To Stop a Warlord

What would you do if you discovered that one man’s cruelty was destroying the lives of thousands of innocent children—and no government seemed able to stop him? In To Stop a Warlord, Shannon Sedgwick Davis, the CEO of the Bridgeway Foundation, invites you into her decade-long journey to combat Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), one of the most brutal terrorist groups of modern history. Davis argues that moral outrage alone is never enough—you must translate compassion into bold, creative action, even when the solution challenges conventional boundaries between humanitarianism and military intervention.

Through her story, Davis contends that ordinary people can help dismantle extraordinary evil. Her mission combines advocacy, diplomacy, and a deeply unconventional partnership between the Ugandan military, private donors, and humanitarian organizations to stop Kony’s reign of terror. At its core, the book explores a single question: how far should we go to stop injustice?

From Compassion to Action

When the book opens, Davis is a mother living in Texas, balancing newborn colic and conference calls from war zones. A report from Human Rights Watch on the LRA’s Christmas massacres jolts her into a powerful realization: humanitarian aid alone won't protect people from mass atrocities. Bandages can’t heal bullet holes if the violence never stops. Her organization, Bridgeway Foundation, shifts from funding traditional relief projects to exploring how to actually stop the perpetrators—including military action when necessary. She partners with activists like Laren Poole from Invisible Children and builds networks spanning governments and nonprofits to locate and capture Kony.

The Moral Crossroads of Force and Grace

Davis’s journey forces you to look at the moral tensions between pacifism and intervention. Can a peace worker fund a military operation? Should humanitarian organizations ever collaborate with armies? Davis concludes that in a world where evil acts persist, sometimes peace requires courage to act outside comfort zones. She emphasizes that grace and justice are not opposites—they are partners. Her evolution echoes the struggles of global leaders like Archbishop Desmond Tutu (also a mentor in the book), who remind her that silence in the face of evil is itself a form of complicity (a theme inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

A Collaborative Model for Change

Across Central Africa, Davis experiments with a new model: a fusion of public-private partnerships. Amid bureaucratic inertia from governments and the UN, her team trains Ugandan forces with guidance from Eeben Barlow’s private military company STTEP International. They also establish innovative communication networks—like high-frequency radios—to give civilians real-time warnings of approaching attacks. This dual model of military precision and humanitarian empathy becomes the backbone of their strategy.

Heroes of Justice

Throughout the book, Davis honors the courage of local heroes like David Ocitti, who survived abduction by the LRA, watched his parents murdered, and transformed his trauma into activism. His stories offer a human lens on unimaginable cruelty—and on resilience, redemption, and the possibility of forgiveness. Their work stands as proof that peace building must begin from within communities, not just from outside aid. (The book’s structure alternates between Davis’s chapters and Ocitti’s narratives, creating a layered dialogue between Western and African perspectives.)

What the Book Teaches You

Ultimately, To Stop a Warlord shows that fighting injustice requires both systems and souls: institutions to intervene and individuals to risk love over fear. Davis’s story blends thriller-like urgency with spiritual introspection, reminding you that every act of courage—whether donating, rescuing, or forgiving—contributes to humanity’s collective redemption. You discover that the fight against evil is never only about enemies; it’s about discovering the strength to protect what is good and sacred in all of us.

Sedgwick Davis begins her awakening with the painful recognition that global indifference enables brutality. Reports of Joseph Kony’s atrocities—children abducted as soldiers and sex slaves, villages wiped out—are ignored by mainstream media and overlooked by geopolitical interests. The realization triggers a question that you may ask yourself: how many lives are lost because evil doesn’t matter to the powerful? Davis’s discovery mirrors the lesson from Samantha Power’s A Problem from Hell, which shows how bureaucracies often fail to stop genocides until it’s too late.

When Knowing Isn’t Enough

For years, humanitarian patterns focused on aftermath: feeding refugees, rebuilding schools, restoring order after violence. Davis argues that these efforts “treat the symptoms” while the disease—armed cruelty—survives. Her metaphor, “Band-Aids on bullet holes,” captures the futility of response without prevention. She turns indifference into data, describing failed UN and Ugandan interventions where coordination and courage ran out. You see how systemic inertia—fear of controversy, political laziness, and moral fatigue—costs thousands of lives.

Motherhood as Moral Compass

Motherhood becomes Davis’s lens for empathy. When she comforts her colicky infant while reading reports of murdered children, she confronts a painful duality: the comfort of home against others’ horror. This juxtaposition catalyzes her decision to move from passive empathy to active engagement. She equates the act of mothering—protecting vulnerable life—with the global duty to act collectively when children are endangered by war.

From Anger to Accountability

Anger, Davis believes, must be transformed into responsibility. Instead of blaming governments, she chooses to collaborate with them. Her foundation funds research partners like Human Rights Watch and aids investigation teams collecting evidence for the International Criminal Court. Yet, she soon learns that legal warrants are meaningless when they cannot be enforced. Kony remains a phantom. Justice becomes an abstraction—not a reality—until people decide to move beyond politics and act.

Powerful insight

You cannot outsource morality. Systems do not save people—humans do. Davis’s awakening marks the transformation of compassion from sentiment into strategy.

In the book’s central chapters, Davis pioneers an unprecedented collaboration among military, humanitarian, and private actors. She describes this as “betting the farm”—risking resources, reputations, and personal safety. The resulting coalition includes the Ugandan army, US Special Forces, Invisible Children, and her own Bridgeway Foundation. Their goal is simple but daunting: locate and apprehend Joseph Kony, then dismantle the LRA’s operations spread across four countries.

The Practical Challenge

Operating in Central Africa meant navigating dense jungles, poor infrastructure, and diplomatic red tape. Davis recounts how even basic coordination—fueling helicopters, obtaining GPS data—depended on cross-border cooperation among armies that barely trusted each other. The failure of earlier operations (like Operation Lightning Thunder in 2008) taught her that pure military force without intelligence or community trust ended in tragedy. To succeed, alliances had to span disciplines and moral languages: soldiers needed empathy; activists needed strategy.

Training Peace through Capacity

With support from strategist Laren Poole and South African contractor Eeben Barlow, Bridgeway funds the training of the Ugandan Special Operations Group (SOG). Soldiers learn high-level countertracking, humanitarian protocols, and even human rights law—a radical idea in a region where militaries often carry records of abuse. This program creates what Davis calls “warriors of peace”: disciplined fighters who operate to protect, not exploit, civilians. (Comparable models appear later in Greg Mortenson’s Stones into Schools, where education becomes a form of defense against violence.)

Partnerships that Defy Convention

Davis’s coalition tests the boundaries of philanthropy. It forces donors to confront whether private money can support military effectiveness ethically. Her answer is yes, if the motive is humanitarian protection, not aggression. This model later influences other peace operations, demonstrating that flexible, multi-sector leadership can move faster than bureaucracy. Her experiment represents a critical evolution in global activism—from charity to strategy, from empathy to impact.

One of the most powerful layers of To Stop a Warlord comes from the alternating chapters told through the voice of David Ocitti, an LRA survivor. His childhood story mirrors the terror experienced by thousands. At age sixteen, rebels invaded his family’s village, forcing him to choose between his mother and father before murdering his father in front of him. Davis uses his narrative as the emotional spine of the book, showing how the human cost of war drives moral innovation.

Endurance and Empowerment

David’s survival is a guide to reclaiming agency. Abducted children endured psychological torture, forced killings, and indoctrination. Yet, his later decision to found “Peace Clubs” in Uganda demonstrates the triumph of humanity over hatred. These clubs give former child soldiers and their communities space to talk openly about trauma—a revolutionary act in cultures of silence. Davis portrays David as proof that healing isn’t passive; it’s an act of leadership. His forgiveness redefines victory.

The Power of Peace Traditions

Through Ugandan reconciliation rituals like Mato Oput—drinking bitter herbs to symbolize shared pain—Davis shows how ancient customs help restore morality where law fails. These rituals invoke community accountability without vengeance, a restorative framework echoing global thinkers like Nelson Mandela and restorative justice advocates (compare to Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy). Peace thus becomes cultural, not merely political.

Forgiveness as Resistance

The paradox of forgiveness permeates the book: how can victims forgive perpetrators who destroyed their families? For Davis and Ocitti, forgiveness is not weakness; it is survival. It transforms pain into participation, allowing former victims to join the effort to free others. The recurring image—of mothers embracing returning sons once abducted—symbolizes grace reborn. Davis argues that if humanity can learn this level of compassion, we can rebuild trust even after the worst harms.

Davis’s spiritual transformation is central to the book’s emotional depth. A committed Christian and humanitarian lawyer, she wrestles with whether violent resistance can align with faith. Her mentors—Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Gary Haugen (founder of International Justice Mission)—help her see that compassion sometimes requires confrontation. Haugen tells her, “If we’re going to rid the world of injustice, there must be people as committed to justice as perpetrators are to wrong.”

Moral Pragmatism

Davis learns that faith isn’t avoidance; it’s endurance. Her prayer to Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes, symbolizes the ethereal patience required for moral work. Spiritual principles transform into operational ethics: soldiers must protect hostages rather than kill enemies, interventions must seek to restore life rather than revenge it. This redefines religious activism—not proselytism but presence.

The “Iron Lady from Texas”

Ugandan officials nickname Davis the “Iron Lady from Texas.” The label reflects her resilience but also her contradictions—compassion woven with steel. Her moral struggle echoes philosophical dilemmas discussed in Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society: the need to confront collective evil with collective strength. Davis’s ethical balance—grace and resolve—teaches you that love does not mean surrender.

Faith Without Naivety

As Davis witnesses betrayal, logistical failure, and the haunting emptiness of Kony’s abandoned camp, her faith shifts from certainty to courage. When Operation Merlin collapses, she asks through tears, “God, where are you?” Her mother reminds her of Micah 6:8: act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. That verse becomes her new mission statement—a practical theology for interventionists confronting doubt without giving up hope.

Beyond strategy, Davis emphasizes a leadership model grounded in presence—a recurring theme since her early humanitarian experience in Turkey. Presence means showing up when others retreat, listening before acting, and using compassion as a form of intelligence. She learns that affected communities know their realities best, and global interventions fail when outsiders don’t listen. (This insight parallels Paul Farmer’s principle of “accompaniment” in Pathologies of Power.)

Deep Listening

From her work with Human Rights Watch’s Ida Sawyer to collaborations with local priests like Abbé Benoît, Davis demonstrates the practice of deep listening: letting others lead. When communities create warning networks, they reclaim power from fear. This leadership doesn’t impose—it amplifies. Davis often insists that “heroes are local,” shifting focus from Western interventions to African agency.

Shared Risk and Shared Reward

Her decisions—funding helicopters, sending pilots into red zones—embody shared risk. Team members like Laren Poole contract malaria repeatedly; soldiers die securing peace. Davis uses their sacrifices to critique comfortable philanthropy that measures success only in metrics. Leadership, she explains, is being uncomfortable for someone else’s comfort. It’s choosing courage when the stakes are human lives, not financial portfolios.

Ubuntu: I Am Because We Are

In her closing chapters, Davis invokes Archbishop Tutu’s concept of ubuntu—our shared humanity. Presence, in this sense, is both moral and practical: it sustains empathy, fuels endurance, and replaces isolation with community. Davis’s leadership philosophy encourages you to look at your own circles of influence—family, neighborhood, organization—and ask: where can I show up with courage today?

The book’s conclusion reframes the definition of success. Joseph Kony remains at large, but the mass killing stopped, and hundreds of captives were freed. Davis views victory not as the fall of a villain but the rise of the humane. Her team achieved what she calls the “victories of soul and spirit”—the reduction of violence, the rebirth of hope, and the restoration of community. This perspective challenges traditional metrics of success and resembles Viktor Frankl’s insight from Man’s Search for Meaning: survival gains meaning only when it serves others.

What Counts as Winning

Operation Merlin’s failure taught Davis that justice isn’t always capture—it can be containment. The mission’s results—reducing killings by 90%, freeing hundreds of abducted people—prove that partial victories are profound. Goodness, she writes, can persist even when evil endures. You’re reminded that activism is less about perfect closure than radical continuity: showing up again after heartbreak.

Redefining Justice

Through the trials of commanders like Dominic Ongwen—both perpetrator and victim—Davis teaches that the world must balance retributive justice (punishing crime) and restorative justice (healing wounds). Justice without compassion breeds new bitterness; compassion without accountability invites repeated harm. The equilibrium between both defines mature peace.

Continuing the Mission

Even after withdrawing Bridgeway’s direct intervention, Davis continues supporting reconciliation work and family reintegration through partners like David Ocitti. Her takeaway: evil teaches us most about ourselves. It reminds each of us to defend what is good—not because success is certain, but because goodness is worth the fight. The fight against injustice, Davis shows, is eternal, and each act of courage—yours included—helps humanity hold its share of the night.