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8/8/2019 Essay War Studies Final Question 1 04 Dec 2008
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Student: W10672297
Question 1: To what extent can conflicts in the post-cold war era be
characterized as ‘new wars’?
This essay will attempt to draw attention to events that unfolded in the aftermath of
the Cold War and that have led our understanding of war to a different level. It will
take into account the more prominent role of the United Nations Security Council and
other INGOs and its past humanitarian interventions, the Bosnian-Herzegovina
conflict and transactional movements. Furthermore, in light of the change of the
world’s architecture since the post-Cold War period it will argue that the way in
which wars are being fought, the reaction of the global actors in light of war prospects
and the participation of non-state actors (private actors) have re-shaped the
understandings of wars.
The advent of the Internet era, fast transnational movements, growth of NGOs and
INGOs have shed some of the state’s responsibilities to a greater amount of actors.
This has made the Clausewitzean assumptions of war, for instance, that of the notion
of war as a state activity and ‘as an act of violence intended to compel our opponent
to fulfil our will’ (Kaldor, 2006: 17) have to be revised in order for a better
understanding of conflict, humanitarian and military interventions after the fall of the
Berlin Wall.
For Kaldor (2006:27) the total wars premises, despite having its certainties, do not
taken into account the growth of a thinner division line between the state and non-
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state actors and the contrast between military and the civil, between combatants and
non combatants started to break down in the twentieth century.
In discussions of international relations the vision of conflict described by Thomas
Hobbes, in Leviathan, is taken into account, for Hobbes, cited in Dunbain,
accordingly kings ‘are in continuing jealousies and the state and posture of gladiator,
having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts,
garrisons and guns upon frontiers of their kingdoms, and continual spies upon
neighbours-which is a posture of war (Leviathan, chaps. 17, 13- cited in Dunbain,
1994:437). Further, Hobbes saw the struggle for power and acknowledge the premise
of state sovereignty and the need for its protection by all means and its self-centred
interests, ‘for their own security enlarge their dominions upon all pretences of
danger…, and endeavour…to subdue or weaken their neighbours by open force and
secret arts…; and are remembered for it in after years with honour’ (Hobbes cited in
Dunbain1994:437).This description of relationship between states may reflect the
situation encountered in the Middle East and its constant Israeli-Palestine tensions
around the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; quest for borders legitimacy and the anti-
Israeli rhetoric exacerbated by the Arab summit in January 1964. However, the
transactional movements of the 20th Century, the ever-growing cooperation amongst
states in humanitarian missions, economic policies, inter-state cooperation and
participation of non state actors in national affairs have made Hobbes’ assumptions
limited in relation to our understanding of new types of wars emerged in the last two
decades, for instance. Further, it does not explain the ethnic conflicts in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, described as a new type of war by Kaldor (2006: chapter 3).
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Conflicts can no longer only be explained by the premises of the old war assumptions
of territorial annexation, protection of national borders and altruistic motives. For
instance, ethnic cleansing was a characteristic of East European nationalism in the
twentieth century (Kaldor, 2006:35). The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was fought for
political goals and assumed unique characteristics (therefore can be classified as a
new war). The magnitude of the conflict, the involvement of non-state actors such as
the United Nations (UN) and North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) as well as
the American attempts with the Dayton Agreement confirm the birth of new forms of
violence and measures to tackle them. The concern of the above mentioned actors in
the new type of conflict suggests that different from the old wars ways of tackling
conflicts, where not all participants are spying, subduing or having the intention to
weaken those involved in the conflict. For this reason, wars can include non-sovereign
states, prolific high politics actors and groups in which would not benefit directly
from the outcome or doings of war.
As mentioned above, new types of conflict and motives for legitimising the use of
coercive force have emerged since the end of the cold war. One can argue that
altruistic interventions from the side of powerful nation states in conflict states
involving failed ones or in problematic regions, have played a prominent role in the
years following the end of the Cold-War and the shift away from a bipolar world
system to fairly pluralistic one. For Baylis and Smith (2005:567) ‘the interventions in
northern Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda and Kosovo were all legitimated in humanitarian
terms by the intervening states’.
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Additionally, even though some states questioned the enforcement of provisions in
Charter VII of the UN Charter, based on the state sovereignty premise, it has certainly
become less and less tenable as the 1990s progressed. This can be proof of the need to
tackle new types of conflicts and the more prominent role of the United Nations
Security Council and other INGOs, such as NATO or the Arabic League for instance,
within the realms of the global arena. The acknowledge of threat to ‘international
peace and security’ (Baylis and Smith 2005: 567) highlighted in Chapter VII, point
out the recognition by the United Nation- most specifically its prevailing Security
Council, of the necessity to use coercive force in order to establish or maintain peace
in challenging regions. This is certainly a significant shift towards a broader arena for
dialogue amongst global states.
Furthermore, even though some UN resolutions, for instance in the case of Resolution
688 adopted on 5 April 1991(Baylis and Smith, 2005:567) in light of the need to
protect the Kurds in northern Iraq from Saddam Hussein, have caused tension and
disapproval amongst some of the UN Member States, the recognition for
humanitarian interventions based on the Human Rights Charter and the fear of
possible legal challenges against states advocating the state sovereignty principle, is a
tremendous step towards global consensus in relation to the protection of global civil
societies from their own abusive nation states.
The humanitarian interventions after the Cold war period bring to light the underlying
and new motives for involvement in conflicts and characteristics of the nature of some
military and humanitarian interventions in the aftermath of the Cold-War era. The
wish to gain access to territories but preserve the morality and perception of goodwill
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intact certainly highlights the participation of certain global prominent actors (states)
in conflicts that they would not benefit directly from its involvement. For instance, in
the case of the American concern over the preservation of the Dayton Agreement,
which ‘brought peace to Bosnia in 1995, which was viewed as an American
diplomatic triumph’ (Baylis, J. and S. Smith (2005:566), highlighted the wish of
President Clinton’s administrative team to preserve the agreement and consequently
the credit for successfully bringing peace to the region. At the time the American
government wished to preserve its reputation for reaching an agreement thorough
diplomatic negotiations with the Serbian Milosevic. The American state did not
possess the traditional motives for intervening in the peace making talks in this
particular matter. The American participation in the diplomatic process may have
boosted America’s profile as an active and powerful global actor, however it was
certainly not at their absolute interest or economically convenient at a national level
nor an easy task for winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of Americans so to gather
American financial resources and moral public support. Therefore, one can affirm that
states can cooperate amongst each other not always having the ‘posture of gladiator’
willing to annex its enemy’s territories or obtain other forms of gain.
Even though the international community who was involved in the Bosnian-
Herzegovina conflict may claim non-altruistic reasons for collaborating in bringing
peace to region, the devastating outcome of it can be accounted to the failure of its
inability to act promptly in order to avoid the crimes against humanity that took place
during that period. While the evidence of ethnic cleansing was visible ‘this was
treated as a side-effect of the fighting, not as the goal of war’ (Kaldor, 2006:61). The
international community was incapable to understand the nature of the new type of
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war, therefore was unable to avoid the unnecessary killings of civilians. There was not
only one organized army in each side of the conflict, as Kaldor (2006:48) note ‘in
addition to regular forces, three main types of irregular force: paramilitary
organization, generally under the control of an individual; foreign mercenary groups,
and local police augmented by armed civilians’. Not only the military element is
involved, which for instance for totally dependent on outside sources of assistance,
but there was a significant proportion of fighters that belonged to gangster groups-
certainly a new prominent element of war.
The Bosnian-Herzegovina conflict created a serious of new issues to be taken on
board when one assessing the nature of violence, use of coercive force and reaction
from international actors. The lack of will to make use of the UN army in a more
active way- rather than watch passively the fighting and stepping in only to protect
civilians and provide material comforts, highlights how much the world system has
changed and also how the monopoly of violence has been broken down. Further the
interest of western states, in particular European ones, in avoiding the conflict by
means of deterring violence rather than attacking those responsible for the cause of
the conflict, underline the fact that the Bosnian-Herzegovina conflict cannot be
understood from an old war perspective. Moreover, the caution by the western states
to avoid bloodshed (even though they were visibly military superior) can also be
linked to concerns over the massive flow of refugees in the southern Balkans and
subsequently the spread across other European regions- this worries can certainly be
linked to the advent of the UN charter of Human Rights and the growth of NGOs
prepared to fight for the causes of the global civil societies.
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The final aspect of the characteristics of new wars this essay will attempt to highlight
is the use of mercenaries and the humanitarian interventions in light of the ‘war on
terror’ in the 11 September. Although US-led intervention in Afghanistan was a war
of self-defence, the US President nevertheless felt the need to make a humanitarian
argument to support. This certainly point out the necessity of the American
government to drawn global support, as well as domestic, in order to justify the need
for war. Although one can argue that during the period that preceded WWI and WWII
European governments had to gather public support, it can certainly not be compared
to the massive scale that the invasion of Afghanistan and subsequently Iraq provoked
in the global civil society. This can be understood with the fact that the mass media
vehicles in conjunction with the access to intercommunication across the globe,
played a vital role in informing and instigating public reaction in the worldwide
arena- this would have been virtually impossible in the context of pre-WWI and
WWII.
The recruitment of mercenaries in a wider scale, as mentioned above is another
characteristic of the new wars. Walzer (2006:27), who wrote in the aftermath of a
great war, affirmed that ‘…mercenary armies are recruited (as they often are) from
among desperately impoverished men, who can find no other way of feeding
themselves and their families except by signing up’. Furthermore in the assumptions
of old wars, mercenaries are professional soldiers who sell their services in open
market, but there are other professionals who serve only their own prince or people
and, though they may earn their break by soldering, disdain the name of mercenary
(Walzer,2006:27). This has not been the case of the current war in Iraq where, as an
example, the company Bluewater (a private contractor therefore not subjected to
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direct scrutiny of governments when compared with the military also not being
covered by international law at the same clarity) that has been actively engaged in war
activities on behalf of the American state in Iraq. The use of highly skilled and well
trained individuals to fight on behalf of a state breaks the premise of the monopoly of
violence and demonstrate the shits away from state accountability to private
accountability in war fighting. The above-mentioned use of mercenaries in post-cold
war conflicts cannot be overlooked and can certainly highlight the characteristics of
the new wars.
This essay has attempted to highlight the characteristics of the new wars in relation to
the relevance of non state actors in conflicts realized in the aftermath of the cold war,
in particular the Bosnian-Herzegovina conflict. Further, it used examples of
humanitarian intervention in conflict in order to justify the participation, active and
passively, of the international community, that being the UN or the United States
during in the Balkans region, Afghanistan and Iraq subsequently. Further, it attempted
to demonstrate the rise of the use of mercenaries who do not fit the description and
definitions laid in by Walzer when reflecting on this subject as the ‘modern
mercenaries’ substitutes market transactions, controlled by the executive branch, for
traditional political mechanisms of accountability (Cowen, T. New York Times).
Word count: 2,232 words
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List of References
Baylis, J. and S. Smith (2005), The Globalization of Word Politics, Oxford University
Press
Cowen, T., (2007). To Know Contractors, Know Government . [online article]. The
USA: New York Times. Available from:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/business/28view.html?
ex=1351224000&en=54f273e5beefca57&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss>
[ Accessed 29 November 2008].
Dunbain, J.P.D. (1994 ). The Post-Imperial Age: The Great Powers and the Wider
World. England: Pearson Education Limited.
Walzer, M., (1997). Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical
Illustrations. 4th ed. New York: Perseus Books Group.
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