand modern war, we must understand the global and national context within which the politics of power and war are waged." Page 14.
Kennedy bases his study on Clausewitzian theory, that is war being a continuation of politics by other (organized violent) means. Also modern war is very much a "dialogue" that takes place among elites in which the actual nature of the specific war in question in defined. Not only humanitarian institutions, but also the military have an interest in establishing a legal framework in which military activity can operate and thus gain "legitimacy". This was not always the case as Kennedy shows in his discussion of how our view of war and law have changed over the last 200 years.
I do find several weaknesses to this otherwise strong argument however. First, this operational view of war is very much US-centric having to do with 21st Century American society and how we look at the world. The importance of this operational level is thus connected with the place of the US on the geo-strategic stage, a weakening of US power/influence would thus affect this level as well.
Second, existing at the operational level means that it can be "trumped" so to speak at the higher or strategic level, that is this level is very much tied to a strategy of attrition. By achieving strategic success by way of a strategy of annihilation one can neutralize this legal operational level, that is rapid success on the ground and attaining strategic success quickly can preclude this element having much influence. Witness the recent conflict in Georgia in this regard.
Finally, as Kennedy points out the trend is that legal operations do not enhance legitimacy for one side or the other but over time tend to favor the weaker side. The very relevance of the level of legal operations rests on the assumption of credibility and legitimacy, but legal operations, especially done by powerful states to mask what their actual political (and economic) objectives are, only tend to discredit the question of legality of their resorting to war in general.
In all this is a very interesting and groundbreaking work especially for strategic theorists who are not use to thinking about war in this way.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential Reading, November 4, 2009
This review is from: Of War and Law (Hardcover)
Of War and Law is a deceiving complex book. Like Kennedy's other books, it is very readable, and offers brilliant reflections into global governance - in this case, the heavy topic of war. Or maybe it isn't such a 'heavy' topic, since after all, everything nowadays is framed as a war in America: war on terror, war on drugs, war on fast food... there is even (if we listen to Fox News) a war on Christmas. In such a world where war is no longer bracketed off, where we supposedly are living daily in various states of warfare, it is easy to become desensitized, to stop taking its implications seriously.
At the same time, progressives have a tendency to distance themselves, in the context of foreign affairs, from war. Against warfare, the rally cry is some version of the 'rule of law', which is supposed to stand in contrast to the cynical politics of warfare. But if war has permeated our culture, Kennedy demonstrates in what seems so obvious but only after it is pointed out, there is simply no way to separate law from politics, or for that matter, law from war - what the military has come to term, 'lawfare'.
This has led progressives to view war from afar - both unwittingly desensitized to its effects (e.g., do we still keep count of the civilian casualties in Iraq, or even our troops), and unwilling to venture outside of the formal confines of legal condemnation (e.g., 'The Iraq War is Illegal'). OWAL analyzes the nature of this disengagement, but more importantly, puts forward a passionate, and even radical, polemic that challenges us to reawaken to the implications of the warfare all around us, and to regain our sense of agency. Is war/politics inescapable, even within the confines of legal humanitarianism? Yes. But what Kennedy shows us, this is not cause for despair, but the very grounds for a radical new politics of progressive engagement.
It is easy to read OWAL within the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism, and within the 'skepticism' characteristic of American IR literature, or perhaps even as an offshoot of Sartrian (or Camus) existentialism. While these may be true to varying degrees (more to the first and third streams than the second), OWAL can also be read in light of the French anti-philosophy of A. Badiou, and as a response to the post-Frankfurt school and the rise of postmodern thought. What Kennedy reminds us of, is that to speak truth to power is not merely a catchy phrase to echo at demonstrations, but a grounds for a progressive militancy that is altogether sustainable in our daily cosmopolitan existence. In short, Kennedy reminds us that political success of any form is not acheived through complacency and denunciations, but through organized political action, through serious commitment, and that if international law means anything, if it is a language ultimately of love, of togetherness, that this demands labour and sacrafice. Kennedy's book offers us nothing less than the first openings towards a way beyond the cosmopolitan irony and progressive deprication that characterizes the modern progressive movement.
This book is a must-read (and re-read) for anyone who cares about the idea of making the world a better place and wants to think seriously about the strategies and costs attached to this commitment.
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