Internal armed conflicts in the modern world. Civil war in Libya. Behavior in the zone of armed conflict

As the historical analysis of the development of society testifies, the resolution of a complex of contradictions between states or groups of states, in most cases, took place with the use of force. For five and a half thousand years, about 15 thousand wars and armed conflicts have occurred on Earth. This means that for every past century there is not even one peaceful week on the planet.

Over the past decades, the views of military theorists on the conduct of military conflicts and methods of armed struggle have changed radically. This is largely due to the development of qualitatively new models of weapons created on the basis of the latest technologies, including high-precision weapons and weapons based on new physical principles, as well as ways to protect troops from their damaging factors.

In modern wars, armies of many millions can be used, equipped with a large number of the most diverse military equipment and weapons. The types and scale of the use of various weapons, the nature and degree of protection against them will affect the magnitude and structure of troop losses in equipment and personnel.

The study of weapons and their damaging properties makes it possible to understand the nature of combat pathology in general and individual organs and systems in particular, to obtain a quantitative and qualitative characteristic of injuries to personnel at military facilities and in military equipment, and also to determine medical and evacuation measures for the wounded and sick.

Definition and classification of wars and armed conflicts

One of the most cruel forms used by society to resolve interstate or intrastate contradictions is military conflict. Its mandatory characteristic is the use of military force, all types of armed confrontation, including large-scale, regional, local wars and armed conflicts.

Armed conflict- armed clashes of a limited scale between states (international armed conflict) or opposing parties within the territory of one state (internal armed conflict).

Warheads of missiles and torpedoes, aviation and depth charges, artillery shells and mines can be equipped with nuclear charges. In terms of power, nuclear weapons are distinguished as ultra-small (less than 1 kt), small (1-10 kt), medium (10-100 kt), large (100-1000 kt) and extra-large (more than 1000 kt). Depending on the tasks to be solved, it is possible to use nuclear weapons in the form of underground, ground, air, underwater and surface explosions. Depending on the charge, they distinguish: atomic weapons, which are based on the fission reaction; thermonuclear weapons, which are based on the fusion reaction; combined charges; neutron weapons.

Poisonous substances according to their physiological effect on the body are divided into: nerve agents - GA (tabun), GB (sarin), GD (soman), VX (Vi-X); blistering - H (technical mustard), HD (distilled mustard), HT and HQ (mustard mustard formulations), HN (nitrogen mustard); general poisonous action - AC (hydrocyanic acid), CK (cyanogen chloride); suffocating - CG (phosgene); psychochemical - BZ (B-Z); irritating - CN (chloroacetophenone), DM (adamsite), CS (CIS), CR (Ci-Ar).

By the speed of onset of the damaging effect, there are fast-acting poisonous substances that do not have a latent period (GB, GD, AC, AK, CK, CS, CR), and slow-acting poisonous substances with a latent period (VX, HD, CG, BZ).

Depending on the duration of the preservation of the damaging ability, lethal poisonous substances are divided into two groups: persistent, which retain their damaging effect on the ground for several hours and days (VX, GD, HD); unstable, the damaging effect of which persists for several tens of minutes after their application (AC, CG).

Biological weapons are weapons of mass destruction of people, farm animals and plants. The delivery and use of biological weapons can be carried out with the help of strategic, operational-tactical and cruise missiles, strategic and tactical aircraft. According to the views of foreign experts (Rothschild D., Rosebery T., Kabat E.), biological weapons are intended to solve predominantly strategic and tactical tasks - the mass destruction of troops and the population, the weakening of the military-economic potential, the disorganization of the system of state and military control, disruption and difficulties in the mobilization deployment of the Armed Forces.

The agents of plague, cholera, anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, glanders and melioidosis, smallpox, psittacosis, yellow fever, foot and mouth disease, Venezuelan, western and eastern American encephalomyelitis, epidemic typhus, KU fever, spotted fever can be used as biological weapons. rocky mountains and tsutsugamushi fever, coccidioidomycosis, nocardiosis, histoplasmosis, etc. Among microbial toxins, botulinum toxin and staphylococcal enterotoxin are most likely to be used for biological warfare.

In the future, the possibility of creating binary biological agents by analogy with binary poisonous substances is being considered. We are talking about creating pathogens with toxin genes that can be activated only after adding another component to them. This, according to military experts, will help solve problems associated with the production, storage, transportation and targeted use of biological agents.

When used for military purposes, genetic engineering poses a significant danger, with its ability to create many previously unknown biological agents that cause damage to the human body.

Affecting factors of modern types of weapons

The use of modern types of weapons cause direct, indirect and indirect effects.

Characteristic features (effects) of the direct impact of various types of weapons. For conventional weapons, this is their ability to inflict more severe injuries and hit more potential targets. This is achieved by increasing the speed of the wounding projectile (bullet), reducing its caliber and shifting the center of gravity; the use of projectiles filled with a large number of elements (balls, arrows), or cluster munitions; using new principles of detonation (volumetric explosion ammunition); using precision weapons.

The damaging factors of volumetric explosion ammunition are the shock wave, thermal and toxic effects. As a result of the detonation of a gas-air or air-fuel mixture flowing into cracks, trenches, dugouts, military equipment, ventilation hatches and communication channels of leaking engineering structures, buildings, protective structures and buried objects can be completely destroyed. Moreover, explosions in a confined space are more effective for causing damage and defeating enemy manpower.

The damaging effect of incendiary mixtures is due to thermal burns of the skin and mucous membranes, infrared radiation and poisoning by combustion products. . The combustion temperature of incendiary mixtures based on petroleum products reaches 1200ºС, metallized incendiary mixtures (pyrogels) - 1600ºС, and thermite incendiary mixtures (termites) - 2000ºС. Burning fire mixture can affect not only the skin, but also subcutaneous tissue, muscles and even bones. Phosphorus burns, as a rule, are complicated by poisoning of the body when phosphorus is absorbed through the burn surface. Thus, the effect of incendiary mixtures on the human body is multifactorial in nature, often causing combined lesions leading to the development of shock, the appearance of which is possible in 30% of those affected. Deep burns III-IV Art. occur in 70-75% of cases.

The damaging effect of beam weapons is based on the use of highly directed beams of electromagnetic energy or a concentrated beam of elementary particles accelerated to high speeds. One of the types of beam weapons is based on the use of lasers, another type is a beam (accelerator) weapon. Lasers are powerful emitters of electromagnetic energy in the optical range - "quantum optical generators".

The object of defeat by radio-frequency weapons is manpower, which means the known ability of ultra-high and extremely low frequency radio emissions to cause damage (disturbances in functions) of vital organs and systems of a person, such as the brain, heart, central nervous system, endocrine system and circulatory system. Radio frequency radiation can also affect the human psyche, disrupt the perception and use of information about the surrounding reality, cause auditory hallucinations, synthesize disorienting speech messages that are entered directly into the human mind.

Infrasonic weapons are based on the use of directed radiation of powerful infrasonic vibrations, which can affect the central nervous system and digestive organs of a person, cause headaches, pain in internal organs, and disrupt the rhythm of breathing. At higher power levels and very low frequencies, symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, and loss of consciousness appear. Infrasonic radiation also has a psychotropic effect on a person, causing loss of self-control, a sense of fear and panic.

The development of a biological effect on the human body of radio-frequency and infrasonic radiation is considered promising in military terms.

Geophysical weapon is a conditional term adopted in a number of foreign countries, denoting a set of various means that make it possible to use the destructive forces of inanimate nature for military purposes by artificially induced changes in the physical properties and processes occurring in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere of the Earth. In the US and other NATO countries, attempts are also being made to study the possibility of influencing the ionosphere by causing artificial magnetic storms and auroras that disrupt radio communications and prevent radar observations over a wide area.

The possibility of a large-scale change in the temperature regime is being studied by spraying substances that absorb solar radiation, reducing the amount of precipitation, calculated on unfavorable weather changes for the enemy (for example, drought). Depletion of the ozone layer in the atmosphere can presumably make it possible to direct the harmful effects of cosmic rays and ultraviolet radiation from the sun into areas occupied by the enemy, which will cause an increase in the incidence of skin cancer and snow blindness. With the help of underground explosions, a search is being made for the artificial initiation of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunami waves, snow avalanches, mudflows and landslides, and other natural disasters that can lead to massive losses among the population.

The impact of radiological weapons is based on the use of military radioactive substances, which are substances specially obtained and prepared in the form of powders or solutions that contain radioactive isotopes of chemical elements that have ionizing radiation. The action of radiological weapons can be compared with the action of radioactive substances that are formed during a nuclear explosion and pollute the surrounding area. As a result of intense and long-term radiation, military radioactive substances can cause devastating consequences for the animal and plant world.

Nuclear weapons - weapons of mass destruction of explosive action, based on the use of energy released during the fission of heavy nuclei of some isotopes of uranium and plutonium, or during thermonuclear reactions in the process of fusion of light nuclei of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium isotopes into heavier ones, for example nuclei of helium isotopes.

In a nuclear explosion, specific damaging factors can affect the human body: a shock wave, light radiation, penetrating radiation, and radioactive contamination of the area. The air shock wave from a nuclear explosion causes damage to people due to its traumatic effect, as well as flying debris from buildings, structures, glass fragments, etc. The defeat of people by a light pulse causes the appearance of thermal burns of the skin and eyes, up to their complete blindness. Thermal damage during a nuclear explosion can also occur when clothing ignites in the fire.

With a combined injury to people, traumatic injuries from exposure to a shock wave can be combined with burns from light radiation, radiation sickness from exposure to penetrating radiation and radioactive contamination of the area. With simultaneous exposure of a person to various damaging factors of a nuclear explosion, combined lesions occur, which are characterized by the development of a syndrome of mutual aggravation, which worsens his prospects for recovery. The nature of the resulting combined lesions depends on the power and type of nuclear explosion.

For example, even in explosions with a power of 10 kt, the radii of the damaging effect of the shock wave and light radiation exceed the radius of damage from penetrating radiation, which will decisively affect the structure of sanitary losses in the nuclear lesion. Thus, in explosions of nuclear weapons of low and medium power, mainly combinations of traumatic injuries, burns, and radiation sickness are expected, and in explosions of high power, mainly combinations of injuries and burns.

The damaging properties of chemical weapons are based on the toxic effect of toxic substances on the human body. During the First World War, at least 1.3 million people were poisoned by poisonous gases, of which more than 91,000 were killed. Chemical weapons were used in the 30s. 19th century the Italian army in Ethiopia, and the Japanese - in Manchuria. In modern conditions, the massive use of chemical weapons is technically feasible in almost any region of the Russian Federation.

The basis of the damaging effect of biological weapons is biological agents specially selected for combat use - bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, fungi and toxins. Ways of penetration of pathogenic microbes and toxins into the human body can be as follows: aerogenic - with air through the respiratory system; alimentary - with food and water through the digestive organs; transmissible - through the bites of infected insects; contact - through the mucous membranes of the mouth, nose, eyes, as well as damaged skin.

Indirect effects from the use of weapons are the consequences of the disintegration of the economy, the destruction of the material and technical foundations and the social aspects of society. These include the lack of food, housing, outbreaks of epidemics, a significant increase in morbidity, including mental illness; a sharp deterioration in medical care.

to indirect effects. the use of weapons should include biomedical and environmental consequences - the depletion of the ozone layer of the atmosphere, climate change and other currently unpredictable phenomena.

Occurrence of centers of mass sanitary losses, failure of medical units, units and institutions, violation of the medical support system, radioactive contamination of the area, food, water and medical property, limiting the stay of medical personnel in the lesion, the need to work in individual protective equipment, the prevalence of combined forms of lesions - will have a significant impact on the organization of medical support for the troops and will require the maximum effort of the medical service.

At the same time, the medical consequences of the use of modern types of weapons are difficult to quantify, despite the developed various methods for predicting them.

Novosibirsk State Agrarian University

Economic Institute

Department of History, Political Science and Cultural Studies

ESSAY

MILITARY CONFLICTS IN THE MODERN WORLD

Performed:

Student 423 group

Smolkina E.I.

Checked:

Bakhmatskaya G.V.

Novosibirsk 2010

Introduction……………………………………………………………..3

1. Causes of wars and their classification…………...4

2. Military conflicts……………………………………………...7

Conclusion………………………………………………………….12

List of used literature………………………………...13

Introduction

War is a conflict between political entities (states, tribes, political groups), taking place in the form of hostilities between their armed forces. According to Clausewitz, "war is the continuation of politics by other means." The main means of achieving the goals of war is organized armed struggle as the main and decisive means, as well as economic, diplomatic, ideological, informational and other means of struggle. In this sense, war is organized armed violence, the purpose of which is to achieve political goals. Total war is armed violence carried to its extreme limits. The main tool in the war is the army.

Military writers usually define war as an armed conflict in which the rival factions are sufficiently evenly matched to make the outcome of the battle uncertain. Armed conflicts of militarily strong countries with tribes that are at a primitive level of development are called appeasement, military expeditions or the development of new territories; with small states - interventions or reprisals; with internal groups - uprisings and rebellions. Such incidents, if the resistance is strong enough or prolonged in time, may reach sufficient magnitude to be classified as a "war".

The purpose of the work: to define the term war, find out the causes of its occurrence and determine the classification; to characterize the military conflict on the example of South Ossetia.

1. Causes of wars and their classification

The main reason for the emergence of wars is the desire of political forces to use armed struggle to achieve various foreign and domestic political goals.

With the emergence of mass armies in the 19th century, xenophobia (hatred, intolerance towards someone or something alien, unfamiliar, unusual, perception of the alien as incomprehensible, incomprehensible, and therefore dangerous and hostile) became an important tool for mobilizing the population for war, elevated to the rank worldview. On its basis, national, religious or social hatred is easily fomented, and therefore, since the 2nd half of the 19th century, xenophobia has been the main tool for inciting wars, directing aggression, and certain manipulations of the masses within the state.

On the other hand, European societies that survived the devastating wars of the 20th century began to strive to live in peace. Very often, members of such societies live in fear of any shocks. An example of this is the ideologeme "If only there were no war", which prevailed in Soviet society after the end of the most destructive war of the 20th century - World War II.

For propaganda purposes, wars are traditionally divided into just and unjust.

Just wars include wars of liberation - for example, individual or collective self-defense against aggression in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter or a national liberation war against colonialists in the exercise of the right to self-determination. In the modern world, wars waged by separatist movements (Chechnya, Ulster, Kashmir) are considered formally fair, but disapproved.

To unfair - predatory or illegal (aggression, colonial wars). In international law, a war of aggression is qualified as an international crime. In the 1990s, such a concept as a humanitarian war appeared, which formally is aggression in the name of higher goals: the prevention of ethnic cleansing or humanitarian assistance to civilians.

According to their scale, wars are divided into world and local (conflicts).

According to the military doctrine of the Russian Federation of 2000, a local war is the smallest scale modern war.

A local war, as a rule, is part of a regional ethnic, political, territorial or other conflict. Within the framework of one regional conflict, a number of local wars can be concluded (in particular, several local wars have already taken place during the Arab-Israeli conflict in 2009).

The main stages or phases of the conflict can be characterized as follows:

· Initial state of affairs; the interests of the parties involved in the conflict; their degree of understanding.

· The initiating party - the reasons and nature of its actions.

· Response measures; the degree of readiness for the negotiation process; the possibility of normal development and conflict resolution - changes in the initial state of affairs.

· Lack of mutual understanding, ie. understanding the interests of the opposite side.

· Mobilization of resources in defending their interests.

Use of force or threat of force (demonstration of force) in the course of defending one's interests.

Professor Krasnov identifies six stages of conflict. From his point of view, the first stage of a political conflict is characterized by the formed attitude of the parties regarding a specific contradiction or group of contradictions. The second phase of the conflict is the determination of the strategy by the warring parties and the forms of their struggle to resolve the existing contradictions, taking into account the potential and possibilities for using various, including violent means, internal and international situations. The third stage is connected with the involvement of other participants in the struggle through blocs, alliances, and agreements.

The fourth stage is the escalation of the struggle, up to a crisis, gradually embracing all the participants from both sides and developing into a nationwide one. The fifth stage of the conflict is the transition of one of the parties to the practical use of force, at first for demonstrative purposes or on a limited scale. The sixth stage is an armed conflict that begins with a limited conflict (limitations in objectives, territories covered, scope and level of military operations, military means used) and capable, under certain circumstances, of developing to higher levels of armed struggle (war as a continuation of politics) of all participants.

The author of this approach considers armed conflict as one of the forms of political conflict. The limitations of this approach are manifested in the abstraction from two important aspects: from the pre-conflict conditions and from the post-conflict stage in the development of political relations.

2. Military conflicts

The concept of "military conflict", the defining feature of which is only the use of military force to achieve political goals, serves as an integrator for the other two - armed conflict and war. Military conflict - any clash, confrontation, a form of resolving contradictions between states, peoples, social groups with the use of military force. Depending on the goals of the parties and scale indicators, such as the spatial scope, the forces and means involved, the intensity of the armed struggle, military conflicts can be divided into limited (armed conflicts, local and regional wars) and unlimited (world war). In relation to military conflicts, sometimes, most often in foreign literature, such terms as conflicts of small scale (low intensity), medium scale (medium intensity), large scale (high intensity) are used.

According to some researchers, a military conflict is a form of interstate conflict characterized by such a clash of interests of the warring parties that use military means with varying degrees of limitation to achieve their goals. Armed conflict - a conflict between medium and large social groups, in which the parties use weapons (armed formations), excluding the armed forces. Armed conflicts are open clashes with the use of weapons between two or more centrally led parties, uninterrupted for some time in a dispute over the control of the territory and its administration.

Other authors call contradictions between the subjects of military-strategic relations a military conflict, emphasizing the degree of aggravation of these contradictions and the form of their resolution (with the use of armed forces on a limited scale). Military experts understand armed conflict as any conflict involving the use of weapons. In contrast, in a military conflict, the presence of political motives when using weapons is mandatory. In other words, the essence of a military conflict is the continuation of politics with the use of military violence.

Among military specialists, there is the concept of a limited military conflict, a conflict associated with a change in the status of a territory that affects the interests of the state and with the use of means of armed struggle. In such a conflict, the number of opposing sides ranges from 7 to 30 thousand people, up to 150 tanks, up to 300 armored vehicles, 10-15 light aircraft, up to 20 helicopters.

The most striking example of a military conflict in recent years is the military confrontation in August 2008 between Georgia, on the one hand, and Russia, along with the unrecognized republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, on the other.

Georgian and South Ossetian troops have been skirmishing and fire attacks of varying degrees of intensity since late July 2008. On the evening of August 7, the parties agreed on a ceasefire, which, however, was not really done.

On the night of August 7-8, 2008 (at 0:06), Georgian troops launched a massive artillery shelling of the capital of South Ossetia, the city of Tskhinval, and the surrounding areas. A few hours later, the city was stormed by the forces of Georgian armored vehicles and infantry. The official reason for the attack on Tskhinvali, according to the Georgian side, was the violation of the ceasefire by South Ossetia, which, in turn, claims that Georgia was the first to open fire.

On August 8, 2008 (at 14:59), Russia officially joined the conflict on the side of South Ossetia as part of an operation to force the Georgian side to peace, on August 9, 2008 - Abkhazia as part of an agreement on military assistance between members of the Commonwealth of Unrecognized States.

The origins of the modern Georgian-Ossetian conflict lie in the events of the late 1980s, when the activation of the Georgian national movement for independence from the union center (while simultaneously denying the small peoples of Georgia the right to autonomy) and the radical actions of its leaders against the background of the weakness of the central leadership of the USSR led to a sharp aggravation of relations between Georgians and ethnic minorities (first of all, Abkhazians and Ossetians, who had their own autonomous formations).

The main causes of discontent in the conflict zone include:

1. The adoption on July 1, 2002 by Russia of a law on citizenship, according to which 80% of the inhabitants of Abkhazia had Russian citizenship, which the Georgian authorities regarded as “annexation of Georgian territories” (a violent act of annexation by the state of all or part of the territory of another state unilaterally).

2. The visa regime between Russia and Georgia played its role.

3. the coming to power of Mikheil Saakashvili, and an intensified course to restore the territorial integrity of Georgia, which led to a series of armed rebuffs.

In the period from August 14 to August 16, 2008, the leaders of the states involved in hostilities signed a plan for the peaceful settlement of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict ("Medvedev-Sarkozy Plan"), which formally fixed the end of hostilities in the conflict zone. The confrontation between the parties to the conflict has acquired a predominantly political and diplomatic character, to a large extent moving into the sphere of international politics. The clash between Russia and Georgia resulted in great casualties among the civilian population of South Ossetia, as well as huge losses of their own resources.

Specifically for Russia, this conflict has become a big minus. Shares of many companies have lost their cost. Many countries have reacted to this by saying that Russia can enter into amicable agreements with other states if it cannot improve relations with the former republics and its closest neighbors. In the political arena, a comparison of the behavior of Russian President D. Medvedev and Prime Minister of Russia V. Putin during the conflict made Western observers ask the question “who is in charge in the Kremlin” and come to the answer: “The current conflict has confirmed what has become increasingly clear in recent weeks: Putin continues to be in charge. Financial Times commentator Philip Stevens, in an issue dated August 29, 2008, called Medvedev "the nominal president of Russia." It was also noted that another notable consequence of the Georgian conflict can be considered the final collapse of hopes for the liberalization of the domestic political course that appeared in a certain part of Russian society after the election of Dmitry Medvedev as president.

Political scientist L.F. Shevtsova wrote in the newspaper Vedomosti on September 17: “The war between Russia and Georgia in 2008 was the final chord in the formation of the anti-Western vector of the state and at the same time the final touch in the consolidation of the new system. In the 1990s, this system existed as a hybrid that combined incompatible things - democracy and autocracy, economic reforms and state expansion, partnership with the West and suspicion of it. From now on, the Russian system becomes unambiguous, and there are no more doubts about its qualities and its trajectory.<…>The August events confirmed one simple truth: foreign policy in Russia has become a tool for implementing the domestic political agenda.<…>So we are not dealing with a war between Russia and Georgia. We are talking about a confrontation between Russia not even with the United States, but with the West, which is caused not so much by differences in geopolitical interests (there are such differences between Western states, but they do not lead to wars), but by differences in views on the world and the construction of society itself. Georgia turned out to be a whipping boy, and its example should be a warning to others, primarily Ukraine. The inclusion of the latter in the western orbit could be a devastating blow to the system that the Kremlin is now strengthening.

The conflict caused various assessments and opinions from governments, international organizations, politicians and public figures from different countries. And despite all the comments and assessments of other prominent statesmen, the conflict was still brought to naught.

Conclusion

Military conflicts are now becoming a phenomenon that poses a very serious danger to humanity. This danger is determined by the following points. First, such conflicts bring millions of victims and undermine the very foundations of peoples' lives. Secondly, under the conditions of "densification" of international relations, the deepening of the interconnections of all members of the world community, any military conflict can, under certain conditions, turn into a kind of "detonator" of a new world war. Thirdly, military conflicts today exacerbate environmental problems. Fourthly, they have a negative impact on the moral and psychological climate in the regions, on the continents, all over the world. This list of properties and consequences of modern military conflicts is far from complete.

Even today there are reasons to believe that the likelihood of "resource" and "environmental" conflicts in the future may turn out to be very high.

And yet, the ideologeme “If only there was no war”, in my opinion, is still relevant at the present time, because war, no matter how large it is, is the most terrible thing. War is the senseless destruction of the population of our Earth, because if you go through the course of history, any military action ends in most cases with the signing of peace treaties, so why are these huge sacrifices needed? Isn't it possible to solve everything peacefully?!

And in conclusion, I would like to add, may there be PEACE throughout the WORLD, and not we, not our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will ever know what WAR is.

Bibliography

1. Antsiulov A.Ya., Shipilov A.I. Conflictology: Textbook for Universities.- M.: UNITI. 1999.- 534p.

2. Artsibasov I.N., Egorov S.A. Armed conflict: law, politics, diplomacy. - M.: Knowledge. 1985. - 231p.

3. Zhukov V.I., Krasnov B.I. General and applied political science. - M.: Politizdat. 1997. - 426p.

4. Manokhin A.V., Tkachev V.S. Military conflicts: theory, history, practice: Textbook .- St. Petersburg: Peter. 1994. - 367p.

5. http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Ossetia_(2008)

Novosibirsk State Agrarian University

Economic Institute

Department of History, Political Science and Cultural Studies

ESSAY

MILITARY CONFLICTS IN THE MODERN WORLD

Performed:

Student 423 group

Smolkina E.I.

Checked:

Bakhmatskaya G.V.

Novosibirsk 2010

Introduction……………………………………………………………..3

1. Causes of wars and their classification…………...4

2. Military conflicts……………………………………………...7

Conclusion………………………………………………………….12

List of used literature………………………………...13

Introduction

The purpose of the work: to define the term war, find out the causes of its occurrence and determine the classification; to characterize the military conflict on the example of South Ossetia.

1. Causes of wars and their classification

The main reason for the emergence of wars is the desire of political forces to use armed struggle to achieve various foreign and domestic political goals.

For propaganda purposes, wars are traditionally divided into just and unjust.

According to their scale, wars are divided into world and local (conflicts).

According to the military doctrine of the Russian Federation of 2000, a local war is the smallest scale modern war.

The main stages or phases of the conflict can be characterized as follows:

Initial state of affairs; the interests of the parties involved in the conflict; their degree of understanding.

The initiating party - the reasons and nature of its actions.

retaliatory measures; the degree of readiness for the negotiation process; the possibility of normal development and conflict resolution - changes in the initial state of affairs.

Lack of mutual understanding, i.e. understanding the interests of the opposite side.

Mobilization of resources in defending their interests.

The use of force or the threat of force (demonstration of force) in the course of defending one's interests.

2. Military conflicts

The main causes of discontent in the conflict zone include:

the adoption on July 1, 2002 by Russia of a law on citizenship, according to which 80% of the inhabitants of Abkhazia had Russian citizenship, which the Georgian authorities regarded as “annexation of Georgian territories” (a violent act of annexation by the state of all or part of the territory of another state unilaterally).

the visa regime between Russia and Georgia played its role.

the coming to power of Mikheil Saakashvili, and an intensified course towards the restoration of the territorial integrity of Georgia, which led to a series of armed rebuffs.

Political scientist L.F. Shevtsova wrote in the newspaper Vedomosti on September 17: “The war between Russia and Georgia in 2008 was the final chord in the formation of the anti-Western vector of the state and at the same time the final touch in the consolidation of the new system. In the 1990s, this system existed as a hybrid that combined incompatible things - democracy and autocracy, economic reforms and state expansion, partnership with the West and suspicion of it. From now on, the Russian system becomes unambiguous, and there are no more doubts about its qualities and its trajectory. The August events confirmed one simple truth: foreign policy in Russia has become a tool for implementing the domestic political agenda. So we are not dealing with a war between Russia and Georgia. We are talking about a confrontation between Russia not even with the United States, but with the West, which is caused not so much by differences in geopolitical interests (there are such differences between Western states, but they do not lead to wars), but by differences in views on the world and the construction of society itself. Georgia turned out to be a whipping boy, and its example should be a warning to others, primarily Ukraine. The inclusion of the latter in the western orbit could be a devastating blow to the system that the Kremlin is now strengthening.

Conclusion

Even today there are reasons to believe that the likelihood of "resource" and "environmental" conflicts in the future may turn out to be very high.

And in conclusion, I would like to add, may there be PEACE throughout the WORLD, and not we, not our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will ever know what WAR is.

Bibliography

Antsiulov A.Ya., Shipilov A.I. Conflictology: Textbook for Universities.- M.: UNITI. 1999.- 534p.

Artsibasov I.N., Egorov S.A. Armed conflict: law, politics, diplomacy. - M.: Knowledge. 1985. - 231p.

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From the beginning of 1990 to the end of 1999 There were 118 armed conflicts in the world that affected 80 countries and two large regions and claimed the lives of approximately six million people. Of the 118 armed conflicts, ten can be clearly identified as interstate. Five armed conflicts belong to wars of independence, although in many other cases the participants consider their conflicts as such. One hundred wars were "largely", "mainly" or "solely" internal conflicts. (These data are given by the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies of the University of Uppsala, which are published annually in the Journal of Peace Research. See: Chechnya: from conflict to stability: Problems of Reconstruction / Institute of Ethnol. and Anthropology named after Miklukho- Maclay RAS and others - M., 2001. - S. 22-23.)

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, by the end of the 20th century there were 160 zones of ethnopolitical tension on the planet, 80 of them had all the attributes of unresolved conflicts. At the joint Russian-NATO conference of representatives of military departments and scientists in the field of international law held in April 2000, it was noted that since the turn of the 90s a new round in the history of internal armed conflicts begins, they become dominant in international practice. In some cases, the participation of the international community for their localization, including peacekeeping forces, will be required. (See: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 18, 2000.)

In order to prevent conflicts from turning into armed conflicts, and if this did happen, to be able to end them as soon as possible and create maximum guarantees for their non-resumption after a settlement is reached, it is necessary to deeply understand the causes and nature of internal armed conflicts.

This article attempts to briefly outline our knowledge of the nature and causes of internal armed conflicts. The theoretical basis of this knowledge is limited, but extremely important. It is limited in the sense that it does not offer any generalized explanation of the concept of internal conflict, but given the extreme complexity and ambiguity of the phenomenon itself, this is hardly surprising. On the other hand, theory is important because it can tell us where to look for signs of an escalation in violence, as well as ways to prevent this escalation. However, in this article the main thing is not the theory, but the methodology of studying and analyzing the internal armed conflict.

Internal armed conflict in the system of social conflicts. The normal development of a social conflict assumes that each side is able to take into account the interests of the opposing side. This approach creates the possibility of a relatively peaceful development of the conflict through the negotiation process, and making adjustments to the previous system of relations in the direction and scale acceptable to each of the parties.

However, it often happens that the party initiating the conflict proceeds from a negative assessment of the previous state of affairs and declares only its own interests, without taking into account the interests of the opposite side. The opposing side is forced in this case to take special measures to protect its interests, which are perceived and interpreted by the initiator of the conflict as a desire to protect the status quo. As a result, both sides may suffer some damage, which is attributed to the opposing side in the conflict.

Such a situation is fraught with the use of violence: already at the initial stage of the conflict, each of the parties begins to demonstrate force or the threat of its use. In this case, the conflict deepens, since the impact of force necessarily meets with opposition associated with the mobilization of resources to resist the force. Violence creates secondary and tertiary factors of deepening the conflict situation, which sometimes displace the original cause of the conflict from the minds of the parties.

The greater the desire to use force is observed in the conflict, the more likely it is for one of the parties to switch to the practical use of force, at first for demonstrative purposes or on a limited scale up to the use of means of armed struggle.

Thus, the main stages or stages of conflict can be summarized as follows.

Initial state of affairs; the interests of the parties involved in the conflict; their degree of understanding.
The initiating party - the reasons and nature of its actions.
retaliatory measures; the degree of readiness for the negotiation process; the possibility of normal development and conflict resolution - changes in the initial state of affairs.
Lack of mutual understanding, i.e. understanding the interests of the opposite side.
Mobilization of resources in defending their interests.
The use of force or the threat of force (demonstration of force) in the course of defending one's interests.

Another approach structures the actual process of the deployment of a social, and in particular, a political conflict based on the identification of possible forms of its course. Adhering to this approach, Professor Krasnov B.I. identifies six stages of the conflict (General and Applied Political Science / Edited by Zhukov V.I., Krasnov B.I.M., 1997. - P. 375 - 376.). From his point of view, the first stage of a political conflict is characterized by the formed attitude of the parties regarding a specific contradiction or group of contradictions.

The second phase of the conflict is the determination of the strategy by the warring parties and the forms of their struggle to resolve the existing contradictions, taking into account the potential and possibilities for using various, including violent means, internal and international situations.

The third stage is connected with the involvement of other participants in the struggle through blocs, alliances, and agreements.

The sixth stage is an armed conflict that begins with a limited conflict (limitations in objectives, territories covered, scope and level of military operations, military means used) and capable, under certain circumstances, of developing to higher levels of armed struggle (war as a continuation of politics) of all participants.

It is easy to see that the author of this approach considers armed conflict as one of the forms of political conflict. The limitations of this approach are manifested in the abstraction from two important aspects: from the pre-conflict conditions and from the post-conflict stage in the development of political relations. In our opinion, methodologically more valuable for analyzing the nature of internal armed conflicts is an approach that takes into account both of the noted aspects.

Correlation between the concepts of "military conflict", "armed conflict" and "war". Social conflicts can take place with or without the use of violence. Armed conflict is considered to exist when military force is used. In recent years, many concepts related to the use of military force have emerged. In particular, in modern scientific literature, UN documents and materials, to qualify events in a particular country (region), the following concepts are used: war (civil, national liberation, local, regional), conflict (armed, military, interethnic, ethno-political, confessional ) etc. The use of these concepts as synonyms creates the prerequisites for the distortion of meaning and makes it difficult to adequately perceive the nature of the social phenomena they denote. Each of the concepts characterizes a completely definite state of political or military-political relations, which has its own specific features. Therefore, all parties involved in the conflict or in its settlement should not only operate with the same order of categories, but also see the same content in them, that is, “speak the same language”. In this case, Descartes' advice - clarify the meaning of words, and you will rid the world of half of the delusions - will only bring benefits.

The main confusion occurs in such concepts as military conflict, armed conflict, war.

As you know, war is a socio-political phenomenon, a special state of society associated with a sharp change in relations between states, peoples, social groups and with the organized use of armed violence to achieve political goals. From the point of view of tactics, war is defined as “a confrontation between two or more autonomous groups of states, which causes sanctioned organized military actions extended over time, in which the entire group or, in most cases, part of it is involved in order to improve its material, social, political or psychological state, or, in general, realizing the chances of survival ”(Pershits A.I., Semenov Yu.I., Shnilerman V.A. War and peace in the early history of mankind: In 2 volumes / Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. - M., 1994. - T. 1. - S. 56.).

Most political scientists and military experts believe that the line between war and armed conflict is arbitrary. We can agree with this. But there are a number of essential criteria that make it possible to determine the differences between them, as well as the place and role of each of these social phenomena in public life.

Firstly, war is conditioned by the presence of fundamental contradictions - economic, political, and is waged with decisive goals. The resolution of contradictions with the help of military force is caused by the awareness and need to realize the vital interests of society and the state. Therefore, in the war there is always an organizational principle. In an armed conflict, as a rule, national-ethnic, clan, religious and other interests derived from the main ones and the contradictions caused by them come to the fore. Armed conflicts can take the form of spontaneous or deliberately organized uprisings, rebellions, military actions and incidents, depending on who owns the "conflict" interests, who is their bearer.

Secondly, war leads to a qualitative change in the state of the entire country and the armed forces. Many state institutions begin to perform specific functions. The centralization of power, the concentration of all the forces of the country are intensifying, the economy and the entire life of society are being rebuilt to achieve victory. Full or partial mobilization of the armed forces and the economy is being carried out. An armed conflict, unlike a war, basically determines the state of the armed forces or their parts. Combat operations, as a rule, are carried out by part of the combat strength of peacetime troops.

Thirdly, in war, all forms of struggle are used by the relevant institutions of the state - political, diplomatic, informational, economic, armed, etc., and in armed conflicts, the parties may confine themselves to armed clashes, sometimes spontaneous, although the organized use of other forms of confrontation by them is not excluded, primarily - informational.

Fourth, from a legal point of view, war is characterized by such signs as the formal act of its declaration (this is required by the Hague Convention of 1907); the severance of diplomatic relations between the belligerent states and the annulment of the treaties that regulated the peaceful relations of these states; the introduction of martial law (state of emergency) on the territory of the belligerent states (or part of it) and a number of others.

Thus, an armed conflict does not contain the main features inherent in war as a special state of society, as well as the necessary legal criteria that define it as a war. Therefore, the concept of "armed conflict" is not identical with the concept of "war" and vice versa. A well-known principle follows from this: any war is an armed conflict, but not any armed conflict is a war.

According to some researchers, a military conflict is a form of interstate conflict characterized by such a clash of interests of the warring parties that use military means with varying degrees of limitation to achieve their goals. (See: Antsiulov A.Ya., Shipilov AI. Conflictology: A textbook for universities. - M .: UNITI, 1999. - P. 534.) An armed conflict is a conflict between medium and large social groups in which the parties use weapons ( armed formations), excluding the armed forces. Armed conflicts are open clashes with the use of weapons between two or more centrally led parties, uninterrupted for some time in a dispute over the control of the territory and its administration.

Other authors call contradictions between the subjects of military-strategic relations a military conflict, emphasizing the degree of aggravation of these contradictions and the form of their resolution (with the use of armed forces on a limited scale) (See: Manokhin A.V., Tkachev V.C. Military conflicts: theory, history, practice: Textbook. - M., 1994. - S. 11-12.). Military experts understand armed conflict as any conflict involving the use of weapons. In contrast, in a military conflict, the presence of political motives when using weapons is mandatory. In other words, the essence of a military conflict is the continuation of politics with the use of military violence.

The concept of internal armed conflict. Terminological vagueness in determining the nature of an armed conflict can lead to inadequate actions by various actors to prevent or resolve it. So, if the events in any country are assessed as preparations for a local war, then for the participation of law enforcement agencies in them, it is important to know exactly the expected scale of hostilities and their nature. If we are talking about an internal (or border) armed conflict, then the composition of the forces should be different, as well as the nature of the hostilities. Otherwise, subunits and units preparing, for example, for a conflict, in the event of war, will not be able to solve their tasks and will suffer significant losses in manpower and equipment.

In addition, quite often, certain intrastate armed conflicts are qualified as interethnic - in Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldova, Georgia, Bosnia, etc. However, this overlooks the socio-political content of the contradictions that exist in relations between the subjects of the confrontation. This is done, as a rule, in order to warm up ordinary consciousness on the wave of nationalism and direct dissatisfaction against representatives of a certain nationality or ethnic community, which is fraught with an expansion of the scale of the conflict. Under these conditions, political leaders themselves become hostages of nationalist extremism.

Inadequate assessments of the subjects of the confrontation lead to the prolongation of the armed conflict, strengthening its negative consequences. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the main subjects of confrontation in wars and military conflicts were: states (coalitions of states); national liberation movements and organizations; ruling regimes (central governments) and armed opposition groups in intrastate conflicts. In world practice, assessments of these subjects are carried out from different positions and in various aspects: from the point of view of external forces, all opposing sides are assessed; from the point of view of one of them - mainly opponents and their allies are considered. In assessing a particular subject, attention is drawn to his political interests, goals, means; the size and composition of the armed forces or military formations; the possibility of obtaining weapons from other countries; social base, etc. (See: Rylskaya M.A. On the issue of the problem of conflict resolution // Problems of the activities of the Department of Internal Affairs and Internal Troops in extreme conditions: Collection of scientific works. M .: VNII of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 1997. - P. 27.)

The experience of many conflicts shows that underestimation of political and military capabilities is fraught with grave consequences and even defeat in a war (conflict). Thus, in the conflict in the Persian Gulf region (1990-1991), Iraq had a military power that significantly exceeded the military capabilities of Kuwait, but did not take into account the fact that multinational forces could be used against it. In the conflict in the Chechen Republic (1994-1995), the federal forces were tasked with disarming illegal military formations numbering 15,000 people (about 6 regiments), but the fighting went on to defeat and destroy them. After two months of fighting, during which Dudayev's supporters lost about 6,000 people, the number of opposition units still amounted to about 15,000 people and the prospects for their disarmament remained uncertain.

In accordance with the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation: “An armed conflict may be international in nature (with the participation of two or more states) or non-international, internal in nature (with the conduct of armed confrontation within the territory of one state). An armed conflict is characterized by: high involvement in it and vulnerability of the local population; the use of irregular armed formations; widespread use of sabotage and terrorist methods; the complexity of the moral and psychological environment in which the troops operate; forced diversion of significant forces and means to ensure the security of movement routes, areas and locations of troops (forces); danger of transformation into a local (international armed conflict) or civil (internal armed conflict) war. (Military doctrine of the Russian Federation (approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of April 21, 2000 No. 706) // Collection of Legislation of the Russian Federation. - 2000. - No. 17. - Art. 1852.)

In armed conflicts, states do not enter a special state characteristic of wars (internal armed conflicts, armed incidents, border clashes and military actions). A special place in this series is occupied by civil wars, in which, under certain conditions, internal armed conflicts can develop. Since, unlike internal armed conflicts, where the political goals are the problems of self-determination and territorial belonging, the assertion of the uniqueness of socio-cultural, national and confessional values, the goal of a civil war is the struggle for state power.

Internal armed conflict in the Dictionary of Human Rights refers to any armed conflict that is not an armed conflict between two or more states, even if the conflict involves foreign military advisers, unofficial military armed groups or mercenaries. Such conflicts take place on the territory of a State between the splintered parts of the armed forces of that State, or other organized armed groups that, under responsible command, exercise control over a part of its territory, which allows them to conduct prolonged and coordinated military operations. This category includes civil war, guerrilla warfare, insurrection (conflict of low and medium intensity) (Dictionary of Human Rights. Edited by A. D. Jongman and A. P. Schmid. - M., 1996. - P. 5.) . In the same place, a civil war is directly recognized as a form of armed struggle between organized groups fighting for state power, where one side is usually the forces protecting the existing regime, and the other is a partisan movement supported by part of the population and / or a foreign state.

An armed conflict in the Russian Federation is officially understood as an armed incident, an armed action and other armed clashes of a limited scale, which may result from an attempt to resolve national, ethnic, religious and other contradictions with the help of means of armed struggle (Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 21 April 2000 No. 706) // Collection of Legislation of the Russian Federation. - 2000. - No. 17. - St. 1852.). In our opinion, the wording used does not make it possible to distinguish between an armed conflict even from a situation of internal tension (Internal tension is the preventive use of force by the state in order to preserve peace and the rule of law.). So, it is not required from the representatives of the parties to the conflict, not only to be organized under responsible command, but even their obligatory distinguishability from the civilian population. As representatives of foreign conflictology note, during a period of tension, conflicts are usually an asymmetric guerrilla war waged by groups of civilians as a result of the limited military capabilities of the rebels, the lack of weapons and the lack of necessary control over the territory. (Eide A. The New humanitarian law in non-international armed conflict., in A. Cassese (ed. - P. 306.)

Internal disturbances are usually understood as situations that do not have signs of a non-international armed conflict as such, but are characterized by the presence in the country of confrontation, which is characterized by a certain intensity or duration, in which there are acts of violence. The latter can take on a wide variety of forms, ranging from spontaneous outbreaks of rebellion to struggles between more or less organized groups and government authorities. In such situations, which do not necessarily escalate into open fighting, government authorities mobilize reinforced contingents of the police or even the armed forces to restore internal order. (Conference of Government Experts. Vol. V. Pro-tection of Victims of Non-International Armed Con-flicts. ICRC. Geneva. 1971. - P. 79.)

Typically, individuals who are part of the anti-government armed forces fight government forces in order to seize power in the country; either for achieving greater autonomy within the state; or for the separation of part of the territory and the creation of their own state. The exception is when a people rises up against colonial rule, exercising its right to sovereignty. It should be noted that with the adoption of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, national liberation wars began to be considered an international armed conflict (clause 4, article 1 of the Protocol), although so far some authors, in particular L. Dispo, a French researcher of terrorism, in In his book The Terror Machine, he proposes to consider national liberation movements as a kind of terrorism. (Dispot L. La machine a terreur. Paris. Edition Grasset. 1978. - P. 57.)

The ambiguity of approaches to the assessment of this or that armed confrontation within one state was fully reflected in the policy of the Russian Federation regarding the qualification of the situation in Chechnya since the early 1990s. Despite repeated calls from various politicians to give a legal assessment of the events in Chechnya since 1990. For a while, the official point of view on this issue was never formulated, except for the lapidary phrases scattered in various resolutions, decrees, and other acts of the legislative, executive and judicial authorities.

So, in the resolution of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of March 12, 1997, the following definition is given to the armed conflict in the Chechen Republic: between:

armed associations, detachments, squads, other armed formations created and operating in violation of the legislation of the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as illegal armed formations), and internal affairs bodies, units of internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops and military formations of the Russian Federation;
illegal armed formations created to achieve certain political goals;
persons who were not members of illegal armed formations, but who participated in the confrontation”. (Russian newspaper. - 1997. - March 15.)

A little later, the same state authority defines the situation somewhat differently: “The Russian Federation is conducting an anti-terrorist operation, freeing the territory of the Chechen Republic from illegal armed formations” (Decree of the State Duma of November 17, 1999 No. 4556-II of the State Duma “On the political situation in the Chechen Republic” // Assembly Legislation of the Russian Federation - 1999. - No. 47. - Article 5679.). Note that the Constitution of the Russian Federation does not contain the term “anti-terrorist operation”.

Analyzing the situation in Chechnya, Ustinov V.V. believes that at the initial stage between the Russian Federation and this republic there was an intrastate political conflict, illegitimate in terms of the means and methods of its implementation, which developed into an armed conflict of a non-international character at the stage of the response of the federal authorities. (Ustinov V.V. International experience in combating terrorism. Standards and practice. - M., 2003. - P. 310.)

Trying to justify the measures taken, their authors insist that there had already been a local armed conflict on the territory of Chechnya by the time the federal troops were brought into its territory, regarded under international law as an armed conflict of a non-international character, aggravated by rampant lawlessness. And they draw the following conclusion: in such a situation, according to the norms of international law, Russia had every right to exercise its sovereignty and fulfill "the duty by all legal means to maintain or restore law and order in the state or to protect the national unity and territorial integrity of the state" (Additional Protocol II 1977 to Geneva Conventions of 1949. Article 3 // International Law in force: in 3 volumes / Compiled by Yu.M. Kolosov and E.S. Krivchikova. - M., 1997. - V.2. - P. 794.). Recall that in a situation of armed conflict, according to the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, a mandatory declaration of a state of emergency is expected, which has not been done so far. One way or another, no matter how the situation in Chechnya has been classified since the early 1990s, according to its characteristics, it falls under the definition of an armed conflict within the meaning of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation of 2000.

The political and legal analysis of the Chechen conflict makes it possible to define it as an internal conflict, meaning by this a hostile interaction between the state and an opposition group or organization opposing it, aimed at changing, including by violent means, the political community, political regime or political authorities of the state. From these positions, the Chechen conflict, according to the intentions of the opposition, from the very beginning was a political legitimate conflict aimed at changing the political system of Russia - the political community of the Russian state. According to the nature of the means used of this kind, violent actions in opposition to the federal authorities in international practice are assessed as a "mutiny" or "uprising". (See for more details: Institute for Analysis and Management of Conflicts and Stability. Russian Association for Theory and Modeling of International Relations. Chechen conflict (1991-1996): Assessments, analysis, solutions (summary). - M., 1997. - P.2 - 6.)

Based on the above definitions, as well as an analysis of the course of many social conflicts within a state, we determine that, in the general case, an internal armed conflict should be understood as any clash, confrontation, a form of resolving contradictions between conflicting parties within the territory of one state with the use of military force to achieve certain political goals. On the one hand, an internal armed conflict (IAC) is a crisis form of an emergency situation of a socio-political nature, the causes of which can be both conflicts of various types (economic, political, interethnic, regional, etc.), and emergency circumstances of a criminal nature . On the other hand, the VVK is a form of resolving contradictions between social formations using forceful methods.

Internal armed conflict as an object of international law. International humanitarian law distinguishes between IHCs, which are covered by the provisions of Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, and IHCs, which are narrowly worded and governed by Additional Protocol No. II of 1977 (See: International Human Rights Acts. Collection of documents . - M .: Publishing house NORMA, 2000. - S. 480 - 487.). Initially, Article 3, which regulates social relations arising during a non-international armed conflict, did not define it as such. In fact, a minimum of guarantees were provided to the victims of the internal armed confrontation, and there were no specific criteria for classifying the conflict as an internal armed confrontation.

The first official concept of a non-international armed conflict was given in 1977 in the Additional Protocol No. II to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (See: Schindler D. International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights. - M .: ICRC, 1994. - P. 6 .). Here it should be noted that in the process of developing the definition, there were three directions. The first group of experts presented this option: a non-international conflict takes place only if the state itself recognizes it on its territory. Representatives of another group proposed to fix the possibility of a free assessment of the situation by the absence of a definition. Still others insisted on accompanying the definition given in Article 1 of the Additional Protocol with provisions emphasizing the conditions under which a given armed conflict should be considered a non-international armed conflict, namely: the organization of the parties; the intensity and duration of the conflict; the presence of a collision of the parties.

The vulnerability of the first position lay in the fact that, both then and still, states are very reluctant to recognize the existence of an armed conflict on their territory. So, leaving it up to them to assess the situation, it could be argued with a high degree of certainty that the good goals of Additional Protocol II would not have been achieved. The same can be said about the second project. The absence of any criteria that would qualify the confrontation as an internal armed conflict would leave room for abuse in its interpretation. The position of the third group turned out to be closer to the authors of the Protocol.

The final version, submitted for signing of the Protocol, contained the following wording: a non-international armed conflict means “armed conflicts in the territory of a High Contracting Party between its armed forces and anti-government forces (the term “government” is used in this context not in a narrow sense, designating the highest body of executive power, and the system of state bodies, primarily legislative and executive, and relevant officials.) by forces or other organized armed groups who, being under responsible command, exercise such control over a part of its territory that allows them to exercise continuous and concerted hostilities and apply this Protocol.” It should be noted that these, within the meaning of the Protocol, do not include cases of violation of the internal order and the emergence of a situation of internal tension: riots, individual and sporadic acts of violence and other actions of a similar nature. The use of such a wording nevertheless left the states with the possibility of a broad interpretation, and hence, of various qualifications of the armed confrontation taking place on their territories.

In fact, in order for an armed confrontation to be classified as a non-international armed conflict, it must meet certain criteria.

So, you need:

so that the confrontation develops intensively and with the use of weapons from both sides;
the use of the army by the government due to the impossibility of managing the situation only by the police (militia);
the organization of the armed forces of the rebels and the mandatory presence of a command responsible for their actions.

Despite the fact that Additional Protocol II answered the question of what a non-international armed conflict is, it did not always make it easier to identify armed clashes, including those of an intense nature, with such a conflict. Even in the theory of international law, there was no unequivocal position on this matter. According to Blishchenko I.P., only a civil war can be considered an internal armed conflict (Blishchenko I.P. Non-international armed conflict and international law // Soviet state and law. - 1973. - No. 11. - P. 131). Some international lawyers believe that the term "war" should not be associated with internal conflicts in the country, but the concept of "an armed conflict that is not of an international character as an internal situation of the collective use of force" is more applicable. D. Schindler generally refuses generalizing formulations and simply classifies non-international armed conflicts, which, in his opinion, include:

civil war in the classical sense of international law as a non-international armed conflict of high intensity, in which third states can recognize the status of a belligerent country behind a newly created government;
non-international armed conflict within the meaning of Art. 3 common to the Geneva Conventions of 1949;
non-international armed conflict within the meaning of Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (See: Schindler D. International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights. - M .: ICRC, 1994. - P. 6.).

With regard to the distinction between genuine armed conflicts on the one hand and ordinary acts of banditry or unorganized short-term riots on the other, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda referred in one of its decisions to the following criteria:

a party to a conflict that has rebelled de jure against the Government has an organized military force, an authority responsible for their actions, operating in a defined territory and having the capacity to comply with and enforce the Convention;
the legitimate government is forced to resort to the use of regular armed forces against the rebels, organized into military structures that control part of the territory of the state;
the legitimate government has recognized the rebels as a belligerent, or
it has declared that it has the rights of a belligerent, or
it has recognized the rebels as a belligerent solely for the purposes of this Convention, or
conflict has been placed on the agenda of the UN Security Council or General Assembly as a threat to international peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression” (This study is presented by the International Committee of the Red Cross as a background document to assist the Preparatory Commission in its work to establish the elements of crimes for the International Criminal Court See: International Committee of the Red Cross, working papers, Moscow, 1999, p. 19.)...

In the era of the bipolar world and the Cold War, one of the main sources of instability on the planet were numerous regional and local conflicts, which both the socialist and capitalist systems used to their advantage. A special branch of political science began to study such conflicts. Although it was not possible to create a generally accepted classification of them, according to the intensity of the confrontation between the parties, conflicts usually began to be divided into three categories: 1) the most acute; 2) tense; 3) potential. Geographers also began to study conflicts. As a result, according to some scientists, a new direction began to form in political geography - geoconflictology.

In the 90s. In the 20th century, after the end of the Cold War, the military-political confrontation between the two world systems is a thing of the past. A number of regional and local conflicts were also resolved. However, many centers of international tension, which have been called "hot spots", have survived. According to American data, in 1992 there were 73 hot spots in the world, of which 26 were "small wars" or armed uprisings, 24 were marked by increased tension, and 23 were classified as hotbeds of potential conflicts. According to other estimates, in the mid-90s. 20th century in the world there were about 50 areas of constant military clashes, partisan struggle and manifestations of mass terrorism.

The Stockholm Institute for International Peace Problems (SIPRI) is specially engaged in the study of military conflicts. The term "major armed conflict" itself is defined by him as a prolonged confrontation between the armed forces of two or more governments or one government and at least one organized armed group, resulting in the death of at least 1,000 people as a result of hostilities during the entire conflict, and in which irreconcilable contradictions concern administration and (or) territory. In 1989, from which SIPRI statistics begin, there were 36 such conflicts. In 1997, there were 25 major armed conflicts in 24 parts of the world, all of which (with the exception of one) were intrastate in nature. Comparison of these figures indicates a slight decrease in the number of armed conflicts. Indeed, during the specified period of time, at least a relative settlement of the armed conflicts in Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Tajikistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Liberia, Somalia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, East Timor and some other hot spots in the past was achieved. But many conflicts have not been resolved, and in some places new conflict situations have arisen.

At the beginning of the XXI century. in the first place in the total number of armed conflicts was Africa, which even began to be called the continent of conflicts. In North Africa, examples of this kind are Algeria, where the government is fighting an armed struggle with the Islamic Salvation Front, and Sudan, where government troops are fighting a real war with the peoples of the southern part of the country who oppose forced Islamization. In both cases, the number of both combatants and the dead is measured in tens of thousands. In West Africa, government troops continued to operate against opposition armed groups in Senegal and Sierra Leone; in Central Africa - in the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, the Central African Republic; in East Africa - in Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda; in South Africa - in Angola and the Comoros.

Angola can serve as an example of a country with a particularly protracted conflict, which faded away, then flared up with renewed vigor, where the armed struggle of the National Union for the Complete Independence of Angola (UNITA) with the government began in 1966, and ended only in 2002 The long conflict in Zaire ended with the victory of the opposition; in 1997, the name of the country was changed, and it became known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The death toll in the civil war in this country has reached 2.5 million people. And during the civil war in Rwanda, which broke out in 1994 on interethnic grounds, human losses exceeded 1 million people; another 2 million became refugees. Differences between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritria and Samoli have not been resolved.

In total, according to available estimates, during the post-colonial period, that is, since the beginning of the 60s, more than 10 million Africans have died during armed conflicts. At the same time, political scientists note that most of these conflicts are associated with the poorest and poorest countries of this continent. Although the weakening of one or another state, in principle, should not necessarily lead to conflict situations, in Africa such a correlation can be traced quite clearly.

Armed conflicts are also characteristic of various sub-regions of foreign Asia.

In Southwest Asia, the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has more than once escalated into violent clashes and even wars, has lasted a total of more than 50 years. Direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which began in 1993, led to some normalization of the situation, but the process of a peaceful settlement of this conflict has not yet been completed. Quite often it is interrupted by new outbreaks of fierce, including armed, struggle on both sides. The Turkish government has long been at war with the Kurdish opposition and its army. The governments of Iran (and, until recently, Iraq) also seek to suppress opposition groups by force of arms. And this is not to mention the eight-year bloody war between Iran and Iraq (1980–1988), the temporary occupation of neighboring Kuwait by Iraq in 1990–1991, and the armed conflict in Yemen in 1994. The political situation in Afghanistan continues to be very difficult, where, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the UN plan for a peaceful settlement was actually thwarted and an armed struggle began between the Afghan groups themselves, during which the Taliban religious movement, which was overthrown in 2001-2002, seized power in the country. antiterrorist coalition of countries led by the United States. But, of course, the biggest military action by the US and its NATO allies was undertaken in 2003 in Iraq to overthrow the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein. In fact, this war is far from over.

In South Asia, India continues to be the main focus of armed conflicts, where the government is fighting rebel groups in Kashmir, Assam, and is also in a state of constant confrontation with Pakistan over the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

In Southeast Asia, the centers of military conflicts exist in Indonesia (Sumatra). In the Philippines, the government is fighting the so-called new people's army, in Myanmar - against one of the local nationalist unions. In almost each of these protracted conflicts, the death toll is estimated at tens of thousands of people, and in Cambodia in 1975-1979, when the left-wing extremist Khmer Rouge group led by Pol Pot seized power in the country, as a result of genocide, according to various estimates, died from 1 million to 3 million people.

In foreign Europe in the 90s. The territory of the former SFRY became the epicenter of armed conflicts. For almost four years (1991–1995), the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina continued here, during which more than 200 thousand people were killed and wounded. In 1998–1999 the autonomous province of Kosovo became the scene of large-scale military operations.

In Latin America, armed conflicts are most common in Colombia, Peru and Mexico.

The most important role in the prevention, resolution and control of such conflicts is played by the United Nations, whose main goal is to maintain peace on the planet. United Nations peacekeeping operations are of great importance. They are not limited to preventive diplomacy, but also include the direct intervention of UN forces (“blue helmets”) in the course of armed conflicts. During the existence of the UN, more than 40 such peacekeeping operations have been carried out - in the Middle East, in Angola, Western Sahara, Mozambique, Cambodia, in the territory of the former SFRY, in Cyprus and in many other countries. The military, police and civilian personnel from 68 countries who participated in them totaled about 1 million people; about a thousand of them died while performing peacekeeping operations.

In the second half of the 90s. XX century the number of such operations and their participants began to decline. For example, in 1996, the number of troops involved in UN peacekeeping operations was 25 thousand people, and they were in 17 countries: in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Lebanon, Cambodia, Senegal, Somalia, El Salvador, etc. But already in 1997, the UN troops were reduced to 15 thousand people. And in the future, preference began to be given not so much to military contingents as to missions of observers. In 2005, the number of UN peacekeeping operations was reduced to 14 (in Serbia and Montenegro, Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan, Cyprus, etc.).

The decline in the military peacekeeping activity of the UN can only partly be explained by its financial difficulties. It was also affected by the fact that some of the UN military operations belonging to the category peace enforcement operations, provoked the condemnation of many countries, as they were accompanied by gross violations of the charter of this organization, first of all, the fundamental principle of unanimity of the permanent members of the Security Council, and even its actual substitution by the NATO Council. Examples of this kind are the military operation in Somalia, the “desert storm” in Iraq in 1991, operations in the territory of the former SFRY - first in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then in Kosovo, the anti-terrorist military operation in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003

And at the beginning of the XXI century. armed conflicts are a great danger to the cause of peace. It must also be borne in mind that in many areas of such conflicts, where hostilities have ceased, a situation of truce rather than lasting peace has been created. They just moved from the acute stage to the stage of intense or potential, in other words, "smoldering" conflicts. These categories include conflicts in Tajikistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Western Sahara, and Cyprus. A special variety of hotbeds of such conflicts are still continuing to exist so-called self-proclaimed (unrecognized) states. Their examples are the Republic of Abkhazia, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, South Ossetia, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic in the CIS, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic. The political and military lull achieved in many of them over time, as experience shows, can be deceptive. Such "smoldering" conflicts still pose a great threat. Periodically, conflicts in these territories escalate and real military operations are carried out.

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