Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo

IPI recently held a panel discussion to launch the new book, Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo, by Peter Andreas. IPI Senior Adviser John Hirsch chaired the event, which featured remarks by author Peter Andreas, while discussants Phil Williams of the US Army War College and James Cockayne of IPI reflected on the valuable contribution the book makes to our understanding of contemporary urban warfare.

Blue Helmets and Black Markets traces the interaction between formal front-stage and informal backstage activities during the 1992-1995 battle for Sarajevo, arguing that this created and sustained a criminalized war economy and prolonged the conflict in a manner that served various interests on all sides. The book concludes with a comparison of the battle for Sarajevo with the sieges of Leningrad, Grozny, Srebrenica, and, more recently, Falluja, Iraq.

Peter Andreas, Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008).

Chair
Amb. John Hirsch, Senior Adviser, International Peace Institute

Speaker
Prof. Peter Andreas, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Brown University

Discussants
Prof. Phil Williams, Visiting Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College

Mr. James Cockayne, Associate, International Peace Institute

Slide show: Image 1 of 8
Photo Credits: Joe Peoples
Panelists, from left, Mr. James Cockayne, Associate, IPI; Prof. Peter Andreas, author, Blue Helmets and Black Markets; Amb. John Hirsch, Senior Adviser, IPI; and Prof. Phil Williams, Visiting Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College.