The World At War

    On-going major armed conflicts at the end of 1998 increased by two, reversing a decline begun in 1989. As in previous years, cross-border wars  were a fraction of all active conflicts. These were Turkish incursions into northern Iraq to suppress the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK); continued aid by Rwanda and Uganda to rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire); and, Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon against Hizbollah and Hamas coupled with continuing occupation of north Lebanon by Syria.
     Although a number of long-running civil wars had been halted in 1997, the ensuing 12 months failed to move forward the necessary process of finding a permanent resolution of some conflicts.
    -Intense fighting resumed in Angola, marking the final breakdown of the 1994 Lusaka peace accord. In addition to the civil war, UNITA forces started targeting aircraft carrying U.N. personnel.
    -In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC), the civil war that overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko had barely ceased when war resumed.
    -At year's end a temporary cease-fire in the Sudan had been extended into 1999 to allow more humanitarian aid to hard-pressed noncombatants.
    -After Sierra Leone's elected president was reinstated earlier in 1998, at year's end the nation was again torn by rebellion, causing thousands of refugees to flee into neighboring states.
 Conversely, two very long-standing civil wars may have ended in 1998.
    -In Northern Ireland, although the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 was severely tested by the deaths of 26 people from bombs, the peace process continued. In December a militant Protestant paramilitary group surrendered its weapons to international observers.
    -In Spain the ETA, the militant wing of the Basque separatist movement, agreed to a truce.
    But even where conflicts have ended, tensions that could reignite fighting remain near the surface. Particularly inflammatory is the discovery of mass graves in ethnic-based conflicts.

    Historically, interstate wars – and the military establishments to which they give rise – are about territorial control. Such wars traditionally start when borders are disputed or one nation makes political or territorial claims to which another cannot or will not accede. The 50 year old India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir is a classic case in point as is the Peru-Ecuador border dispute that was finally resolved in 1998.
    Territory – and the oil under it – is at the heart of the continuing standoff with Iraq. But U.S.  encouragement of the Kurdish population in the north and the Shi'ites in the south to rebel changed the nature of the conflict. From Saddam Hussein's perspective, Iraq faces a coordinated inter- and intrastate war.
    -In the south, Iraqi forces continue low-level ground operations. The no-fly zone established after the  Persian Gulf War by the U.S., U.K., and France precludes most Iraqi air support.
    -In the north, the U.S. -British enforced no-fly zone shields the Kurdish factions seeking autonomy (or independence) from Baghdad.
    -For seven years Iraq has been subject to economic sanctions and to U.N. inspections (now halted) for weapons of mass destruction.
    -Congress voted in late 1998 to allocate $97 million to assist the exiled Iraqi opposition, and the Administration explicitly called for a new regime in Baghdad.
    -In late December, U.S. and British forces conducted a 70 hour bombing campaign against Iraq.  Skirmishes between Iraqi air defense forces and U.S. and British aircraft continue.
 

    There is also the problem of the "failed state," one in which no faction has the ability to control the essential means of governing all or most of the territory within its boundaries. With no legislature to standardize laws, no executive to enforce statutes, and no courts to impartially administer justice, individuals cannot be sure of their security. No one is free of fear, perhaps the most important of Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms to which he believed all were entitled.
    Most easily identified as a failed state is Somalia. As before the 1993 U.S./ U.N. intervention, armed clans again fight to control  segments of the country. U.N. aid workers reportedly are reduced to hiring "private contractors" to move supplies and food to distribution points – plus enough to buy "protection" from local militias.
    The following table details ongoing, major active conflicts  at the start of 1999. All Kurdish conflicts – with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, or intra-ethnic – are in one entry because the avowed overarching objective of the Kurdish struggle, their own homeland – runs through all conflicts
 

    Four of the above 23 conflicts involve one side seeking some level of autonomy or independence. The Kurdish struggle has been noted. The East Timorese are trying to reverse the 1975 annexation by Indonesia, although as with  the Kurds, some voices are calling only for autonomy. Indonesia is also facing low-level struggles by two other groups, the Irian Jaya and Aceh, for autonomy and more equitable distribution of revenues.

    The major new upheaval in this category is Kosovo's  struggle for at least a restoration of its pre-1989 autonomy. Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic could have granted this with little bloodshed a year ago, but fighting between Serb authorities and the Kosovo Liberation Army, which demands independence, has nullified this option. The OSCE's effort to place 2,000 unarmed observers in Kosovo backed by a NATO-based "rapid extraction" force is unlikely to significantly affect the situation. Additionally, the leadership of Yugoslavia's smaller republic, Montenegro, is now openly speaking of its own independence from Serbia.

    Elsewhere, continued low-level violence could reignite general fighting and send streams of refugees fleeing across borders. All too often these areas of potential conflict are in regions least able to cope with the effects of violence without outside help such as peacekeeping troops or humanitarian relief.
    Among those listed below, perhaps the most volatile is Ethiopia -Eritrea. Random clashes have occurred, but it now seems that more sustained fighting is inevitable.
 
 

 Wars take huge tolls, particularly on children. The U.N. says that in the past decade alone armed conflicts have killed 2 million children, seriously injured or permanently disabled 6 million, left 12 million homeless, and psychologically traumatized another 10 million. Furthermore, in 1997 the U.N. estimates that nearly 50 million people – at least half of whom were children –  were either displaced within their own nation or forced to become refugees in foreign lands. More ominous perhaps is the estimate that as many as 300,000 children, some as young as eight years old, are directly involved in conflicts.

 None of these armed conflicts pose a direct threat to the territorial integrity of the United States or constitute a significant military danger to the international community. They become of interest when the U.S. decides to interpose U.S. forces to restore or maintain "stability" in a country or region. Because most of these conflicts are civil wars, their greatest "threat" lies in the refugee and internally displaced populations that are at the mercy of weather and  disease and starvation.
 While the U.S. must remain vigilant we must be sure our military is prepared to counter current and future threats, not past ones. We no longer require a large, active, fully ready military oriented on classic 20th century force-on-force warfare. Would-be hostile nations know from the Persian Gulf War not to confront the U.S. as Iraq did. But they also know that the quickest way to beat the U.S. and the international community is to create unacceptable casualties – a number that many believe lies in the teens rather than the thousands or even hundreds.