They Called It Peace

This is a highly original account of how small wars shaped global order in the age of empires where imperial conquest and colonisation 'depended on pervasive raiding, slaving, and plunder.' European empires asserted and justified the right to use unilateral force at their discretion in serial conflicts and armed interventions, creating a state of perpetual war that lasts into our own day. Historically, this involved conquest, dispossession, oppression and even extermination of native peoples, now defined as rebels and insurgents that threaten 'the King's peace' and therefore deserve to be repressed and punished. The author calls this a regime of 'armed peace' whereby empires – most recently the US – defend their imperial and commercial interests through geopolitical destabilisation, covert operations and proxy wars. All this in the name of protection, peacekeeping and order (!), when in fact it is driving injustice, inequality and racism. The book is one of impressive historical sweep, with its provocative thesis relating to the role of small wars 'endemic to a global order of unequal power.' We can no longer afford to regard limited war as a lesser evil, but should instead 'say no to war, at any scale.' (p. 198) This of course raises more general questions of the role of violence, the projection of evil on enemies, and the patriarchal over-militarisation of the so-called great powers – for a notable reflection on these matters, see the 1970 Nobel lecture by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.