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Medicine, Conflict and Survival Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmcs20
What have we learnt about war? a
Maria Kett & Simon Rushton
b
a
Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre University College , London , UK b
Department of Politics , University of Sheffield , UK Published online: 09 May 2013.
To cite this article: Maria Kett & Simon Rushton (2013) What have we learnt about war?, Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 29:2, 89-92, DOI: 10.1080/13623699.2013.785100 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2013.785100
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sublicensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 2013 Vol. 29, No. 2, 89–92, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2013.785100
EDITORIAL
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
What have we learnt about war? As we write this editorial (in early March 2013), the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq is only a few days away. Thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives in the intervening decade, including 35 killed in February this year, as well as almost 5000 coalition troops, the vast majority from the US and the UK. Writing just after the 2003 invasion, Douglas Holdstock, then editor of Medicine, Conflict and Survival, discussed the idea that the human rights abuses committed by Saddam Hussein’s government justified intervention. He said that: … the time may have come when we should question even this justification for war. As the dust settles, perhaps the horrific images of children burned, blinded or with limbs blown off will not entirely fade. Such sights are inevitable consequences of war, no matter how ‘precise’ the weapons used, and they can no longer be dismissed as inevitable ‘collateral damage’. War itself is the ultimate breach of human rights. (Holdstock 2003, 196)
In a recent interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme (broadcast on 26 February 2013), Tony Blair admitted that, despite the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime, life in Iraq had not improved to the extent that he had hoped at the time of the invasion. Nevertheless, he (perhaps predictably) continued to passionately defend the decision to go to war: If we hadn’t removed Saddam from power just think, for example, what would be happening if these Arab revolutions were continuing now and Saddam, who’s probably 20 times as bad as Assad in Syria, was trying to suppress an uprising in Iraq? Think of the consequences of leaving that regime in power. So when you say ‘Do you think of the loss of life and the trouble there’s been since 2003?’, of course I do, and you would have to be inhumane not to, but think of what would have happened if he had been left there. (BBC 2013)
Arguments between the critics of the Iraq war and those who continue to justify it are unlikely to be resolved – especially when the justifications rest on such counterfactual claims about what might have happened without intervention. But if one of the aims of the war was to improve the situation of the Iraqi people (and that was only one of a range of reasons for war put forward by Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
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Editorial
coalition governments) then even on the most optimistic reading the best we can say is that success has been decidedly mixed. Foreign troops had largely withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2011 but, according to the Iraq Body Count (2013), a further 4568 civilians died during 2012, bringing the total number of documented civilian deaths from violence over the last decade to somewhere in the region of 111,407–121,754. And we can add to that countless cases of injury, trauma and hardship. One of the other key justifications of the Iraq invasion was the purported presence in Iraq of ‘weapons of mass destruction’. As John Loretz in his report in this issue from the 20th International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) World Congress notes, a US president started a prolonged and costly war (costly in both lives and dollars) on the pretext that Iraq had, or was acquiring, weapons of mass destruction; his successor declared his intention to pursue a world without nuclear weapons. This sounds like a decisive change for the better. But, notwithstanding the rhetoric, how much nearer are we really to a world without nuclear weapons? Loretz’s assessment is a sobering one: ‘Despite growing international support for a diplomatic process to eliminate nuclear weapons, all the nuclear-weapon states have committed billions of dollars to modernization programmes that call their sincerity about disarmament into question’. Hiroshima was the venue for IPPNW’s 2012 Congress, and is a city that will forever be associated with the destruction that nuclear weapons can wreak. But the long-lasting consequences of nuclear weapons continue to be felt elsewhere too, often in ways that go almost unnoticed by most of us. Shiloh Krupar’s article in this issue, ‘The biomedicalization of war and military remains: US nuclear worker compensation in the “post-Cold War”’, draws our attention to the detrimental health effects being experienced by many of those workers who were involved in the production of the US’s nuclear arsenal during the Cold War. Krupar critically examines the compensation scheme that was created by the US government (after years of denying any link between atomic bomb production and the ill health being suffered by former nuclear workers) to redress those effects. Cold War era nuclear workers seem a world away from civilians in contemporary Iraq, but the juxtaposition of the two shows how wide-ranging and long-lasting the human consequences of war are. Leftover pieces of military hardware become museum pieces – displayed for all to see. The ordinary people affected by wars (as distinct from historically noteworthy military leaders) are too often forgotten. As Krupar notes, in significant contrast to the care exhibited toward the US’s arsenal of aging nuclear materials, former nuclear workers must figure out how to live as the remnants of the Cold War – as the anachronistic human remainders of an era supposedly over and no longer relevant. Over the years we have published a number of articles looking at the psychological and psychosocial effects of conflict. In this issue we pick up on this theme once again, publishing a personal opinion piece by Keith Raymond
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
Medicine, Conflict and Survival
91
reflecting on his experience as a practicing psychiatrist who has worked with both civilian contractors and the military in Afghanistan. Raymond clearly articulates his frustrations at what he calls the ‘psychic malignancy of war’. He discusses the remarkable ability of many of the civilian contractors to ‘cope’ – in some cases even to thrive on the experience of life in a war zone – at least superficially. Yet, as Raymond says, they are the ones who, like our forefathers, ‘never talk about’ the war. They have seen their friends and comrades become disenfranchised from the outside world, if not dismembered or killed. They take it in their stride, but the scars are there. Coming at discussions around the psychological effects of violent conflict from a rather different perspective, Leehu Zysberg and colleagues in their article ‘Someone to watch over me: Exposure to war events and trust in the armed forces as factors in war-related stress’ examine whether feelings of trust in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) are related to lower levels of stress and other related symptoms in a group of people exposed to conflict living close to the border with Lebanon. Fascinatingly they find that, at least amongst this population, ‘trust in the armed forces as representatives of a society and its defenders is associated with the extent to which people experience distress or regain relative well-being in the aftermath of war’, highlighting another of the ways in which people try to cope, and attempt to re-establish a sense of agency, in times of conflict. Sanctions are one of the techniques that have been developed by the international community as an alternative to military intervention, but sanctions too have their downsides. In 2008, Neil Arya wrote an impassioned piece against sanctions, including those against Iraq (Arya 2008). In this issue, we publish a commentary by Imti Choonara which explores the effects of economic sanctions on children’s health. Both pieces argue that, from a health perspective, much more careful thought about when and how sanctions are imposed is needed – as Choonara notes: ‘Malnutrition and inadequate access to healthcare appear to be features of comprehensive economic sanctions’, echoing the point made by Neil Arya that in the context of the UN Covenants on Humanitarian and Human Rights and the Rights of the Child, economic sanctions pose an ethical and a legal dilemma, whether or not there is demonstrable support from legitimate representatives outside or inside the country (2008, 39). What, then, have we learned about war in the decade since the invasion of Iraq? The answer seems to be both ‘a great deal’ and ‘nothing’. We continue to discover more about the devastating human (and health) consequences of war, but at the same time we continue to innovate to find new and ‘more efficient’ ways of killing one another: perhaps most notably at the present time through the seemingly exponentially increasing use of drones. Meanwhile, as the ongoing crisis in Syria demonstrates, the UN is still prevented from playing a more meaningful role in conflict prevention and resolution by the supposed interests of some key member states. Poverty is still rampant – and global inequalities still increasing. Human rights continue to abused by many
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
92
Editorial
governments – and by many non-government groups – across the world. Douglas Holdstock noted in the 2003 editorial that we referred to above that ‘Positive action to end poverty is affordable with only a fraction of the US $800 billion now spent on arms’. That figure has now more than doubled to an estimated US$1,738 billion in 2011 (SIPRI 2012), but this only makes his point even more valid. Finally, we would like to take the opportunity to welcome two new members to our Editorial Board. The first is Dr David McCoy, who has recently taken over as Co-Chair of Medact (along with Oliver Johnson). David is a public health physician and long time activist. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the board, and many of you will know him from his role as managing editor of the first two Global Health Watch reports. Second, we would like to welcome Dr Brian Balmer, a reader in science policy studies at UCL, whose research focuses in particular on the role of expertise in the making of science policy and on chemical and biological weapons, amongst other things. We thank them both for joining the journal, and look forward to working with them. References Arya, N. 2008. “Economic Sanctions: the Kinder, Gentler Alternative?” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 24 (1): 25–41. BBC. 2013. “Tony Blair: Life in Iraq 10 years on not as I hoped.” BBC News [online]. Accessed 5 March 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21576509. Holdstock, D. 2003. “Rights, Wrongs and War.” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 19 (3): 195–196. Iraq Body Count. 2013. Accessed 5 March 2013. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/. SIPRI. 2012. “Background Paper on SIPRI Military Expenditure Data, 2011.” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPIRI). Accessed 5 March 2013. http://www. sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/sipri-factsheet-on-military-expenditure-2011.pdf.
Maria Kett Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre University College, London, UK Simon Rushton Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, UK
Medicine, Conflict and Survival Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmcs20
What have we learnt about war? a
Maria Kett & Simon Rushton
b
a
Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre University College , London , UK b
Department of Politics , University of Sheffield , UK Published online: 09 May 2013.
To cite this article: Maria Kett & Simon Rushton (2013) What have we learnt about war?, Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 29:2, 89-92, DOI: 10.1080/13623699.2013.785100 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2013.785100
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sublicensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 2013 Vol. 29, No. 2, 89–92, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2013.785100
EDITORIAL
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
What have we learnt about war? As we write this editorial (in early March 2013), the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq is only a few days away. Thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives in the intervening decade, including 35 killed in February this year, as well as almost 5000 coalition troops, the vast majority from the US and the UK. Writing just after the 2003 invasion, Douglas Holdstock, then editor of Medicine, Conflict and Survival, discussed the idea that the human rights abuses committed by Saddam Hussein’s government justified intervention. He said that: … the time may have come when we should question even this justification for war. As the dust settles, perhaps the horrific images of children burned, blinded or with limbs blown off will not entirely fade. Such sights are inevitable consequences of war, no matter how ‘precise’ the weapons used, and they can no longer be dismissed as inevitable ‘collateral damage’. War itself is the ultimate breach of human rights. (Holdstock 2003, 196)
In a recent interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme (broadcast on 26 February 2013), Tony Blair admitted that, despite the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime, life in Iraq had not improved to the extent that he had hoped at the time of the invasion. Nevertheless, he (perhaps predictably) continued to passionately defend the decision to go to war: If we hadn’t removed Saddam from power just think, for example, what would be happening if these Arab revolutions were continuing now and Saddam, who’s probably 20 times as bad as Assad in Syria, was trying to suppress an uprising in Iraq? Think of the consequences of leaving that regime in power. So when you say ‘Do you think of the loss of life and the trouble there’s been since 2003?’, of course I do, and you would have to be inhumane not to, but think of what would have happened if he had been left there. (BBC 2013)
Arguments between the critics of the Iraq war and those who continue to justify it are unlikely to be resolved – especially when the justifications rest on such counterfactual claims about what might have happened without intervention. But if one of the aims of the war was to improve the situation of the Iraqi people (and that was only one of a range of reasons for war put forward by Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
90
Editorial
coalition governments) then even on the most optimistic reading the best we can say is that success has been decidedly mixed. Foreign troops had largely withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2011 but, according to the Iraq Body Count (2013), a further 4568 civilians died during 2012, bringing the total number of documented civilian deaths from violence over the last decade to somewhere in the region of 111,407–121,754. And we can add to that countless cases of injury, trauma and hardship. One of the other key justifications of the Iraq invasion was the purported presence in Iraq of ‘weapons of mass destruction’. As John Loretz in his report in this issue from the 20th International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) World Congress notes, a US president started a prolonged and costly war (costly in both lives and dollars) on the pretext that Iraq had, or was acquiring, weapons of mass destruction; his successor declared his intention to pursue a world without nuclear weapons. This sounds like a decisive change for the better. But, notwithstanding the rhetoric, how much nearer are we really to a world without nuclear weapons? Loretz’s assessment is a sobering one: ‘Despite growing international support for a diplomatic process to eliminate nuclear weapons, all the nuclear-weapon states have committed billions of dollars to modernization programmes that call their sincerity about disarmament into question’. Hiroshima was the venue for IPPNW’s 2012 Congress, and is a city that will forever be associated with the destruction that nuclear weapons can wreak. But the long-lasting consequences of nuclear weapons continue to be felt elsewhere too, often in ways that go almost unnoticed by most of us. Shiloh Krupar’s article in this issue, ‘The biomedicalization of war and military remains: US nuclear worker compensation in the “post-Cold War”’, draws our attention to the detrimental health effects being experienced by many of those workers who were involved in the production of the US’s nuclear arsenal during the Cold War. Krupar critically examines the compensation scheme that was created by the US government (after years of denying any link between atomic bomb production and the ill health being suffered by former nuclear workers) to redress those effects. Cold War era nuclear workers seem a world away from civilians in contemporary Iraq, but the juxtaposition of the two shows how wide-ranging and long-lasting the human consequences of war are. Leftover pieces of military hardware become museum pieces – displayed for all to see. The ordinary people affected by wars (as distinct from historically noteworthy military leaders) are too often forgotten. As Krupar notes, in significant contrast to the care exhibited toward the US’s arsenal of aging nuclear materials, former nuclear workers must figure out how to live as the remnants of the Cold War – as the anachronistic human remainders of an era supposedly over and no longer relevant. Over the years we have published a number of articles looking at the psychological and psychosocial effects of conflict. In this issue we pick up on this theme once again, publishing a personal opinion piece by Keith Raymond
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
Medicine, Conflict and Survival
91
reflecting on his experience as a practicing psychiatrist who has worked with both civilian contractors and the military in Afghanistan. Raymond clearly articulates his frustrations at what he calls the ‘psychic malignancy of war’. He discusses the remarkable ability of many of the civilian contractors to ‘cope’ – in some cases even to thrive on the experience of life in a war zone – at least superficially. Yet, as Raymond says, they are the ones who, like our forefathers, ‘never talk about’ the war. They have seen their friends and comrades become disenfranchised from the outside world, if not dismembered or killed. They take it in their stride, but the scars are there. Coming at discussions around the psychological effects of violent conflict from a rather different perspective, Leehu Zysberg and colleagues in their article ‘Someone to watch over me: Exposure to war events and trust in the armed forces as factors in war-related stress’ examine whether feelings of trust in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) are related to lower levels of stress and other related symptoms in a group of people exposed to conflict living close to the border with Lebanon. Fascinatingly they find that, at least amongst this population, ‘trust in the armed forces as representatives of a society and its defenders is associated with the extent to which people experience distress or regain relative well-being in the aftermath of war’, highlighting another of the ways in which people try to cope, and attempt to re-establish a sense of agency, in times of conflict. Sanctions are one of the techniques that have been developed by the international community as an alternative to military intervention, but sanctions too have their downsides. In 2008, Neil Arya wrote an impassioned piece against sanctions, including those against Iraq (Arya 2008). In this issue, we publish a commentary by Imti Choonara which explores the effects of economic sanctions on children’s health. Both pieces argue that, from a health perspective, much more careful thought about when and how sanctions are imposed is needed – as Choonara notes: ‘Malnutrition and inadequate access to healthcare appear to be features of comprehensive economic sanctions’, echoing the point made by Neil Arya that in the context of the UN Covenants on Humanitarian and Human Rights and the Rights of the Child, economic sanctions pose an ethical and a legal dilemma, whether or not there is demonstrable support from legitimate representatives outside or inside the country (2008, 39). What, then, have we learned about war in the decade since the invasion of Iraq? The answer seems to be both ‘a great deal’ and ‘nothing’. We continue to discover more about the devastating human (and health) consequences of war, but at the same time we continue to innovate to find new and ‘more efficient’ ways of killing one another: perhaps most notably at the present time through the seemingly exponentially increasing use of drones. Meanwhile, as the ongoing crisis in Syria demonstrates, the UN is still prevented from playing a more meaningful role in conflict prevention and resolution by the supposed interests of some key member states. Poverty is still rampant – and global inequalities still increasing. Human rights continue to abused by many
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 11:52 29 December 2014
92
Editorial
governments – and by many non-government groups – across the world. Douglas Holdstock noted in the 2003 editorial that we referred to above that ‘Positive action to end poverty is affordable with only a fraction of the US $800 billion now spent on arms’. That figure has now more than doubled to an estimated US$1,738 billion in 2011 (SIPRI 2012), but this only makes his point even more valid. Finally, we would like to take the opportunity to welcome two new members to our Editorial Board. The first is Dr David McCoy, who has recently taken over as Co-Chair of Medact (along with Oliver Johnson). David is a public health physician and long time activist. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the board, and many of you will know him from his role as managing editor of the first two Global Health Watch reports. Second, we would like to welcome Dr Brian Balmer, a reader in science policy studies at UCL, whose research focuses in particular on the role of expertise in the making of science policy and on chemical and biological weapons, amongst other things. We thank them both for joining the journal, and look forward to working with them. References Arya, N. 2008. “Economic Sanctions: the Kinder, Gentler Alternative?” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 24 (1): 25–41. BBC. 2013. “Tony Blair: Life in Iraq 10 years on not as I hoped.” BBC News [online]. Accessed 5 March 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21576509. Holdstock, D. 2003. “Rights, Wrongs and War.” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 19 (3): 195–196. Iraq Body Count. 2013. Accessed 5 March 2013. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/. SIPRI. 2012. “Background Paper on SIPRI Military Expenditure Data, 2011.” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPIRI). Accessed 5 March 2013. http://www. sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/sipri-factsheet-on-military-expenditure-2011.pdf.
Maria Kett Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre University College, London, UK Simon Rushton Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, UK
