The Different Todays War and War in the Past - Essay Example

The Different Today’s War and War in the Past The term war can be defined as an organized violence in which integrated groups with conflicting demands resort to arms (Muggah & Krause, 2009). The old wars involved two or more States with their official trained armed forces taking part in the war. The encounter of these forces resulted to a battle, and there were geographically visible frontlines with the uniformed soldiers being the primary targets. The old form of war was characterised by the State being mainly involved in financing and running the war, and in most cases States were made or destroyed (Kalyvas & Balcells, 2010). Contrary to old wars, new wars have their origin in claiming of identity (super powers, military strength) as opposed to territory using guerrilla as terror tactics and their participants range from local, international, public and private (Kaldor, 2013). This paper will seek to show the difference between old and new wars, and how old wars have changed to new wars and in what ways they have remained the same. As indicated earlier, old wars were inter-state, they were funded and run by the state and the target group was uniformed soldiers with their primary objective of traditional war was making states or expanding their existing boundaries. World War II serves as the best example of an old war, in which Germany wanted to expand its boundaries in Europe to form an empire (Kissinger, 2012). The confrontation involved uniformed and armed German and the Soviet Union soldiers fighting against each other. In this case, the basic rule of war was that it had to be declared officially by the head of a state as seen in Hitler’s declaration of war against the Soviet Union. The war also involved Germany and the states that it wanted to conquer to expand its territory by destroying them. Therefore, traditional war is different from new wars in that the later wars does not embrace discipline and rules that governed the old war. In the new wars, majority of the targets are civilians who are non-uniformed, and usually lead to greater number of civilian casualties. For instance, in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 majority of those who were killed were non-uniformed civilians of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups (Golooba-Mutebi, 2008). Perpetuation of ethnic conflicts between the Hutu and Tutsi communities were evident during the Rwandan war as it led to mass slaying of many Tutsi and the moderate Hutu by the majority Hutu ethnic group. New wars emerge from state disintegration as a result of the fight for power between two opposing forces whose main desire is to inflict their conception of national identity over the population. Today, conflict in many countries has been primarily motivated by the issue of identity, as was the case with the war in Sierra Leone. The intention of the Revolutionary United Front rebel army was to delegitimize the government of Sierra Leone, hence were not fighting for territory, but legitimacy (Hoffman, 2011). New wars are intra-state as opposed to the inter-state old war; hence, new wars are not limited to the scuffle within a definite geographical region or between specified opposing forces. It is hard to define an enemy due to globalization that has given non-state actors like terrorists an opportunity to form transnational terror networks (Kaldor, 2013). Unlike most new war assailants, terrorist groups’ primary target is not financial reward, but to ensure adoption of their perspective on how to govern the society. Terrorist believe that their objective can only be achieved through acts of violence and instilling fear amongst their perceived enemies. The Boko Haram terror group in Nigeria wants the northern part of the nation to secede for them to create a purely Muslim nation that is governed by Sharia (Agbiboa, 2013). However, many of the wars staged by Boko Haram can be viewed as an old war; it is clear that many deaths that have resulted from the war involve civilians and not uniformed soldiers. In addition, acts of rape and abduction committed by Boko Haram militants to the civilians in Nigeria villages are not characteristics of the old war. Besides, this war aimed at the disintegration of Nigeria as a state, and not heightening nationalism (Agbiboa, 2013). Therefore, this is unlike Germany that sought to expand its boundaries during the Second World War that saw German Soldiers fight as a nation. Most new wars are no longer funded and run by the state, nor are they officially declared by the state the way it used to happen in the traditional wars. International actors can get involved in the war without government consent of the country that is experiencing war. International interventions led to the formation of no-fly zones in Iraq, and the United Nations made Bosnia without the consent of the respective states (Kaldor, 2013). The other example of an intervention that compromised the sovereignty of the state in which the war took place is when the Macedonian symbolic force was used to deter Serbian military forces against Albanians in Kosovo (Kaldor, 2013). In the cases mentioned above, these wars were characterised by local and international players being participating in an intra-state war. Additionally, no known state funds the Al-Shabaab terror group in the Horn of Africa, but perhaps by private groups of people and the larger Al-Qaeda terror network (Moller, 2008). The African Union army in collaboration with the Kenyan army is fighting the terror group without being funded by the government of Somalia. Natural resources play a significant role in new wars, as opposing groups fight over the control of natural resources within the state. The scramble for resources often leads to international actors taking part in the war, making it non-state controlled. Illegal trade of diamonds in Sierra Leone was an important source of funding the rebel soldiers in the country (Hoffman, 2011). This trade in Sierra Leone involved extra- national players and clearly points out the role of resources and globalization among other characteristics that define the New War. The bloody diamond case in Sierra Leone illustrates the newly emerged war economy as one of the most predominant features of New Wars. Newly developed war economies are characterised by illegal trade in weaponry, drugs and valuable minerals like gold and diamonds. The Revolutionary United Front militia was mostly involved in illegal diamond trade and used the revenue earned by purchasing artillery (Hoffman, 2011). Most gang groups use the new wars for the purpose of legitimising actions such those of illegal trade that would be treated as crimes when a country is not involved in the war. The fight over resources in Sudan saw the Southern part of the country secede since the northern part of the country was depriving the south of its access to and exploitation of resources. Once again, the Sudanese war resulted in many civilian deaths compared to those of the men in uniform. However, a critical examination of the distinguishing characteristics of old wars and new wars shows that war has not changed and there are no new or old wars. For instance, the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina had many actors including paramilitary organisations that majorly consisted of mercenaries getting involved. However, the fact is that amalgamation of the private militia was in use during the colonial wars, especially in Africa. The mercenary armies played a crucial role in helping the colonial armies conquer African states, especially in areas where Africans resisted colonial powers (Henk & Metz, 2015). In fact, there were many civilians than uniformed army casualties during the colonial wars of Africa and Asia. The assertion that old wars involved uniformed men makes less sense because most Africans involved in the civil war were not uniformed. I would argue that it was difficult for the colonial troops to differentiate between the civilians and non-civilians during colonial wars. During the second Philippines War of 1899-1902, the death ratio was 200,000 non-military persons to 4000 American soldiers (Kirsch, 2011), indicating that even before the advent of “New Wars”, death ratio between militants and civilians was still higher. The issue of resource exploitation is a common feature of war within the state since the plundering practice is as time-honoured as warfare itself. In reality, not all contemporary disputes that come up because of economic reasons or economic turmoil. For example, the conflicts in Chechnya resulted from differences in terms of ideologies and not economic issues (Malesevic, 2008). The other significant similarity between these wars is that they involve conflict and fighting hence, war has remained the same. In both wars, there is conflict of interest, and there is a significant application of arms by both warring groups. In both wars, the infra- level legitimacy of each party is driven because of its use of violence as a self-preservation tool from greed or considerations of the grievance. The argument that war has changed does not take into consideration of the nature and the essence of the war. The nature of the war is that it involves the use of violence, and its essence is to conquer. Al-Qaeda has a political motive of conquering the world and establishing a unified Islamic state based on Sharia, and it is applying violence as the tool that will enable it to achieve its goals. Therefore, this indicates that however much new wars are taking place in the context of disintegrating states; they remain intrinsically unaltered despite the fact that they have broken the old war dynamics. The south Sudanese rebels had a motive of building the Republic of South Sudan, just as the ancient European war was out to construct and consolidate the modern European nations. Considering the nature and motive of war, one can conclude that war has remained the same over the centuries; however, post -cold war disputes have shown a significant change in terms of funding and their frequency. Comparing the Second World War from 1939 to 1945 and Kosovo war fought between years 1998 and 1999, the driving forces for both wars were glory and honour as well as the unchanging factors compounding the existence of individuals. Hence, this too shows that both the old and new Wars are not any different since both wars share some characteristics. Thus, this puts into question the argument that new war emerged after the cold war since the Kosovo conflict took place after the cold war, yet it had the same motives like the World War II. Considering the nature of war and its purpose, it is hard to draw the conclusion that the old battles have been transformed into new wars, only tactics have changed, but the war remains the same. Therefore, this explains why some scholars conclude that the distinction between the old war and new war is blurry. The differences between old and new wars and the evidence indication that old wars have been transformed to new wars call for a shift in tactics of addressing the war. There has been a significant change in terms of complexity, motives, funding, violence and prevalence of post-cold war conflicts. The new wars’ main objectives are political, and their target is mobilizing people politically based on political identity. Therefore, there is displacement of the population and destabilization for getting rid of those people whose identity is different, thus fomenting hatred and fear. Globalization, as well as resources, has played a very significant role in the development of new wars. Terrorism and other criminal activities like drug and human trafficking have become difficult to control due to globalization. In tackling and addressing the New Wars, there is a need for all actors to consider the shift in the use of tactics because one to one encounters have become increasingly difficult to apply. Terrorism has no boundary hence no geographically visible frontline, and since terrorists must not wear uniforms, it is hard to confront them the traditional way uniformed soldiers against uniformed soldiers.References Agbiboa, D.E., 2013. Ethno-religious Conflicts and the Elusive Quest for National Identity in Nigeria. Journal of Black Studies, 44(1), 3-30. Golooba-Mutebi, F., 2008. Collapse, war and reconstruction in Rwanda: an analytical narrative on state-making. London: Crisis States Research Centre. Henk, D., & Metz, S., 2015. The United States and the Transformation of African Security: The African Crisis Response Initiative and Beyond. DIANE Publishing: Darby, PA. Hoffman, D., 2011. The war machines: young men and violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. Kaldor, M., 2013. New and old wars: Organised violence in a global era. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Kalyvas, S.N., & Balcells, L., 2010. The old form of war was characterised by the state being largely involved in financing and running the war, and in most cases states were made or destroyed. American Political Science Review, 104(03), 415-429. Kirsch, S., 2011. Reconstructing conflict: Integrating war and post-war geographies. Burlington, VT : Ashgate Kissinger, H., 2012. Diplomacy. New York: Simon and Schuster. Malesevic, S., 2008. The sociology of new wars? Assessing the causes and objectives of contemporary violent conflicts. International Political Sociology, 2(2), 97-112. Moller, B., 2008. The Horn of Africa and the US “War on Terror” with a Special Focus on Somalia. Post-Conflict Peace-Building in the Horn of Africa. Aalborg University: Centre for Comparative Integration Studies Muggah, R., & Krause, K., 2009. 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