NOT SUCH A NEW WARS

Апстракт

This paper focuses on the so-called “new wars” that emerged in the late twentieth
century. The author attempts to argue impartially both the criticisms and the defense
of the claims that qualitative changes have occurred in the nature of violent conflict and
that it is now possible to think in terms of “new wars” that are different in significant
ways from previous forms of conflict. The idea comes from two related aspects of this
general proposition. The first concerns the historical break between “old” and “new”
wars and the accompanying argument that links the emergence of “new wars” to the
process of globalization in the late twentieth century. The second aspect concerns the
actual characteristics of “new wars” and the way in which “they differ from previous
wars in terms of their goals, methods of warfare, and how they are financed.” In the
analysis, we address five components of the debate: the difference between old wars and
“new” wars; the problem of defining war; whether the data support the claims about
new wars; whether globalization has given rise to new wars; and whether the new wars
are “post-Clauswitzian”. It summarizes arguments for doubts about the extent to which
contemporary forms of organized violence reflect new patterns in terms of actors, goals,
space, human influence, and the political economy and social structure of conflict. The
results suggest that, however, the obsession with the “newness” of wars misses the point
about the logic of the new wars; what is important is addressing the political elements of
the new wars. The research defending the position on the “new wars” argues that they
should be understood not as an empirical category, but as a way of clarifying the logic of
contemporary war that can offer both a strategy for researching that category of armed
conflicts and a guide for the politics of their resolution.