Wars are described as international, national, interstate or ethnic based on the geographical areas covered and the participants. The cold war occurred after the colonial era and the wars in these area are referred to as the old civil wars. The development of new civil era is dependent on different aspects and thus the need to have a clear definition and delineation of these wars from the previous wars. The New civil war is described as having occurred from the post-cold war era. Different scholars have carried out research to describe the different perspectives about the new civil war and how it differs from the previous war. New wars are described as the decline of interstate armed conflict and perceived rise in the frequency of civil wars since the end of the cold war1 especially in Europe which have contributed to a new wave of interest in civil wars. This interest focuses on ethnic competition as a source of conflict and widely regards civil wars of the post–cold war era (“new” civil wars) as fundamentally different from their predecessors (“old” civil wars); “new” civil wars are distinguished as criminal, rather than political, phenomena. The essay focuses on how various authors perceive the wars differently but complement each other despite the differences (Melander, Oberg, & Hall, 2009) .
The various “new war” thesis rest on several common empirical claims, they argue that the locus of conflict in the world has shifted from Europe to postcolonial regions. The authors suggest that conflict has shifted from disputes between states to disputes within states and maintain that these “new wars” are dissimilar in purpose, practice, and participants from the old wars such as the interstate, extra state, and intrastate wars found in the COW typology.
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Henderson’s article describes that new wars can be classified according to either as Kaldor’s “new wars,” or according to Gray’s who named it “postmodern wars, and maintains that the Vietnam War was the first postmodern war, which is characterized by the intense use of computer-assisted weapons technology especially computer-aided artificial intelligence. The new war according to Rice is referred to as wars of the third kind and Holsti refers to it as people’s wars (Henderson & Singer, 2002) . The distinction between old and new civil wars stress that new civil wars are characteristically criminal, depoliticized, private, and predatory while the old civil wars are considered ideological, political, collective, and even noble. The dividing line between old and new civil wars coincides roughly with the end of the cold war.
The article new” and “old” civil wars a valid distinction? by Kalyvas, distinguishes the two wars; the old and new civil wars in three dimensions which are causes and motivation, support and violence. The old civil wars were believed to have collective grievances, having broad support and with controlled violence while the new civil wars are caused and motivated by private loot, lacks popular support system and has gratuitous violence. The distinction between old wars and new wars provide detailed and compelling descriptions of the changing nature of warfare. One side of the argument marks the shifting point between old and new wars around the end of the Second World War. Another argument revolves around the end of the Cold War where the latter is the most shared opinion (Kalyvas, 2001)
The read articles on the old and new wars illustrate the wars in the aspects of what motivated them, where they got the support to keep fueling the conflict. It is clear that many scholars agree that the new wars have been occurring since the end of the cold war and they are not specific to political gains but instead they take criminal component and selfish motivates of a section of the population. The articles seek to illustrate the difference of the civil wars from the previous political conflicts.
References
Henderson, E. A., & Singer, J. D. (2002). "New Wars" and Rumours of "New Wars". International Interactions , 165-190.
Kalyvas, S. N. (2001). "New" and "Old" Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction? World Politics , 99-118.
Melander, E., Oberg, M., & Hall, J. (2009). Are 'New Wars' More Atrocious? Battle Severity, Civilians Killed and Forced Migration Before and After the End of the Cold War. European Journal of International Relations , 505-536.
