Ponamareva Anastasia Mikhailovna – Ph.D. in Sociology, senior researcher, INION RAN
The article examines the concept «new wars» as analytical tool to describe contemporary international conflicts. The first section provides a brief overview of the Martin van Creveld non-trinitarian theory of warfare, which he juxtaposes to the famous work by Carl von Clausewitz – «On War». The next section highlights the key points of Mary Kaldor’s approach, who asserts the existence of differences between «old» and «new» wars in actors, goals, methods of warfare and forms of finance. It examines coupling the «new wars» theory with the contemporary practice of international conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. In the third part of the article we regard specific difficulties in the management and settlement of intra-state, regional and international conflicts in the XXIst century, and reaffirm the relevance of Emmanuel Todd’s notion of «theatrical micro-militarism» of the USA. It’s also regarded the place of the conception of network-centric war in the structure of the modern hybrid war. The character of threats produced by asymmetric conflicts is analyzed through a framework of Andrew Mack’s conceptual articles. The last section tackles the questions of the novelty of «new wars» and the shift of the Western and non-Western cultures of war. Accepting Herfried Münkler conception we argue that current warfare reminds of the forms of collective violence as they took place in Europe before the early modern era states established the normative rules that have guided international warfare since the end of the Thirty Years’ War. We also find that argumentation of the transformation of war has its origin in a gradual change of Western mind. The article ends up with identifying main misperceptions of the theoretical model developed by Carl von Clausewitz and the suggestion to evaluate the «new wars» discourse as a reflection of changing Western attitudes towards war, but not the war’s nature.
international conflicts, «new wars», identity, violence, national interest, terrorism.
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