The traditional European vision of war was really coined and set up by Carl von Clausewitz at the beginning of the 19th century in his very famous book “<i>On war</i>”, in which he explains that war is an instrument, is an instrument of politics, is an instrument of the state. This central conception of war is now questioned and this way of questioning war, this way of taking into account the new kinds of conflict is opening the path to a new vision of the international conflicts, of the new conflicts. Mary Kaldor was among the first scholars to point this new international conflicts in her famous book “<i>New wars, Old wars</i>”. Mary Kaldor pointed that new wars are so different from the previous one, from the European wars that I described, in my previous lecture, that we have to coin a new concept, and we have to define and to elaborate a new sociology of what must be called the new international conflicts. What is a new international conflict? If we take into account the research made by the PRIO, the famous center of research of Oslo, we know now that out of 416 wars which took place from 1946, 382 were intrastate wars, 63, only 63 were interstate wars, and 21 were extra state wars, that’s to say mainly colonial or postcolonial wars. This domination of the intrastate conflicts renews totally the vision and the conception that we had in our European culture about war. The main difference is that now if we look at the current wars, wars are not taking place among the powers, but essentially, mainly, among the weakest states. This is a very strong paradox. In the Hobbes vision, war was a question of power, only powerful actors were fighting against each other, it was a kind of competition among powers. Now powers don’t compete anymore, or don’t compete directly anymore, but the very center of wars now is taking place in the poorest zones of the world. This is a very strong transformation. If we take into account those conflicts, which took place after 1945, 75% are located in South Asia, Middle East and Africa. For the first time in the world history, since I mean Westphalia, Europe is no more the battlefield of the world. I’m not sure that actors and observers really took into account this great transformation. Europeans didn’t realize that they are no more at the center of the wars, that they are no more the battlefield of the world. They were accustomed to the idea that war was taking place at home, now war is no more at home, war is far from Europe, and it’s not really sure that it is possible to manage, to organize wars which don’t take place inside the European continent as it was the case previously. So, through geography, through the maps, we can see the reality and the deeps of these transformations, but behind these new locations, we have to take into account a new context and a new profile of war. New context: first of all, we are now in a world, which is deeply affected by a strong diversification of power resources. Military resources now are no more the exclusive power resources, as it was the case during the 19th or the 20th century. Even more, military resources are no more the most efficient resources. Second transformation of the context: change in value. War is no more this source of prestige as it was before, war was considered as the main emblem of aristocracy, as something noble, which is no more the case by now. The new generations and the new socializations transformed the idea of war, which is no more considered as a source of prestige but as a source of drama. Third transformation: change in legitimacy. War was funded on the very simple idea that, in the international arena, state violence was a legitimate violence, when non-state violence was considered as a non legitimate violence. Is it so clear now? When particularly during the Second World War resistance took place and was activated by non state actors. Resistance was produced in France for instance by non state actors but was considered as much more legitimate that the violence used by the German state. This new confusion between state and non-state violence is blurring the distinction, and so the simple vision of the state which is necessarily legitimate when it brings violence in the international arena is no more working as it was. Fourth transformation: a change in the military instrument. From 1945 the world, the new world was dominated by nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons didn’t play the same role than the conventional weapons, and nuclear weapons introduced the idea that power was not the capacity of dominating, but the capacity of destroying which is not the same thing. And capacity of destroying is so terrific, so dreadful, that war was considered as something impossible in the old continent as the nuclear war was considered as totally non rational, and even logically impossible. And the last point, is that we are now in a world in which there is no more victory at the end of wars, wars are now developing without a real chance of victory for the players. We can from the PRIO researches now establish that only 13% of the wars, of the post 1945 wars had a real and a clear victory. This is the new context. But the new international conflicts are also bound to a new profile of war. What does it mean? New actors, new purposes and a new role for civilians. New actors: the main players in the new international conflicts are no more states but non-state actors, non-state actors who are organized through militias, that’s to say we don’t meet in the wars states nor armies, but militias and warlords and violence entrepreneurs, that’s to say actors who don’t have the same rationality than the state actors. The violence entrepreneurs are much more recalcitrant to negotiations, because they don’t have any interest to negotiate. If they negotiate, they disappear as such, they disappear as warlords. Warlords need war for surviving, when states don’t necessary need war. But sometimes peace is much more attractive to states than war, this is not the case for warlords and for the violence entrepreneurs. In these new kinds of mobilization, identity, and even hate, play a major role, much more important than national interest. Old wars were connected to national interest, when new wars are connected to identity and hate, and new wars are mobilizing new sectors of the civil society, and especially this terrible phenomenon of the child soldiers. We know that now there are between 300 000 and 500 000 of child soldiers, who are involved into the new conflicts, and so who are constituting sometimes the major parts of the militias. Child soldiers are coming from societies, which are unable to provide them with minimal human security, food, health, education, and so they find in militias and in the new conflicts the main resources they need for surviving. New actors but also new purposes. New purposes means that instead of national interest competing, we are facing a situation in which the major cause of the conflict is to be found in the crisis of the social contract, in the collapse of the state, in the collapse of nations. That’s to say the new purpose is not competing, but is substituting, no more a competition among states but a substitution to the state, to the failed and collapsing state. Lack of integration is the main factor of war, and so, the lack of social integration is defining a situation in which war is to be considered as the purpose of war. that’s to say we are entering in a new world, which could be considered as a war society, a world made of war societies. What is a war society? It’s a society in which individuals find in the war the main way for surviving, and that’s why, it’s the third feature of the new international conflicts. Civilians are now at the very center of these conflicts and play a role which is much more important than the role played by the militaries, so these new international conflicts are de-differentiating army and civilians. War society is probably one of the most painful destinations of these new international conflicts and these new figures of the world conflicts.
