Product Description
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.
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 Soundbite pseudo-scholarship ( jasonhart23 )
Reading through the other reviews here it struck me that they seemed to share a lack of prior knowledge about the subject. Had anyone read more widely they would have discovered that 'Children at War' is a piece of pseudo-scholarship. This book is based upon a completely misguided assumption - that the involvement of children in warfare is a new phenomenon. In making such an assertion the author reveals either lack of any proper engagement with the literature or simply bad faith. The sad fact is that children have been involved as solidiers in many, if not most, of the wars recorded in history. In spite of Singer's erroneous claims to the contrary, the US Civil War involved large numbers of boy soldiers. Similarly the First World War. Children fought and died with the partisans in Nazi-occupied Europe, and so on. Towards the end of the book, Singer reveals a disturbing political agenda. It seems that his real concern is less with child soldiers and more with the challenges for US troops faced with children in places like Afghanistan and Iraq where killing them is bad for morale and also looks so bad to the folks back home watching CNN.
In terms of sources, Singer relies overwhelmingly on journalistic accounts that are simply intended to offer shock value to their readers and, like his own book, lack any deeper engagement with the history and context within which child recruitment takes place. Aside from one quote, none of the copious quotes from child soldiers seems to have come from Singer's one fieldwork. Indeed, the reader is left wondering if Singer has ever actually visited a setting where child recruitment takes place.
This is a work of truly poor scholarship. It is a mystery how it ever got published and why so many people have been apparently taken in by it. Perhaps it is a case of telling people what they want to hear?
If anyone is looking for a proper discussion of this subject they would do far better to read David Rosen's 'Armies of the Young'.
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 understanding the chilling trend of "Children at War" ( ids6 )
Back in the mid-1990s I spent many months reporting on child soldiers in places including Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I wrote from the immediacy of a journalist's perspective, but was unable to examine the cause-and-effect realities of this disturbing phenomenon. In "Children at War" P. W. Singer has produced a truly important study of the socio-cultural, economic and historic causes behind the militarization of children in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Singer's work is an incredibly valuable contribution to further the study and understanding of armed conflict in the post Cold War-era. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the welfare of children and the state of our world in often-neglected locations such as sub-Saharan Africa. It is also an insightful look at how "warlordism" and the greed driving so-called commodity wars is changing the face of modern armed conflict.
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Cheaper wars mean more wars ( jferro17 )
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.
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 Infomative... Disturbing... Repetitive...
No one should think themselves well-informed about contemporary international conflict unless they are aware of the child soldier problem. I commend Singer for Children at War; it seems to cover most of the material that one might hope it would, and it does so with clarity and precision. The book is not marred by opinion or bias (I believe some decry this approach, but this is a work of academic non-fiction); it simply presents the facts on topics that range from recruitment of child soldiers to strategies that should be utilized by conventional militaries when they must engage belligerent groups that incorporate child soldiers.
Despite my three-star rating, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an informed and well-rounded look at child warfare. Singer's writing style is easy to read in that it uses simple language and is clearly meant to be accessible; however, (and this is the reason for the three stars) he can be quite repetitive. Although one could argue that the information in this book should be drilled into everyone's heads, reading the same sentence many times over, only with slightly different wording, can be cumbersome.
As one might expect, some of the visualizations that Singer inspires can be terribly gruesome (if you can think of a description that carries more force than "terribly gruesome," then consider yours to be a more accurate one). Assuming that the reader is both a human being and of sound mind, they will undoubtedly find that this book will leave them at times speechless, pained, or simply unable to read on.
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Superb Introduction to this disturbing aspect of modern international affairs ( welsh_philt )
Being an International Relations student about to embark on a years study on this subject I was looking for a solid grounding on which to begin my study and this provided a perfect answer. Singer uses simple dialogue and logical progression in his publication to provide information on the recruting of child soldiers, what they are subjected to in the field, the difficulty of soldiers facing children, the worst culprits, reintegration of soldiers and proposed methods of ending this aspect of modern warfare.
An important aspect of this book that isn't mentioned so much is its discussions on how military forces should approach fighting child soldiers. As a potential officer of the future I felt this was particularly important, Singer mentions that the US Army supplied early drafts of this book to its officers as guidelines for potential situations so clearly they believe his suggestions hold merit also.
It should be noted that any reader should of course expect some horrific details from this book, I had expected these but was sickened by some of the stories. There are particularly brutal aspects that you could not imagine, just a word of warning as one of the accounts has left me particularly troubled by hummanity.
In conclusion I believe this book to be a perfect introductory reading to anyone studying, or simply interested, in the subject. I would also state that those more advanced in the topic should look at this book as, if the information and proposals are not new to you, the research is excellent and so the references can provide you with more resources that you may potentially have not yet accessed.
Altogether a superb book, ideal for anyone wishing to gain further knowledge in the subject area.
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