From U.S. soldiers having to fight children in Afghanistan and Iraq to juvenile terrorists in Sri Lanka to Palestine, the new, younger face of battle is a terrible reality of 21st century warfare. Indeed, the very first American soldier killed by hostile fire in the “War on Terrorism” was shot by a fourteen-year-old Afghan boy. Children at War is the first comprehensive examination of a disturbing and escalating phenomenon: the use of children as soldiers around the globe. Interweaving explanatory narrative with the voices of child soldiers themselves, P.W. Singer, an internationally recognized expert in modern warfare, introduces the brutal reality of conflict, where children are sent off to fight in war-torn hotspots from Colombia and the Sudan to Kashmir and Sierra Leone. He explores the evolution of this phenomenon, how and why children are recruited, indoctrinated, trained, and converted to soldiers and then lays out the consequences for global security, with a special case study on terrorism. With this established, he lays out the responses that can end this horrible practice. What emerges is not only a compelling and clarifying read on the darker reality of modern warfare, but also a clear and urgent call for action.

Part I Children at War
1 Children and War
2 It's a Small World After All: Child Soldiers Around the Globe

Part II The Process and Results of Child Soldiers
3 The Underlying Causes
4 How Children Are Recruited into War
5 Turning a Child into a Soldier
6 The Implications of Children on the Battlefield
7 The New Children of Terror

Part III Responding to the Child Soldier Problem
8 Preventing Child Soldiers
9 Fighting Children
10 Turning a Soldier Back into a Child
11 Looking Ahead

Appendix Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict
Notes
Index

“Their accounts, written first in lesson books and later transcribed to computers, have been skillfully put together . . . [and] the result is both fascinating and immediate.”—Caroline Moorehead, New York Review of Books

“Nowhere else is there a more compact, compelling portrait of this devastating problem that the world must not ignore.”—Christian Science Monitor

“P.W. Singer's eye-opening book serves as a platform to reassess perceptions of modern warfare. In it, he expresses truths that most people would hesitate to mention. . . .Overall, it's more than an interesting read—it’s an invaluable resource for the long term.”—The Washingtonian

“Groundbreaking and comprehensive . . . activists will be aided by the diligent research and reasoned analysis provided by Singer’s study.”—Publishers Weekly

“Fascinating. . . . [A] heartfelt, valuable book. . . . Singer has gathered his evidence masterfully."—New York Post

“Children at War is a brave and important book, and an impressive cataloging of a horrible, and surprisingly modern, problem.”—The New York Sun

"Children at War is not a book about numbers. It is the tragic story of a violent world and the desperate choices people are forced to make; it is an illuminating study of policy and the choices that face the international community."—St. Louis Post Dispatch