Rosa Brooks: The Future of War II - War Bursts its Boundaries - Counting the Costs

This event was recorded on 15 March 2016 at the IWM Library.
How do new wars challenge the regulations laid down in international law?
In 2016, American law professor Rosa Brooks gave the IWM Lectures on Human Sciences on “The Future of War”. Brooks, who teaches at Georgetown University and is affiliated with West Point’s Modern War Institute, offered a striking description of these transformations: “War is bursting its boundaries,” she argued. Until recently, society-and law-maintained multiple boundaries between the state of war, where a degree of brutality was temporarily accepted, and the state of peace. In the era of new wars, however, these dichotomies are blurred. New wars are fueled by new technologies, drones in particular. Drones enable the state to kill people in undisclosed locations for undisclosed reasons. Therefore, as Brooks reminded us in her second lecture, we should “count the costs”: acts of “targeted killing” raise serious moral, political and legal issues.
Further information:
www.iwm.at/