The Role Of Non State Armed Actors

Throughout history, our world has constantly been bruised and battered by civil turmoil. Today, the civil war in Syria decimates the country; the Israeli and Palestinian conflict rages on; tens of thousands of people have been killed in South Sudan's ongoing civil war. It is not always easy to isolate what exactly ignites the flames of war, but, whenever possible, finding a workable, calm and satisfying solution to a potential uprising is preferable.

In A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Powers writes that the US is “extremely slow to muster the imagination needed to reckon with evil.” Powers’ comments are particularly relevant to U.S. policy during the turbulent 1990s and more recently in Syria when the U.S. policymakers chose not to deploy military capability to prevent mass atrocities. Since Powers’ seminal work, the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has taken on the challenge to educate military officers with 10 to 12 years of military experience in the prevention of and response to mass atrocities (MARO). My paper will discuss how international agreements such as the Responsibility to Protect, the Genocide

John Mueller makes a claim even bolder than a decline in war, arguing that war has ceased, or nearly ceased, to exist. He argues that the general decline in inter-state war lies in the changing attitudes towards war. Mueller contends that up until the early 20th century, war was seen in a positive light, but European attitudes changed “profoundly” after WWI, and that shift of opinion was “dramatically reinforced” by WWII. Mueller explains the particular fall in civil wars in the 1990s as a result of improvements in governance and policing in developing countries. Thus these factors in combination explain the recent decline in all wars. Mueller rejects other alternative arguments for the decline of war, including economic interdependence and institutional incentives, on the basis of causality and questionable impact. Critics of his theories point out that the traditional “war” conception they are based on excludes any non-state warfare with under 1000 deaths, and thus explanations of the recent decline do not account for major instances of political violence such as the Rwandan Genocide. However, Mueller refutes these critiques with the view that such political violence is merely opportunistic thugs who are the ‘residual combatants’. Thus, Mueller’s claim that war has “ceased to exist” is qualified, particularly in light of political changes after the cold war.

Marshall, (2000, p14), observed that protracted conflict ravages society and its supportive systems. In modern warfare, civilians are caught in the cross fire and invariably suffer the majority of war’s effects, mainly because in civil warfare situations, the entire society is the arena of armed conflict, and distinctions between combatant and non combatant are difficult to tell. And, in modern technological warfare, the societal infrastructure is itself a target. Refugees and internally displaced persons are a common result of violent and protracted conflict. Sorensen, (1998), observed that, it is, important to recognise that modern warfare often targets civilians and the institutions and structures that support them in their daily lives.

The Yemen government has historically been weak, lacked in control, effectiveness and stability (Mitchell, 2012). The nation is accustomed to all forms of conflict, particularly civil, making it more likely for civil war to reoccur (DeRouen, 2015). The weak and transitional state of the government provided rebel groups, in this particular instance, Ansaruallah, the opportunity to rebel against the central government and ignite a civil war. While the opportunity was present for the rebellion to occur, the underlying longstanding grievances with the government were arguably the primary factors leading to the conflict. The Yemeni people have been impoverished, suffering from famine and water shortages and lacking any economic stability (Laub, 2015). Yemenis do not receive adequate care or protection from the government and therefore they look to the more powerful rebel groups within their borders (Mitchell, 2012). These groups are able to gain in power due to territorial advantages, recruitment of enraged and desperate citizens and lack of opposition against them (Fearon, 2012). At the time of the governmental transition and the Arab Spring movement, protests were ongoing. The Yemen government decided to strike out against protesters and killed over 40 civilians (UCDP, 2016). This event, coupled with the previously outlined grievances

Conflict, whether between states or within states, is costly. Not only is the event itself costly but it is inefficient because oftentimes the same outcome could’ve been reached without conflict. Yet, conflict still occurs in the international system. If both parties knew what the outcome of a particular conflict would be, they could reach an agreement beforehand to avoid conflict’s high cost. However, predicting the future is not yet possible and so to address this issue, James Fearon developed a bargaining model of war that aims to explain why states so often fail to reach peaceful bargains. Building upon this rationalist explanation for war, Benjamin Valentino discusses the use of mass killing as a rational tool for leaders. Both arguments fail to take into account the individual experience – an experience driven and shaped by emotion. The events in Kosovo in the

In fact, the extent of the failure can be defined by the amount of territory which is out of state’s control (Rotberg, 2002; 86). One can notice a connection between the lack of legitimate authority and an increase in criminal violence, which also indicates state failure (Rotberg, 2002; 87). This further perpetuates violence against the regime from the side of insurgencies and other groups wanting to take over the country, while anarchy becomes the norm. (Rotberg, 2002; 85, 87). Furthermore, even though the escalation of conflicts might have its roots in “ethnic, religious, linguistic, or other intercommunal enmity”, Rotberg argues that it is not the primary cause of state failure (2002; 86). In his article The new nature of nation‐state failure, Rotberg further mentions a few failed countries, as well as examples of weak countries on the verge of failure, overall stating that there are many indicators which could define a state as

According to Reiley (2008) defining the sociological makeup target area is the most important aspect to conducting irregular warfare (Reiley, 2008). According to Larson when assessing Irregular warfare, analysts need to begin with an analysis that focus’ on gaining an overview of the origins and history of the conflict; what classified and unclassified secondary analyses say about political, socioeconomic, and other drivers of the conflict; and key fault lines or other structural characteristics of the conflict, for example the nature of the coalition supporting the government and its challengers (Larson, 2008) (Reiley, 2008). Since these aspects can vary significantly within

A few of the hundreds of NGO’s operating in Afghanistan include the World Health Organization, World Bank, British Agencies Afghan group, and Afghans for Civil Society. While each of these organizations takes on the battle in a different way, they are all aiming towards the same goal at the end of the fight; Peace for the Afghan people. Some of these organizations decide to take on this battle by aiding with things such as health care, agricultural development, building programs, emergency relief, or school reconstruction. Despite the efforts of these NGO’s, many problems have arisen, making it hard to maintain ideal structural stability for the organizations working within the state. A main concern for humanitarians across the globe is the “blurred line” that has occurred as a result of the inability to decipher between aid workers, and military troops. This has caused the Afghan people to become vary, and can result in a lack of trust for those trying to administer support. Western governments have also proceeded to voice the idea of the ‘comprehensive approach’ to peacekeeping. This approach focuses on the idea that militaries, aid workers, politicians and civilians should all work together to provide ‘complex solutions to complex emergencies.’ ("Civil-Military Relations in Afghanistan”). The inability to disentangle the

Rudolf and Findley (2016) look into whether the fragmentation of combatants throughout civil war has any long lasting effects on the ability of peace following civil wars. they state that the splintering of combatant groups, will produce potential spoiler groups that are neither related nor insignificant in the course of civil war resolution. The connections made with the spoiling and credible commitment literatures, the authors hypothesize that rebel splintering speeds the reappearance of civil wars. The results advocate the need to pay more attention to the dynamics of fragmentation. “For example, governments that attempt to splinter groups or to use existing fragmentations within rebel groups to end a civil war may encourage the unintended

In the destructive wake of WWII, it was general consensus that a world peace organization be formed. That organization came in the form of the United Nations, an institution once notorious for its peacekeeping abilities. From corner to corner of the globe, peacekeeping troops were deployed in attempt to relieve conflict in disputed regions. These troops once served as a beacon of hope for impoverished families in times of war, but, as time progressed, the quality of peacekeeping operations have degraded, and such, civilians became more wary of their presence. What UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon now calls “a cancer in our system” has been highly disputed. With the future of both civilians and entire countries at stake, it’s important to ask “What can be done to improve the U.N. peacekeeping force?”

Over the past two decades, humanitarian actors have expanded the geographic scope of their work to more challenging and dangerous environments. As a result, negotiations with armed non-state actors (ANSAs) have become increasingly important in order to gain access to populations in need of their assistance. Yet many humanitarian actors feel that negotiating with ANSAs presents formidable challenges, including a lack respect for international humanitarian law (IHL), hostility to humanitarian principles and distrust and suspicion of humanitarian organizations.

“Give War a Chance” is an article written by the American economist, historian and military strategist Edward Nicolae Luttwak in 1999, in the American magazine Foreign Affairs. It make an easily understandable “buzz”, since its main assumption is that most kind of peacekeeping or humanitarian operations are, in an objective point of view, a bad thing for the peace, and that it tends, paradoxically, to slower its establishment. We will analyze here the main hypothesis that Luttwak is developing among the article, the first one being the destruction of the legitimacy usually accorded to peacekeeping operations, led by the UN or by other military organizations, and the second one being the obstacle to a durable peace establishment, created

Non-state networks that emerge during war are largely informed by the country’s peacetime dynamics, adjusting to opportunities and challenges in a less ‘secure’ environment. Are they inherently predatory, undermining the state and stripping its assets or can they be foundations from which a strong civil society can be built upon as, ostensibly, relative stability returns? Different actors in a conflict have different tools at their disposal and thus divergent mechanisms for harnessing power. Picard (2000) categorises four organizational networks that emerged during Lebanon’s fifteen- year civil war: ideological and welfare-based entities; loosely controlled armed groups; autonomous principalities; and corporatist structures. It goes without saying that these categories are not rigid and can exhibit overlapping characteristics. Their separation however serves a useful analytical purpose and reveals the diversity in the means devised, to both maintain local legitimacy and maintain a steady revenue stream, devised by those who take part in war making.

No global definition exists for states described as “fragile”, “failing”, or failed because they come in all shapes and sizes. Yet, countries that have failed at the basic responsibilities of governance and sovereign authority are generally lumped into this group. Fragile, failing, or failed states share similar characteristics including their inability to control their borders, loss of authority over insurgents, gangs, and warlords, and loss of legitimacy internally/internationally. Examples relevant today of countries that are fragile or failing, and on the path to failed status include Iraq and many of the Middle Eastern countries struggling to maintain their autonomy in the fight against ISIS. Other important indicators of failed states include: