December 17 - Leashing the Dogs Wins Award
Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World received an Outstanding Academic Title Award by the library journal CHOICE. The Institute congratulates the volume’s editors Chester A. Crocker, member of USIP's board of directors; Fen Osler Hampson, former senior fellow; and Pamela Aall, vice president for domestic programs in the Education and Training Center, and its esteemed contributors on this exceptional achievement.

"This is a massive collection of authoritative and insightful essays by an impressive slate of well known scholars and practitioners in the conflict management field. Forty-two authors contributed 37 chapters to this volume. A full discussion of the scope and depth of these analyses is precluded by space constraints. Nevertheless, the volume wonderfully blends attention to both the theory and practice of interstate and intrastate conflict and conflict management. Contributors examine the major causes of contemporary violence and trends, the role of diplomacy, coercive diplomacy, force, and international law and institutions in conflict management, and draw practical lessons for facing the daunting challenges of state stabilization and nation building. The volume also contains several insightful and critical discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of democracy promotion for curbing armed conflict and terrorism. The ongoing conflict in Iraq and the rise of al-Qaeda and global militia and insurgent forces instigated this study. The persistence of these challenges makes this volume an important benchmark for studying and understanding the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and pitfalls of conflict management in the 21st century. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and practitioners."
—CHOICE
Reprinted with permission from CHOICE, copyright by the American Library Association.

The United States Institute of Peace releases the latest volume in its ongoing series on contemporary conflict. Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World, edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall, is a follow up to their landmark 2001 work Turbulent Peace, which has become a leading classroom text in the study of conflict resolution. Recognizing the significance of changes in the international relations climate, the editors developed this volume to present new perspectives on how best to prevent, manage, or resolve conflicts. Together with forty of the most influential and innovative analysts of international affairs, they provide the latest thinking, practice and research in the field of international relations and conflict resolution.

Leashing the Dogs of War assesses the nature and extent of the changes wrought by 9/11 and its aftermath, and explores their wide-ranging implications. This volume begins with the question of whether it is possible to fight war and manage conflict at the same time. Looking at the combination of old and new threats, are traditional instruments of negotiation, mediation, peacekeeping and peace enforcement still effective in managing and resolving conflict? How do conflict management efforts and the campaign against terrorism interact in various security environments?

A key consideration in the book is whether powerful states and international organizations can simultaneously conduct a war on terrorism and conflict management policies in zones of conflict. The war on terrorism and the consequences of U.S.-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have changed the global playing field in a serious way. The 1990s dilemmas of humanitarian intervention and peacemaking are now joined by increasingly salient questions about how to effectively pursue nation building and democratization processes in states that are internally divided, capacity deficient, and conflict ridden. U.S.-led interventions to topple unfriendly regimes have also underscored the finite uses of military power and the importance of identifying other instruments to restore political order.

Addressing all of these questions and more in this volume, the editors offer optimism to all and conclude that peacemaking and conflict management are central for creating a less divided, less conflicted world—no matter the complexities and, at times, high odds against success. The book provides ample evidence that the international community—both its leading official actors and its nonofficial components—can check hostile adversaries of the international order and make peace at the same time. 

About the Editors

Chester A. Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at Georgetown University where his teaching and research focus on conflict management and regional security issues. He served as chairman of the board of the United States Institute of Peace (1992-2004), and continues as a member of its board. From 1981-1989, he was U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs. As such, he was the principal diplomatic architect and mediator in the prolonged negotiations among Angola, Cuba, and South Africa that led to Namibia’s transition to independence, and to the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola. He serves on the boards of ASA Ltd., a NYSE-listed, closed-end fund focused on gold mining; Universal Corporation, Inc., a leading independent trading company in tobacco, agricultural and lumber products; Good Governance Group Ltd; and First Africa Holdings Ltd. He serves on the advisory board of the National Defense University in Washington. Dr. Crocker is the author of High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood, co-author (with Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall) of Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases, and coeditor of Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict; Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict; and Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World.

Fen Osler Hampson is professor of international affairs and director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. Hampson was a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in 1993-94. He is chair of the Human Security Track of the Helsinki Process on Globalization and Democracy, a joint initiative of the governments of Finland and Tanzania.

Pamela R. Aall is the Institute's vice president for domestic programs, Education and Training Center. Before joining the Institute in 1993, she was a consultant to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and to the Institute of International Education. She held a number of positions at the Rockefeller Foundation. She has also worked for the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam and Brussels), the International Council for Educational Development (New York), and the New York Botanical Garden.