The Third World after the Cold War

ideology,economic development and politics

July 5 - 8, 1995

War as a Source of Losses and Gains

David Keen

Queen Elizabeth House

Oxford

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WAR AS A SOURCE OF LOSSES AND GAINS

David Keen
(Queen Elizabeth House
Oxford University )

This paper contains some thoughts about war , and civil war in
particular . It looks briefly at some of the conceptual
frameworks that might contribute to our understanding of war , and
some of the weaknesses of these frameworks . It then attempts to
move towards a way of looking at war which might , conceivably ,
contribute to more imaginative thinking about how to minimise the
human suffering arising from war .

1. The bureaucratic model and the military historians

According to a conception of war which owes a great deal to

Clausewitz as well as other military historians , war is conducted
by professional arm ies and is fought between rival states .
According to this very common conception , war is something that
is "declared ", with processes of violence following more or less
automatically as each "side " commands its respective forces
according to its perception of the tactics most likely to "win
the war ". War , as Clausewitz put it, is "the pursuit of politics
by other means ". The model analyses war rather as one might
analyze a wargame . When applied to civil wars , this kind of
"bureaucratic " model again envisages two "sides", each with its
own political programme and each trying to gain the tactical
advantage that will allow it to "win ".

The best chance for peace , correspondingly , is seen as getting

the leaders of the two sides together , and engineering some kind
of compromise .

This model would appear increasingly outdated , however . Not only

are contemporary wars for the most part civil wars rather than
wars between states . In addition , when we look closely at civil
wars , it is often hard to discern two neatly delineated "sides"
which are unambiguously in command of their own fighters . The
loyalty of fighters , indeed , is often highly problematic . And
there are frequently three or more factions . Moreover ,
civilians , contrary to Clausewitz 's conception of war , are
frequently deliberately targeted by one or more factions . The
process by which resources are raised for fighting may be highly
problematic , rather than following more or less automatically
from the declaration of war . And , rather than consisting of
battles which lead to some kind of conclusion and a clear winner ,
wars are increasingly protracted . For example , civil war in
Sudan has been going on for the past 12 years and , on and off ,
for the past 30 years .

2 . Economic analysis

It would be wrong to underestimate the economic analysis of war

that has been conducted . Paul Collier and Frances Stewart are
among those who have written fruitfully in this area , and the
economic dynamics of warfare have recently attracted increased
attention even from the International Monetary Fund .

However , economics as a discipline has largely failed to come to

terms with the importance of war , and of violence in general .
Too often , as Stewart ( 1993 ) points out , warfare is treated as
an exogenous variable , with large international organizations
assuming war away when making economic plans . And , as Stewart
notes , "While war has ... been identified as a reason why
adjustment programmes do not work , no effort have been made to
consider what adjustment policies are appropriate during war ."
The long duration of many contemporary civil wars makes it
particularly important to avoid conceiving of them as temporary
abberations .

Consider a brief selection of definitions of economics .

Economics "is about choice subject to constraints " ( Layard and
Walters , 1978 )
. Economics is "descriptive of the productive and
trading relationships between people ..." (Begg , Fisher and
Dornbusch , 1991). Economics is "the study of how human beings
go about the business of organizing consumption and production
activities " (Samuelson , 1980 )
. Whatever definition one accepts ,
it is difficult to see how these processes can be adequately
understood without looking at the role of violence in shaping ,
sustaining and distorting particular economic systems . Yet
discussion of war and violence are almost entirely excluded from
these texts , except a brief mention of the inflationary effects
of war in Samuelson and the comment that "Wars have always been
great disrupters of an economy " ( p .242)
.

Significantly , war and violence have also been largely

marginalised from the study of famine . In his seminal "Poverty
and Famines ", Amartya Sen 1981) gives relatively
( little
attention to the relationship between war and famine. In their
wide-ranging study , Dreze and Sen ( 1989 , p . 22) emphasise :

"It would be , particularly , a mistake to relate the

causation of famines to violations of legality .
.. the
millions that die in a famine typically die in an
astonishingly 'legal ' and 'orderly ' way ".

Sen '
s entitlement approach deals specifically with the legal
framework , with the bund le of goods to which people can claim
access within the existing system of laws . Yet violations of
legality are a key feature of civil wars .

How do economies work in time of civil war? It is not a question

many economists have addressed . Yet just as analysis of economic
processes is relevant to the study of war and violence , so also
analysis of war and violence is surely relevant to the study of
economics .

If we imagine that economic processes can be underst ood without

an understanding of violence , we might do well to remember that
 Western capitalism
- or large parts of it - was built on the
infliction of m assive violence , and that it
is sustained by the
infliction of more moderate violence as
well as by a variety of
taboos on the use of particular kinds of
violence .
The very idea of private property ( a cornerstone of economics as
discipline ) was in many parts of the world for example , the
(
United States ) only established through
large-scale violence
against groups occupying land according to a
different set of
conventions . Once property had become established
as an idea ,
it was defended with punishments for theft ,
punishments either
consisting of violence or underpinned by the
threat of violence .
If such punishments were to be seen as fair
and measured , this
demanded the existence of a strong and effective
state apparatus
which could dispense violence in a moderate
and routinized
manner . Meanwhile , to take the United States as
an example , the
idea that it was legitimate to use violence
in the economic
endeavour of settlement gradually gave way
to the idea that it
was illegitimate to use violence to make money . And there were
other taboos restricting the individual s
' freedom to make money .
One was the taboo on government officials selling favours
money for
(including the granting of immunity from
retaliatory
violence to those who broke the law ). This ,
then , was not so
much a "free market " as a market constructed
out of violence , and
sustained partly by violence and partly by
social mores defining
legitimate and illegitimate ways of making money 1
.

All this may seem an unwarranted detour from a discussion

of
civil war . The important point is that violence
and taboos on
violence affect economic life at all times ,
whether in peace or
war . We would be well advised to try to understand how violence
affects economic transactions , rather than
assuming violence is
banished during peace and that it somehow
"replaces " economic
processes in wartime .

Perhaps , economics
- which is after all a relatively recent
discipline tends to look only at the historical point after
-
mass use of violence to create a particular
economic system . If
we were pessimis tic - and rising violent
crime rates in the
industrialised world combined with increasing numbers
of civil
wars in the world as a whole give grounds
for pessimism - we
might go further and suggest that economics
deals only with that
relatively brief period of history before the descent
back into
violence as states and taboos on particular
kinds of money -making
collapse .

One of the most promising areas where economic analysis could

enhance our understanding of wars , as Stewart
has suggested , is

Insofar as capitalism wants to suggest that "

everyone
should try to make as much money as possible
", it may contain the
seeds of its own destruction in a way different from that
envisaged by Marx :in some sense , crime and government
corruption
(which may include complicity in crim e and decentralised
violence ) follow naturally from the injunction to
make money .
in assessing the indirect costs of wars , that is the costs in
terms of economic devastation and reduced state services which
war may give rise to . Such an analysis - which forms part of the
focus of a major research project at Queen Elizabeth House -
offers the prospect of suggesting economic interventions that
might reduce these indirect costs of war - both inside and
outside the zone in which fighting is actually taking place .

While investigating these costs of war is undoubtedly valuable ,

there may be dangers in focusing too much on the costs of war if
it leads us to assume that war is all bad . Insofar as "liberal "
analysis of war is anxious to show up war as an unmitigated evil ,
this may actually be unhelpful in certain ways . In particular ,
if war is so bad for everyone , why does it occur? And why ,
moreover , does it persist ?

Among many analyses suggesting that war is economically

irrational is a recent piece by Douglas Rimmer (1995 ) in which
he notes that :

"The data on the basis of which businesses operate are

the more reliable , and business is therefore easier to
conduct , where life and property are reasonably
secure , contracts enforceable , institutions stable and
government policies predictable . Business , in short ,
is an interest entrenched in peace ."

While much of the reasoning here is sound , the validity of the

conclusion is open to question . Much will depend on what kind
of "business " we are talking about , who is conducting it, and ,
to put it rather crudely , whether you have something they want .

3 . War as "chaos "

It is common , particularly in journalistic accounts , to see

contemporary warfare depicted as essentially chaotic . Closely
related accounts portray war as "madness ", as "m indless ", and/or
as the result of "ancient ethnic hatreds ". Many accounts of the
conflict and recent famine in Somalia suggested that the country
had lapsed into anarchy , and "The Coming Anarchy " was the title
of a highly influential recent article by Robert Kaplan ( 1994 )
in the Atlantic Monthly . Kaplan warned of the imminent danger
of escalating violence and a collapse of state control not just
in West Africa - his main focus - but also in much of the
industrialised world .
The policy implications of this chaos " model are far
" from clear .
Probably the most important implication is simply
that little
that can be done , and that the industrialised
countries should
steer clear of areas
"beyond the pale ", perhaps making some
attempt to seal themselves off from this gathering
"chaos ". This
line of action appeared to gain some approval
from military
historian Martin Van Creveld in a recent appearance
on Panorama
when he suggested that gathering chaos would lead to attempts at
mass emigration and that Western governments might
want to "blow
couple of those boats out of the water " as an example to the
rest . Van Creveld added ( in reference to recent Italian conflict
with Albanian immigrants ) that "This may be in the long-run a
more humane solution both for the Italians ...
and for the
immigrants " (Panorama , March 20th 1995).

Kaplan 's brand of scare -mongering was well summed

up in his
opening contribution to the same Panorama programme
, when he
observed :

"You have a lot of people in London and Washington who

fly all over the world , who stay in luxury hotels ,
who
think that English is dominating every place , but yet
have no idea what is out there , and what is out
there
is that this thin membrane of luxury hotels , of
things
that work , of civil order is proportionately getting
thinner and thinner and thinner ."

The apparent psychological importance of keeping

this perceived
"chaos " at bay reminds one of the fear of the wilderness among
the Europeans who settled , or unsettled , the
Americas (cf
Stannard , 1992 )
. The power of Kaplan 's perhaps derives from a
sense of excitement and horror that the wildness
of "the other ",
the sphere of the unpredictable , is actually not
so far from home
as it might seem
- something , perhaps , that the bombing of
Oklahoma has now brought home all the more starkly .

One is reminded of a passage in Conrad 's "Heart of Darkness ",

quoted by Stannard .

"The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of the

black and incomprehensible frenzy ... we glided past
like phantoms , wondering and secretly appalled ,
as
sane men would before an enthusiastic outbreak
in a
madhouse .
.. It was unearthly , and the men were - No ,
they were not inhuman . Well , you know , that was the
worst of it - this suspicion of their not being
inhuman . It would come slowly to one . They howled
and leaped , and spun , and made horrid faces ; but what
thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity -
like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with
this wild and passionate uproar ."

In a context where the bureaucratic model of warfare

is clearly
breaking down in important respects , it is possible
to observe
growing tendency for observers simply to throw up their hands
and declare "It ' s all chaos !". Perhaps traditional economics
(with a focus on peaceful markets ) and traditional political
science ( with a focus on elections and voting ), as well as
traditional m ilitary history ( with a focus on bureaucratic war ),
are simply too rigid and narrowly defined . Each attempts to
focus on a restricted area which is ordered and predictable . And
when "messy " phenomena like contemporary civil wars do not fall
easily within the orbit of these "disciplines ", the temptation
to wheel out the label of "chaos " is very great . In the natural
sciences , it has been suggested that theories positing particular
kinds of predictability may similarly depend on limiting
attention to a relatively small sphere ( excluding , for example ,
phenomena that , without being random , frequently defy
predictability - like the evolution of the weather and the
movement of water ) .

For all its attractions as visceral thrill or fall-back

explanation , the label of "chaos " is not analysis . Rather , it
is the death of analysis . Even in physics , "chaos theories "
still embrace the possibility of certain "organizing principles ".

Reading many newspaper reports of contemporary conflicts , one

might frequently wish to ask : is it the violence that is mindless
or the analysis ? Such accounts do , however , have the great
advantage that the more you fail to explain war and violence , the
more convincing your explanation ("chaos ") becomes .

4. The functions of conflict

The progress of an infectious disease is something more that the

breakdown of the body . For the germ , indeed , it may be a triumph
(albeit a triumph which may ultimately destroy it as the body
dies ). In the same way , the processes of conflict ( and the ,
often related , processes of famine ) may have beneficiaries as
well as victims . To interfere effectively in these processes ( as
with the processes of disease ), one needs to be aware not simply
of the suffering arising from them ( the symptoms , as it were , of
conflict )but also of the groups who may be benefiting from ' them .
We need to know about war 's functions as well as its causes and
effects . By examining which groups the costs and benefits of
wars fall upon , we may have a powerful tool for explaining why
wars persist , or come to an end .

The functions of war may be quite complicated . Contrary to the

bureaucratic model of warfare , the point of war may not be simply
to win it, as one would win a sporting contest between two teams .
The point may be to engage in profitable crime under the cover
of warfare .- War may involve actions that are militarily
counterproductive (and could reasonably be predicted in advance
to be militarily counterproductive ). An important example of
this might be large -scale attacks on civilians in retaliation for
rebel or "terrorist " activity , something that has frequently

Van Creveld (1991) has an interesting discussion of the

relationship between crime and warfare .
increased rather than diminished the strength of opposition , as
for example in the current conflicts in southern Sudan and
eastern Turkey . However , the mere fact that such an action might
strengthen the opposition does not prove that it is irrational .
It might be that raiding the civilian population is a primary aim
of many of those doing the fighting . It might be that raiding ,
by creatin g a rebel movement , provides legitimacy for itself .
It might be , and this argument has been made in relation to the
Turkish government repression of the Kurds , that parts of the
military actually favour a strong rebel movement in order to
enhance their own budgets and status . It might be that raiding
creates the impression of continuing conflict and so legitimates
the presence of army officers in areas where they can make money
from illegal economic activities - an argument that has been made
in relation to Sierra Leone . It might be that soldiers in one
faction sell arms to another , motivated partly by the money they
can make from doing so - an argument that has been made in
relation to Cambodia . It might be , as John Simpson suggests in
his analysis of conflict in Peru , that government soldiers
habitually set free rebel fighters ( in this case from the Shining
Path ) in order to perpetuate insecurity in areas where officers
can benefit from illegal trading ( in this case , principally , the
trade in cocaine ) . And it might be , finally , that encouraging
particular patterns of violence is a way of diverting the
discontent of disgruntled social or ethnic groups or of
distracting a potentially mutinous army by engaging it in
perpetual combat . Both arguments have been made in relation to
Sudan ( Keen , 1994).

Perhaps , to modify Clausewitz , war is the pursuit of economics

by other means . We hear a lot about economically rational
behaviour . But what are the circumstances in which it is
economically rational to carry out acts of violence ?3

War is not simply a breakdown of society ; it is a re-ordering of

society in particular ways . In wars , we see the creation of a
new type of political economy , not simply the disruption of an
old one . As Mark Chingono has argued , the gains from war may in
some circumstances be quite widespread , particularly when a
decline in the state ' s ability to control economic life
encourages an expansion in the informal economy .

The pre-existing political economy will affect - and will in turn

be affected by - the course of the war .

number of possible economic functions of conflict can be

distinguished .

i)
( . Theft .

Theft may effect a major transfer of assets from one group to

another , perhaps from one ethnic group to another . During famine

We might also want to ask which groups ( youth , perhaps )

have a comparative advantage in the use of violence .
 in Sudan in the 1980s , such transfers included transfer of grain ,
cattle , land and , it was hoped , mineral resources . While this
organised theft was a key cause of famine , it also yielded
substantial benefits . Transfer of assets may include the illegal
seizure of lands from large landowners in revolutionary violence .

(
ii) "Forced markets "

/While much of the most influential analysis of famine ( notably

Sen , 1981) has focused on market forces , the costs and benefits
of famine and civil war may better be understood using the
concept of "forced markets " (Keen , 1994 ), that is, markets which
are shaped not simply by supply and demand but by the use of
various kinds of force . Grain , livestock and labour markets may
be distorted by raiding and resu ltant famine . Threats of
violence may reduce the price of labour to something approaching
slavery . Violence may be used to create or preserve trade
monopolies , a goal that Lenin saw as feeding into international
wars but which may also feed into civil wars .

iii) Protection rackets

-"(

People may be made to pay money or surrender commodities in

return for "sparing " their lives and /or property or in return for
allowing them to move around . Aid agencies may be made to pay
money to groups in a position to attack their aid convoys .

iv) Pay
(

Money can be made from payment as a soldier or as a member of a

militia .

v ) Supplies
(

Money can be made from providing supplies and equipment for

arm ies , including weaponry .

(
vi) Relief

Money can be made from controlling the relief supplies that

conflict may conjure up.

vii ) State resources

(

Finally , money can be made from gaining , or retaining , control

of the state .

It will be important to examine war as a complex , shifting

phenomena occurring in the context of weak states . Civil war in
the Sudan cannot adequately be characterised as "north versus
south ". Civil war in Sierra Leone cannot adequately be
characterised as "government versus rebels ". Rather , these are
complicated processes in which a variety of actors use violence
for a variety of purposes . These purposes are very frequently
economic , perhaps increasingly so as conflict progresses .
In the context of a weak and impoverished state , it is unlikely
that either government leaders or rebel leaders or other
factional leaders will be in a position to "command " a large band
of followers who have sufficient training and a sufficient salary
to make them a disciplined force . Where the state or
(
alternative sources of authority ) lacks resources , leaders may
also need to raise the money for warfare from private investors ,
who may seek an economic return for such investment . The Spanish
conquest of South America was in large part funded by merchant
and noble partnerships in Spain ( the Spanish crown being in no
position to finance the venture ) . These investors were looking
for a quick return , notably in the form of gold and silver
extracted by Indian slaves . These minerals in turn helped
finance further conquests . Today , those providing finance
(perhaps indirectly ) for warfare may include foreign -owned
multinationals , as has been the case in Sierra Leone and Liberia .
These companies may also seek a return on investment in terms of
privileged access to local resources . Such companies are likely
to be drawn into the business of providing security for their own
operations , as well as certain rudimentary welfare operations ,
trend no doubt encouraged by pressure from international
financial institutions for the "privatisation " of many functions
previously carried out by the state .

Where violence relies on the private initiative of investors

and /or economically -driven fighters , it is quite probable that
even wars which began over an overtly "political " or religious
dispute will "mutate " into something else , with economic goals
gaining increasing importance . As with the mutation of viruses ,
such changes add to the difficulty of finding effective
interventions . But , again as in the case of viruses , these
mutations need to be understood . As war is turned against
civilians in the pursuit of profits , these civilians may
themselves be forced to resort to violence in order to survive .
The impoverishment of particular geographical and ethnic groups
may also precipitate a "spreading " of war to new areas as
predatory groups seek new assets to appropriate . This pattern
can be seen , for example , in Sudan . In a context of a "normal
economy " devastated by war , the economic attractions of violence
may be particularly strong . 4

Although we have come to regard strong states capable of

commanding a disciplined army as somehow "normal ", these states
only emerged in Europe from a long and difficult struggle with
local warlords . In many parts of the world , this kind of state
has never properly been established , or at least only in a
fragile form . Insofar as the resources available to states in
Africa are diminishing (not least through programmes of
structural adjustment ), the opportunities for prospective
warlords to challenge state sovereignty would appear to be
considerable . The disintegration of states like Liberia shows

This is evident not only in the recent fighting between

Kurdish factions in economically -blockaded northern Iraq but also
in the fighting between rival rebel factions in southern Sudan .
this process is already under way . As when the monarchies of
Europe were attempting to impose their sovereignty on errant
warlords , many African states are today forced to try to confront
economically -powerful regional warlords with government forces
that are underpaid and undermotivated . 5 This creates conditions
in which we might expect a military a coup , a defection to the
rebels, and/or a peeling away of government troops into their own
attacks on civilians or their own illegal economic activities .
Like the state , regional warlords may seek to establish a
civilian base through providing welfare as well as through
threatening violence . Thus , it is not simply that the state is
collapsing ; in many countries , it is being reconstructed in new
forms , notably through the emergence of "mini -states ". Moreover ,
rather than simply "collapsing ", the state is sometimes
sponsoring its own demise , attempting to maintain itself by
harnessing local resentments and resource conflicts and by
farming out violence to those it may eventually prove unable to
control .

Ashort paper cannot discuss particular cases in adequate detail ,

or properly convey their complexity . Nevertheless , it may be
worth taking a central issue emerging from the above discussion -
the discipline or indiscipline of soldiers - and discussing it
in an empirical manner .

Undisciplined looting by soldiers has frequently been a response

to not being paid or fed . Indeed , intense need among soldiers
has often undermined any idea that warfare should be "civilised "
and should exempt civilians .

Among the Franks ( the German tribes who settled in northern

France and Rhineland in fourth century), pillaging even of
friendly territory was common when rations ran out and foraging
proved difficult .

Spanish atrocities in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century

were directly linked with the failure to pay the Spanish forces
on time . Political suppression of the Netherlands revolt turned
into something rather different , as plunder became more and more
widespread .

The brutal suppression of revolt in Ireland in 1647 ( including

forced starvation ) was , in part , a way of occupying disgruntled
British Parliamentarian soldiers , whose pay was in arrears and
who , finding little prospect of alternative employment in an
economy dislocated by the English civil war , refused to
disband .6

There are parallels here with the attempts by governments

in industrialised countries to confront drug barons with police
forces that may also be underpaid and undermotivated .

There are parallels here with many contemporary civil

conflicts . For example , continuing economic scarcity in northern
Iraq has made it difficult to achieve a lasting disbandment of
 In contemporary southern Sudan ,
raiding of civilians by the rebel
Sudan People 's Liberation Army (SPLA ) has often been linked with
interruptions in the supply of food to
SPLA troops . In Sierra
Leone , raiding of civilians by
government soldiers posing as
"rebels " has been widely linked with the poor pay and minimal
training for these soldiers . The poor
pay itself appears to
reflect a government failure to channel
money raised for warfare
towards soldiers on the front .

Among those who have pointed to the

importance of pay and
training in shaping contemporary civil wars in
Africa is Bishop
W . Nah Dixon , Resident Bishop of the Don Stewart
Pentecostal Church in Liberia . He said Christ
of the genesis of the
Liberian civil war :

"It is needless to say that one of the great lessons

the civil war has taught us is that the security
of
the nation depends on the level
of training and
discipline of its armed forces ... Incapable
of facing
the enemy on the battlefield to fight it out , they
turned against innocent civilians , holding them as
hostages , killing them on suspicion of
abetting and
hiding the rebels - even though these
civilians were
far removed from the scene of the
conflict ... The
number of soldiers should be reduced
and well paid .
This will help prevent the lust of
looting and armed
robbery , and the staging of military
coups ."
The use of wars to distract potentially
rebellious troops is a
historical phenomenon of long standing . This tactic has
frequently led to patterns of warfare that
prove deeply damaging
for civilians , though profitable for the raiders
and perhaps of
lasting economic benefit for groups
seeking the retain the
benefits of state office .

European contemporaries and historians

have observed that the
Spanish conquest of the New World helped to keep
some limits on
the violence within Spain in the sixteenth century
, particularly
as it provided an outlet for those
who did not return to ordinary
employment after the wars of Grenada against
the Moors .
In the early nineteenth century
, the conquest of Nilotic Sudan
by Mohamed Ali ' s Turko -Egyptian regime offered a means of
distracting his Albanian troops from the insubordination
they were prone . to which
In the Ottoman empire during the late
nineteenth century , the Ottoman government armed
Kurdish militias
and gave them a "licence to raid ". This appears to have served
somewhat similar function in appeasing the
Kurds , while at the
same time offering a way of suppressing dissent ( in this case ,
among the Armenians ).

the Kurdish militias that fought against

Saddam Hussein '
s forces
in 1991 .
In modern -day Sudan , warfare has been used as a means of
deflecting the resentment of the potentially -rebellious ( and
economically marginalised )Baggara group by turning them against
politically marginalised southern Sudanese . Such tactics offered
heavily -indebted Sudanese administration the prospect of
defeating rebellion ( and gaining access to oil) "on the cheap ",
that is, without having to pay for a large , conscript army .

6. Some implications for interventions

It may be helpful at this stage to go back the three conceptual

frameworks discussed earlier , and to wonder what light the above
discussion can throw on the policy prescriptions that arise
within each of these conceptual frameworks .

Much of current policy in relation to peacemaking and aid is

constructed within the old-fashioned , bureaucratic model of
warfare . Outsiders endeavour to create a sphere of neutrality
for civilians . They insist on the immunity of humanitarian aid
from "political interference ". They attempt to get the
respective leaders together , and to secure some kind of
compromise agreement .

However , this approach is severely called into question when we

remember that in most contemporary civil wars , the control and
exploitation of civilians have become central goals for those
carrying out violence , rather than deviations from "normal "
warfare . The manipulation of aid in order to control civilians
and to make money has also become a key goal during conflict .
Finally , the diversion of aid and the infliction of violence have
become sufficiently decentralised that merely securing an
agreement among "leaders " is unlikely to secure lasting respect
for aid and peace among those who are ( conveniently ) assumed to
be their "followers ".

The way forward may lie in interventions that provide realistic

economic alternatives to the economic gains from violence . These
alternatives will have to be provided not just to "leaders " but
also to all those who engage in violence , lest they desert their
leaders . In some circumstances , the need to "wean " particular
groups from violence may mean , in effect , "rewarding " individuals
who have carried out human rights abuses , rather than punishing
them . There are obvious dangers in such a policy . But simply
offering punishment may be a recipe for abusers to "dig in" and
continue fighting until the bitter end .

Turning to the existing economic analysis of warfare , the above

analysis suggests that a focus on the costs of war only takes us
so far. Unless we look also at the functions of war , it is
difficult to see how wars can be brought to an end . If we assume
that war is bad for everyone , then it is difficult to see how any
observer or outsider could be expected to contribute to the
process of peace - except by telling the warring parties to "see
reason " and pull themselves together ?

Secondly , if the indirect costs of warfare are to be reduced in

practice , then one will need to consider carefully the
functions
of warfare . These will include the economic functions of
inflicting sufficient suffering on civilians that they
migrate
en masse from economically -coveted areas . Insofar as
interventions aim to minimise the costs of warfare , they
will
need to bear in mind that governments ( and other parties ) are
often seeking to maxim ise the costs of warfare
- either as part
of a military tactic that seeks to control civilian
populations
or as part of an economic lactic that seeks to gain
access to
resources controlled by civilians . Unless the functions
of human
suffering are understood , donor organisations will risk deepenin g
the costs of war , for example by assisting in
policies of
depopulating particular geographical areas and concentrating
people in controllable and often
( disease -ridden ) camps .
Hostility to targeting the most needy in the areas where
they
live should be anticipated , and measures taken to push
relief
through .

Thirdly , if the indirect costs of warfare are to be reduced

, one
of the best ways may lie in modifying the pattern of
warfare , so
that attacks on civilians become less common . This
may mean
supporting state institutions , even supporting (perhaps
indirectly ) the creation of a disciplined , trained and
well -paid
government army . Insofar as the new "barbarisation
" of warfare
can be traced to the collapse of states , then those
designing
interventions will need to think about supporting state
structures (rather than , as has been more fashionable ,
dismantling them ) .7 This is an important adjunct to Stewart 's
argument that supporting states can help reduce the
indirect
costs of warfare by maintaining welfare and health
services .
Insofar as foreign governments seek to "punish " states
abusing
human rights by withdrawing resources ( perhaps thereby
reinforcing policies of adjustment and austerity ), these
foreign
governments should remember that resource shortages ( and weak
state institutions )can themselves contribute powerfully
to human
rights abuses . This is one of the problems with the
European
Union decision to freeze aid to Rwanda in the wake
of the
massacre of Hutus by Rwandan government troops in the
Kibeho camp
in April 1995 . Such a decision can only impede the
rebuilding
of judicial and police structures , making it more
difficult for
the new government to re-establish the rule of law in
Rwanda .
Earlier , as African Rights has argued , the international
drive
towards democratization in Rwanda appears to have run aground ,
in part , on the resource shortages generated by
internationally -
generated austerity packages . The role of resource
shortages in
prompting inter -Kurdish conflict in northern Iraq also
throws a
sceptical light on recent suggestions that aid to Iraqi
Kurdistan
should be cut in the wake of an Amnesty report on
human rights
abuses among the Kurds .

Finally , existing attempts to address the symptoms and costs

of
wars without looking at their functions may just be
recreating

Perhaps they should also think about supporting rebel

administrations .
the conditions for conflict . Let us suppose that it was possible
to achieve repatriation , reintegration , rehabilitation ,
reconstruction and all the other re ' s" to which United Nations
"
documents habitually refer . At this point , one would be able to
declare the "madness " of war was truly behind us . And yet ,
assuming external factors remained constant , the war would simply
begin again - for precisely the same reasons that it began in the
first place . Attempts to "recreate " a strong central state in
Somalia may fall within the category of endeavours that recreate
the conditions for war . An alternative strategy , as Mark
Bradbury has suggested , would be to work with the diverse forms
of local government and clan institutions that have been
revivified by the collapse of the Barre regime .

Turning to the last of our three conceptual frameworks

, the
"chaos " model of warfare is disabling in many ways . It can
easily induce a sense of hopelessness , and indeed appeared
to
play a role in weakening international reactions to the
genocide
in Rwanda . At another level , the "chaos " model makes
it easier
for governments to confuse the international community by
manipulating ethnic tensions and by playing up to Western
stereotypes of "ancient tribal violence ".

An alternative analysis seeking to describe the concrete

functions of violence , whilst difficult , offers at
least the
chance of working towards the construction of a political
economy
that would be less susceptible to the tactic of
inciting inter-
ethnic violence . A more geographically - and
ethnically -even
pattern of economic development is likely to be essential
in this
endeavour .
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