How is War changing?

Carl von Clausewitz:

        The rise of the nation-state following the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648  marked the establishment of the state’s monopoly of violence and war was gradually seen waged ‘exclusively’ by the states. In his most influential work on the theoretical foundations of war (Vom Kriege 1832), this norm is clearly visible.  He sees war as “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will”.  To him “war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means”. Clausewitz saw war as a “trinity” consisting of people, the army and government.   This trinity was dependant on the existence of sovereign states, national armies (controlled by the state) and civilians (the people).  

Hence, the notion of legality of war was forged.  To make war ‘socially’ acceptable it was seen as something waged by sovereign states and them alone.

Mary Kaldor’s appraisal of The Clausewitzean Model of War:

        In her valuable work on War, New Wars (1997) Kaldor elaborates upon the Clausewitzean Model as the most valid doctrine in understanding the dynamics of what she calls as ‘old wars’. In this model, war is perceived as a ‘rational act’ of hostility and presupposes the ‘monopolization’ of power by an ‘organised entity’ – the state. The process of monopolisation of power entails the ‘elimination of the private armies’, maintained by the monarchs in the pre-Clausewitzean era, and the ‘establishment of permanent navies and national armies’.  It also embodies the process of the ‘growth of the external war-making capacities’ paralleled with ‘internal pacification’ of the state’s territory - the extension of ‘rule of law’ rendering it more powerful and enhancing of the states ‘rent-seeking’ capability as against the earlier periods. Whereas, in the sovereignty was ‘typically dispersed and fragmented’ earlier the Clausewitzean framework envisaged the notion of the strong sovereign state. The state became an embodiment of ‘national identity’ in exchange for external protection.

Thus were developed the organized and centralised war ‘making capacities’ within the states more or less ‘simultaneously’ in Europe. These states recognised the existence of each other, as none of them was ‘strong enough to dominate’ the others. Among them emerged a range of ‘rules and mechanisms’, such as diplomacy to ‘regulate the international behaviour’.  As there was no ultimate arbiter, war was the mechanism used to re-establish order when rules broke down.  In other words, the war was the ‘instrument of politics’ in the international arena and, an ‘act of violence’ intended to compel the opponent to fulfil ‘our will’.

The Contemporary/New Wars:

Mary Kaldor, in her writings (New Wars-1997, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in Global Era-1997, A Decade of Humanitarian Intervention’, Global Civil

Society Yearbook 2001, postulates the theory of ‘new wars’ - a product of end of cold war ‘bipolarity’ period resulting from the decreasing sovereignty and capacity of the

state to act as the ‘legitimate’ user of  violence.  The period from 1990-2000 shows that only three of a total of 56 major armed conflicts only three were the interstate conflicts, the rest were internal or civil wars.

         The new wars, sometimes referred as ‘network wars’ can be differentiated from old wars of Clausewitzean model, as these reflect key distinctions of modernity: between ‘public’ and ‘private’, ‘internal’ and ‘external’, ‘economic’ and ‘political’, ‘civil’ and ‘military’, ‘combatants’ and ‘non-combatants’, and ‘war’ and ‘peace’.  Mark Duffield agrees with the Kaldor’s description of new wars, for instance, “in today’s network wars the traditional distinctions – ‘military/civilian’, ‘combatant/non-combatant’, etc…no longer exist”. Consequently, the role of the state is significant to observe in these conflicts.  Effectively the ‘failure’ of the state is accompanied by a growing privatisation of violence.

 These wars are not about the consolidation of the state power. Rather, these arise out of the disintegration of the state structures and a loss of legitimacy of the political institutions. Hence the trinity of sovereign state, national army and people is not found here.

Kaldor argues that the new wars differ from old ones in a number of respects, especially in terms of their ‘goals,’ the ‘methods’ used to fight them and, how they are

financed. These wars need to be analysed and understood in the context of globalisation i.e. “intensification of global interconnectedness – political, economic

military and cultural….involving integration and fragmentation, homogenisation and diversification, globalisation and localization”.

Against the common assumption that most wars of 1990s are merely the ones produced by ‘ethnic’ conflict, Kaldor asserts that the Bosnian and the other crises of Africa were ‘political’ conflicts also, involving state power as well as various ‘private’ forces. Here ‘identity politics’ or ethnicity was a means by which political elites would wield and reproduce their power.  There are others who also share this view. For instance David Turton, analysing devastative role played by ethnicity in being a cause/effect of the crises doesn’t see ethnicity as the only causality in the new wars.  He, however, realises the importance of ethnicity as he writes that the new wars are motivated by “the driving influence of ethnicity, and, the in-eradicable difference between them and us”. 

As regards the role played by ethnicity Turton writes, “these (wars) are not waged against anonymous and invisible enemy but against neighbours, friends and even relatives and there are huge numbers of civilian killings and even genocide”.Population displacement – ethnic cleansing, resulting in a very large number of refugees and forcible repatriation or colonization are the other distinct features of the new wars.  In 1995, the number of world total refugees rose to 16 million as compared to 2 million in 1970s.

 The number of civilian casualties in the contemporary conflicts signifies alarming trends. The war in Bosnia claimed 260,000 lives, rendering 3.5 million people to leave their houses, and, become refugees. It is the story with Rwanda,

Liberia, Sudan, Zaire/Congo, Somalia, and, Sierra Leone etc.  Another feature of these wars is the number of civilian casualties; for instance, at the beginning of 20th Century, 80% of all war casualties were military, whereas, today about  80% are     the           

civilians. The civilian to military casualty ratio is 8:1 as against the opposite of the old wars. 

The new wars essentially are genocidal. For example, in Bosnia, ethnic cleansing was the principal aim of the Serbian and Croatian Forces. Non-Serbs and non-Croats were considerable minorities, if not majorities, in the Serbian and Croatian controlled areas, and locally raised militia, police and local authorities – as well as many civilians – were directly involved in genocide.  In Rwanda, large numbers of the Hutu civilian population as well as state, militia and public authorities were mobilised to murder their neighbours – Tutsis.  

An important feature of these wars is ‘Diaspora’ writes Mary Kaldor in her article in Global Civil Society Yearbook 2001. The diaspora elements living in the neighbouring states, or, in the far off countries provide the warring factions with money, arms, volunteers, and, even technology.  Very often, the international crime groups and mafias also support the warring parties establishing arm trade networks in these conflicts. 

The understanding of the new wars will not be complete if these are not looked into in the context of war economy i.e. a rational calculation of ‘economic interest’ as against the norm of rational calculation of ‘political interest’ in the Clausewitzean model. “When the formal economy is largely destroyed, the economy of the new war zones thrives on outside humanitarian assistance, remittances from abroad and the black market.”, writes David Keen in his Adelphi Papers(1998) study on Economic Functions of Violence.   As the unemployment is widespread; joining a paramilitary group or becoming a criminal is the only way of gaining income for the

people. Similarly, controlling the state would mean the furtherance of economic aims.  More conspicuously, the economic agendas would focus on pillage, protection

money, arms trade, labour exploitation (as it forcible and cheap or free), capturing the land by forcible depopulation, stealing the aid supplies etc.

Another distinction is the absence of a clear ‘distinction’ between the periods of war and peace. Recurrent ‘truces’ and affording ‘safe exits’ to the adversaries is one of the normal features of these conflicts. As one of the causes of the outbreak of the hostilities is the deteriorating economic situation, the same appears to be the cause of its continuation. Hence, these wars are ‘open-ended’, ‘indecisive’ and ‘inconclusive’ by their very nature. David Keen examines, whether the conflict has ‘only’ negative economic consequences for the local population, and, whether the winning is the ‘overriding’ aim of combatants? According to his analysis, in the conflict-ridden countries the organised violent activities such as pillage, depopulating the large areas, labour exploitation, avoidance of tax payments, misuse and stealing of foreign aid relief etc can actually serve as incentives to initiate and prolong the conflict. 

This is a common feature of all the network wars.  As Mark Duffield writes compared to the highly centralised and autarchic economy of old wars, the ‘economy of the new wars’, is globalised and decentralised. Normal trade, foreign investment and production decline dramatically, as do the levels of employment and tax revenue.  Warring factions frequently turn to the black market, plundering or to illegal trade in arms, drugs or in valuable commodities such as oil and diamonds.  Like Keen, he also refers to the economic logic of new wars. He writes, “in case of the new wars, market deregulation has deepened all forms of parallel and transborder trade and allowed warring parties to forge local-global networks and shadow economies as a means of asset realisation and self-provisioning….Rather than expressions of

breakdown or chaos, the new wars can be understood as a form of non-territorial network war that works through and around states.”        

        As regards the machinations, these wars are more ‘decentralised and fragmented’, and main their main aim remains to be the ‘destabilisation’ rather that

‘destruction’ of a clearly defined opponent, Mary Kaldor writes, “Conspicuous atrocity, systematic rape, hostage-taking, forced starvation and siege, destruction of religious and historic monuments, the use of shells and rockets against the civilian targets, especially homes, hospitals or crowded places like markets or water sources, the use of land-mines to make large areas uninhabitable, to desecrate whatever has the social meaning”.Rape was used as tool of warfare against the Muslim women in Bosnian Crisis, as these have a very shy conception of it, and the family would not like to stay at the place it was committed, be it their only home, to remember it for rest of their lives – thus the aim was ethnic cleansing and forced migration. Similarly, raping a woman with the mouthpiece of phone would become a persistently torturous memory and affect her every time she uses the phone afterwards.

The methods and tactics used to fight the new wars are marked by guerrilla and counterinsurgency tactics, often aimed at civilian or non-combatants. The forces fighting the new wars are not like the conventional vertically organised armies, instead “the units that fight these wars include a disparate range of different types of groups such as paramilitary units, local warlords, criminal gangs, police forces, mercenary groups and also regular armies including breakaway units of regular armies”.

It is important here to briefly mention, about the ‘neo-modern’ conflicts as these also involve large number of civilian casualties. Moreover these are the wars conducted between states, private armies and, the Diasporas coupled with other shared

characteristics of new wars.  The Israeli incursions into the Palestinian territories, which have failed miserably in effectively stopping the ‘suicide bomb’ attacks, have

resulted into large-scale civilian casualties on both the sides.  Similarly, the amount of the casualties that occurred in the Russian army invasion against Chechen rebels is so

a reflection on the fault-lines of these wars.  Most critical of these wars and other fought in different parts of the world is the fact that, none of these have remained conclusive in achieving their goals.

        With the erosion of Clausewitzean ‘trinity’ of state, society and national army what remains is the anarchy, privatisation of conflict and very destructive new war. This trinity breaks when Milosevic’s forces commit genocide against the un-wanted; when Rwandan regime, its militia and Hutu majority perpetrate atrocities against Tutsis; when state militia commit crimes against the Christians in East Timor; when  ‘Chemical Ali’, a cousin brother of Saddam Hussein uses chemical weapons and nerve agents against Kurds and Shiite dissidents in Iraq and; when Taliban and Al-Qaeda fanatics desecrate the monument of Buddha and raise it to rubbles, and when publicly execute and hang ‘television sets’ being the devil’s advocate not to recall the hanging corpse of Babrak Karmal in Afghanistan or the exclusion of women from the society. So erodes the notion of state sovereignty and legitimised use/and right of monopoly over violence.

War Against Terrorism – 

The War on Afghanistan  & The War on Iraq

The discussion on the new wars will not be complete if the new ‘spectacular wars’ conducted by America and her allies are not placed within the context. These wars though fought on different lines that entail semblances of old wars, have common shared characteristics of the new war at the same time.

Samuel Huntington writes in his controversial theses on the Clash of Civilisations, “the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic…great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.  Nation states will remain the most

powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations

will dominate global politics.  The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” 

One may disagree with Huntington but, the Bin Laden’s vows to wage war against America and the terrorist acts committed by the Al-Qaeda activists world over do require analytical attention. The post 9/11 political map of the world has ushered in ‘America’s new war’ – a war against terrorism brewing out of the insecurity syndrome enunciated by the ‘suicidal’ ‘Attacks on America. Since then President Bush and his allies are after the ‘axis of evil’ be it the ‘networks of al-Qaeda’ or ‘tyrant regime of Saddam Hussein’ or any other.  When these lines are being written, both the ‘crusades’ have ended in apparent success for the ‘allies’.

Whether above events allude to a clash of civilisation or not but, the two wars fought by America led alliance - one with obvious United Nations sanction (Afghan) and the other without it on the universal principle of ‘self-defence’ – are an interesting subject of study. That too in the background of the ‘new wars’ thinking. Though the massive anti-war protests organised by the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ and other all across the globe have failed to stop the governments from waging the war against Iraq yet the protesters have fairly succeeded in dumping down the ‘civilisation’ content from the conflict.

Did the anti-war protests, paradoxically, help in white washing the ‘clash of civilisation’ malaise and doing away with anomalies, and may be, finally legitimising the Allies agenda? Did these help the war wagers in reconciling the philosophical cultural contradictions the absence of obvious UN sanction? This can be an interesting

subject of study, especially in the light of criticism on civil society with it playing as a tool of global western capitalist tradition. As it would sway the focus from the argument this is not discussed here.  Only the questions are raised.

In Kaldor’s articulation, the new American wars will be seen as ‘spectacular wars’.  In literature these are also referred as ‘peripheral wars’ as they take place in

far-off lands and at an ‘arms length’. These are the ones that are conducted from above the skies, with precision aerial bombing with great images of ‘target’ hunting.  At the same time billions watch them live on TV.  Some won’t hesitate to label them as ‘media wars’ targeted at a specific audience and, aiming at expressing the superiority of western war-machine over those of the ‘rogue states’.

 Justifying them or otherwise is not the aim of this study.  What are relevant are two factors.  One is high rate of, though accidental as is claimed, civilian casualties, and the second is, the inconclusiveness of the political agenda in the war aftermath.  In terms of civilian casualties, both the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq do not present very good pictures and, while the lurking political instability in both the countries is a legitimate concern. It seems that both countries will not able rid them of the risk of future political turmoil and instability which may lead to disintegration.  Moreover it will be the constant source of misery and loss of civilian life – a commonality abundantly available in the new wars as is the case with post Dayton aftermath of Bosnian conflict.

The above questions remain for the future writers to answer. What can be obviously noted is the inconclusive and indecisive nature of these conflicts and, the high number of civilian casualties.

Conclusion:

        The ‘new war theory’ remains to be a valid framework of analysis for the new type of conflicts that grew in number, and resultantly attracted the attention of academics in 1990s in the event of breakdown of cold war system.        Questions can be raised as to whether the new wars are really new? Or, if they are, what is new about

them? Or, the wars waged by the modern states for instance, the War on Terrorism - fought with sophisticated high-tech war machine devastative for civilians, at the same

time is a new war, or an old war? Still the theoretical framework is very helpful in examining the new features of the ‘new wars’.

An attempt was made, in the preceding parts, to analyse the newness of the new wars and the argument revealed that these wars are very devastative for civilian life.  Genocide and ethnic cleansing are the most obvious methods applied and, ethno-politics remains the dominant feature. These wars also embody a ‘war economy’ with a mutual interest of the warring parties in prolongation of hostilities.  As such these wars are not decisive vis-à-vis their predecessor - the old wars.

        In addition, to absence of the cold war bondages that held some of the failing state structure together, a very important way to understand these conflicts can be from the perspective of state’s failure to organise and exercise the monopoly of violence - above all the legitimate use of violence.

        The new wars, whether ‘network’ or ‘neo-modern’, or ‘spectacular’ have common shared characteristics for instance, the devastative effects for the civilian life, followed by political instability, and the indecisive  and inconclusive nature.  Clearly, these are new as compared to the old ones.

Bibliographical References:

1)   Allen. T, 1999 “Perceiving the Contemporary War” in Allen T & Seaton J, eds

        The Media of Conflict: War Reporting and Representation of Ethnic

        Violence, Zed Press, London.

2) Chomsky N, 1999, The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo,

        Pluto, London.

3)   Dalby. S, Oct 2001, Calling 911: Geopolitics, Security and America’s New War,

        Carlton University, Ottawa.

4)   Duffield. M, 2001, Global Governance and the new Wars: The Merging of

        Development and Security, Zed Books, London & NY.

5)   Guilio Macron & Mario Pianta, “New Wars, New Peace Movements”,

 Article for Soundings, Nov 2000.

6)   Hobbes. T, 1985, Leviathan, ed C B McPherson, Penguin Books: London.

7)   Huntington. 1996, The Clash of Civilisations and the remaking of

World Order, New York, Simmon & Schuster.

8)   Kaldor M, 1997, in Kaldor and M. & Washee eds, New Wars, Pinter.

9)   Kaldor M, 1999, New & Old Wars: Organized Violence in Global Era, Polity

        Press, Cambridge.

10)  Kaldor M, 2001, ‘A Decade of Humanitarian Intervention’, in

Global Civil Society Yearbook 2001, LSE,

11)   Keen, D, 1998, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, Adelphi

Paper 320, Oxford University Press/International Institute for Strategic Studies

12)   Leander. A, March 2000, “Conditional Legitimacy, Re-interpreted

Monopolies: Globalisation and the Evolving State Monopoly on Legitimate

Violence, Paper prepared for ISA Panel, Legitimacy and Violence: Globalisation and Displacement of State, New Orleans, 24-27, Mar, 2002.

13)  Machiavelli. N, 1999, The Prince (New Edition), Penguin Books,

 Harmondworth.

14)  SIPRI Yearbook 2001, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.

15)  Turton. D, 1997, “War and Ethnicity: Global Connections and Local Violence

in North East Africa and Former Yugoslavia”, Oxford Development Studies, Vol. 25 No.1.

16)  von Clausewitz C, 1993, On War, Trans. And ed by M. Howard and P. Paret,

        Everyman’s Library: London.

         

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