Children at War

by P.W. Singer

Book Overview

From U.S. soldiers having to fight children in Afghanistan and Iraq to juvenile terrorists in Sri Lanka to Palestine, the new, younger face of battle is a terrible reality of 21st century warfare. Indeed, the very first American soldier killed by hostile fire in the "War on Terrorism" was shot by a fourteen-year-old Afghan boy. Children at War is the first comprehensive examination of a disturbing and escalating phenomenon: the use of children as...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520248767
• ISBN13: 9780520248762
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Cheaper wars mean more wars

As far as I know, Singer is the first to point out that child warriors are making possible a new kind of war, a war without ideology or purpose other than taking something someone else has. Adults fight better with a cause and a purpose--children are more easily drugged, brainwashed, and cut off from other support. They can also be far crueler in battle and harder to rehabilitate. Singer points to responses to lessen the problem, but she is far from optimistic.

A Much Needed Work

This is a welcome follow-up to the author's previous work "Corporate Warriors." While each book highlights an emerging and disturbing trend in modern warfare, the practices described in "Children at War" are particularly horrific. Training children as young as 12 to kill without mercy and to be used as cannon fodder to shield adult soldiers sounds like some crazy vision of a dark future. Singer, however, builds a strong case that this dark future is here. It would be easy to blame this on one or two sadistic tyrants, but Singer shows how a confluence of global factors have led to this situation. What to do with these children when the fighting ends, or when they are rescued from a war zone is a challenge that the global community is just beginning to recognize. While the author does what he can to recommend a solution to this problem, there are no obvious solutions. This may not win an award for "Feel Good Book of the Year," but it should be a contender for "Most Important Book of the Year."

Cogently Presented

It's a great that another book has been written on this deeply troubling yet narrowly recognized problem in today's world affairs. The author presents the problem, traces its roots, lists a wealth of examples and statistics, discusses the causes and effects, and proposes solutions while recognizing the difficulties. I hope policy-makers would read this book and recognize the grave consequences that this salient problem would entail if it is not dealt with quickly and effectively.

The Ultimate Child Abuse

This book talks about the active recruitment of children in many areas of the world today. He covers how they are recruited, abducted or conscripted, trained and finally set off to fight in whatever hot spot is active at the moment. The one surprising thing about this book is that it treats this as a new problem. War has always been a young persons game. To read the biographies of woldiers of World War II, a surprising number lied about their age to join the army at fifteen or sixteen years of age. In the American Civil War around 100,000 soldiers were fifteen or younger. A surprising, but unknown number were under ten. The pictures of the end of the Third Reich show young boys greeting Hitler. The first American killed in Afghanistan was shot by a 14 year old sniper. On the other hand, by bringing attention to the fact that our Army will have to face children in the battlefield Dr. Singer may help prepare our forces and our public for the real world.