New Wars

New Wars
Restructuring the Global Military Sector
Edited by Mary Kaldor and Basker Vashee
UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/Wider)
Pinter, London/Washington, 1977

Since the mid-1980s, there have been substantial cuts in military spending throughout the world except for Pacific Asia. The reasons are both political - end of the Cold War, democratisation in Africa and America - and economic spending. "New Wars" is the first of a two-volume study commissioned by UNU/Wider to investigate the changes taking place worldwide in armed forces, armed industries and all other military-related activities.

This volume offers an original analysis of what is new about contemporary wars. It argues that these wars cannot be treated as "throwbacks to the past" or as "anarchy" but have a contemporary logic that can be investigated in order to develop new international approaches towards prevention and resolution. The book includes general chapters on organised crime and warfare, the supply of weapons, the role of Islam and international law, as well as case studies on Bosnia, the Transcaucasus, Russian peacekeeping, Cambodia, South Asia and Africa, written by scholars with direct first-hand experience of the regions.

Contents

• Preface by Mary Kaldor and Basker Vashee
• Part one: General Issues
1. Introduction, by Mary Kaldor
2. Organised crime and new wars, by Cherif Bassiouni
3. An Avalance of Guns. Light Weapons Trafficking and Armed Conflict in the Post-Cold War Era, by Michael Klare
4. Islam and Social Conflict, by Mohammed El Sayed Said
5. The United Nations, the Rule of Law and Humanitarian Intervention, by Richard Falk

• Part two: Case Studies
1. The Political Economy of the War in Bosnia-Herzegovina, by Vesna Bojicic and Mary Kaldor
2. Wars in the Transcaucausus, by Arkadii Popov
3. Russian Peace-keeping Forces in the Post-Soviet Area, by Alexander Sokolov
4. Conflicts in South Asia. Kashmir and the Tamil Eelam, by Radha Kumar

Preface by Mary Kaldor and Basker Vashee

The post-1989 world is a complicated place. Perhaps the world was always complicated, but the simplicities of the Cold War period seemed to offer signposts to guide our understanding. The East-West conflict seemed to be the pre-dominant danger which defined all other problems; with it passing, many expected a new era of peace and stability. Military budgets were cut, nuclear arms were reduced, some conflicts were settled and, everywhere, democracy seemed to be spreading. But this did not lead to a decline in violence. On the contrary, the number of wars is growing, control over military arsenals is disintegrating, and new phenomena are appearing such as large-scale population displacement, social disruption, and widespread destruction of historic and cultural monuments.

In order to try to understand these changes, the World Institute for Development Economies Research (WIDER), which is part of the United Nations University (UNU), commissioned the project ‘Restructuring the Global Military Sector’. The basic assumption was that 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. These changes are not necessarily the consequences of the end of the Cold War; rather they became visible once the Cold War simplicities had disappeared. The aim of the projects was to analyze two changes. To this end, WIDER convened a group of critical thinkers with deep involvement in the phenomena to be studied. While all these persons, coming from widely different contexts, brought a novel perspective to the subject, it was possible to identify some common themes and ideas, which we agreed to pursue.

This book is the first volume of the study; it aims to describe what is new about contemporary wars. The first part covers general issues. Chapter 1, the Introduction, provides a general overview of the ideas that came out of our deliberations. Chapter 2 deals with the changing organization of collective violence, in particular, the erosion of the distinction between organized crime and warfare. Chapter 3 is about the means of warfare and the role played by the supply of light arms in new conflicts. Chapter 4 analyzes one important aspect of new warfare, the role of Islam. Given the fact that many of the new conflicts involve Muslims and that Western leaders tend to be depict Islam as the new ‘other’, it seemed important to include a chapter on this issue. Chapter 5 deals with the role of international law and the need for new thinking about humanitarian intervention.

The second part of the book contains the result of our case studies. The chapter on Bosnia-Herzegovina focuses on the political economy of the war, since this is a much neglected aspect of the new type of warfare. The other case studies cover the Transcaucasus, the role of Russian peacekeeping, the UN intervention in Cambodia and the wars in South Asia and Africa. A central conclusion of the book is that traditional geo-political frameworks for analyzing and responding to wars, often referred to as realpolitik, are, in fact inadequate and unrealistic and many cause more harm than good, exacerbating, the causes of conflicts. What is needed is a new humanitarian politics, based on the commitment to uphold international principles, especially the enforcement of human right and humanitarian law. Elements of an alternative approach, based on humanitarian politics, are espoused by individuals, groups and even institutions to be found in many of the war zones described in this book. They include support for democratic alternatives to exclusivist ideologies and for civil society, especially independent media and education, innovative policies for economic reconstruction, especially employment of demobilized soldiers and war victims, peace-keeping aimed at protection of the civilian population and humanitarian supply routes, the prohibition of land mines and the clearance of minefields, control over the supply of surplus weapons, and the arrest of war criminals. Unfortunately, efforts to put such an approach into practice tend to be thwarted by the dominance of traditional mindsets.

This book was commissioned by an agency of the United Nations. Although it covers new wars in general, it is hoped that the analysis will have relevance for United Nations policy-makers. One important recommendation that emerged from the study is the requirement for accountability and transparency of international institutions. In particular, we propose that every United Nations operation, as a matter of course, should be subject to an international public inquiry or evaluation.

Many people were involved in the project. We are very grateful to WIDER for intellectual, financial and administrative support, especially the former Director, Mihály Simai, who initiated the project, and Barbara Fagerman, who managed all our complicated contracts. Special thanks are due to Julia Glyn-Pickett, who painstakingly prepared the manuscript for the publishers, Yahia Said, who translated the Russian chapters, and Jenny Forest, who administered the project at Sussex. Finally, we want to express our appreciation to the other members of the core group, Ulrich Albrecht, Geneviève Schméder and Lev Voromkov, to our fellow contributors and to Jonathan Aves, Martin Shaw, Mark Mazower and Ivan Vejvoda, all of whom discussed, and commented on, various drafts of the chapters.

It goes without saying that the views and opinions expressed in the book are those of the individual authors. They do not represent WIDER, or any other organization with which the authors might be associated.