How has the nature of war changed? Has it changed the way of making peace?

Résumé du document

"War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention" . This quotation of Sir Henry Maine seems obvious: wars have been a common feature of mankind history. On the other hand, implementation of durable peace, and not only end of the war, is a more intricate notion. The regular intervention of the United Nations and Western countries in conflicts around the world is a relatively new phenomenon. Despite of that, "small wars", expression used in the 1970's by the Financial Times to name any internal conflict , multiply rapidly. Moreover, the distinction between war and peace becomes tricky, which shows that the nature of war itself has changed and does not have a Clausewitzean dimension anymore. After the Cold War, in the beginning of the 1990's, some intellectuals believed in the end of wars and consequently in a perpetual peace. In reality civil wars, new wars, post-Cold War or post-Clausewitzean conflicts (depending on the source) hold centre stage.

Extraits

[...] Firstly, Kaldor exposes that the aims of actual conflicts are not the same as former ones. Indeed, past wars were based on ideological thoughts, whereas nowadays wars are mainly about identical mobilizations. When old wars intended to impose a certain view of social and political organizations, protagonists of new wars are more backward-looking with the will of returning to a certain state, often idealized. To illustrate this idea, we can take the examples of the Second World War and the recent conflict in the Ivory Coast[4]. [...]

[...] Reno, ‘Corruption and state politics in Sierra Leone' in C. Coker, wars end', in endings', Millenium, p.627-628 A problem with the new wars is the fact that they are difficult to date, for both start and end. W. Reno, ‘Corruption and state politics in Sierra Leone' in C. Coker, wars end', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol no pp.627-628 M. Duffield, political economy of international war', in J. Macrae and A. Zwi, War and hunger : rethinking international responses to complex emergencies (London, Zed books, 1994) C. [...]

[...] This is a fact, the nature of war had changed. Charles King underlined in his book Ending civil wars[39] that all those conflicts are peculiar and there cannot be any objective generalisation, no universal aspects of the causes and evolutions. After all, some intellectuals such as Mary Kaldor, called theorists of new wars, tried to sort out some particularities so as to show the divide between pre-Cold War and actual conflicts. Not only the questions of identity but also the economy, leading to more private wars, seems to have replaced politics in the incentives of war. [...]

[...] Barbara Ehrenreich estimates that there are new kinds of wars with clad bands more resembling gangs than armies”[12]. Those non-state actors have predominant roles and also use new sorts of weapons. This is one other aspect of the post-modern conflicts: the utilization of new technologies. Of course, all wars have their new weapons, but given smaller groups and movements carry on wars, the means of warfare had been adapted. Thus, lighter weapons such as anti-personnel mines, home-made bombs and small arms are preferred. [...]

[...] The Yugoslavian conflict was a blatant case, with ethnic groups (Serbs, Croatians, Slovenes . ) fighting for the security of their identity, it was a question of survival. In the second place, Mary Kaldor underlines the new aspects of warfare on a more technical and strategic level. Before the Cold War, most of the conflicts were characterized by a large public support in each side. To take an example, in 1870 both French and Prussian populations supported actively their own country, excepted, as usual, few pacifist artists and intellectuals. [...]