War as Risk Management: Strategy and Conflict in an Age of Globalised Risks

by Yee-Kuang Heng

Overview

This major new study shows how war can be thought of in terms of proactive risk management rather than in terms of conventional threat response.

It addresses why the study of ‘risk management’ has helped fields such as sociology and criminology conceptualize new policy challenges but has made limited impact on Strategic Studies with new case studies of recent Anglo-American military campaigns in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. The author shows how ‘risk' is now a key defining feature of our globalized era, encompassing issues from global financial meltdown, terrorism, infectious diseases, to environmental degradation and how its vocabulary, such as the Precautionary Principle, now permeates the way we think about war, and how it now appears in US and UK defence policy documents, and speeches from both civilian and military staff.

This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of strategic studies, war studies, international relations and globalization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415375894
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/06/2006
Series:	Contemporary Security Studies
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

1. The Problem at Hand 2. The State of the Art 3. War and Emerging Strategic Principles 4. Risk Management, IR and War 5. The Kosovo Campaign 6. War as a ‘Risk Management’ Exercise 7. The Afghan Campaign and the ‘War’ on Terrorism 8. Risk Management Vindicated? 9. Iraq: Textbook Risk Management or Flawed Strategy? Conclusion