Nations, War and Terrorism
A lengthy discussion of Pilkington’s approach to national identity highlights the tensions that globalization produces between centralization and decentralization. Taking an overview, the text observes the paradox of an Africa where nations are in their infancy and a West where nation-states are dying in the face of globalization. While some groups hark back to earlier local identities to resist globalization, there are a number of groups aspiring to nation-state status. With the demise of empires and dynasties, the nation-state is actually the only show in town.
The chapter now turns to a discussion of wars and warfare, which many will see as inevitably linked to competing nation-states. War is defined as ‘the clash of two organized armed forces that seek to destroy each other’s power and especially their will to resist, principally by killing members of the opposing force’ (page 1029). Given the sheer number of wars over human history and the vast number of people killed in them, it may appear that such aggression is part of human nature which cannot be altered. However, the text suggest otherwise. Clausewitz’s ideas are included in Classic Studies Box 23.2 and he argues that wars are engaged in for political ends, by organized social groups, based on calculated risks of success and failure. Most of those killed in war have been combatants, which similarly suggests that war is not simply random killing of the other side.
War and warfare have also changed considerably over time. Until quite recently, wars have been seen primarily as taking place between nation-states in the struggle for dominance in the global states system. Since the 1980s however, such inter-state wars have become much less common. For example, of 80 conflicts between 1989 and 1992, just 3 were interstate in nature. Intra-state conflicts or ‘civil wars’ have now become the most common type of war. Shaw sees ‘risk-transfer wars’ – in which an attempt is made to avoid combatant deaths to avoid negative media comment and domestic political consequences - as becoming more common.
Following the break-up of Yugoslavia and associated conflicts and the mass murder of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda, the concept of genocide has been widely adopted as a description of such targeted violence. Lemkin’s 1944 definition, influenced by the consequences of the racial policies of German National Socialism, is included as it was adopted by the UN in 1948 and helped frame its subsequent policies. On this definition, genocide involves:
(a) killing members of the group
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Bauman’s Modernity and the Holocaust tackles such issues and is included in Box 23.2 on pages 1034-5. Hence, whilst killing in war may be justified, genocide is seen as essentially unjustifiable in any circumstance. Nonetheless, Shaw rejects this separation of war and genocide, pointing out that most instances of genocide take place within inter-state and civil wars, which means that genocide is therefore best seen as a specific form of war in which entire social groups are seen as the enemy rather than merely armed forces.
The industrialization of war fundamentally altered the way wars were fought, leading to the highly destructive ‘total wars’ in which whole populations were mobilized rather than
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Nations, War and Terrorism relatively small bands of armed men. Over the last 35 years or so, wars have changed yet again. The ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA) forms the basis for a discussion of ‘old’ and
‘new’ wars. RMA is based on the premise that new information technologies, such as satellite technology and computers, have moved into the centre of warfare and are changing military strategy. Kaldor argues that the trend is now towards ‘low-intensity conflicts’ rather like guerrilla warfare. However, unlike previous localized conflicts the new forms also make use of transnational connections, organized criminality and a preparedness to ignore basic human rights. Processes of globalization lie at the heart of such conflicts, making transnational organization and assistance easier. The long-term consequence may be a threat to the nation-state’s monopoly of organized violence. Critics are unimpressed by the claims to novelty of various elements of the old / new war thesis, arguing instead that the nation-state remains the most powerful player.
There has recently been an increase in sociological interest in peace processes – all of those official and informal activities aimed at preventing future violence and ensuring fairness and equitable resource distribution in post-conflict situations. There is an important role for a sociological perspective here, as sociology offers analyses that look at peace processes as they are played out across the whole of society. This includes assessing the roles played by the many groups and organizations that make up civil society, as well as the professional negotiators, politicians and official initiatives which form the basis of most other studies.
The fact that nationalists of numerous types have often deployed terrorism as a political weapon acts as a way into the concluding section. This section offers a sober and mature analysis of the concept of terrorism, tracing its roots in the French Revolution, and briefly raising awkward issues about the changing status of former terrorists like Mandela or
McGuinness, as well as acknowledging the existence of state terrorism. The text distinguishes between old-style and new-style terrorism, the former characterized by limited territorial disputes and limited local organization, the latter by global scope, global ambitions and global recruitment. Al-Qaeda is used as an illustration of the new-style terrorism, which the text suggests bears comparison with the new social movements discussed in Chapter 22. The conclusion poses the recurring question – how to combat the threats of increasing terrorism and war?
1. Nationalism
This topic comprises an examination of the main theories of and explanations for nationalism. It also reviews the current state of affairs with regard to claims for nationhood in relation to nations without states.
2. The Changing Face of War
Here, there is an opportunity to assess recent theories of social change and their impact on the waging of wars. It is also important for students to get to grips with theories of old and new wars as well as possible criticisms of these.
3. Terrorism and Globalization
This topic focuses on recent terrorism across the world and encourages an assessment of sociological theories which try to explain it. There is also a chance to think through the likelihood of success in the so-called ‘war on terror’ announced after the attacks on the USA in September 2001.
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Activity 1: Nationalism
A. Read the account of competing ideas about nationalism on pages 1018-20.
1. Try to pick out the key elements of nationhood. Consider the strength of your own attachment to each principle.
2. Do some research into ‘nations without states’. Choose about a dozen and then try to list them within the typology suggested in a selection from around the world.
B. Now read the following extract by an influential writer on nationalism, Anthony Smith:
I want to set out briefly three arguments which together suggest both a qualified defence of the plural order of the nations and the unlikelihood of any early supersession of nations and nationalism. These arguments are: that nationalism is politically necessary; that national identity is socially functional; and that the nation is historically embedded.
… [N]ations and nationalisms remain political necessities because they alone can ground the interstate order in the principles of popular sovereignty and the will of the people, however defined. Only nationalism can secure the assent of the governed to the territorial units to which they have been assigned, through a sense of collective identification with historic culture-communities in their ‘homelands’.
As long as any global order is based on a balance of competing states, so long will the principle of nationality provide the only widely acceptable legitimation and focus of popular mobilization.
… National identity, as opposed to other kinds of collective identity, is preeminently functional for modernity, being suited to the needs of a wide variety of social groups and individuals in the modern epoch … [B]y rehearsing the rites of fraternity in a political community in its homeland at periodic intervals, the nation communes with and worships itself, making its citizens feel the power and warmth of their collective identification and inducing in them a heightened self-awareness and social reflexivity. … Moreover, the sense of national identity is often powerful enough to engender a spirit of self-sacrifice on behalf of the nation in many, if not most, of its citizens. This is especially true of crises and wartime. … Such selfsacrifice on this scale is unimaginable for any other kind of collective cultural identity and community in our epoch, except perhaps for a few religious communities, and it is the singular power of the nation in eliciting mass sacrifice that has made it so often the object of unscrupulous demagogues.
… [I]t is not simply the embeddedness of the nation as it is known today that is at issue; its destiny too owes its meaning and direction to successive interpretations of the ethnic past. It is this linking of ethno-history with national destiny that works most powerfully to uphold and preserve a world of nations. The modern nation has become what ethno-religious communities were in the past: communities of history and destiny that confer on mortals a sense of immortality through the judgement of posterity, rather than through divine judgement in an afterlife.
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(Anthony Smith, Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era , Cambridge: Polity, 1995, pp. 153–9)
1. Smith seems to be arguing that ‘the nation’ is very much an ongoing project, despite the onset of globalization. Where are the gaps in global culture that nationalism fills?
2. These extracts constitute a defence of nations and nationalism. Try to construct an equally compelling case for the prosecution.
Activity 2: The Changing Face of War
A. Read pages 1029-39 of the text (‘The changing nature of war’ and ‘Old and new wars’).
1. Do a little research from within and outside the textbook. List 5 conflicts from different regions of the world between 1980 and 2012. What similarities are there across all or most of these with regard to: a) involvement of groups and organizations from outside the immediate geographical region of the conflict, b) the involvement of organized crime, c) the role played by multinational peacekeepers and c) human rights abuses of civilians.
2. Which of the conflicts above would you describe as ‘new wars’ and why? Draw up a list of causal factors for each conflict; which of these is related to the politics of particular nation-states?
3. Finally, taking a lead from Shaw’s account of ‘risk transfer wars’ on page 1029-30, research this concept and note down its main features. Which of the 5 conflicts you listed in A1 above could be described as a ‘risk transfer war’? What can be done to prevent the proliferation of risk transfer wars in the future? .
B. Read the extract below, which is from a book by Paul Hirst on issues of war and power.
It is widely believed that we are in a period of revolutionary change in warfare, called by its proponents, ‘the revolution in military affairs’ (RMA). Military technology, the organization of the armed forces, and the nature and purposes of war are possibly in the process of being rapidly transformed … Some of the claims made for the RMA, that it will eliminate the ‘fog’ of war and that it will cement the permanent dominance of the offensive over the defensive are so sweeping that it is necessary to place them in context. Revolutions in military affairs are neither new nor does the present one seem to be unprecedented in scale, despite the claims of some of its advocates …
The gunpowder revolution of the sixteenth century that coincided with the formation of the modern sovereign territorial state is the first major military revolution. The application of the industrial revolution to war that began in the midnineteenth century is the second. This latter revolution led to the total wars that dominated the first half of the twentieth century and that have shaped to a considerable degree the institutions and the balance of power in the world we now inhabit …
The causes, courses and effects of these two major revolutions have much to teach us, in particular what rapid change in military technology does to create pressures for change in armed forces, societies and interstate relations. Technological change
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Nations, War and Terrorism emerges from a set of social conditions and social pressures for new technological adaptations. It is itself caused and is not a pure exogenous force.
(Paul Hirst, War and Power in the Twenty-First Century: The State, Military Conflict and the International System , Cambridge: Polity Press, pp: 7-8)
1. Hirst sets out the preliminary case for a critique of present RMA theory. What makes the two revolutions he identifies different in kind from the present one described in this chapter of Sociology ?
2. If ‘technological change emerges from a set of social conditions’ which have therefore
‘caused’ it, then what are those ‘social conditions’ that have led to the current use of information technology in strategies of warfare?
Activity 3: Terrorism and Globalization
A. Read pages 1041-6 on ‘Terrorism’, then address the questions below.
1. Drawing upon material in the text, draw up two lists – one containing old-style terrorist organizations and the other, new-style ones. Think about why some causes are more suited to the new methods of operation. What are the main benefits and drawbacks of new style methods for achieving the terrorists’ aims?
2. What reasons can you identify to explain why many people are more accepting of the use of terrorism in certain situations – for example, the struggle against apartheid in
South Africa – than in others – for example, anti-abortion extremists in the USA. Imagine you are drafting a statement of human rights, think about the circumstances in which you would allow citizens to use violence to achieve their ends.
B. Read the discussion of al-Qaeda on pages 1044-6. Think about the modus operandi of al-
Qaeda and the way they communicate their message.
1. Research the history of al-Qaeda and note down the major turning points which changed this group into a terrorist organization capable of carrying out major acts of destruction against Western targets. Why have al-Qaeda’s acts of extreme violence proved to be so influential in gaining adherents and activists to their cause?
2. Research al-Qaeda’s ideology and objectives using online sources. What does al-Qaeda want to achieve? Are its goals legitimate political ones (‘war is the continuation of politics by other means’) or is it purely an organization bent on killing Western ‘infidels’ because of their lack of religion?
1. Nationalism
Does any group claiming a common past have the right to ring-fenced territory and political self-determination?
How does a nation-state maintain both its ‘state-ness’ and its ‘nation-ness’?
Are all nationalisms really recent inventions?
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Nations, War and Terrorism
2. The Changing Face of War
In which specific ways has information technology changed military strategy in wars?
Under what circumstances could we see the return of inter-state wars in Europe?
Is the mass media to blame for the civilian deaths associated with risk-transfer wars?
3. Terrorism and Globalization
Is the recourse to terrorism always and everywhere illegitimate?
Is al-Qaeda a ‘new social movement’?
If the goals of new terrorism are global in character, could they ever achieve them?
If not, is terrorism now a ‘normal’ feature of life in the twenty-first century?
1. ‘Nationalist feeling is rooted in deep-seated sentiments associated with ancient human communities’. To what extent does the available evidence support this statement?
2. How likely is it that existing instances of ‘nations without states’ will become nationstates in their own right in the twenty-first century?
3. ‘War is the continuation of political intercourse by other means’. Is this statement equally applicable to new as well as old wars?
4. ‘One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’. Discuss this contention in relation to the activities and aims of al-Qaeda.
1. Nationalism
The link between nationalism and ethnicity can be explored further in chapter 16. The paradox of nationhood amidst globalization connects to the outlook of chapter 4. Nations and nationhood can also be read alongside the discussion of national politics in Chapter 22.
2. The Changing Nature of War
There are links between war and genocide here and the discussion of ethnicity and ethnic hatred and conflict in Chapter 16. New wars and new terrorism should be linked back to
Chapter 4 on globalization.
3. Terrorism and Globalization
Terrorist organizations have some similarities with social movements outlined in Chapter 22.
Theories of global inequality are relevant to the study of terrorist motivations and therefore
Chapter 14 contains useful links. Contemporary terrorism makes much use of modern technologies to convey its messages and Chapter 18 on Media covers these. Chapter 19 also includes theories of networks and therefore has close ties to the loose organizational forms of some terrorist groups.
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Nationalism
Aims: To offer an overview of the issues concerned with notions of nationalism and statehood.
Outcome: By the end of the session students will be able to:
1.
Identify the main features of a ‘nation’.
2.
Assess the relative merits of some theories of nation-state formation in Europe.
3. Distinguish between the nation-state and the EU as types of political unit.
Preparatory tasks
Read the relevant sections of Sociology and then make preparatory notes for classroom tasks 1 and 2.
Classroom tasks
1. Tutor to ask students for definition of a nation. Each component to be written up on a board or flip-chart for the duration of the session. (5 minutes)
2. Student brainstorm exercise on groups within the EU that might be regarded as
‘nations without states’. Student responses worked into table or set of lists by the tutor. (10 minutes)
3. Select a single case study from the many in (2) above. Split the class into two groups.
Ask one group to prepare a brief submission to the Council of Ministers requesting recognition as a nation-state. Ask the other group to present a case for retaining the status quo on behalf of the ‘host nation-state’. (15 minutes)
4. Each group makes a short presentation to the tutor, outlining their case. This may feed into a wider discussion about the merits of the case. At the end of the session the tutor acts as arbiter and ‘decides’ whether or not to accept the claim for recognition. (20 minutes)
Assessment task
Essay: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the ‘plural nation-state order’ as a model for political stability and mutual tolerance.
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