Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism (review)

Although David M. Rosen is not a historian of children, or even a historian, at one level this book is a model of how to write the histories of children and youth: it integrates them into the larger cultural, political, and economic contexts that shape their lives. Rosen recognizes them as actors in those events rather than simply victims. And although he limits his research mainly to secondary and selected primary sources, the points of view of children and youth clearly emerge.

Rosen, an anthropologist, has worked and lived in Israel, Palestine, and Africa, which adds a sense of personal investment and a moral center to his narrative. Nevertheless, although he clearly shares many observers’ outrage over the use of child soldiers and the atrocities committed by those same child soldiers, he places them in important contexts that make their experiences more understandable if no less horrific. Rather than focusing simply on the actual experiences of children in war, he shows how their participation was, in some ways, inevitable, given the dynamics of the times and places in which they lived. His three case studies cover the intersection of developing attitudes about children and youth with the rise of violent political and ethnic conflicts in 1940s Poland, 1990s Sierra Leone, and contemporary Palestine.

Many Jewish resistance fighters in Poland came out of the radical Zionist youth organizations of the 1920s and 1930s. Refusing to succumb to Nazi persecution without a fight, they carried out brutal ambushes and assassinations. In Sierra Leone, the desperate economic situation of the 1990s, combined with the region’s long-time economic exploitation of children and youth, the glorification among young men of violent gangs, and manipulation by politicians of college and youth organizations, created a perfect storm of terror that devastated the country and made thousands of young men and a few women into brutal killers or their victims. As in Sierra Leone, the participation of Arab children in the ethnic violence and warfare that has plagued Palestine since the 1920s came out of the politicization of youth movements, which in this case was encouraged by the rise of an apocalyptic religious movement unwilling to share Palestine with the Jews. In all three areas, Rosen attempts to delineate the experiences of males and females. The latter were often victims, but also, to a lesser degree, participants in the militarization of youth.

Interestingly, although Rosen has a clear moral purpose in writing this book, he does not really distinguish between the motivations of young freedom fighters struggling against Nazis, planning terrorist attacks, or operating on behalf of African war lords. His purpose is not to decide whether or not the children and youth he describes are fighting for worthy causes. Rather, he seeks to understand the forces that pull them into these conflicts. At the center of Armies of the Young is a chilling account of the agency of youth—that quality that historians eagerly seek when studying the past lives of the youngest members of our societies. In the case of young Polish Jews, for instance, even as their doomed lives narrowed, they “struggled to control their own identity and destiny. . . . If they were almost certain to die, they wanted to die under circumstances of their own choosing. They wanted to die in a way that would give meaning to their lives. As soldiers, children and youth fighters made it clear that they would be killed with dignity” (55). Similar manifestations of agency appeared in Sierra Leone and Palestine.

This is a short but powerful book with the potential to reshape the ways in which child soldiers are re-integrated into their communities and held responsible for their own actions. Taken at that level, the book is a great success. But as a work of scholarship a couple of small issues warrant comment. Although Rosen is quite good at providing brief, effective summaries of complicated legal issues and...