Democracies, insurgencies and terrorism, and peace building

By Anthony Oberschall, emeritus professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Unconventional warfare

In the present time and foreseeable future, most warfare will not be between states but between states and non-state entities, be they insurgents, guerrillas, transnational terrorists, war lords and bandits, or some combination of these, usually helped and even sponsored by states.? Of 231 armed conflicts identified by peace research data bases (Oslo, Uppsala) between 1946 and 2005, 167 have been internal conflicts and 43 interstate – the remaining 21 were colonial wars. This mode of internal warfare has been called by various names: ‘new wars’, civil wars, unconventional wars, asymmetric warfare, insurgency and counterinsurgency; I will refer to it as ‘unconventional warfare.’ Most of these armed conflicts do not end with a unilateral military victory, but with a negotiated peace, and they tend to last longer than conventional wars. The issue I discuss in this talk is peacemaking? and peace building in the course of unconventional warfare.