HOW NEW are NEW WARS

Introduction
The post-cold war period, has witnessed the modification of old concepts of intra-state war as
some analysts argue that something new is evident. The argument is that internal violent
conflicts have been transformed. Categories such as new wars, new internal conflict,
degenerate or post-modern wars, network wars have been used to characterise this
transformation.1 The characterisation has ignited counter-arguments on whether there is anything
new in new wars. The essay argues that, essentially there is nothing novel in the so-called new
wars. What have changed are the explanatory and interpretative lenses and that, the wars are
taking place in an era of globalization inevitably exploiting its possibilities and potential.
Characterisation of New Wars
New wars have been contrasted from old wars in three main ways: the goals, methods of warfare
and financing.2 In terms of goals, they have been characterised as lacking ideological and geopolitical goals and are based on exclusivist identity-based claims to entitlements.3 Other goals
are: loot seeking rather than justice seeking4; and strategically creating of anarchy to make
economic predation possible.5 On method of warfare, these wars blur the line between civilians
and combatants, with extreme atrocities committed against the civilians as a goal in itself. 6 Also
instead of adopting the traditional mode of winning the hearts and minds, they rely on fear and
1

On new wars see, M. Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in Global Era (2nd ed). Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2006, pp.1-12. On New Internal Conflict, see, D. Snow, National Security for a New Era: Globalization and
Geo-Politics. San Francisco: Pearson Education Inc, 2004, pp.262-266. On Network Wars, see M. Duffield, Wars
as a Network enterprise: The New Security Terrain and its implications, Cultural Values, vol 6, NOs 1 and 2, 2002,
pp.53 -165.
2
M. Kaldor, New and Old Wars, Ibid, pp.8-11
3
M. Kaldor, Old and New Wars, Ibid, p.8
4
K. Ballentine et al, The Political Economy of Civil War and Conflict Transformation, 2005, http: www.Berghofhandbook.net.
5
D. M. Snow, National Security for a New Era, Op cit, p.264.
6
See, M. Kaldor, New and Old Wars, Op cit, p.2. Also D. M. Snow, National Security for a New Era, Op cit, p.262;
R. D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism and Diseases are Rapidly
Destroying the Social Fabric of our Planet, Atlantic Monthly, Feb, 1994, 273(2), p.26

hatreds of others to mobilize support. In extreme, ethnic cleansing, politicide and genocide
strategies are used.7
The third difference is based on their financing. In old wars, financing usually came from third
state(s) and the population actively engaged in war effort. The situation is different in new
wars. Rather than extracting resource from the population in a contractual way, they are
financed through, plunder, illegal trade in arms, drugs or valuable commodities, human
trafficking, taxation of humanitarian assistance and remittances from sympathetic diasporas8 The
mode of financing means that the logic of violence is inbuilt, for actors can only sustain
themselves in conditions of anarchy.9
These attributes, it is argued have transformed war into something new. Snow observes that, they
are new in the sense of the disorderliness, and apparent senselessness of the suffering being
exacted against civilian populations.10 For Kaldor, war and crime have become
indistinguishable.11 To some economists wars are motivated by greed rather than grievances.12
On the surface, the new war thesis seems novel but upon critical scrutiny, its building blocks
cannot hold. The following section brings out both epistemological and ontological shortcomings
with an aim of showing that, much of claims made by the analysts on new wars do not reflect
anything new.

See Ibid.
See M. Kaldor, Old and New Wars, Op cit, p.9; C. Allen, Warfare, Endemic Violence and State Collapse in
Africa, Review of African Political Economy, vol 26, No 81, 1999, p.371
9
See R. Jackson, Violent Internal Conflict and the African state: Towards a Framework of Analysis, Journal of
Contemporary African Studies, 20, 1, 2002, p.37; Also K. Ballentine et al, The Political Economy of Civil Wars, Op
cit, p.2.
10
D. M. Snow, National Security for a New Era, Op cit, p.62.
11
M. Kaldor, Old and New Wars, Op cit, p.ix.
12
For instance see Berdal, Mats & Keen, David, Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, Millennium, 26, no. 3, 1997:
pp.795-818, Also see P. Collier, & A. Hoeffler, Justice-Seeking and Loot Seeking in Civil War, World Bank
Paper, 17 February 1999
8

The Epistemological Shortcomings

Chabal warns that, there is no such thing as an objective analysis of an objective reality. 13
Instead, reality is subjective and the signifiers own social and historical universe is more
significant in explaining the signified than the universe he is trying to signify.14 This way, what
constitutes knowledge is socially embedded and reflects a regime of truth in Focauldian sense. 15
In case of the new war thesis, it emerged from epistemological ashes of the cold war and was
reinforced by Kaplans unempirical narration in the Coming Anarchy. This impacted on the
thrust of new war thesis: One, the end of cold war robbed analysts the predominant realist
framework of analysis.16 Within this framework, the on-going civil wars were analysed through
East-West ideological lens, consequently glossing over the contextual embeddedness of such
wars, and creating distorted realities. Two, the end of cold war, reflected the liberal value system
triumph and anything that challenged this triumph was labelled as retrogressive.
Based on these arguments, nothing has changed to warrant the new wars label, rather, it is the
epistemological lens that have changed. As Kalyvas argues, it is often overlooked that the end of
the cold war has decisively affected how civil wars are interpreted and coded by both
participants and observers.17 Further, going back to signifier-signified relations, we can observe
that, the discourse of new wars, has more to do with the analysts mind than with real change of
internal conflicts.
Further, studies by proponents of new war thesis lack adequate historical and empirical
grounding. Kaldors theory of new wars, which has rightly been labelled a paradoxical
13

P. Chabal, Power in Africa: An Essay in Political Interpretation.

Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p.9
14
For instance see L. Fleck, The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979
15
See M. Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Vol 1. London: Penguin, 1998
16
For a discussion on realism see, S. M. Walt, International Relations: One World, Many Theories, Foreign
Policy, No 110, 1998, pp 29-32 + 34-46.
17
S. N. Kalyvas, New and Old Wars: A Valid Distinction?, World Politics, vol 54, No 1, pp 99 118

theoretical construct, belongs to this category.18 As Kalyvas argues such theories flow from the
view of old civil wars as limited, disciplined or understandable. The view is mythical and
unsupported by empirical evidence.19It reflects an effort to prove a priori theory rather than
critical interpretation.
The proponents, who pay attention to empirical inquiry, have a tendency of overextending their
conclusions. Theorists of greed thesis are in this category.

They overextend economic

rationality. Their reductionist approach, based on neo-classical economic variables ignores

important aspects of wars. Internal wars become a continuation of economics by other means,
and rebel groups become enterprises obeying the neo-classical laws of utility maximization.20
The models ignore the role of: History, yet conflicts have memories; moral agency, myths and
narratives justifying the war.21 As Richards argues, these wars need to be understood in relation
to patterns of violence already embedded within the society.

22

Essentially, violence is not its

own meaning, to be made thinkable it must be historicized.23

The epistemological shortcomings discussed explain the flaws of the new war thesis, and the
arguments it expounds. It reflects analysts epistemological position more than the reality.
Ultimately a parallel reality has been created as elaborated below.

18

R. Marchal, & C .Messiant, Une Lecture Symptomale de

Quelques Thorisations Rcentes des Guerres Civiles, Lusotopie, Vol. 13, No. 2,
2006, pp.3-46, p.33
19
S. N. Kalyvas, New and Old Wars, Op cit, p.116
20
See a critique by, T. Mkandawire, The Terrible Toll of Post-colonial Rebel Movements against the Peasantry,
Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol 40, No 2, 2002, pp.181-215.
21
See A. Aziz-Said and N.C. Funk, The Role of Faith in Cross-Cultural Conflict Resolution, Peace and Conflict
Studies, 2002, vol 9, No.1, p.39
22
P. Richards, No Peace No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts. Athens: Ohio University
Press, 2005, p.12
23
M. Mamdani: When Victims become Killers: Colonization, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000, p 364

The Ontological Critique

As observed, new war thesis argue that, new wars have different goals, mode of warfare and
financing. The issue is whether these differences exists as argued or are a reflection of the
worldviews of proponents. When it comes to goals, proponents argue that these wars lack
ideological goals of earlier wars and are based on identity based claims.24 This raises the
question of whether identity is the end goal of these wars or is used instrumentally to achieve
other objectives. Also, reliance on identity claims of entitlement is nothing new in social and
political relations and only changes in relation to context. Significantly, analyses of some
internal wars which have been labelled new wars, reveals a bloody history based on exclusivist
ideologies.25
Regarding lack of an ideology, the issue is not absence of ideology but how ideology has been
defined. These wars have ideologies whether ethnic or religious. It is only that, such ideologies
do not fit into our mainstream understanding of ideologies. Importantly, as Kalyvas argues, the
typical picture of ideologically oriented actors of old civil wars is often misrepresented. 26
The other marker, of new wars, is that, they do not respect the distinction between civilians and
combatants with civilians being the main target and are highly atrocious.27 The claim that
civilians are the main targets and constitutes eighty percent of deaths has been disputed.
Sollenberg argues that available data collected by historians do not support the change in trend

24

M. Kaldor, Old and New Wars, Op cit, p.8

For instance Rwandan 1994 genocide was a continuation of previous Hutunisation of Rwandan state. A sort of a
final solution to the Tutsi problem see R. Lemarchand, Genocide in the Great Lakes: Which Genocide? Whose
Genocide?, African Studies Review, Vol 41, No.1, 1998, pp.5-6. Also M. Mamdani: When Victims become Killers:
Colonization, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000
26
S. N. Kalyvas, New and Old Wars, Op cit, p.106
27
See M. Duffield, Social Reconstruction and the Radicalization of Development: Aid as a Relation of Global
Liberal Governance, Development and Change, 33(5), p.1051. Also M. Kaldor, Old and New Wars, Op cit, p.2
25

over time.28 Hall et al, shows that, the cold war period internal wars had more civilian casualties
than the post-cold war ones.29 Haarf, along similar line shows that, genocide and politicide has
actually decreased since the end of cold war.30 As such, the claim is a product of misplaced
historicity.
More so, the argument that human rights violations are an end in themselves is highly debatable.
Kalyvas notes that, the so called unwarranted violence has a strategic objective, a point missed
by observers who uses the wrong lens.31 Richards has shown that, in Sierra Leone, chopping of
hands and fingers by the Revolutionary United Front had simple strategic objective. 32
The final differentiation regards their financing. The mode of financing has blurred the line
between wars and organised crimes, and brought in other actors such as criminal networks and
corporate entrepreneurs. However this financing reflects the possibilities and potentials offered
by weakly regulated globalisation as well as adaptation by actors after the cold war, patronage
ended.33
Does the mode of financing make these self-provisioning wars new? The answer is partly yes
and no. Yes because, it creates war economy logic, whereby benefiting actors, prefer continued
war to peace, and at times the original objectives of the war are lost. However, the fact that these
wars are amenable to political solutions indicates that they still retain political objectives and are
not naked predations. On the other hand, that wars are self-financing does not make them new.
Rather it reflects the general trend of globalization which has led to networks of illicit economic

28

Cited in E. Melander et al, The New Wars Debate Revisisted: An Empirical Evaluation of the Atrociousness of
New wars. Uppsala: Uppsala Peace Research Paper, No 9, p.19.
29
Cited, Ibid, p.17
30
Cited, Ibid, p.17
31
S. N. Kalyvas, New and Old Wars, Op cit, pp.115-116
32
See Y. Bangura, Understanding the Political and Cultural Dynamics of the Sierra Leone War: A critique of Paul
Richards fighting for the Rain Forests, African Development, XXII, 3\4, p.117-148
33
M. Duffield, Wars as a Network Enterprises, Op cit, p.156

transactions beyond the control of the state. Importantly looting is a recurrent element of civil
wars including the most ideological ones.34
Conclusion
The arguments advanced in the essay shows that new wars proponents are merely trying to
reinvent the wheel. Evidence indicates that almost all the characterization of new wars are
present in old wars hence new wars is a mischaracterization. The only thing that has changed
is how these wars are financed. Despite this, internal wars are complex phenomena and change
in their financing cannot be used as a marker of something new. Rather, it is a form of innovation
in absence of patrons willing to finance them.

34

S.N. Kalyvas, New and Old Civil Wars, Op Cit, pp.107-9

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