Swords and Ploughshares: Building Peace in the 21st Century

By Paddy Ashdown

Book Overview

How can it be ensured that current missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, and other similar peacekeeping missions do not turn into long-term entanglements? How can the soldiers in these locations... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0753823314
• ISBN13: 9780753823316
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Phoenix
• Length: 338 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.1" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

The Seamless Garment

The book "Sword and Ploughshares" offers an invaluable insight to the study of post-conflict reconstruction. In the wordings of Lord Paddy Ashdown "The crucial mistake made and remade in interventions has been the failure to 'think through' the conflict phase and plan for the postconflict phase which follows. To win the battle for peace and for public opinion, that is hearts and minds, the international community needs to be clear on the intervention end state - upon intervening. To maximize the chances for success it is thus necessary to view the phases of prevention, conflict and post-conflict reconstruction - as a single 'seamless garment' with each phase interlocking with the next. I endorse the book as being important on an extremely important topic. The book provides insights in understanding the role of the international community in post-conflict reconstruction, and how and why these roles can shape and restrain how stable the peace will be. In my understanding the Sword and the Ploughshares are equivalent to the means available to the international community to secure the peace. The Sword squares with hard power, the ploughshares squares with hard consistent work with a declared outcome. Sincerely, Anne Grete Groenlien