David Keen has a profoundly interesting outside take on violence. He rejects explanations based on "evil, chaos, and tribal enmity" as tautological to re-describe war as a functional system, and on the relationships between great powers, NGOs, and the residents of conflict and disaster ravaged regions as a self-perpetuating logic of violence that enables small groups of economic and political winners to thrive at the expense of the great mass of people.

For Keen, nothing is simple; nothing does precisely what it says on the tin and nothing more; everything is a matter of feedback loops and hidden alliances. The basic pattern of his war is a conflict between different bands of elites and populists in a Third World country, a necessary reaction against decades of unequal development. Both rebels and the government may enjoy benefits from an ongoing State of Emergency. Famine, atrocity, and genocide are tactics to transfer land and legitimacy from one group to another. NGO and aid programs have little review, little strategy, and may not in fact alleviate any real harms. Most provocatively, Keen sees a cycle of humiliation, and of preemptively demonstrating one's relevance to broader society, as the spark for these conflicts.

Keen's evidence is based on a wide scan of the atrocities of the late 20th century, with a particular focus on African wars (Sierra Leone, the Congo War, Sudan), but also the Balkans, Guatemala, and Cambodia. I wish there had been a little more systematic analysis, or contextualization of these conflicts. While I'm sure Keen knows his material, I'm only vaguely familiar with most of the wars, and I'd hesitate to build even an advanced undergraduate class around this book.

Finally, while it is good to be aware of the way that you're language and categories bias your response, to want more integrated policy, and a renewed focus on disarmament and post-conflict issues, "everything is complex" is not a cry to rally around. It's a weak response to "There are bad guys, and there are innocents, and we're killing bad guys and protecting the victims." The logic of humanitarian interventionism has a momentum of its own, and complexity and contingency is not firm enough to stand against calls to "do something now."