Abstract
Contra Elias’ (1937) presumption of a civilising process, rather than the two world wars of the twentieth century and their consequences provoking human beings into looking for different ways of resolving their differences, wars, conflicts, and genocidal behaviours continue to be a routine, everyday experience for many people across the globe. As noted in the comments of Shaw (1991) and Baudrillard (1991) relating to the 1991 Gulf War and commented on in the introduction to this Handbook, the nature, practice, and knowledge of such conflicts may indeed have changed their shape, form, and locus. Evidenced in the contemporary use of remotely controlled drones to deliver fatal blows to a distant enemy, war is now frequently—but not exclusively—fought remotely and at a distance. However, the costs to those targeted in this way remain the same: injury, death, and destruction of homes and infrastructure. These costs are visually self-evident but there are other costs, for example, to economies. As illustration, Bilmes (2013) has estimated that the projected financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the USA alone stand in the region of four to six trillion dollars. Hagan et al. (2012) further suggest that the economic costs to Iraq (borne predominantly by the Sunni groups) amount to around 239 billion dollars. If it were possible to add to these figures the costs on a global scale, not only of the impacts of war but also of the various investments made by different economies to the production of weapons, military personnel, and so on, it would be very difficult not to agree with Bourke (2015: 1) that ‘we are a warring people’. Whilst Bourke (2015) is talking primarily of the UK and the USA, it is an observation that carries weight above and beyond these particular nations. Thus, the ‘costs’ of war alone suggest an important agenda for the social sciences. At the conclusion of this Handbook the question remains: What does such an agenda imply for criminology?
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Walklate, S., McGarry, R. (2016). Conclusion: Taking Account of War, Making It Count. In: McGarry, R., Walklate, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43170-7_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43170-7_24
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