Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond - Hardcover

For a decade, Michael Ignatieff has provided eyewitness accounts and penetrating analyses from the world's battle zones. In Virtual War, he describes the latest phase in modern combat: war fought by remote control. In 'real' war, nations are mobilised, soldiers fight and die, victories are won. In virtual war, however, there is often no formal declaration of hostilities, the combatants are strike pilots and computer programmers, the nation enlists as a TV audience, and instead of defeat and victory there is only an uncertain endgame.
Kosovo was such a virtual war; a war in which US and NATO forces did the fighting but only Kosovars and Serbs did the dying. Ignatieff examines the conflict through the eyes of key players - politicians, diplomats, and generals - and through the experience of the victims, the refugees and civilians who suffered. As unrest continues in the Balkans, East Timor, and other places around the world, Ignatieff raises the troubling possibility that virtual wars, so much easier to fight, could become the way superpowers impose their will in the century ahead.

Michael Ignatieff is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He is the author of many acclaimed books, including Blood and Belonging, Isaiah Berlin, and The Warrior's Honor. He lives in London.