How
Useful is the Concept of ‘New Wars’?
Marking
Grade:
B
Weaknesses:
Introduction
The
need for new definitions in studying war has been widely felt, more acutely
since the end of the Cold War. However as the specific concept of ‘new wars’
is primarily associated with, and has been most fully developed by Mary Kaldor,
it is with her work that this essay will be primarily concerned.
Kaldor introduced her conception of ‘new wars’ in her introduction to
’New Wars’, which she edited with Basker Vashee (Kaldor/Bashee;1997). This idea was then more fully developed in ‘New and Old
Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era’ (Kaldor; 1999).
In
order to address the question and examine how useful this concept is, I intend
to start by examining why Kaldor felt the need for a new conception at all.
From there I will examine more closely what it is she means by ‘new
wars’ and what she feels are their distinguishing features before finally
setting out what I feel to be the strengths and weaknesses of her argument.
The need for a new conception of war
Mary
Kaldor is not alone in feeling the need for new conceptions of war.
Increasingly, and especially since the end of the Cold War, those
studying war have found that the old ideas and concepts around and regarding
warfare are inadequate. Kaldor in
fact states that this inadequacy is the starting point both for herself and the
contributors to ‘New Wars’ and that the ”basic assumption was that what is
happening in the post-1989 world does not represent disarmament and
demilitarization but fundamental changes in the nature of warfare and
preparations for warfare” (Kaldor/Vashee:1997;xi). The importance of this is
that whereas the failures of traditional Clausewitzian thinking to comprehend
much of contemporary warfare has led those attached to such thought to dismiss
these wars as a reversion to pre-Clausewitzian primitivism,
Kaldor’s assertion of a fundamental change in warfare allows us to
actively understand these developments.
Kaldor
feels it is “wrong to characterize the new conflicts which are taking place in
the world as a reversion to stylized notions of past behaviour”(Kaldor/Vashee:1997;3)
and rejects the notion that these wars cannot be understood except as a product
of anarchy. She agrees that
these wars cannot be understood in a Clausewitzian framework but as she sees
that warfare conforming to this model “existed for a brief historical period
and was largely confined to Europe” (ibid) and therefore locates
Clausewitzian war as a geographically and historically specific phenomenon and
not as a trans-historical ideal type, she is able to move beyond it and
formulate post-Clausewitzian theories. She
also rejects the labelling of non inter-state wars as”internal or civil wars
to distinguish them from... Clausewitzian war” (Kaldor:2001;3), finding that
this labelling does not take account of the importance of globalization and
transnational networks and the location of such wars in “areas where the
modern state is unravelling”(ibid).
Instead
she posits that these are indeed a new form of war and that these have been made
possible by two inter-linked developments, the massively increased
destructiveness of modern weaponry which has created the “impossibility of
wars of the modern type” and the process of globalization which, she argues,
is transforming the state.
Kaldor’s
‘new wars’
Kaldor
feels that we can see ‘new wars’ as a “blurring of the distinctions
between war..., organized crime..., and large scale violations of human
rights.”(Kaldor:1999;2) but feels it is important that the term ‘war’ is
used as this emphasises the political nature of this violence.
The aim is no longer the Clausewitzian one of compelling
an opponent to submit to your will, but rather establishing “control of power
and resources for an exclusively defined group of people” (Kaldor:2001;4).
These different aims clearly influence the character of such wars but
clearly both must be understood as political.
This
difference in aims highlights the importance that ‘identity politics’ have
for Kaldor her understanding. The
seeking of power for an exclusive group cannot be viewed in terms of earlier
ideas of nationalism, which she sees as concerned with forward looking
nation-building projects, but must be seen as the product of an extreme
separatist political ideology. This
ideology seeks to create exclusive labels for groups of people and then use
these constructions as a means of political mobilisation.
These identities are usually based upon “pre-existing cleavages of
tribe, nation or religion” (ibid) and make use of selected historical
injustices, manipulating these elements to create previously non-existent or
muted exclusive groupings. Thus
constructions of the past which serve to strengthen these created identities are
widely disseminated in the build up to and during these wars.
That these identities are politically created is clear from the
co-operation often shown between these warring groups in resisting and attacking
cosmopolitan solutions and groupings. This
leads Kaldor to posit that these wars should be seen as being between
particularist ideologies and cosmopolitanism, not between the conflicting
factions. This has important
implications for the impact she feels her theory should have in ending ‘new
wars’, which will be examined later.
As
the aims of these wars clearly involve the creation of homogenously populated
territories and the means of mobilisation are based around the creation of
exclusive groups the tendency for these wars to become genocidal is very strong.
Indeed the killing and displacement of civilian populations which is so
often a side effect of war now become central to the way the war is conducted.
That battle is often avoided and civilian populations consciously
targeted lends weight to the idea of this being a war against cosmopolitanism,
whose aim is to spread fear and hatred. The
mode of war then becomes another method of mobilisation, creating tension and
hatred between groups that previously didn’t exist.
Identity
politics are not only seen to be vital to understanding the methods of war but
also to the structure of the military forces.
The forces engaged in the war are no longer hierarchical vertically
structured national militaries, being horizontal networks of para-military
groups, militias and segments of state forces held together by this exclusivist
political ideology.
That
such military groupings are able to mobilise and operate is indicative of the
context in which ‘new wars’ take place.
Kaldor is clear that it is the erosion of the state, particularly the
loss of political legitimacy and the erosion of the state’s monopoly on
organised violence which forms the backdrop for the conflicts.
The monopoly on violence is eroded from both above and below.
From above the transnationalisation of military forces in both systems
and formal connections, and the inability for states to wage war against one
another unilaterally (the increased destructiveness of such modern warfare
making victory impossible) weakens the states claim to control violence in
defence o fit’s citizens. From
below the increasing privatisation of organised force (from security guards and
the private military companies employed by many multi-national companies for
their security, to organized crime networks) also weakens this monopoly
internally. `The loss of political legitimacy, through the inability to meet
promises or the population’s hopes also weakens civil society, resulting in
“an atomized society in which individuals are vulnerable to exclusivist
politics.”(Kaldor/Vashee:1997;14) So
for Kaldor the erosion or unravelling of the state is on e of the defining
features of the ‘new wars’.
This
unravelling of the state and the methods of warfare used determine the financial
and economic underpinnings of the war. In
contrast to Clausewitzian ‘total war’ where all the productive capabilities
of the state were harnessed to the war effort, in ‘new wars’ the productive
and economic capabilities of the state are shattered.
As the state itself is the battlefield and the civilian population the
main targets in the war it is not hard to see how such wars become almost wholly
dependent on external support for their continuation, or how Kaldor arrived at
the term ‘parasitic wars’ to describe their economic structure.
This external support takes a variety of forms from the Diaspora
(re-enforcing Kaldor’s assertion that the identities created are not
nationalist, but trans-national in character) providing financial, technological
or material support (both arms and volunteers) through to international aid
which is routinely taxed to support the warring factions.
The importance of these factors highlights again the fact that these wars
cannot simply be seen as internal or civil wars but “have to be understood in
the context of the process known as globalization.”(Kaldor:1999;3)
Overall
then, ‘new wars’ take place in a context of a disintegrating state in a
globalized environment. The erosion of the state and the transnational nature of both
the networks involved and the war economy lead to a breaking down of the
distinctions between state and non-state actors; public and private goals and
military activity and organised crime. As
the globalization process is “ a contradictory process involving both
integration and fragmentation”(ibid)
these wars are both local and global making it increasingly difficult to
distinguish between international and civil wars, and in fact calling for the
new definition Kaldor has provided of ‘new wars’.
How
useful is the concept of ‘new wars’?
Mary
Kaldor feels that the real importance of her analysis is the solutions to the
problem of ‘new wars’ that can be extrapolated from it.
Key to this is her understanding of these wars as not just between
warring factions, but as more importantly being between the forces of
particularism, as represented by these factions and their exclusivist politics,
and cosmopolitanism, represented by those resisting these forces internally and
maintaining inclusive communities and the international community.
Her first point following from this is that due to the transnational
character of these wars any solution has to be transnational also. In support of cosmopolitan ideals a new legitimacy has to be
given to the international bodies that seek to deal with these problems, with
military force similarly transnationalized.
The task of these new “agents of legitimate organized violence… is
not external defence... but cosmopolitan law-enforcement.”(Kaldor:1999;135)
Essentially this means that the cosmopolitan response centres around
opposing the forces of exclusivism, enforcing international law and aiming to
“reconstruct legitimacy around an inclusive, democratic set of values”.(ibid;10)
In
general I found this argument convincing. I
feel there can be little doubt that a new analysis of the forms of war is
required to full understand conflicts in a globalized post-Cold War world.
My
main reservation centres on her idea of cosmopolitan law-enforcement.
The sites of these new wars are frequently mentioned but the importance
of this siting to an understanding of the causes and possible solutions to the
conflicts is again underplayed. The
sites of these wars are not established capitalist economies, but either
recently centrally planned or colonial economies. Kaldor does mention this but misses that in both cases these
territories were previously part of an empire and were structured in the
interests of the imperial power. The
problems such societies face both when they emerge from such subjugation and
when they are then again subjected to external restructuring through the Bretton
Woods organisations of the World Bank and IMF are very much at the bottom of the
forms these ‘new wars’ take. That
this should be the case is in part reinforced by the dating and location Kaldor
gives to her conception of ‘new war’, so that it was “during the 1980’s
and 1990’s, [that] a new type of organised violence has developed, especially
in Africa and Eastern Europe”.(Kaldor:1999;1).
This was precisely the period and areas in which the changing attitudes
of the World Bank and IMF and the Structural Adjustment and austerity programs
were most harshly felt. Kaldor does
in fact mention the damage such changes inflicted on these societies but does
not see them as a root cause of the rejection of international liberal political
values (or cosmopolitanism) which underlies the fragmentation of these
societies. She also does not dwell on how such programmes and the
restrictions they placed on affected governments could create the context for
these conflicts; that in fact where World Bank thinking has been followed
“less government has contributed not to better government but rather to
warlord politics.” (Reno:1998;1) of the sort characteristic of ‘new wars’;
and that where neo-liberal measures of privatization and market liberalization
have been enacted in these states the results are often not the establishment of
economies in the image of those in the West but rather a “plundering of the
economy” (Bayart;1999;71) and “bitter inter-faction disputes over
privatization” (ibid;90). This, I
think, is a mistake. That
such societies should feel little allegiance to and see little benefit accruing
from their position in the established political order, having been inserted
into the international economy in a “mode of dependence” (ibid;xvi) with the exploitation this entails, is unsurprising.
That the ensuing fragmentation and pursuit of political and economic
self-interest should be answered by a forcible assertion of the liberal
political norms that allow such transnational economic exploitation is
surprising.
Kaldor
is correct in stating that these are ‘new wars’ and are to be understood in
the context of globalization, and that at heart these are often wars between the
conflicting forces of particularism and cosmopolitanism.
However I don’t feel she gives sufficient weight to the sites these
wars take place in and the particular economic histories which might lead to a
rejection of this cosmopolitanism as a viable means of pursuing economic
interests. She is wrong in
asserting that the answer to these problems lies in enforcing a cosmopolitan
liberal political order. Certainly
legitimate inclusive national governments should be sought but the most
important factor is re-legitimating economic sovereignty in a form that allows
sufficient protection for economic development to take place.
It is this which will reliably underpin such inclusive societies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bayart,
Jean-Francois; Ellis, Stephen and Hibou, Beatrice. (1999) The Criminalization
of the State in Africa, London: Oxford
Kaldor,
Mary and Vashee, Basker, eds. (1997) New Wars, London: Pinter
Kaldor,
Mary. (1999) New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era,
Padstow: Polity
Kaldor,
Mary. (2001) Beyond Militarism,
Arms Races and Arms Control, Social Science Research Council: http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/kaldor_text_only.htm
Keegan,
John. (1993) A History of Warfare, London: Hutchinson
Reno,
William. (1998) Warlord Politics and African States, London: Boulder