War, Peace, and International Relations. An Introduction to Strategic History

In 1995 there was intrastate conflict in Croatia, Russia (Chechnya), Iran, Iraq, Israel,
Turkey, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines,
Sri Lanka, Algeria, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Colombia,
Guatemala and Peru. In addition, there was warfare between Bosnia-Herzegovina
(and Croatia) and the Bosnian Serbs. Moving on to 1999, there was interstate conflict
between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and between NATO and Yugoslavia. The intrastate conflict
column was well populated, as usual. In that category, one takes note of warfare, at least
of politically motivated violence, in Guinea-Bissau, Iran, Iraq, Bangladesh, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Myanmar, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Angola,
Colombia and Yugoslavia (Kosovo). Also, the Democratic Republic of Congo was in a
condition of bloody anarchy.
For the first time in this book, the discussion has strayed seriously from what one might
call the master narrative of contemporary strategic history. That is to say, these pages
have not cited and analysed the decisions and behaviour of the world’s major strategic
players. The reason is not in order to help correct an imbalance between the attention paid
to the great and the much less great. Rather, the intention is to suggest that the master
strategic narrative that has carried this history along from the end of the eighteenth
century to the demise of the USSR was resting in the 1990s. Political, criminal and even
recreational violence were widespread in the post-Cold War decade, but that violence
generally lacked strategic or political meaning beyond the local. However, there was an
exception to that condition to which this book now must turn: religiously motivated
irregular warfare, especially in the form of catastrophe terrorism.

Questions

1. Were the 1990s a time of lost opportunity to construct a new world order?


2. What problems did the demise of the Soviet Union set for American policy and
   strategy?


3. Did the end of the Cold War contribute to a proliferation of wars in Europe,
   Asia and Africa?

After the Cold War: an interwar decade 233

Key points

1. The 1990s were an interwar decade.


2. Uniquely in modern history, the world of the 1990s was unipolar: the United
   States was the sole superpower.


3. Also uniquely in modern history, after the great virtual war that was the Cold
   War, no attempt was made to institutionalize a new vision of world order.


4. Both scholars and practitioners speculated that an era of ‘new wars’ had
   dawned, wars that were largely intrastate and irregular in character.


5. Conflict and actual warfare were widespread and exceptionally bloody,
   especially in Africa.


6. In the absence of an obvious dominant threat to national security, US policy
   and strategy lacked focus and urgency.