The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace

October 21, 2010 • 2:00 – 3:30 pm EDT

The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon
Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace

by
Lieutenant Colonel Shannon D. Beebe
Senior Africa Analyst, Office of the United States Army Deputy Chief of Staff, intelligence

Professor Mary Kaldor
Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science

Thursday, October 21, 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
1800 K Street, NW, CSIS 4CR Conference Center

Moderated by Ashley E. Chandler of the CSIS Project on Prosperity and Development, with introductory comments by Robert D. Lamb, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow of the CSIS Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project

About the book

Twentieth-century security involved defined conflicts and clear-cut foes. The problems facing the U.S. now are no longer state-based and the goals no longer so obvious; the fight against Al Qaeda, not Afghanistan. Beebe and Kaldor contend that the use of force alone is no longer effective in making the world safer.

“Due to advances in communication and the increasing availability of destructive weapons, it is clear that the security of Western societies is connected to the security of populations where terrorist threats originate. The authors trace the problem of terrorism and other threats to international security to a lack of human security. They argue convincingly that the preventing violence requires addressing the conditions that lead to violence. Their argument that a human security paradigm should serve as the basis for policy and strategy is important and is certain to generate valuable discussion and debate.”

– H. R. McMaster, Brigadier General, U.S. army, and author of Dereliction of Duty

“The authors clarify the complex demands of human security, threatened as it is by a great variety of adversities – from disease and penury to violence and tyranny. The book is a significant contribution to a necessary understanding of the human predicament in our time.”

– Amartya Sen, professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard University and Nobel Prize-winner

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Robert D. Lamb

Robert D. Lamb

Former Senior Associate (Non-resident), International Security Program