Europe's new wars

Since the 1990s, scholars have begun to analyse the appearance of new kinds of conflict and its implications for the armed forces. Among the more prominent of these contributions was Mary Kaldor's concept of ‘new wars’ (1999) which, she claimed, had ‘to be understood in the context of the process known as globalization’ (1999: 3). The subversion of state authority through new global economic flows has differentially advantaged and disadvantaged certain groups, precipitating friction, hostility and ultimately conflict. Decisively, ‘new wars arise in the context of the erosion of the autonomy of the state and in some extreme cases the disintegration of the state’ (Kaldor 1999: 4). The concept of identity politics is central to Kaldor's concept of the new war, and she distinguishes between the identities around which modern conflict was organised and the new identities which fuel postmodern war. ‘Earlier identities were linked either to a notion of state interest or to some forward-looking project – ideas about how society should be organized’ (1999: 6). Modern wars were fought between state armed forces on the basis of national identity and affiliation. The population was mobilised by a unifying state. By contrast, ‘the process of globalization, it can be argued, has begun to break-up these vertically organized cultures’ (1999: 71). In the light of this fragmentation, ‘identity politics’ involve ‘movements which mobilize around ethnic, racial or religious identity for the purpose of claiming state power’ (1999: 76).