It concludes that the debate has greatly enriched the overall argument. It argues that the obsession with the ‘newness’ of wars misses the point about the logic of new wars that there is a blurring of war and crime but it is important to address the political elements of new wars that, although the data should be used with caution, it does seem to offer support for some elements of the new war thesis and that the argument is indeed post-Clausewitzean because new wars are not ‘contests of wills’ but more similar to a mutual enterprise. Three Research Institutes of Conflict also attempt a definition of conflict (Axt, 2006, p.3).

It addresses four components of the debate: whether new wars are ‘new’ whether new wars are war or crime whether the data supports the claims about new wars and whether new wars are ‘post-Clausewitzean’. It argues that ‘new wars’ should be understood not as an empirical category but rather as a way of elucidating the logic of contemporary war that can offer both a research strategy and a guide to policy. The conflict approach calls attention to the many social inequalities that underlie social problems in contemporary society. Included is the study of military institutions and conflict between collectivities such as countries, ethnic groups, political movements, and religious groups. Abstract This article reviews the literature on ‘new wars’.

Armed conflict sociology definition