new wars thesis

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6 The ‘New Wars’ Thesis Revisited

• Published: May 2011
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This chapter focuses on the so-called ‘new wars’ that emerged in the late twentieth century. It examines the proposition that contemporary wars are ‘substantively distinct’ from older patterns of armed conflict and, as such, the ‘new wars’ reflect a new reality. Two related aspects to this general proposition are considered. The first concerns the idea of a historical disjunction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ wars and the accompanying argument that links the emergence of ‘new wars’ to two fundamental processes of change: globalization in the late twentieth century and the end of the Cold War. The second aspect concerns the actual features of the ‘new wars’ and the way in which ‘they differ from earlier wars in terms of their goals, the methods of warfare, and how they are financed’. The most interesting of these relates to the economic underpinnings of contemporary intra-state armed conflicts.

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On the transformation of warfare: a plausibility probe of the new war thesis

• Published: 19 February 2010
• Volume 13 , pages 26–58, ( 2010 )

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• Monika Heupel 1 &
• Bernhard Zangl 2  

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This article intends to contribute to the debate on the emergence of so-called new wars by reconstructing the new war thesis in a way that allows an empirical assessment of the plausibility of the thesis. It makes explicit the defining criteria implicit to the new war thesis which claims that a fundamental transformation of modern intra-state warfare has taken place due to the end of the Cold War. It also lays out the causal mechanisms that underpin the alleged transformation of warfare. Based on the reconstructed conceptual framework and drawing on case studies of the wars in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, Somalia and Sierra Leone, the article then lends support to the new war thesis. The cases demonstrate that, in the 1990s, war economies based on criminal activities became more important and triggered the fragmentation of warring parties and the economisation of their war motives. Moreover, in combination, the fragmentation of warring parties and the economisation of their war motives facilitate the application of brutal violence against civilians.

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Realist International Theory and the Military

Introduction: Exploitation, Colonialism, and Postcolonial Misrule in Africa

Liberal international relations theory and the military.

For a review of the German debate on new wars, see Brzoska (2004) .

Yet they claim that this rise already took place in the 1970s rather than in the 1990s.

Similarly, a study by Valentino et al. (2004) finds that there has been no shift towards mass violence following the end of the Cold War. However, their study only covers violence applied by government actors.

We define wars as continued acts of military violence among rival combat units. For a discussion of different definitions, see Chojnacki (2006) .

We define inter-state wars as continued acts of military violence between the regular armies of two or more states. We consider intra-state wars to be continued acts of military violence (1) between the government of a state and internal non-state actors and (2) between different internal non-state actors without government involvement. Intra-state wars also refer to wars in which a foreign state or non-state actor is involved, as long as this involvement does not lead to warfare between the regular armies of two states (for a somewhat different typology, see Uppsala Conflict Data Program 2008 ).

A study by Byman et al. (2001) seems to contradict this claim as it suggests that funding by third states remains important. Yet, it also finds that the relative importance of this type of funding as compared to other types of funding has gone down since the end of the Cold War.

A study of Harbom et al. (2008) shows that the average number of warring parties per conflict has risen. At the same time, however, it claims that the rise has taken place already in the 1970s and that dyadic conflict constellations are still predominant.

A study by de Soysa (2002) provides some support for this claim as it hints to the importance of economic war motives in intra-state conflicts of the post-Cold War era. It refers to ‘greed’ as a strong explanation for the outbreak of war, in fact stronger than alternative explanations based, for instance, on ‘need’ or ‘creed’.

Fearon and Laitin (2003) demonstrate that insurgencies based on guerilla strategies were the dominant type of civil war after World War II.

The study by Eck and Hultman (2007) lends some support to this claim. It concludes that in post-Cold War conflicts non-state actors are on the whole more violent than state actors.

Thus, we treat sources that describe or analyse specific conflicts without relating the description or analysis to the new wars debate, as ‘neutral’ sources. For instance, Calic's book on the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina ( Calic 1996 ) would be treated as a ‘neutral’ source as it does not embed its discussion in the new wars debate. By contrast, we treat sources that explicitly refer to specific conflicts as new or old wars as ‘biased’ sources. The chapter on the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in Kaldor's seminal book on new wars ( Kaldor 2006 ) would therefore be treated as a ‘biased’ source.

For historical accounts of the conflict in Cambodia, see Hampson (1996) , Kamm (1998) , Chandler (2000) and Doyle (2001) .

Both the government side and the rebel forces also began to trade in precious natural resources, though not on a grand scale.

In 1988, Pol Pot outlined the reason behind the transformation of the Khmer Rouge's war economy as follows: ‘We are spending many tens of millions of baht [Thai currency] to augment the assistance of our foreign friends, but that is still not enough and there are many shortages. It is thus imperative that we find ways to develop the natural resources that exist in our liberated and semi-liberated zones as assets to be utilised in the fight […]’ ( Thayer 1991 : 31).

A Khmer Rouge commander, who defected to the government in 1995, explains: ‘When we received the order to carry out the policy to attack the people and villages, I led the people into the forest to protect them, but of course then my commanders wanted to kill me’ ( Thayer 1995 : 24).

For an excellent historical analysis of the conflict in Afghanistan, see Rashid (2001) . See also Rubin (1995) , Davis (1998) , Magnus and Eden (1998) , Marsden (1998) and Schetter (2004) .

For an in-depth account of the external assistance provided to the different factions, see Rubin (1995 : 34–9).

The Taliban were supported by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, while the remaining conflict parties relied, among others, on Iran, Russia, India and Turkey ( Rubin 1995 : 96–7; Rashid 2001 : 39–40).

For historical accounts of the Angolan conflict, see Hampson (1996) , Luansi (2001) and Fandrych (2001 , 2005 ).

Also towards the end of the war, UNITA increasingly resorted to violence against civilians. In 2001, for example, more than 400 civilians died in an attack against a train by UNITA forces ( Fandrych 2001 : 16).

For a historical analysis of the conflict in Somalia, see Birnbaum (2002) . See also Besteman (1996a) , Menkhaus (1998 , 2003 ), Abiew (1999) , Laitin (1999) , Delaney (2004) and Taw (2004) .

A further strategy applied by some warlords was to incite the local population against the US peacekeeping forces by provoking the US forces into applying violence against civilians. In particular, Aideed managed to enmesh US soldiers in fights in Mogadishu in which the US soldiers found it difficult to distinguish between civilians and Aideed's fighters ( Birnbaum 2002 : 108–9).

Some scholars regard these identity-based motives as the actual cause of war. However, many warlords were not integrated into the traditional clan order.

For historical accounts of the conflict in Sierra Leone, see Hirsch (2001a , 2001b ), Reno (1998) and Gberie (2005) .

Prior to the outbreak of the war, the RUF had received financial and military support from Libya ( Davies 2000 : 351–8).

Even though most combatants and supporters of the RUF belonged to the ethnic group of the Temne, ethnic affiliation did not play a significant role in the conflict ( Malan et al. 2002 : 13).

For a detailed analysis of the behaviour of different factions toward the Sierra Leonean population, see Humphreys and Weinstein (2006) .

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Heupel, M., Zangl, B. On the transformation of warfare: a plausibility probe of the new war thesis. J Int Relat Dev 13 , 26–58 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2009.31

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Published : 19 February 2010

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