Overview

The book will inform Westerners about how the three primary Asian religions facilitate violence and conflict. Each of the three Asian religions selected, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto, is defined and compared with the others and with the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Next these Asian religions are analyzed to see how each allows for violence and conflict. Then the nature of religious conflict within them is compared to the nature of religious conflict within two of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam). Religious-facilitated conflicts in Asia have already occurred for many centuries, are occurring today, and likely will continue to occur. Although Asian religions may profess to be peaceful, they still end up facilitating violence and conflict. It is important to enlighten both the American members of the armed forces currently stationed in the Asia-Pacific region (numbering over one hundred thousand) as well as American taxpayers, whose taxes pay for this security regarding the religious aspect of conflict in Asia.

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9781666743111

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Reviews

In clear, concise, and taut prose, Schwalbe's analysis of how the values and philosophic underpinnings of the great religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto shape the motivations and expression of conflict amongst their adherents provides essential guidance for military, diplomatic, and intelligence professionals deploying to South and East Asia as well as more casual readers interested in understanding conflict in Asia. Recommended for the national-security workforce and its professional-development programs. --Gary Schaub Jr., University of Copenhagen The results of fundamentalist thinking, self-justifying proof-texting, and promulgating decontextualized teachings taking form in such horrors as acts of terrorism, state-sanctioned murder and genocide, and wholesale international warfare are made plain in Schwalbe's analysis. This volume . . . has yielded an important and useful handbook in understanding how such rhetoric seeks and finds divine permission within Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto. Herein is provided an important treatment of a difficult and controversial topic, and Schwalbe is to be commended for his efforts! --Phillip A. Bernhardt-House, Skagit Valley College

Author Information

Stephen R. Schwalbe is an adjunct professor at Columbia College. Formerly, he was a professor at the Air War College and American Public University. During his thirty-four-year career in the US Air Force, he served as the assistant defense intelligence officer for the Middle East and terrorism, air attaché to South Korea, air attaché to Jordan, and inspection director for the Department of Defense inspector general.

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