Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict

by William Shawcross

Foreign-affairs journalist Williamm Shawcross travels around the world - Bosnia, Baghdad etc - to paint a messy portrait of the post-cold-war world. Deliver Us from Evil is very much an on-the-ground book, full of reportage & descriptions of world leaders such as UN chief Kofi Annan. It includes a strong point of view: the dewy-eyed, do-gooder mentality that drives so much contemporary international relations is, as far as Shawcross is concerned, deeply wrongheaded. Peacekeeping missions often find that there's no peace to keep. Expectations of what they can accomplish soar far too high. "Today 'humanitarianism' often rules. It becomes a sop to international concern, & then it can be dangerous," he writes. Coupled with a world of instant media, where CNN broadcasts live from the killing fields, humanitarianism fuels a strong desire to have immediate reconciliation between warring factions. But it's a delusional goal, says Shawcross, pointing to the American Civil War & how long (even after Appomattox) it took North & South to reconcile fully. There's no reason to think other torn nations will respond more quickly. Peacekeeping missions often promise a heaven on earth they cannot deliver. "In a more religious time it was only God whom we asked to deliver us from evil," concludes Shawcross. "Now we call upon our own man-made institutions for such deliverance. That is sometimes to ask for miracles." -John J. Miller

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, War, Military Fiction, Middle East

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

William Shawcross is a widely renowned writer and broadcaster.

Reviews

[Hannah Hoffmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 This book was complex and FAT with information. I wish the author would have clarified how his career and/or personal connections put him in contact with all of the people, much less the SG of the UN, he traveled with to cover these events. I came away with a better understanding of how UN peacekeeping missions were conducted and the ways in which the UN succeeds and fails based on the whims of the member states, specifically the P5. Sometimes I wished the author would have confined each separate issue into a single chapter but I understand that the jumping around helps give the impression of chaos to the reader and understand how all of these many conflicts overlapped and vied for limited resources and attention.

[Tim Tolka · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is partly a history of the humanitarian crises of the 90s, partly a history of the United Nations during that time. Shawcross is an adroit storyteller, journalist, and historian. His political analysis of regimes and why they fell apart- as well as how, often, more ghastly injustices were perpetrated after the humanitarian workers arrived- leave an indelible effect on the reader. Not light reading.

[Sovatha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by a journalist, this book has a lot of reports and insightful descriptions of the working of UN and its quest to maintain its global roles as the world 'policeman'. Another important aspect the book brought to light was the some time tense relationships between the UN and the US (and a little bit of UK too). You'll learn some understanding about the tension between maintaining the global interest versus national interests. Chapter 3 reads pretty much like a brief history of UN intervention in Cambodia. The problem is that you'll learn about that history from a one-sided perspective. Well, again I'm not sure if there's been a book on that topic written by a local person yet. However, I did find some of the inside stories of UN operation in Cambodia at that time pretty interesting to read. It seems like the author has been closed to Kofi Annan, so parts of the book read almost like Annan's biography. The book lacks some deeper and more critical perspectives on the issues reported, such as the uneasy relationships between the UN and the US.

[Abi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written as a very informed and insightful exposé of the most gruesome humanitarian crises of the 90s and the role that the UN had in them. Shawcross especially highlights the impasse between the necessary peacekeeping interventions and the reluctance of member states, most notably those on the security council, to bring forth forces to carry out those missions. Throughout the book, he continues to prove his redefinition of the capabilities of the UN when it is moved to “keep” peace in countries strife with internal conflict and not even an air of cooperation. Even more when the dictatorial leaders regimes that invite some reconciliation use the aid to further their own genocides and increase their political power. While this may come across as possible excuses for inaction and failings of the UN, Shawcross seems to write this analysis as a way to urge the international community towards a more realistic approach to modern peacekeeping efforts.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peacekeeping assignments in the 1990s are at the heart of this book. Peacekeepers may be blessed, but they are generally outgunned by the ethnics and nationalists that they seek to control, especially given the political games played among UN officials and member nations who gave them their task that make the task harder.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shawcross acts as apologist for UN inaction and ineffectiveness and compiles a misleading laundry list for why peacekeeping consistently fails the little guy. Interesting for the pre-9/11 political climate.

[Constantin Manuel Bosancianu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book contains an excellent coverage of successes and failures in peacekeeping, by an author who was in the front line of these events. However, it also contains a considerable amount of detail on Kofi Annan, which in my opinion was not vital for the book's central argument.

[Nick Gaskell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personifies the practical challenges of peacekeeping, firstly peacekeeping is resource intensive, emphasises how political will and public attention are critical to address a conflict, often this is dictated by the hegemony (USA).

Filling a power vacuum is often required to sustain peace, or genuine local reconciliation. Empowering legal institutions to establish a social ckntract and maintain law is necessary. One of the great successes was UN radio stations in Cambodia promoting democracy (although this one small initiative is an isolated success but emphasise the need for resource and attention to detail)

Ironically many peacekeeping troops come from regions where peace is fragile. Sometimes these troops are good sometimes bad, this largely depends on top-down political will and bottom-up leadership.

Kofi Annan worked tirelessly as UN Secretary General, he was an idealistic pragmatist. He explicitly called out African leaders to take accountability for the poor functioning of their governments instead of pepetually blaming decolonisation.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and thorough history of UN peacekeeping during the 1990s. Extremely useful to me as a student of International Relations, delving deep into obscure conflicts and peace processes like Cambodia and East Timor. It would be great if Shawcross could revise and update it to include the last decade and a half, but that would perhaps be asking too much.

I docked a star because of the author's overbearing scepticism about peacekeeping in general. This occasionally spills over into a marked pessimism over the internationalist approach, despite what he says in the epilogue, and sometimes seems strangely forced. See p.28 for example, where he refers to NATO as "the rich world's private army". What is he, a second-year undergrad politics student?

Overall though, I'm sure this book will be pulled out from the shelf many a time over the next year.

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fairly solid overview of the 1990s and the work of the United Nations to respond to conflict. Better than most journalist-written books, in that Shawcross seems to have a better understanding of the world, the UN, and conflict, which he should given he probably grew up steeped in politics and international law, but there is still not all that much to differentiate it from the many books out there on the subject. However, it is better than most of the books written by the individual players in the scene, which typically employ a fairly self-serving 1st person narrative without the gripping intensity of say a Richard Holbrooke in To End a War. An overall decent read, but I'd only recommend to someone determined to read everything there is about those conflicts in that period.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up at Border's Bookstor during a lunchbreak from Richard Day Research, a place where I worked for seven years. It was remaindered, so, although new, quite inexpensive. Yugoslavia was much on my mind and this book promised a look at UN peacekeeping efforts there and elsewhere.

What I found was a case-study approach to several peacekeeping efforts, some successful, some not, some mixed in their results. Of most interest was the relative success story of Cambodia--a country about which Shawcross has written before.

[kaylanurul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Internal conflict, especially in Balkan, was never glorious for whatever reason. But in 1999, when all the major were failing behind in the eve of severe humanitarian call from the evil site in Balkan, NATO stepped in and deliver them another hell with bombs. Though the NATO peacekeepers were regarded to successfully stop the war, bomb never really means deliver all the war victims from hell. How peacekeeper should act? that what we need to think after reading this book

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has terrific detail on efforts at humanitarian intervention from Cambodia to East Timor and really sheds light on the reasons for some spectacular failures and modest successes. The conclusions are much weaker than the descriptive portions, unfortunately.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book that launched my honours thesis . . .

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impressive, blunt, and eminently readable account of the complexities of peacekeeping, and the UN