Civil War in Syria and the 'New Wars' Debate

The last two decades saw a plethora of contributions to the academic debate on the shifting character of contemporary warfare. Some scholars praised the notion of unique features in the nature of contemporary violent conflicts and thereby coined new terms and approaches, such as ‘new wars’, ‘postmodern wars’, ‘wars of the third kind’, ‘peoples’ wars’, ‘privatized wars’ or ‘hybrid wars’; some, on the contrary, questioned the rationality of such distinctions, believing that these not-so-unique characteristics were long-present in the history of humankind. The most prominent – and hence the most commonly addressed by fellow scholars – among the aforementioned ideas was the one put forward by Mary Kaldor in her profound book “New & Old Wars. Organized Violence in a Global Era”. This is why it will become the framework of the following reflection, which is not meant to take sides in the debate but only to offer a brief attempt to review the main arguments of the dispute and look into its applicability in the context of the unfolding civil war in Syria.