"War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention" . This quotation of Sir Henry Maine seems obvious: wars have been a common feature of mankind history. On the other hand, implementation of durable peace, and not only end of the war, is a more intricate notion. The regular intervention of the United Nations and Western countries in conflicts around the world is a relatively new phenomenon. Despite of that, "small wars", expression used in the 1970's by the Financial Times to name any internal conflict , multiply rapidly. Moreover, the distinction between war and peace becomes tricky, which shows that the nature of war itself has changed and does not have a Clausewitzean dimension anymore. After the Cold War, in the beginning of the 1990's, some intellectuals believed in the end of wars and consequently in a perpetual peace. In reality civil wars, new wars, post-Cold War or post-Clausewitzean conflicts (depending on the source) hold centre stage.
[...] Therefore, we can say that the way of making peace has not quite changed. This is a fact; the nature of war had changed. Charles King underlined in his book Ending civil wars[39] that all those conflicts are peculiar and there cannot be any objective generalisation, no universal aspects of the causes and evolutions. After all, some intellectuals such as Mary Kaldor, called theorists of new wars, tried to sort out some particularities so as to show the divide between pre-Cold War and actual conflicts. [...]
[...] As a consequence, one could logically think that the way of making peace has changed as well. This is not the case. Western peace-makers seem to have kept in mind the Clausewitzean idea of war and consequently do not adjust their methods of bringing peace. However, some solutions to this problem of maladjustment had been developed In the 1990's, top-down interventions such as humanitarian aids and UN peace-keeping operations have been seen as the best way to first protect civilians and then to manage the end of the conflicts[22]. [...]
[...] Moreover, it is no more only soldiers that take actively part of the conflict but also various organized groups of people such as criminal gangs, polices, local fighters, leading to more private wars. Barbara Ehrenreich estimates that there are new kinds of wars with clad bands more resembling gangs than armies”[12]. Those non-state actors have predominant roles and also use new sorts of weapons. This is one other aspect of the post-modern conflicts: the utilization of new technologies. Of course, all wars have their new weapons, but given smaller groups and movements carry on wars, the means of warfare had been adapted. [...]
[...] Väyrynen, New conflicts and their peaceful resolution: post-Cold War conflicts, alternative means for their resolution, and the case of Nagorno-Karabakh (Finland, Alands Island Peace Institute, 1998) p.40 C. Coker, wars end', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol no pp.615-629 C. Coker, wars end', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol no p.627 C. Coker, Waging war without warriors? The changing culture of military conflict (London, Boulder, 2002) p.3 P. Hassner, Bourgeois and the Barbarian', in C. Coker, Waging war without warriors? [...]
[...] The changing culture of military conflict (London, Boulder, 2002) Dowley, Kathleen M., Silver, Brian D., ‘Social capital, ethnicity and support for democracy in the post-communist states', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.54, No Gray, Colin, Modern strategy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999) Howard, Michael E., The invention of peace and the reinvention of war (London, Profile, 2002) Kaldor, Mary, New and old wars (Cambridge, Polity Press,1998) Keen, David, ‘When war itself is privatised', The Times Literary Supplement December 1995 King, Charles Ending civil wars (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997) Macrae, J., Zwi, A., War and hunger : rethinking international responses to complex emergencies (London, Zed books, 1994) Putnam, Robert D., Making democracy work: Civic traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994) Stedman, Stephen J. [...]
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