Conclusions: Jihadists, Diasporas and Professional Contractors — The Resurgence of Non-state Recruitment since the 1980s

  • Nir Arielli
  • Bruce Collins

Abstract

The studies in this book, taken from a wide variety of locations and contexts across 200 years, have demonstrated the significance as well as the sometimes elusive nature of transnational military service. Even major state-on-state wars from the 1790s to the 1940s, when national armies and enforced conscription became pervasive, witnessed considerable transnational mobilization. More localized conflicts, and particularly civil wars, aroused transnational involvement, stimulated by a range of motives, the mix of which differed over time and by conflict. The history of transnational mobilization, raising as it does questions about national identity, about groups’ and individuals’ commitment to states and to ideological or religious causes, and about attitudes towards military service, allows us to begin assessing the long-term development of trends in warfare which have, at times, been described as emerging since the end of the Cold War. This book reminds us that fighting in the classic age of national armies was often conditioned by cross-cutting transnational loyalties or attachments, and demonstrates that the new ways of war described by Mary Kaldor, Martin Shaw and Peter Singer have deep historical roots.1

Keywords

Military Service Civilian Casualty Military Involvement Transnational Mobilization Private Security Company 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Notes

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Copyright information

© Nir Arielli and Bruce Collins 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Nir Arielli
  • Bruce Collins

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