This book provides a comprehensive overview of urban warfare in a variety of cities across the globe. The breadth of examples speaks to the strength of this book, particularly for teaching undergraduate-level courses. Each chapter provides a general summary of urban locations beset by social and geopolitical conflicts while focusing on the impact of violence on specific cities and their residents.
Each chapter not only addresses the themes of war and insecurity but also elucidates the importance of place and the uniqueness of local experiences and responses to those themes. Some chapters examine people who have worked toward reducing violence in their communities. For example, Florian Weigand’s chapter on Kabul and Farza, Afghanistan, and Karen Büscher’s chapter on Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, illustrate the differential experiences of conflict and the various ways in which residents work with or resist the escalation of violence within their communities. These chapters challenge conventional and stereotypical narratives about conflict zones, while underscoring the ways in which individuals cope with the daily onslaught of uncertainty and insecurity that occurs even in places of relative peace that are adjacent to sites of continual conflict.
In the chapter on Bogotá, Colombia, Rieken, Garicía-Sánchez, and Bear take a multiscalar approach to understanding the various complexities and complications of security in this city. This chapter challenges conventional structures and material expressions of security (i.e., walls, checkpoints, guards, and enclaves) by focusing on community approaches that seek integration among citizens as a means to provide security for one another. The authors focus on public transportation as a key site for citizen responsibility. Even though transportation reform remains mired in bureaucracy and is limited by available funding, the authors argue that the approaches initiated by citizens should be incorporated into larger policy-driven and governmental initiatives to ensure urban security.
The theme of spatial separation and marginalization and community-driven efforts to ensure resident security is further explored in Sobia Ahmad Kaker’s chapter on Karachi. Although Karachi is beset upon by geopolitical conflict, the physical, social, and economic separation of groups in the city has created enclaves that “generate extreme marginalization and vulnerability of the urban poor” in the face of violence from the state and elites (p. 138). Through detailed accounts of urban poverty, Kaker identifies how spatial exclusion requires poor communities to develop methods for ensuring their own security, which she argues remains both a “self-perpetuating and a self-defeating” method of citizen protection (p. 156).
Novi Pazar is a city in the region of Sandzak, Serbia, which is a site of legal and governmental exception, located at the intersections of the independent states of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo and formed in the aftermath of the ethnically charged Yugoslavian conflict. The chapter’s author, Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic, examines Novi Pazar as an example of the failures of state intervention expressed through an extensive lack of economic and basic resources. This chapter further emphasizes the toxic mix of urban conflict and neoliberal marketization, which has caused the city to exist—as the chapter’s title states—“on the margins of all margins.” The insecurity in this city is however, challenged by citizens who remain resilient and hopeful for an improved economic future, and it has thus far not devolved into interethnic conflict.
Ali Ali’s chapter on Baghdad illustrates, with exceptional detail, how spatial exclusions prevent residents from having the ability to avoid conflict and access basic resources. He notes that the conflict in Baghdad has “systematically discarded” various individuals and groups. The complex narrative of Adnaan in this chapter provides a poignant and harrowing story of displacement and being discarded. Adnaan, who worked with US forces, was later viewed by the Iraqi state as a criminal. Despite his attempts to get their support, the US military refused to intervene on his behalf or that of his fellow collaborators. This chapter illustrates the underreported issue of individuals living in war zones who are caught between the geopolitics of warring factions and shifting allegiances, without a clear path or resolution. Ali further highlights the many missteps of the US military, including its lack of local engagement and its ineffective attempts to fully include, work with, and support civilians, particularly those who assisted US military operations.
Ruben Andersson’s chapter on Bamako, Mali, includes an important critique of UN peacekeeping operations by examining their arms-length or “remote” methods. Local residents rarely view the UN peacekeepers and staff as helpful. Instead they are viewed as working for their own financial benefit, while expressing neither interest in nor action toward effectively assisting or ensuring peace for the local population. By highlighting the spatial divisions between international peacekeepers and the local population they are purported to protect, Andersson renders visible the unequal methods of security between locals and internationals. For example, international workers are provided comfortable accommodations within highly fortified compounds, while civilians remain physically vulnerable to violence. This further illustrates the ways in which spatial divisions increase rather than counter mistrust between locals and UN peacekeepers.
Mary Martin also examines spatial divisions in her chapter on both Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. She brilliantly highlights the ways in which the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has been operationalized at the US-Mexico border and how Juárez moved from being a major economic exporting zone to a place that was viewed as threatening to the United States. Martin discusses the history of the border and GWOT as significant for how the border has been shaped by geographies of border violence and economic extraction.
The book’s editors, Mary Kaldor and Saskia Sassen, have put together a remarkable assortment of chapters with exceptional editorial organization and analyses. The introduction provides a meticulous overview of new wars and urban conflicts, while underscoring the multiple ways in which places and people experience insecurity and spatial marginalization. The conclusion provides a concise overview of the chapters and highlights the strategic uses of urban spaces for conflictual geopolitical purposes. The editors also remind readers that actions associated with the GWOT should not be viewed or analyzed without understanding local and contextual issues and violence that include criminality, poverty, resource loss, and ethnic divisions.
This book is largely descriptive without significant or deep engagements with political theory, which makes this a superb choice for undergraduate teaching. I would highly recommend this book for undergraduate classes in a variety of subject areas such as Political Science, Political Geography, Urban Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, and Development Studies. Additionally, this book is a must read for policy makers, particularly in the United States: several chapters point out the missteps and ancillary consequences of US military operations throughout the globe, while including insightful suggestions for government decision makers.
