The New Role of the Armed Forces

Armed conflicts, as we know it, between countries are fazing out. The new armed conflicts now and in the foreseen future will be mostly between countries and armed groups or terrorists that want to change the status quo through armed struggle. We see it now between, almost, the whole world and Al-Qaeda militant group that ironically and loosely speaking has offices in many countries, or mountains. Before the Second World War we saw in Nazi Germany an armed militant organization seizing power, though through elections in the beginning, and turning the country into a state terrorist. I do not expect, at all, that Al Qaeda will seize power in a country and turns it to state terror organization although they were doing it in Afghanistan before the US intervention and under the Taliban regime. After World War Two, we witnessed terror groups such as the Japanese Red Army, Bader-Meinhof in Germany, and The Red Falangists in Italy who were defeated only when states saw their danger to the civilized world and the modern state system. These organizations claim a philosophy but believe in destruction as a way for change. Though in the above countries, those groups could easily have become political parties, with no terrorism of course, and pursued political agendas. However their purpose was not to be in the system but to destroy it. The examples above are for groups who did not want and do not want, in case of Al-Qaeda, to be a part of a civilized process for change, but as a hammer to destroy. Such organizations can not be handled through dialogue but through war. It happens now in Iraq and it happened in Afghanistan. We have to differentiate the above groups from other groups such as the PLO in Palestine and Argon in Israel, who used the armed struggle to free their countries. Once liberated, they turned to regular political process. Both used war to achieve independence and used what we describe now as terror in modern day language. But once independence is achieved or become achievable, they succeeded to make the transition. Other example is in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was the head of what used to be called a terror organization. He went to jail and came out as the new president of the new South Africa and his party became the ruling party in South Africa.