Law, science, liberalism and the American way of warfare: the quest for humanity in conflict. By Stephanie Carvin and Michael John Williams

Abstract

Law, science, liberalism and the American way of warfare: the quest for humanity in conflict. By Stephanie Carvin and Michael John Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2015. 224pp. Index. £55.00. ISBN 978 1 10706 717 2. Available as e-book. This slim yet comprehensive and nicely written volume interrogates how the United States sees the balance between liberty and security during armed conflict. By examining how America has fought wars, the book identifies notions of liberalism, security through victory, restraint through law, and technological science as critical to the US approach. So, as we shall see, the legal-scientific drone approach to warfare aims to balance the need for overwhelming force with humanitarian concern by employing science, and it is this balance that asymmetric opponents are seeking to challenge—but I get ahead of myself. Set against a discussion of the influence of other warfare traditions back to and including the ancient Greeks, Stephanie Carvin and Michael John Williams correctly note that there is nothing inevitably superior about what is now a universal western approach to warfare. Recognizing the centrality of mass in the US conception of war as a means to an end, the book traces the concepts and techniques underpinning fighting methods from the hoplite to modern technologies. Science, discipline, societal and industrial change and evolving law are all added to the mix. Unsurprisingly, therefore, history, science, law, technology and western traditions emerge as the basis for the American way of warfare's emphasis on overwhelming force and speedy, legitimately achieved victory. The Enlightenment, liberalism and democracy all feature appropriately in this well-researched, nicely balanced book, which notes the importance of getting the nasty business of war over with quickly (pp. 62–3).