Old and new wars

Résumé du document

This study is based on the article written by Paul Richards in 2005: New War: An Ethnographic Approach. What was really important in this article, according to me, was to discover a new way to look at and to study wars. In this study, I will try to sum up what I've found in the article by stressing three important precisions that are essential while dealing with the subject: ‘Old and new wars'.

The concept of new war comes from the 90's and describes the conflicts that took place after the end of the Cold war. All those conflicts were no more influenced by an ideology. Those conflicts were new in so far as they are low intensity conflicts and they see the opposition of a lot of different players in a kind of global network. This number of players comes from the fact that the Western countries can't ignore anymore the conflicts in the South, given the fact that they can have some repercussions in their own countries. Those conflicts are not synonymous anymore with battlefield or conventional armies and weapons. They are based on what we call ‘Interzones', that is to say the zones where the State is absent or inefficient.

Extraits

[...] To sum up, is a social possibility' and should not be considered as something exceptional that has to be defused by exceptional means. According to Paul Richards, is a social project among other social projects”. An evidence to underline this thesis would be to show that war and peace situations are often overlapping. There were peaceful moments during wars such as the ‘Phoney war'' during the World War II, but before the Battle of France in May 1940 there was violent periods deeply rooted to the period of peace. [...]

[...] It's impossible to deny that most of the time economic oppositions are complicate and sometimes extend to wars. Then this thesis is interesting, because it focuses on practices during the wars and not only on causes. However, the proofs given by Paul Collier are incorrect because they mix up economics and politics on some cases. Finally, this perspective would justify the fact to stop the negotiation with political representatives of the societies and only try to solve the problems by closing bank accounts and by threatening people with economical sanctions. [...]

[...] This conflict can't be understood if we don't consider what the bonds among the members of those movements are and what are their social backgrounds and incentives. It shows once again that a war has to be explained according to its sociological background. War is rooted in a society and must be studied as an aspect of the society among other aspects and processes. My last point would be on the propositions given by the author that I found particularly interesting and helpful. [...]

[...] According to Paul Richards, it could come from the use of the local potentials and the idea of a possible spontaneous peace. The solution can't be external but internal; in order to find a solution ‘from the inside', anthropological studies are necessary. Every society has a great creative potential and war can be useful occasions to deal with deep tensions of a society: they can be parts of a global social project. Peace can't be imposed from the outside but has to be included in a process that comes and take its roots in the society itself. [...]

[...] Old and new wars This study is based on the article written by Paul Richards in 2005: New War: An Ethnographic Approach. What was really important in this article, according to me, was to discover a new way to look at and to study wars. In this study, I will try to sum up what I've found in the article by stressing three important precisions that are essential while dealing with the subject: and new wars'. The concept of new war comes from the 90's and describes the conflicts that took place after the end of the Cold war. [...]