Page 294 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

796 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

linguistics etc.) while previous wars had ideological or geopolitical goals. These new “poli-
tics of identity” and exclusivist activities must be included inside the process of globaliza-
tion resulting in a contradictory process which simultaneously produces inclusion and exclu-
sion, homogenization and fragmentation. The result is that, supplanted the old ideological
and territorial fractures of the past, the inherent antinomy into the heart of the globalization
produces two contrastive tendencies: on one side it develops a cosmopolitan and inclusive
culture, on the other side it produces an exclusive politics of identity.
The second element concerns the sources of financing, or the economy of the war. While
old wars were characterized by a centralized economy, the new ones would be based on an
expended and transnational economy that activates black market, depredation, pillage, ex-
ploits the humanitarian help and receives financings by groups of the Diaspora .
7
With regard to the last two elements, methods of fight and typology of fighters, the new
wars are characterized by completely decentralized combat unities, without control (para-
militaries, criminal gangs, mercenaries, “warlords”, etc.) that use, above all, insurgency and
counter-insurgency strategies. Instead of the organized and controlled violence of the old
conflicts, violence by the new rebels appears anomic, extreme and mostly addressed against
civil population rather than against the hostile armies. While the old wars received a strong
support by the population, the present ones, therefore, do not receive this support rather they
have as principal objective to attack civil population causing forced displacement, commit-
ting massacres and crimes.
This paradigm, to which many other analysts refer, had been preceded by two other in-
terpretative tendencies: the first one can be defined as the “civilization under siege” and the
second tightly “economicist.” The first emphasize the sudden burst of forms of “senseless”
violence, conflicts founded upon inexplicable and irrational hates . enzensberger ana-
9
8
lyzing the transformations after the end of the bipolar equilibrium describes an apocalyptic
scenario in which a new form of free violence predominates not only in numerous civil wars
all around the world but even in the western urban centers where they take form as “mo-
lecular civil wars.” The civil wars of the past were characterized to follow a precise strategy
under a political direction, and their goal was the consolidation of a regime, of a centralized
government power that takes the helm of a territory. New wars would not have these noble
and political motives anymore: after the end of the Cold War and the exploitation by foreign
powers of many conflicts according to their interests, they revealed their true face. Disguised
as national liberation wars, they now revealed the absence of any project and ideology. Con-
flicts rise in a spontaneous way, inflamed inside and the only goals of the various guerrillas
and counter-guerrillas are destruction, pillages and murders. Therefore violence is inexpli-
cable in a rational way and the scenario that appears is very pessimistic.
According to the economic approach new conflicts are apparently moved by political

7 According to Keen David, economic reason is one of the most important aspect in order to understand post-
bipolar civil conflicts (see Keen, “The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars”, Adelphi Paper n.
320, 1998.
8 See R. Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism and disease are ra-
pidly destroying the fabric of our planet” in The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994 and H. M. Enzensberger,
Civil Wars: from L.A. to Bosnia, New York, Free Press, 1994.
9 enzensberger, 1994.