The New Patterns of Warfare: Terrorism against Innocent Civilians

Violent political conflicts dominate in the global mass media sending almost every day. It is a matter of the new terrorist related conflicts that have become so conspicuous in the 21st century. How are we to understand the new pattern of political conflicts involving the massive and indiscriminate employment of terrorist attacks? To reply to this question, one may contrast the new pattern of fighting with the traditional models of political conflicts that covered the old pattern of conflicts that prevailed after the Second World War up to 2001 roughly. Political conflicts constitute zero-sum games of interaction between organized groups of actors or governments (Neumann and Morgerntstern, 2004). Its basic logic cannot be explained by using models of interpersonal conflicts with often hidden or unconscious motivations (Jeong, 2008). Political conflicts refer to the struggle over real things, such like territory, people, power and dominance as well as economics assets. What one captures, the other loses, if both parties to the conflict do not destroy each other. Political conflicts used to be neatly classified into interstate and intrastate conflicts (Aron, 1966; Morgenthau and Thompson, 1985; Nye, 2008). Tensions, struggle and fighting between governments was analyzed within the discipline of international relations, whereas domestic political violence, or the threat to use it, was confined to the discipline of comparative politics (Coser, 1998). There are still many examples of interstate and intrastate conflicts today, but the newly emerging pattern of political conflicts transcends this distinction. With the process of globalization there has surfaced a new pattern of fighting and terrorism that is both domestic and international (Diehl, 2005). Militants in a country UDK: 327.8 323.1(53) Pregledni rad Primljeno: 19.5. 2010.