New Wars and Afghansitan

With Special Reference To Mark Duffieldglobal Governance And New Wars Book
--Development and Security Term Paper
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Introduction: The End of Cold War was not the end of war but it was a kick of for a new pattern of war which haunting states and societies since then. End of cold war bright with itself not only reintegration of germany and collapse of Soviet but also a mass of problem and interntional issues.these issues could range from new civil wars1, ethnic cleansing , transnaitonal terrorims and failed or fagile state. The new war concept deal with the study of the pattern of these coflicts and their causes and remedies. In this paper i will try explain causes of Afghanistan conflict in the light of the theory of new wars. What is new Wars? New wars describe international or civil wars of low-intensity conflict that involve myriad transnational connections so that the distinctions between internal and external, aggression and repression, local and global are difficult to sustain. The term is an antonym of conventional warfare whereupon conventional military weapons and battlefield tactics are no longer used between two or more states in open confrontation2. Mary Kalder a prominant thinker in New War theory argues Globalisation is a wild process involving interconnectedness and exclusion, integration and fragmentation, homogenisation and diversity. The fundamental source of the new wars is the crisis of state authority, a profound loss of legitimacy that became apparent in the post-colonial states in the 1970s and 1980s and in the post-communist states only after 1989. Part of the story of that crisis is the failure or exhaustion of populist emancipatory projects such as socialism or national liberation, especially those that were implemented within an authoritarian communitarian framework. But this failure cannot be disentangled from the impact of globalisation3.

The End of Cold War and Birth of New Wars The End Cold War meant different things for differnt countries.For many countries like central asian countires the end of cold war was a fresh start .some other countire were free from the hazard of Cold and the direct invasion of two main player of cold war . But for some countrires the end of cold war marked the last day of recieving Aid from one side of the cold war for their favoritism policy.
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Though civil wars existed befor this perioud but these civil wars differ form the pervious civil wars in goal and means of conduct.
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Retrived from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_wars Retrieved from, http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/press/010kaldor.htm

But for afghansitan it meant tow differnt things. First cam the joy and happyness of freedom from the invasion of Soviet Union and second came the devastaing civil war which plunged the country into mesery for year. During Cold War the nature of Aid for develping countires which newly were freed form colonizaiton was mostly in term of military equipments and hardwar and the Meaningfull Aid was minimal. In Afghanistan two side of conflict the Central government and the Mujahideen backed by USA recieved bilions of dallers but it was mostly in term of weapon or cash for keeping war continue. These Aid not only did not help to sove the problem of this poor country but furthre more increased the trouble. As Barnett Rubin writes in his book: Millitary aid to the resistance started in the tens of millions of dollars per year.by the late 1980s,combiened U.S and Saudi assistance reached about $1 billion per year.if we add the approximatly $5 billion in weapons sent to the mujahidin during 1986-90 and a conservative estimate of $5.7billion worth sent to kabul regime, Afghanistans total weapons imports during the perid eclipsed those of Iraq and were at about the same level as those of Japan and Saudi Arabia-with the difference that persoanl weaposns accounted for a much highter proportion of imports to Afghanistan. The massive number of wepons criculating in the courntry became a major obstacel to political stibility in Afghanistan and the surronding region 4. Thus The subsequent government of afghnistan had to deal with the mulitipal number of problems. The other problem which had to be takled was the issued of Ethnic conflict or the civil war which was now a widespread problem of the many countries at end of cold war. Thought in 1990 ,accoring to Mark Duffield book of Global Governace and New wars, the need to address the issue of conflict became a central concern within mainstream developmentpolicy. Once a specialised discipline within international and security studies, war and its effects are now an important part of development discourse. At the same time, development concerns havebecome increasingly important in relation to how security is understood5 But In that time America and other developed countries did not pay attention to afghanstan becuase of the exclusive nature of the north-south relation between afgianistn and secondly investmen in political stability of afghinstn was not beneficial of the economy of those country. As Mark Duffield puts it in political economy... there is a major division between viewing the new wars as social regression or, in contrast, as systems of social transformation. That is, there is a distinction between seeing conflict in terms of having causes that lead mechanically to forms of breakdown, as opposed to sites of innovation
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Rubin Barnet R. The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, New Haven and London, Yale University Press (2002) Duffield,mark,Global governance and new wars,London & New York,Zed books Ltd.(2001)

and reordering resulting in the creation of new types of legitimacy and authority6. In Afghanistan case the civil war not a kind of social regression but a system of social change and transformation which wanted to break down a Pashtun- based nationalisn and bring about new multi-cultural governance but it turned into a violent war due the lack of experinece in either side. The civil war in Afghansitan had a great effect on the country in different aspects. First and the most important development in this time period was the foundation of the War Economy. Karen Ballentine and Heiko Nitzschke give a very good title to the resources which can be used by these economy he called these reourced lootable reosurces he fruther more sying in his topic Lootable resources (such as alluvial gemstones, narcotic crops, timber, or coltan) are generally associated with non-separatist insurgencies such as in Sierra Leone, Colombia, and Afghanistan. They are easily exploitable and transportable by small groups of unskilled workers. As such, they provide easy benefits to whoever controls the resource-rich area but also to the local population whose labour is needed. Access to lootable resources may prolong conflict, as weaker parties can avoid hurting stalemates by generating finances necessary to continue hostilities. Where armed groups depend on easily accessible resources, there is a greater risk that conflict will be lengthened by the consequent fragmentation and fractionalisation of combatant groups, as internal discipline and cohesion are undermined by economic motives7. After the withrawal of soviet from afghansitan and specialy collapse of Russian-backed regime in kabul the waring faction did not have buget to countinue their war of suprimacy. These faction started innovative search for new and fresh sources of the fund. Most of northern faction starded to unprofecianly expliot the mins. Specialy the precious stone mining was very famous in the entire afgnan conflic and the main destanation for these stones was Pakistan.for most of the estern faction which were setttled in border with pakistan drug trade was the source of income As the Afghan government began to lose control of provinces during the Soviet invasion of 1979-80,warlords flourished and with it opium production as regional commanders searched for ways to generate money to purchase weapons, according to the UN. (At this time the US was pursuing an "armslength" supporting strategy of the Afghan freedom-fighters or Mujahideen, the main purpose being to cripple the USSR slowly into withdrawal through attrition rather than effect a quick and decisive overthrow 8. The other waring faciotn also had differnt sources like that of aid from niebouring countries. In this way the war in Afghanistan become self-financing and could go on for many years.
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Duffield,mark,Global governance and new wars,London & New York,Zed books Ltd.(2001) Retrieved from, http://www.berghof-handbook.net/documents/publications/dialogue3_ballentine_nitzschke.pdf 8 Retrieved from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan

Estrategic Emergence and Afghansitan in Post 9/11 For the last 30 years Afghanistan has been fimiliar with conflict and war but none has ever been painful and haunting like that of Taliban reign. Becaus of disconneciton of Afghanistan from new global economy, Taliban were able to turn Afghnaistan into a Blac hole of informaiton and cut off Afghanistna from any conceivable source of information . any kind of journalistic acitvity,sport,music and presence of women in public was banned. Afghanistan had already entered the Forth world. Manuel Castells in his book The Rise of the Network Society mentions9 that Due to selfdefeating spirals of decline, poverty and breakdown, populations entering these black holes usually end up reinforcing their own social exclusion. The result has been that a new world, the Fourth World, has emerged, made up of multiple black holes of social exclusion throughout the planet. The Fourth World comprises large areas of the globe, such as much of Sub-Saharan Africa, and impoverished rural areas of Latin America and Asia. But it is also present in literally every country, and every city, in this new geography of social exclusion. Moreover he says the only export from the global black holes that rivals the informational economy in terms of its innovation and networked character is the perverse connection of a global criminal economy. In Afghanstan case During excluded Taliban regime the innovative exports were primarly oppium production and transportation to the reginal countries and subsequently to European countries. During the Taliban rule, Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,500 metric tons in 199910. In that time Afghansitan was the largest producer of opium in the word. The second export item form taliban afghansitan was Internation Terrorism which flurish under their government . now with the help of globalized world the terrorist could move and use the Internetn and other sources for transformation of data from one country to the other and for them specially Al-Qaeda Afghanistan was the main platform. the 9/11 attack was one the most horible terrorist attack have ever happened in history of man kind.though it was carried out by a group of arab who were living in America but the original plot was desined in Afghanistan. There is no doubt 9/11 was a new page in the study of conflict and counter-terrorims measure. There the Mainstreem theinkers, organisation and polititian talked about New Security Concerns and what a underdevloped abandant-to-itself and exculed country is capable of. America paid for abandaning afghanistan to pakistan and warlords and many scholars and politians have regreted that. In 2001 was viewed as an coplex emergency and the intervention of U.S followed with a huge body of streategic complex which was part of the emerging Liberla peace.
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Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society (Vol. 1 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture) . Massachusetts and Oxford: Blackwell; 1996. 10 Retrieved from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan#Rise_of_the_Taliban_.281994.E2.80.932001.29

According to Duffield Liberal peace and Strategic Complex are In this respect, liberal peace is not manifest within a single institution of global government; such a body does not exist and probably never will. It is part of the complex, mutating and stratified networks that make up global liberal governance. More specifically, liberal peace is embodied in a number of flows and nodes of authority within liberal governance that bring together different strategic complexes of statenon-state, militarycivilian and publicprivate actors in pursuit of its aims. Such complexes now variously enmesh international NGOs, governments, military establishments, IFIs, private security companies, IGOs, the business sector, and so on11. The new situation in afghanistan needed a real profund attention so it will not agian will become source of conflict and insecurity for afghanistan. Th internation society or so called strategic Complexces enterd with 1500 NGOs in 2001 with fall of Taliban. over 1500 International NGOs which were operationing in afghanistan and most of them were the official distributer of the big portion Aid which was promised by their respected countries . Most of these NGOs did not have any clue about afghanistans vital needs and end up with building Toilets in some desert out side of the village or indirectly giving the aid to the taliban. The mony which was pump into these NGOs were big in amount but the capacity to use these money was very limited, this probmlem was solved but thruough curruption. These NGOs started renting very expensive SUVs which were provided by their corrupt afghan collegues , rent luxurious Buildings which were built by Warlords and big sum of money got back into European banks in form of staff salary . These NGOs supposed to fill for a strong afghan partner which did not existed, but they themselves turned into source of tention and corruption.

The security/development/security nexus In the context of internal wars in developing countries, we can argue argue that promoting security is a substantial part of what we mean by societal progress; that conflict has heavy development costs so that promoting security is instrumental to it; and that inclusive patterns of development are an important element in avoiding conflict, so development is instrumental for the achievement of security. This combination of arguments means that vicious cycles of lack of development leading to conflict leading to lack of development can readily emerge. We can observe this situation in many countries in Africa. Conversely, virtuous cycles should also be possible, with high levels of security leading to development and
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Duffield,mark,Global governance and new wars,London & New York,Zed books Ltd.(2001)

development further promoting security. But unfortunately the virtuous cycle can more readily be broken because it is easy to have relatively high levels of security without necessarily experiencing economic growth, or to have high levels of security and economic growth, but not inclusive growth so the potential for conflict remains. The first, security-cum-stagnation can be observed in a number of Latin American countries; while the second, non-inclusive growth, seems to be occurring in some Asian countries, like India and China. Both situations pose potential threats to security12.

Merging of Development and Security in Afghainstan; Duffield argues in his book The transformational aims of liberal peace and the new humanitarianism embody this convergence. The commitment to conflict resolution and the reconstruction of societies in such a way as to avoid future wars represents a marked radicalisation of the politics of development. Societies must be changed so that past problems do not arise. It means the interlik between the security and development is very serious and requires a real concern so that we will not experience the horror of past. In Afghaistan case the new plan to change the nature of government to a Democratic government has come in the line of readical change of government so that the government will have the capacity to invest in public sector and also to be able to espend the mony which has been pumped by the donor countrey. But the important part of the plan for afghanistan has not recieve enough atteniton. There the common undrestanding between the schollars that development is ulitimately impossible without stability and a the same time security is not sustainable without development. In afghanistan the development project have always been on the sectors or aspect of the governanc which are nto giveing back to the government in ternms of Taxation or popular support. For example the big cities of afghansitan has been flooded with NGO which are wroking for creating concept of democracy more popular. In this way democracy will not spread or it will not get any support among people. The best way to spread democracy among people is with betterment of people standard of living or providing job and opportunithy for people to earn more money so that they will be free of tention and then they will think about democracy.(no hungry man will thing about democracy). The money for development must be spend on project which will yeild fast in form of capital, for example, spend the money for building the factories and raods. Building a factory for example in Helmand Province will stop new recruits from taliban, it will help the families
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Retrieved from, http://www.crise.ox.ac.uk/pubs/workingpaper3.pdf

to have better standard of life so they will participate in political process and also such project will increas the amount of the taxes that government will recieve. It is true that without secruity how we can embark upon develpmental project or also how we can have security without development project that give relief to the populaton. Both the masures can be taken but there should be progeress in development project as well as in security sector but in a Relative way. There should be a simultanous progress in both sector so we will have a little of both.in this way circle of security and developmen will break down and in the span of more time we will experience progress in the region.

Conclusion : Though new war has come under many ciriticism but it is a good idea to give more promenat to the ideas that had forgaten for long. At first look investing in development sector to make sure the security, seems to bee common sense. But in reality it took us many years, treature and blood to come this common sense. Afghanistan is a poor but with abundant natural resources and a strategic location which give it the potantial for turning it into a trade hub. What afghanistan is in need of is not gun and military expidation but meaningful investment in agriculture and mining sector. development and job opportunity will automatecally reduce the level of violence and absence or reduction in violence will lead to more opportuninty for developmen. Afghanistan will never be a hub for terrorist and criminal activeity a long term commitment of international community asure secrity and progress. Enemies of afghanistan wainting for another opportunity to use afghanistan against world but it will happen as long as we are commitied to the idea of meaning ful and positive peace.