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Editor's Notes

• #2: This research project explores the challenges Private Military Forces (PMFs) impose on conflict management and transformation methodologies. Through a better understanding of how high social fragmentation and factionalism, linkages between armed groups, and the use of asymmetric combat strategies in contemporary conflict this paper will illustrate how the changing character of war has blurred the lines of political considerations pursued through military operations.
• #3: This presentation will provide a general overview of my motives behind this research topic. I will provide a brief background on the current intrastate conflict in Syria, present my research question, theory, and hypotheses and then conclude with what I learned and how my research outcomes are applicable to the CAR field.
• #4: War is a societal process, not just a military endeavor. The outbreak of hostilities among military forces is but one manifestation of warfare, normally occurring at the end of a long process of social disintegration which leads to conflict as opposed to the beginning of a struggle that is unique unto itself. War is traditionally understood as a polarized contest (i.e. that war is fought between sides, even if there are multiple parties, that are separated and aligned as two sets of allies). This distinction is necessary for war to function in its traditional capacity as an instrument of policy (i.e. to provide a military outcome that sets conditions for a political solution). This distinction between one¡¯s side and a clearly defined enemy¡± allows for war to provide a see-saw-like, mutually exclusive outcome (regardless of the outcome being absolute, the overall success or failure of any one side is relative to the other, i.e. the enemy). This theoretical construct of the application of military force was useful in an international system dominated by closed nation-states who held a monopoly on the utility of violence. However, globalization and the democratization of the international system has lead to the growth of weak governance, weak boarder control, and social grievances to create an environment in which local politics is having an increasingly disproportionally affect on the political considerations of the use of force. These trends have made intrastate conflict more fluid, volatile and dynamic turning these conflicts into protracted, high-casualties wars making it harder for mediators to identify potential partners for peace negotiations, fully apprehend developments on the ground and craft contingency plans accordingly.
• #5: In his 1977 seminal work, The Anarchical Society, Bull postulated that if modern states were compelled to compete with regional, international, and sub-national actors in a system of overlapping authority and multiple loyalties for their citizens, and that the instability caused by this dynamic was balanced and centered by supranational identity, then the concept of state sovereignty would cease to exist and a neomedieval political order would characterize the international system. In the Middle East, the The backlash to globalization and democratization has been the cleavage of political Islamist movements into two principal camps; those who sought to moderate their politics on the foundational tenets of democracy (i.e. Popular sovereignty, alternation of power, political pluralism, increased women¡¯s & minority rights, etc.), and those who rejected political moderation and democratic reform as foreign to the nature of Muslim society in favor of a strict interpretation of Islamic Exceptionalism as a means to bring about a myopic traditional Islamic society. The brute application of state force to repress both types of political Islamist movements became counterintuitive for Arab regimes. Military tactics and techniques of ¡°pain and violence¡± to render the capacity of opposition movements to resist state authority clashes with public policy initiatives to reduce the desire of the populace to support illicit activities, often rendering the internal use of military power ¡°terrible beyond endurance. State forces have increasingly become profession and distant from the dynamic of social order and civic interaction in democratic societies.
• #10: Transnational Conflict cannot be centered strictly on the deployment of large, well-equipped troops whose primary mission is to overwhelm their adversary in major-theater combat. The manner in which these conflicts are being fought is dramatically changing the character of warfare, making it more social. The kill-capture approach is clearly only a small component of the large structure of the tactical employment of military force in the form of the engagement to achieve policy goals, the ultimate of which is to secure a peaceful and prosperous social order. Therefore, military means can no longer seek military ends, this has been eclipsed by an approach designed to win over the population. Likewise, policy-makers must come to realize that many current laws intended to combat crime or govern the use of force in war to not jibe well with the changing character of war. Civic institutions and the laws that govern them must be reflective of this and change social conditions to such a degree that populations gain a sense of security that bridges the divide of distrust between the governed and the governor to satisfy neglected needs that violent competitors fill through their own brutal means.