Some Crucial Features of Contemporary Warfare: War Crimes and Warlordism
After WWII, there was a growing number of significant non-state actors in international relations (IR), like the United Nations (UN) or various specialist agencies connected to it [...]
After WWII, there was a growing number of significant non-state actors in international relations (IR), like the United Nations (UN) or various specialist agencies connected to it. Nevertheless, two key developments stimulated the growth of such organizations after 1945:
The realization that building cooperation and collective security was a much wider task than merely deterring aggressors in traditional attacks on the fixed international order. It, therefore, involved finding ways of agreeing on international policy in a variety of practice areas.
The coverage of international law is increasing to include new foci, including human rights, social justice, the natural environment, and war crimes.
The final result of such post-WWII development in IR and global politics was that the application of the UN’s system took place within the context of the growth and expansion of international law, which also dealt with war crimes. As a consequence, IR became less concerned with the state’s freedoms and independence alone but was becoming more interested in general welfare concerning including those affecting various non-state actors, such as pressure groups of different kinds, not least those demanding the investigation of war crimes, including ethnic cleansing and the forms of genocide.
However, since the Cold War’s two nuclear Superpowers for geopolitical reasons, often been supporters of anti-democratic regimes that notoriously violated their own citizen’s rights, like the US support of the authoritarian regime of General Pinochet (1973−1990), in Chile than the removal of such structural condition appeared favorable to a general improvement in those countries requiring the investigation of the violation of human rights in some cases of the civil wars connected with war crimes.
The phenomenon of war crimes is commonly understood as individual responsibility for violations of the internationally agreed-upon laws and customs of warfare. The responsibility of such kind is covering both the commission of war crimes in a direct way and the ordering or facilitating of them. In principle, the rule violated must be part of the international customary law or part of an applicable treaty.
Chronologically, the first and unsuccessful attempts at the prosecution of war crimes were after the Great War (1914−1918). In this respect, it has to be clear that the first massive war crimes against the civil population during WWI were committed by the Austro-Hungarian army in West Serbia in August 1914. Nonetheless, the same problem of individual responsibility for war crimes became once again actual during and after WWII, with the declarations in 1942 and 1943 by the Allied coalition. It was, basically, the expression of the determination to prosecute and punish at least major war criminals on the opposite (lost) side, but, unfortunately, not on their own as well (for instance, regarding the 1945 Dresden Massacre). Another practical purpose was to establish the tribunals for such cases to take place in Nüremberg in Germany (for the Nazi German war criminals) and Tokyo in Japan (for Japanese war criminals).
The war crimes committed in WWII had been covering the so-called “crimes against humanity” as defined by the Charter of the International Military Tribunal that was established in Nüremberg, like killing, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhuman acts committed against the civilian population either before or during a war. In addition, the same category of war crimes was put on political, racial, or religious foundations, followed by the crime of aggression and crimes against peace, like planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression.
War crimes are, in general as well as understood in terms of all of those acts that are defined as the so-called “grave breaches” of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol 1 of 1977. Later, the acts of war crimes are defined in the 1993 Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, by the 1994 Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, followed by Article 8 of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Nevertheless, in the 1990s, it was on agenda a greater willingness by one part of states to establish the so-called “international” courts for the matter of prosecution of potentially committed war crimes with the first such tribunal established after WWII which was dealing with the cases from the territory of ex-Yugoslavia followed by the similar court for Rwanda and successful negotiation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The conflicts which followed the brutal destruction of ex-Yugoslavia (1991−1995) have been widely referred to as the European bloodiest conflicts after 1945, partly because of the severity and intensity of the actual warfare and partly because of mass ethnic cleansings on all sides. However, this war practice from the 1990s became infamous for the war crimes they were alleged to have committed. Nevertheless, the case of the Yugoslav destruction in the 1990s became officially the first military conflict after WWII formally to be judged as genocidal by the Western part of the international community.
Regarding the process of the persecution of war criminals, it was a 1998 international conference in Rome that was imagined to take focal points in both formulating a treaty for signature and ratification a new statute for an International Criminal Court (ICC). The court had to have a global jurisdiction, to be complementary to national courts dealing with the cases of genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. The ICC was imagined to be a permanent institution, unlike several previous courts for the investigation of war crimes (for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, for instance). However, three states openly announced not to vote for the creation of the ICC–USA, China, and Israel under the claim (at least by the USA) that their soldiers or/and peacekeepers abroad could be easily brought before the ICC but on politically motivated charges, not on real war crimes evidences.
Warlordism
Concerning warlordism – a phenomenon and term directly connected in many practical cases with war crimes, it is, in a broader term, used to mark a condition of the weak central government of the failed states in which a single warlord, or rival warlike militants, each led usually by one dominant military leader. Such leaders are in control of a significant portion of the state’s territory, opposing official governmental forces and, that is most importantly, exerting power within that controlled territory as a private independent state. Nevertheless, in many if not the majority of cases, warlordism is a direct result of a military coup or civil war within a state, which causes a division of that territory between warring parties (for instance, the case of Bosnian Muslim extremist Naser Orić in the town of Srebrenica in 1992−1995).
Historically, warlordism is mostly associated with the Chinese provincial/regional military commanders doing their job during the first half of the 20th century. In 1916 (after the death of Yuan Shikai), the Chinese territory was divided between several regional warlords and rulers. The point was that they all claimed to have military/political power over their territory based on a personal/private army. Originally, those Chinese (and many other) warlords were mostly former soldiers of the official governmental authorities who were at the same time a kind of gangsters, bandits, and even local officials. In principle, all warlords are highly dependent on revenue from the local community (towns and agricultural areas) for the very reason of supporting military troops as best as the task can defend all their local rivalries. The winning warlords (like Pancho Villa in Mexico) were successfully controlling easily defended areas, even the whole provinces of the country. Nonetheless, as a matter of fact, the most bloody wars between rival warlords and governmental authorities required the massive (forceful or voluntary) mobilization of the local inhabitants.
In the majority of the cases, warlords had controlled a certain territory depending on their military power, which had to have a strong (local) logistical support. Such a situation on the ground is enabling the warlords to collect (forcefully) taxis (for “national liberation/independence” or similar) with the control of other (material/natural/human) resources, including, in all cases, food production at the first.
Nonetheless, the practice of warlordism can also occur when the central authority of the state fails, where multiple warlords and their loyal militias or paramilitary parties’ troops fill vacuums of power through violence and fear (for instance, Taliban units in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021). Although warlordism is a prominent historical feature, like in ancient China or Medieval Europe, recent instances of warlordism still exist in several countries in Africa, Asia, or South American Colombia.
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović
Ex-University Professor
Vilnius, Lithuania
Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies
Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity, which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution.
__________________________
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter (X), Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/LegalStatement!
DonatetoSupportUs
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
Chris Deliso of Balkanalysis points out the latest travesty of the Western media: 59,000 stories on Auschwitz, three on Jasenovac. As if the third-largest death camp in Nazi-occupied Europe simply never existed. Franjo Tudjman certainly thought so, and it appears the current Croatian leadership shares his "historical" perspective.Contemporary German estimates of Serbs murdered by the Ustasha (in Jasenovac and elsewhere) ranged as high as 750,000. Wiesenthal center uses the number of 600,000. Serbian researchers have spoken of up to 700,000 victims. Modern revisionists, Croat and otherwise, talk of 30-100,000, at most. Among them is the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which ...
A NATO defense ministers meeting that took place in Brussels on November, 8-9 resulted in the new and very important decisions for the future of Europe.Speaking at a meeting, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said it is vital that European roads, ports, bridges and rail networks are able to carry tanks and heavy military equipment. Stoltenberg also added that NATO countries have agreed to cooperate to improve civil infrastructure objects to make them usable for military needs. What does it mean in practice for Europe in general and for the Baltic States in particular?Lithuanian authorities, for example, will for sure try ...
VIDEO: German documentary film about the false pretext and German propaganda used to exert and sustain public support for illegal NATO aggression against Serbia and Montenegro.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
In its entire history, there has been very little time when the United States has been at peace. As it wages its many wars and ‘interventions’, the stated goal is always something few people could argue with: fostering democracy when a struggling people are resisting tyranny, removing threats to U.S. security, or punishing a cruel dictator for unspeakable misdeeds.Yet on closer scrutiny, these reasons are seldom valid. They simply hide the true purposes of U.S. military involvement, which are power and wealth. Starting with the barbarous destruction of Native American culture in order to gain farmlands, right through to the ...
At the dawn of the so-called Arab Spring in 2011, diplomats, politicians, and intellectuals debated a fresh question: what role can Islamist political parties play in a fledgling democracy?It wasn’t an esoteric or academic debating point. In the tumult that followed the collapse of dictatorial governments in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia, groups of radical Islamists had organized themselves into political parties and attempting to use the ballot box to get them to where the cartridge box could never take them—control of national governments. This was a new strategy on the part of Islamists. Ever since their emergence in the 1940s and their ...
On January 20, the Turkish military began an invasion of the Kurdish-controlled Afrin region in northern Syria. Turkey’s government has declared that its operation aims “to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity,” remove “terrorist elements,” and protect civilians.The Independent, however, published the first Western media report from Afrin, and Robert Fisk reports that the list of dead includes infants. “One-year old Wael al-Hussein, a refugee…was killed on 21 January, six-year old Moussab al-Hussein from Idlib (clearly from another refugee family) on the same day,” he writes.Many journalists in Turkey, in the meanwhile, are rubbing their hands. Necati Doğru, a columnist with one ...
Uncovering the Western mainstream mass-media lies on Ukraine.Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
Save SaveOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
The Russian government’s sincere and diligent effort to prevent chaos in Syria and additional massive refugee flow into Europe, all the while avoiding conflict with Washington and its vassals, has been brought to an end by Washington’s intentional attack on a known Syrian army position, thus wrecking the cease fire agreement that Russia sacrificed so much to achieve.The response to this fact by the Obama regime’s ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, reveals that Washington will lie to the hilt in order to achieve its agenda of reducing Syria to the same chaos as Washington has reduced Iraq and Libya. ...
As he launches his new TV series offering a critical view of US overseas exploits, the film director tells MEE he didn’t always see it that way.American controversies are Oliver Stone’s forte.The Hollywood movie director has turned his cameras on the assassination of John F Kennedy, the Vietnam War and the 9/11 attacks.But, when researching his television series, The Untold History of the United States, it was American exploits in the Middle East that left him with the most lasting impression, he told Middle East Eye on Wednesday.“When I studied the untold history, one thing that really hit me hard was ...
PrefaceThe “Macedonian Question” is today actual for several reasons of whom two are of the fundamental importance: 1. The Albanian secession in the FYROM; and 2. The Greek dispute with the FYROM authorities over several issues.[1] For the matter of illustration, for instance, Greece is so far blocking Macedonia’s joining NATO and the EU because of an on-going dispute between the FYROM and Greece. The main disputable issue is the title of “Macedonia” used in the country’s Constitution in the form of the official state-name as the Republic of Macedonia.[2] When the ex-Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Macedonia voted for independence ...
In front of socialist era high-rise blocks, Bill Clinton waves to the Kosovars. Kosovo Albanians built the statue in the capital, Pristina, in gratitude for the bombing of then Yugoslavia by NATO in 1999, which a few years later led to independence.U.S. and Albanian flags flutter alongside each other on the rooftops. In no other Muslim country in the world is the United States as popular as here in Kosovo. On the square in front of the statue, young women stand around in their skirts and head scarves.This is one facet of the young state. The other is only a ...
Croatia's President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic with Croatian diaspora in Canada holding the flag of WWII Nazi-Ustashi Independent State of CroatiaCroatia’s president, the former deputy NATO secretary general for public diplomacy Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, decided to pay homage to Nazis of the Ustasha Nazi puppet regime of Croatia shot by Yugoslav partisans at the end of World War II. Grabar-Kitarovic’s tone deafness in choosing Victory in Europe week to honor dead Nazis shocked the Balkans and the rest of Europe.The Ustasha, along with their Slovenian and Serb loyalists to the Nazi puppet regime, were killed by the partisans under the command of anti-fascist ...
Government propaganda and NGO misinformation have coloured the story of the war on Syria from its inception. Stepping in to set the record straight, Dr. Tim Anderson explores the real beginnings of the conflict, the players behind it, and their agenda in his new book, “The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance.”The Dirty War on Syria has relied on a level of mass disinformation not seen in living memory. In seeking ‘regime change’ the big powers sought to hide their hand, using proxy armies of ‘Islamists’, demonising the Syrian Government and constantly accusing it of atrocities. In ...
Veterans Day has passed. The annual ritual never changes. Politicians who didn’t serve in the armed services start unnecessary wars, killing military personnel whose sacrifices are then lauded. Officials say these heroes died defending our freedom. That is almost always a lie.Sometimes Washington must go to war. Not often, however. Despite the endless claims that we live in a dangerous world, America is amazingly safe. No other power could defeat, let alone conquer, the United States. Only Russia has a comparable nuclear arsenal, but it would be destroyed if Moscow targeted America. China and Russia trail U.S. conventional military strength ...
The words “possible criminal actions” by CIA employees are used in the report.The terms unethical and immoral are mentioned. The criminality of those who ordered these actions at the highest levels of government, however, is not acknowledged.The actions directed against alleged jihadists are categorized as ineffective in the process of revealing intelligence. This in itself is a red herring. The objective of torture was not to reveal intelligence.What of course is not acknowledged is that the alleged terrorists who were tortured were framed by the CIA.Known and documented the Al Qaeda network is a creation of US intelligence.The jihadists are ...
The American taxpayers have been fleeced for almost seventy years by a so-called «intelligence» agency that has systematically violated the US Constitution, broken practically every federal law on the books, and penetrated virtually every facet of American life. The Central Intelligence Agency’s creation was bemoaned by its creator, President Harry S Truman, who, in a fit of personal angst following the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy, wrote in a newspaper column,“I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations… I, therefore, would like to see the ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSave
The topic to be addressed in this text is the basic misconception on the question of the Balkan Albanian ethnogenesis and national identity that was framed by extremely geo-politically coloured German-based “Illyrian” theory of the Albanian ethnic and cultural origin. This (quasi)theory, unfortunately, has very deep and negative regional political-security consequences. The implementation of the “Illyrian” theory of the Albanian ethnogenesis was accepted firstly by the Rilindja, (the Renaissance) – the Albanian nationalistic and chauvinistic political movement in 1878–1913 for the sake to create the ethnically pure Greater Albania as a national state of all Balkan Albanians composed by self-interpreted ...
