New and Old Wars Organised Violence in a Global Era

Translated from English by A. Appolonov, M. Dondukovsky; translation editors A. Smirnov, V. Sofronov. –  Moscow: Gaidar Institute Press, 2015. 416 p. 

ISBN 978-5-93255-417-3 

Mary Kaldor’s New and Old Wars fundamentally changed the way modern scholars and politicians understand modern war and conflict. In the context of globalization, this groundbreaking book showed that what we considered war (that is, a war between states in which the goal is to use maximum violence) is becoming an anachronism. In its place, a new type of organized violence, or “new wars,” is emerging, which can be described as a mixture of war, organized crime, and massive human rights violations. These wars involve both global and local, state and private participants. Wars are waged for private political ends, using tactics of terror and destabilization that are formally prohibited by the rules of modern warfare. 

This edition of New and Old Wars can become a reference book for international relations researchers, political scientists, and conflictologists, and will also be of interest to anyone who wants to learn about the changing nature and prospects of wars.