The Changing Nature of the Conflict. From Global to Local

International Conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION Vol. XXVI No 1 2020 THE CHANGING NATURE OF THE CONFLICT. FROM GLOBAL TO LOCAL Anca DINICU “Nicolae Bălcescu” Land Forces Academy Sibiu, Romania [email protected] Abstract:A misunderstanding or a disagreement, an incompatible situation or a competition between opponents that can generate into violence, conflict is a constant feature of human society. It can lead, depending on the context, to development or, on the contrary, to the dissolution of the organization or society. From the international relations’ point of view, a conflict is a dynamic process based on the clashing of interests of the international system’s participants. After the end of the Cold War, the change of conditions and determinations at the international level imprinted a specific evolution of the international conflict by transforming it in accordance with the conversion recorded by the global power architecture. In the same logic can be explained the reverse of the conditioning relationship, respectively of transforming the structure of the international system depending on the stake and the magnitude of the international conflict. Keywords: security environment, conflict, war, armed conflict, Cold War. 1. Introduction The international security environment is not static, and therefore it represents a constant interest for the academics and political analysts (but not only) due to: the transformations it is subjected to and the events that trigger them; the need to define and understand the features that characterize it at a given time; the necessity of identifying the threats that may jeopardize its functioning and stability; and, last but not least, the possible consequences that opportunities and challenges may develop. Conflict, in the same logic, is a permanent challenge for academics because although theoretically, all conflicts have as a starting point the different needs, trends, requirements, or desires, in practice, they imprint conflict a particular architecture according to the context it evolves. 2. Methodology The paper exploresthe nowadays conflict in connection with the one specific during the Cold War. For this, the features considered relevant for the contemporary security environment are briefly presented to understand the general context in which the analysis takes place. Besides, after the meanings of the conflict and its typology in the present conditions are discussed, the research is focused on the military conflict from the perspectives of the designing elements that have facilitated its translation from the global to the local level. If the starting point of the analysis were the changing world after the fall of the Iron Curtain and how this significant point in contemporary history generated changes upon the conflict features, in the end, it would be highlighted how in turn, the latter is reshaping the international system. The research was based on: DOI: 10.2478/kbo-2020-0008 © 2015. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. 53 • A literature review relevant for dealing with the security environment, conflict, and other related topics. • Analytical approach. identifying and analyzing its features. A presentation, by no means exhaustive, could be as follows: • Major change of concept regarding the source and nature of threats and risks. • Global power architecture under construction. • Intensified cooperation in parallel withincreased competition for resources and conflict as the “last resort” for solving problems or imposing control. • Democracy expansion simultaneously with ethnic and religious conflicts multiplication. • Stability promotion and multinational armed intervention. 3. The After Cold War Emerging Security Environment In the last more than 30 years that have passed since the end of the Cold War, the security environment has changed profoundly without, however, reaching a stable structure. The predictability of the international relations’ evolutionalong with the conditions that influence the process sometimes seems to be “a dream too far away”, which increases the degree of uncertainty regarding the achievement of a particular result. The changes that have terminated the bipolar world have generated a complicated and heterogeneous security environment, marked by opposite tendencies and ambiguities. The global events and the changes that states have encountered are characterized by velocity, realigning forces, and demanding new strategies of preventing the complicated threats of the 21st century. The international security environment is marked by the process of globalization that has already managed to change security parameters (nationally and internationally). Globalization is a complex process, which concomitant involves internationalization and localization, integration and fragmentation, homogenization and differentiation, cooperation and competition/conflict. On the one hand, the process creates transnational networks, and on the other hand, it excludes and atomizes large human communities. On the one hand, people's lives are profoundly shaped by events that take place far from the area they live in, on which they cannot intervene. On the other hand, there are new possibilities to emphasize the role of local and regional policy, without being beyond the global process and concerns. The current international security environment can be best understood by 4. Understanding conflict As a clash of interests, the conflict goes along with human society, being inherent to humans. It is present among individuals and groups, inside and between organizations and states. Without a standard accepted definition, conflict is also controversial when it comes to its outcomes, the consequences being positive and negative, depending on the context. It can bring success and unity, stimulate creativity and innovation, and improve decision-making, resulting in social change. At the same time, it can generate resource and time waste, dissolution, insanity, and, ultimately, violence. To sum up, a conflict always brings change, for better or for worse. Traditionally, the term "international conflict" refers mainly to conflicts between different nation-states but also to a dispute carried out within a country, when at least one group isfighting for independence or increased social, political, or economic power. In this case, all the internal turmoil gains international interest due to its potential of harming the global or regional security environment or because it may affect some other actors’ interests. Conflict issues are critical in understanding a conflict because they point out what the parties are concerned about, the source of perceived incompatibilities, what they hope 54 economic warfare could be understood as a "war by other means", as Blackwill and Harris underlined that economic concerns are a part of foreign policies and, in order to accomplish their geopolitical interests, states often resort to economic instruments [2]. According to international law, war can only exist between states, as sovereign entities, being a “means of resolving differences between units as the highest order of political organization” [3]. Alternatively, as K.N.Waltz, one of the founders of neorealism, said: “War pits some states against others in a struggle among similarly constituted entities” [4]. Nowadays, at least from the international relations’ perspective, the term war is considered outdated and replaced by armed conflict. Even both of them rely on violence as the primary vehicle of reaching the aim, the armed conflict can take place not only between states, other types of actors acting as parts to it. Nevertheless, rules regulated by international law and applied to war do not fit to the armed conflict. Furthermore, probably, the most known is the formal declaration of war, which “declining use […] has meant that it is often difficult to determine when an armed conflict has become a war” [5]. Considering the armed conflict’s definition, jurisprudence still relates this type of confrontation with the state. Thus, according to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in the Tadic case, “an armed conflict exists whenever there is a resort to armed force between States” [6]. War and armed conflict are used today interchangeably, and to distinguish between them and namely a confrontation based on the armed force in a way or another, one should take into consideration issues like the typology of the involved parts, length and number of casualties, combat level of organization and fighters’ characteristics. It is conventional versus “new”. to accomplish by getting involved. The disagreement stake may consist of: • Resources like those considered to be strategic, such as oil and natural gas; territory; food; money; and other commodities, essential for the economy and society development. • Power, how it is distributed and who has access in the political decision-making process. • Identity, namely cultural, linguistic, and ethnic characteristics that identify peoples. • Values, mainly those on which the political, ideological, and religious systems are based on. Goldstein and Pevehouse analyzed conflicts by dividing them into two categories according to their tangible (over territory; concerning the political color of national governments; economic conflict) or less tangible interests (ethnic, religious, or ideological conflicts) [1]. Conflict is not necessarily a war; most of the international conflicts do not end as wars because the different parts involved manage to find alternative solutions to the problem in dispute [1]. Still, when referring to international conflict, most of the people are discussing in fact about war or armed conflict, and counterterrorism or hostilities, too. War is a way of achieving different purposes with the use of violence. Depending on the context, the scope, the means used to fulfill the goal, the extent, and coverage, the war was categorized by the literature as being total or limited, hot or cold, conventional and nuclear, aggressive or defensive, international or civil, political, economic, sacred and so on. However, not every example mentioned here is suitable for direct use of armed forces, like it was the case of the Cold War or the economic one. That does not mean that the armed forces lose their importance. On the contrary, they represent a symbol of power. Although at war, Americans and Soviets never confronted each other militarily and much less used nuclear weapons. In its turn, 55 5. International conflict, from global to local. And back again? The Cold War was an over four-decade period of international tensions, based on a complex rivalry between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Although allies in defeating the Nazi in the Second World War, the confrontation between these two dominated the world in the second part of the last century and not only because they were the only superpowers, but because each one successfully developed a structure of power in its hemisphere with the help of which it tried to rule the world. It was an ideological conflict that flourished the political and cultural ones and favored the growth of military might, particularly the nuclear race, and the economic competition. The Cold War can be considered a global one due to the impact it had across the globe, over different societies and organizations. Based on a “stick and carrot” policy, the Cold War had a high capacity to also attract into its web, besides its allies formally grouped in different types of regional organization, the countries from the so-called Third World. Both sides tried to make friends among them, by supporting different movements and political regimes, and subverted adversaries. Most of these more or less new independent but al struggling countries were caught in the middle of the superpower competition. Some of them managed to escape by adopting a non-aligned foreign policy. Others were transformed into battlefields, the civil and regional war being intensified and prolonged by Americans’ and Soviets’ intervention, while others may have been avoided or limited [7]. After the implosion of the Soviet Empire and the dissolution of the bipolar system, international conflicts regrouped locally and regionally. This type of conflict also existed during the Cold War, but it manifested itself under the umbrella of the great powers whose interests were pursued in the confrontation objectives. Developments on the international stage directly influenced the transformations of the international conflicts, and these, in turn, were favored by breaking ideological barriers with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The disappearance of the ideological conflict, a defining feature of the Cold War, facilitated the outbreak of political conflicts because there were no longer two superpowers able to calm down political or ethnic turmoil in smaller countries. The end of the Cold War gave birth to the hope that Mankind will enter a new era that of peace, development, and cooperation between states. Instead, “the reaffirmation of local and regional patterns of interstate rivalries has been intensified” [8]. A wave of armed conflict was to be manifested throughout the world, including Europe, which, for the first time since World War II, had witnessed armed confrontations. In the absence of an order guaranteed by the two superpowers, “the defining characteristic of the post-cold war era is unarguably that of increased civil wars and intra-state conflicts” [9]. “If you want to understand the post-Cold War world, you have to start by understanding that a new international system has succeeded it – globalization” [10]. This process has generated dramatic changes at the international level. Against the background of increasing democratization of the states, at the economic and social level, it created an interdependent world. At the military level, however, due to the conditions set up by the end of the Cold War, it paradoxically generated “deglobalization”, “the asymmetry of global military power” offering “new options for waging war”[11]. If in the post-Cold War period, it has been noticed a considerable interest decrease in the global armed conflict and an intensity increase of the regional and intrastate conflicts, in other respects, it cannot be said that the global conflict has diminished its 56 “attractiveness”. Competition for resources can quickly turn into a global confrontation, just as ethnic-religious divergences at the regional level can explode globally. Five years after the end of the Cold War, the American political scientist Larry Diamond stated: “On any list of the most important potential threats to world order and national security in the coming decade, these six should figure prominently: a hostile, expansionist Russia; a hostile, expansionist China; the spread of Islamic fundamentalist, anti-Western regimes; the spread of political terrorism from all sources; sharply increased immigration pressures; and ethnic conflictthat escalates into large-scale violence, civil war, refugee flows, state collapse, and general anarchy. Some of these potential threats interact in significant ways with one another, but they all share a common underlying connection” [12]. Indeed, he was right in every aspect concerning the six threats he had mentioned, such as the Chinese case. According to Mark Esper, the American Secretary of Defense, it is “a new era of great power competition [which] means [America] needs to focus more on highintensity warfare going forward". … [America’s] “long-term challenges are China, No. 1, and Russia, No. 2”. … China “continues to grow its military strength, its economic power, its commercial activity, and it’s doing so, in many ways, illicitly [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] or it’s using the international rules-based order against [America] to continue this growth, to acquire technology, and to do the things that really undermine [America’s and its allies’] sovereignty, that undermine the rule of law, that really question [Beijing’s] commitment to human rights”[13]. It is pictured the possibility of breaking out a global conflict between these two countries by presenting China as a rising power that does not back off by any means to accomplish its interest. The world has to deal with a rivalry that has the potential to tailor the international system under its most important features: political, military, and economic dynamics. It is a “great power competition, but without boundaries”[14], a new type of cold war” [15]. 6. Instead of conclusion The world has reshaped the conflict, but is the conflict reshaping the world? The answer might be a positive one if a Sino-American new cold war will finally burst out. At that point, the nations of the world will be in a position to choose between a state that fosters democracy and freedom (political security) and another that favors economic growth (economic security). No matter the option, the ultimate aim would be achieving, ensuring, and guaranteeing the military security. References Joshua S. Goldstein, Jon C. Pevehouse, Relații internaționale, Iași, Editura Polirom, 2008, pp. 238-269, 233. Robert D. Blackwill, Jennifer M. Harris, War by Other Means: Geoeconomicsand Statecraft, Cambridge Massachusetts, The Belknap of Harvard University Press, 2016. Johan M.G. van der Dennen, On War: Concepts, Definitions, Research Data – A Short Literature Review And Bibliography (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12857871.pdf. Kenneth N. Waltz, Teoria politicii internaționale, Iași, Editura Polirom, 2006, p. 160. Andrew Haywood, Key Concepts in Politics and International Relations, second edition, London, Palgrave, 2015, p. 130. https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/opinion-paper-armed-conflict.pdf. John Baylis, Steve Smith, Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics. An Introduction to International Relations, fourth edition, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 67. 57 [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, Jonathan Perraton, Transformări globale. Politică, economie și cultură, Iași, Editura Polirom, 2004, p. 124. https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Volume12/3-Post-Cold -War-ConflictsImperative.pdf. Bruce W. Jentleson, American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century, fifth edition, New York, Norton, p. 332. Robert O. Keohane, Joseph S. Nye, Putere și interdependență, Iași, EdituraPolirom, 2009, p. 304. Larry Diamond, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s: Actors and Instruments, Issues and Imperatives (https: //production-carnegie.s3.amazonaws com / filer_public / 96 / 2b / 962b2e9f-5474-4494-ab81-dcadd02c18c6 / ccny_report_1995_promoting.pdf). https://www.defensenews.com/opinion / commentary / 2020/03/19 / espers-dark-visionfor-us-china conflict-Makes-war-more-Likely /. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/world/asia/united-states-china-conflict.html. https://www.ft.com/content/fe59abf8-cbb8-4931-b224-56030586fb9 58