New war

Author: (German) Herfried Münkler / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: Where is the Newness of the New Wars? The Old Empires and the New Wars In the two decades, the wars that have drawn our attention have taken place in or over the peripheries and divided regions of the old empires, which until the early 20th century still controlled and partitioned this world. Among them, the Balkan War related to the disintegration of Yugoslavia was the most intense and long-lasting. The Danube Empire and the Ottoman Empire had been vying for dominance there since the early 20th century, engaging in a series of large and small wars, repeatedly altering their spheres of influence. Similar conflicts also broke out in the Caucasus and border regions to the south of the former Soviet Union. These conflicts primarily occurred in areas where the expansionist Russian Empire and the declining Ottoman Empire had been competing for control since the 18th century. Despite the Russians' efforts, they never managed to permanently subdue the mountain dwellers in those regions. However, with the complete collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the Second World War, not only did conflict zones like the Balkans and the Caucasus emerge, but numerous conflicts also broke out in the Middle East, among which the Palestinian conflict has long been the most influential and severe. The situation in Afghanistan is similar. In the 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state between the Russian Empire, which still pursued expansionist policies even then, and the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent, and it maintained this role until the 20th century. In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union attempted to exploit the conflicts between modern and traditional forces within Afghanistan to expand its influence beyond the Hindu Kush Mountains, aiming to secure a strategic foothold in the Middle East, where the world's energy resources lie, and to position itself as a potential ally against China. To this end, the Soviet Union launched a war that lasted over 20 years, which ultimately ended with the collapse of all state structures in Afghanistan. If in the 1980s the United States appeared as an indirect adversary of the Soviet Union by supplying weapons and funds to anti-Soviet guerrilla groups (Mujahideen), then after the Russians withdrew, Pakistan replaced them due to the United States' strategic interests in the region. Pakistani military leaders hoped to establish a friendly regime in Kabul, thereby gaining a strategic depth to counter India, which is essential for a larger-scale war. On the other hand, this need stemmed from a dispute arising from the disintegration of regions previously under British control, specifically the tense relationship between India and Pakistan, which has repeatedly been resolved through inter-state wars. In the late 1980s, the two hostile countries, India and Pakistan, both originated from the "broken inheritance" of the British Empire. They first failed to agree on the border issue in Kashmir between them; as a result, this region, which belongs partly to India, partly to Pakistan (and partly to China), remains a persistent source of conflict to this day. In its extremely inaccessible mountainous areas, small-scale wars, i.e., guerrilla warfare, have continued for decades. P1-3