Washingtonpost.

Newsweek Interactive, LLC

Ethnic Conflict
Author(s): Yahya Sadowski
Source: Foreign Policy, No. 111 (Summer, 1998), pp. 12-23
Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149375
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ETHNIC

I.

CONFLICT
Ethnic conflictseemsto have supplanted nuclear war as the most pressing
issue on the minds of policymakers.
But if yesterday'shigh priestsof mutually assureddestructionwere guilty of
hyper-rationality,today's prophets of
anarchysuffer from a collective hysteria triggeredby simplistic notions of
ethnicity. Debates about intervention
in Rwanda or stability in Bosnia
demanda more soberperspective.
Sadowski
byYahya

The Number of Ethnic Conflicts Rose

Dramatically at the End of the Cold War
Nope. The idea that the numberof ethnic conflictshas recently
exploded,usheringus into a violentnew eraof ethnic"pandaemoniandroundum,"is one of thoseopticalillusionsthatround-the-clock
the-worldtelevisioncoveragehas helpedto create.Ethnicconflicts
haveconsistently
formedthe vastmajority
of warseversincethe epoch
of decolonization
to
the
began sweep developingcountriesafter1945.
the
number
of ethnicconflictshascontinuedto growsince
Although
the ColdWarended,it hasdoneso at a slowandsteadyrate,remainingconsistentwiththe overalltrendof the last50 years.
In 1990and 1991,however,severalnew andhighlyvisibleethnic
conflictseruptedas a resultof the dissolutionof the SovietUnion and
The clashesbetweenthe armiesof Croatia,Serbia,and
Yugoslavia.
Slovenia,and the agonizingbattlethat pittedBosnia'sCroats,MusYA HYA S A DOW
at thePaulH. NitzeSchoolofAdvanced
professor
D S KI is anassociate
International
Studies.
Hislatestbook,The Mythof GlobalChaos(Washington:
Brookings
Institution
theideathatglobalization
Press,forthcoming),
critiques
fuelsethnicconflict.
12 FOREIGNPOLICY

Sadowski

lims,andSerbsagainsteachother,occurredon Europe's
fringes,within easyreachof televisioncameras.
The warsin Azerbaijan,
Chechnya,
in the
whilemoredistant,werestillimpressive
Georgia,andTajikistan,
way that they humbledthe remnantsof the formerSoviet colossus.
mistookthesewarsforthe startof a new trend.Some
Manyobservers
wereso impressedthat they beganto reclassifyconflictsin Angola,
Nicaragua,Peru,and Somalia-once seen as ideologicalor power
ethnicconflicts.
struggles-asprimarily
Thestate-formation
warsthataccompanied
the"Leninist
extinction"
nowappearto havebeena one-timeevent-a flashfloodratherthana
globaldeluge.Manyof thesebattleshave alreadybeenbroughtunder
control.Indeed,the moststrikingtrendin warfare
duringthe 1990shas
beenitsdecline:The StockholmInternational
PeaceResearchInstitute
documented
just27 majorarmedconflicts(onlyoneof which,Indiaand
Pakistan's
slow-motion
wasan interstatewar)in
struggleoverKashmir,
down
from
33
such
in
1989.
Once
the ColdWarended,
1996,
struggles
a longlistof seeminglyperennialstruggles
cameto a halt:the Lebanese
civil war,the Moroinsurrection
in the Philippines,
regionalclashesin
secessionandrelatedbattlesin Ethiopia,theSahrawi
Chad,theEritrean
fratricide
in SouthAfrica,andthe guerrilla
wars
independence
struggle,
in El SalvadorandNicaragua.
of the warsthatsurvivetodayareethnicconflicts-but
The majority
are
battlesthathavebeensimmering
fordecades.
they mostlypersistent
the
include
in
(nowpossiblydefunct)IRAinsurgency the United
They
the struggleforKurdishautonomyin Iran,Iraq,andTurkey;
Kingdom;
the Israeli-Palestinian
the SriLankancivilwar;andlong-standtragedy;
in
insurrections
Burma,India,andIndonesia.
ingregional

Most Ethnic Conflicts Are Rooted in Ancient

Tribal or Religious Rivalries
No way.The claimthat ethnicconflictshave deeprootshas long
beena standard
fornot gettinginvolved.Accordingto politiargument
caljournalist
Drew'sfamousaccount,President
Elizabeth
BillClintonin
1993hadintendedto intervenein Bosniauntilhe readRobertKaplan's
book BalkanGhosts,which, as Drew said, conveyed the notion that
"thesepeoplehad been killingeach other in tribaland religiouswarsfor
centuries."But the realityis that most ethnic conflictsareexpressionsof
"modernhate"and largelyproductsof the twentiethcentury.
SUMMER

1998

13

ThinkAgain

firststumbledacross
The caseof Rwandais typical.WhenEuropeans
centralmonarchy
was
united
under
a
of
the
most
it,
country already
the
shared
the
samecuisineand
whoseinhabitants
spoke samelanguage,
culture,andpracticedthe samereligion.Theywere,however,divided
The rulintoseveralcastes.The largestgroup,the Hutus,werefarmers.
from
all
was
tribute
other
who
collected
groups, recruiting aristocracy,
All groupssuppliedtroops
ed fromtheTutsis,the casteof cattleherders.
wasnotunusual.
Socialmobilfortheircommonking,andintermarriage
A
rich
Hutu
who
castes
was
purchased
enough
quitepossible:
ityamong
Tutsi
cattlecouldclimbinto the ranksof the Tutsi;an impoverished
consideredall
couldfall into the ranksof the Hutu.Anthropologists
of a single"tribe,"
the Banyarwanda.
castesto be members
Then camethe Belgians.Uponoccupyingthe countryafterWorld
the system.Likemanycolonialpowers,the
WarI, they transformed
Belgianschoseto rulethrougha local6lite-the Tutsiswereeagerto
of theirlocalpowerand
in exchangeforBelgianguarantees
collaborate
for privilegedaccessto modem education.Districtsthat had been
underHutu leadershipwerebroughtunderTutsirule. Until 1929,
aboutone-thirdof the chiefsin RwandahadbeenHutu,butthen the
the provincialadministration
by
Belgiansdecidedto "streamline"
eliminatingall non-Tutsichiefs.In 1933,the Belgiansissuedmandatory identitycardsto all Rwandans,eliminatingfluid movement
betweencastesandpermanently
fixingthe identityof eachindividual,
andhis orherchildren,aseitherHutuorTutsi.As the colonialadministrationpenetratedandgrewmorepowerful,Belgianbackingallowed
the Tutsisto increasetheir exploitationof the Hutusto levels that
wouldhavebeen impossiblein earliertimes.
In the 1950s,the Belgianscameunderpressurefromthe United
Nations to grant Rwandaindependence.In preparation,Brussels
beganto accordthe majorityHutus-the Tutsisconstitutedonly 14
percentof the population-a shareof politicalpowerand greater
accessto education.Althoughthis policyalarmedthe Tutsis,it did
not comecloseto satisfyingthe Hutus:Bothgroupsbeganto organize
to defendtheirinterests,andtheirconfrontations
becameincreasingmilitant.
Centrist
that
included
both
Hutus
andTutsiswere
ly
groups
graduallysqueezedout by extremistson both sides.The era of modern
communal violence began with the 1959 attack on a Hutu leaderby
Tutsi extremists;Hutus retaliated, and several hundred people were
killed. This set in motion a cycle of violence that culminated in
14

FOREIGN

POLICY

Sadowski

EthnicAfrica
#010

have
"Europe's
imperial
cartographers
been
criticized
than
acentury
formore
forcasually
that
drawing
upborders
ethnic
orplaced
separated
groups
longtime
inthesame
observed
rivals
colony,"
inthewake
theNew
York
ofcivil
war
Times
andthebreakup
ofEthiopia.
inSomalia
Butasthismap
ofAfrica's
ethnic
groups
borders
would
demonstrates,
redrawing
This
benosimple
task.
predicament
represents
thegreatest
toresolving
challenge
conflicts
ethnic
worldwide:
There
areoften
noagreed
toretreat
boundaries
behind.
from
intheWorld?
Adventures
reprinted,
bypermission,
Why
Source:Map
inGeography
J.Demko,
Jerome
andEugene
with
Boe,
byGeorge
Agel
produced
intrade
Published
byJerome
Agel.
byJerome
Agel.
paperback
byAnchor
? 1992
Books/Doubleday.

December 1963, when Hutus massacred 10,000 Tutsis and drove

another 130,000-150,000 from the country.These tragedieslaid the
seeds for the genocide of 1994.
The late emergenceof ethnic violence, such as in Rwanda,is the
norm,not an exception. In Ceylon, riotsthat pittedTamilsagainstSinSUMMER

1998

15

ThinkAgain

halesedidnot eruptuntil 1956.In Bosnia,SerbsandCroatscoexisted

withone another,andbothclaimedMuslimsasmembersof theircommunities,until WorldWar II-and peacefulrelationsresumedeven
afterthe bloodshedof thatconflict.TurksandKurdsshareda common
duringWorldWarI;
identityasOttomansandworethe sameuniforms
in fact,the firstKurdishrevoltagainstTurkishrulewasnot recorded
until 1925. MuslimsandJewsin Palestinehad no specialhistoryof
hatred(certainlynothingresemblingEuropeanantiintercommunal
the riots of 1921, when nascentArabnationalism
until
Semitism)
beganto conflictwith the burgeoningZionistmovement.Although
Hindu-Muslim
clasheshad a long historyin India,they werehighly
localized;it wasonlyafter1880thatthe contentionbetweenthesetwo
movements.Of course,
groupsbeganto gel into large-scale,
organized
the agitatorsin all theseconflictstendto dreamupfancyhistoricpedigreesfortheirdisputes.BosnianSerbsimaginethattheyarefightingto
avengetheirdefeatby the OttomanTurksin 1389;Hutusdeclarethat
treatedthem as subhumans;
Tutsishave "always"
and IRAbombers
attacktheirvictimsin thenameof a nationalisttraditiontheyclaimhas
burnedsincethe DarkAges.Butthesemythologies
of hatredarethemselveslargelyrecentinventions.

EthnicConflictWas Powerful Enough

to Rip Apart the USSR
Yeah,right.The ideathat the Soviet Union wasdestroyedby an
explosionof ethnic atavismhas beenputforthby a numberof influential thinkers,mostnotablySenatorDanielPatrickMoynihan.But
this theoryis not onlyhistoricallyinaccurate,it hasmisleadingpolicy
implications.The collapseof statesis moreoften the causeof ethnic
conflictsratherthanthe result.
Priorto 1991,ethnic consciousness
withinthe Soviet Union had
in threeregions:the Balticstates,
onlydevelopedintomassnationalism
andRussiaitself.Russiannationalism
Transcaucasia,
posedno threatto
Sovietrule:It hadbeenso successfully
onto
communism
grafted
during
WorldWarII that even todayLeninistsandRussianultranationalists
tendto flockto the sameparties.In Transcaucasia,
the Armeniansand
Georgians had developed potent national identities but were much
more interestedin pursuinglocal feuds (especiallywith Muslims)than
in dismantlingthe Soviet Union. Only in the Baltic states,which had
16

FOREIGN

POLICY

Sadowski

remainedsovereignandindependentuntil 1940,waspowerfulnationalistsentimentchanneleddirectlyagainstMoscow.
WhentheAugust1991coupparalyzed
theCommunist
Party,the last
threadsholdingthe Sovietstatetogetherdissolved.Onlythendidrapid
effortsto spreadnationalism
to otherregionsappear.
InBelarus,
Ukraine,
and acrossCentralAsia, the nomenklatura,
searchingfor new instruments to legitimatetheir rule, began to embrace-and sometimes
invent-nationalistmythologies.
It wasamidstthiswaveof post-Soviet
nationalism
thatneworrekindled
ethnicconflictsbrokeout in ChechYetevenamidthe chaosof state
nya,Moldova,Ukraine,andelsewhere.
ethnonationalist
movements
remained
weakerandlessviolent
collapse,
thanmanyhadexpected.Despitethe predictions
of numerous
pundits,
revivalistIslamicmovementsonly took root in a coupleof places
Relationsbetweenindigenous
Turkicpeo(ChechnyaandTajikistan).
and
Russian
acrossmostof CentralAsiaremained
civil.
ples
immigrants

EthnicConflictsAre More Savage and

Genocidal Than Conventional Wars
Wrong.Althoughthis assumptionis inaccurate,the truthis not
muchmorecomforting.Thereappearsto be no consistentdifference
betweenethnicandnonethnicwarsin termsof theirlethality.In fact,
the percentageof civiliansin the shareof totalcasualtiesis risingfor
all typesof warfare.DuringWorldWarI, civiliancasualtiesconstituted about15 percentof all deaths.Thatnumberskyrocketed
to 65 percent duringWorldWarII, which,by popularizing
the use of strategic
constituted
famine,andguerrillawarfare,
bombing,blockade-induced
a real, albeit underappreciated,
watershedin the historyof human
Eversince,the numberof civiliandeadhasconstitutedtwoslaughter.
thirdsor moreof the totalfatalitiesin mostwars.Indeed,accordingto
the shareof civiliancasualtieshas continuedto growsince
UNICEF,
1945-rising to almost90 percentbythe endof the 1980sandto more
than90 percentduringthisdecade.
ethnicwarsarelesslikelyto be associatedwith genoFurthermore,
cide than "conventional"wars.The worst genocides of modem times
have not been targetedalong primarilyethnic lines. Rather,the genocides within Afghanistan,Cambodia,China, the Soviet Union, and
even, to a greatextent, Indonesiaand Uganda, have focusedon liquiSUMMER

1998

17

ThinkAgain

Genocides
War
World

Ma*jor
since

(IN
THOUSAN
NUMBER

(OUNTRY

DATES

VKTIMS

US R

1943-47

Repatriated

China

1950-51

Landlords

Sudan

1955-72

Southern

Indonesia

1965-66

Communists

China

1966-75

Cultural

Uganda

1971-79

Opponents

Pakistan

1971

Bengali

Cambodia

1975-79

Urbanites

Afghanistan

1978-89

Opponents

of

Sudan

1983-98

Southern

nationalists

Iraq

1984-91

Kurds

Bosnia

1991-95

Bosnian

Burundi

1993--98

Hut ,

Rwanda

19 4

Tutsi

nationals

and

ethnic

DEATHS

500-1,100
800-3,000
100-500

nationalists
and

ethnic

Chinese

revolution
Idi

80-1,000
400-850

victims

of

minorities

OF

100-500

Amin

nationalists

1,250

-3,0 0

800-3,000
the

1,0 0

regime

100-1,500
100-282

Muslims
Tutsi

and

Croats

25-20
150+

500-1,000

Polithc1des
and
sin(e
1945,'
Genoodes,
Group
Repression
1
of
1995-1996
State
of
Wotld(onfl
International
Review
Confll(t
Resolution
(1989)?
23-41,
Program,
Victimology,
the
Carter
Los
and
BrItanniffl.
(enter,
Times;
(Atlanta:
1997);
Incyc/opoedia
Report
Angeles

Sour(es:

Barbara

Harf ,

'Voirns

of

the

Sta e?

To employthe emergingvocabulary,
they
datingpoliticaldissidents:
werepoliticidesratherthanethnicides.Indeed,the largestgenocidesof
this centurywere clearlyideologicallydrivenpoliticides:the mass
killingscommittedby the Maoistregimein Chinafrom1949to 1976,
regimein the SovietUnionbetween1917and
bythe Leninist/Stalinist
between1975and1979.
1959,andbythe PolPotregimein Cambodia
Finally,somepunditshave claimedthat ethnicconflictsaremore
or guerlikelyto be savagebecausetheyareoftenfoughtby irregular,
rilla, troops.In fact, (a) ethnic warsare usuallyfoughtby regular
armies,and (b) regulararmiesarequitecapableof viciousmassacres.
Contraryto the stereotypes
playedout on television,the worstkilling
weremembersof irregular
in Bosniadidnot occurwherecombatants
forces
The coreof the Serbseparatist
militias,reelingdrunkon slivovitz.
consistedof highlydisciplinedtroopsthat weresecondedfromthe
officercorps.It waspreYugoslavarmyand led by a spit-and-polish
at Srebrenicapossible:It
ciselytheseunits that madethe massacres
between
real
skill
to
take
6,000 and 10,000
required organizational
Bosniantroopsprisoner,disarmand transportthem to centrallocamurderthem and distributetheir bodies
tions, and systematically
a
network
of
carefullyconcealedmassgraves.Similarly,the
among
18

FOREIGN

POLICY

Sadowski

waveof ethniccleansingthatfollowedthe seizureof northernandeastern Bosniaby the Serbsin 1991 was not the spontaneousworkof
crazedirregulars.
the male Bosnianpopulationto conTransporting
centrationcampsat Omarskaand elsewhererequiredthe talentsof
menwhoknewhowto coordinatemilitaryattacks,readrailroad
schedandorganize
ules,guardand (under-)supplylargeprisonpopulations,
bustransport
forexpellingwomenandchildren.

Globalization Makes EthnicConflict

More Likely
Think again.The claimthatglobalization-thespreadof consumer
values,democraticinstitutions,and capitalistenterprise-aggravates
ethnic and culturalviolence is at the core of SamuelHuntington's
visionof "thecom"clashof civilizations"
hypothesis,RobertKaplan's
and BenjaminBarber's
ing anarchy,"
warningthat we facea futureof
vs. McWorld."
deservefurtherstudy,
"Jihad
Althoughthesesuggestions
the earlyindicationsarethatglobalization
no
plays realrolein spreadethnic
conflict
and
ing
mayactuallyinhibitit.
Despitethe fearsof culturalcriticsthat the broadappealof "Baywatch"heraldsa collapseof worldwide
values,thereis not muchconcreteevidencelinkingthe outbreakof ethnicwarsto the globalspread
of crudematerialism
via film,television,radio,andboombox.Denmark
has justas manytelevisionsets as the formerYugoslavia
but has not
into
ethnic
or
even
mass
erupted
carnage
immigrant
bashing.Meanof the globalvillagewith
while,Burundi,
sittingon the distantoutskirts
onlyone televisionsetforevery4,860people,haswitnessedsomeof the
worstviolencein thisdecade.
The spreadof democratic
valuesseemsa slightlymoreplausiblecandidateas a triggerforethnicviolence:The recentprogress
of democracy in Albania,Armenia,Croatia,Georgia,Moldova,Russia,Serbia,and
SouthAfricahasbeenattendedbyethnicfeudingin eachcountry.But
thisis an inconsistenttrend.Someof the mostsavageinternalconflicts
of thepost-ColdWarperiodhaveoccurredin societiesthatweregrowing lessfree,suchas Egypt,India(whichfacedmajorsecessionistchallenges by Kashmiris,Sikhs, Tamils, etc.), Iran, and Peru. For that
matter,many of the worstrecent ethnic conflictsoccurredin countries
where the regime type was unstable and vacillated back and forth
between more and less free forms,as in Azerbaijan,Bosnia, Lebanon,
SUMMER

1998

19

ThinkAgain

in numerous
cases,suchas
Liberia,Nigeria,andTajikistan.
Conversely,
third
wave
of
that
Latin
America
the so-called
democratization swept
seemsto have
and EastAsia duringthe 1980s,politicalliberalization
forms
of
violence.
reduced
most
actually
political
Investigatingthe impactof economicglobalizationleadsto three
First,the countriesaffectedmostby globalization-thatis,
surprises.
thosethathaveshownthe greatestincreasein international
tradeand
benefitedmostsignificantlyfromforeigndirectinvestment-arenot
economiesof EastAsia and LatinAmerica
the newlyindustrializing
butthe old industrial
societiesof EuropeandNorthAmerica.Second,
ethnic conflictsarefound,in someformor another,in everytypeof
society:They are not concentratedamongpoorstates,nor are they
unusuallycommonamongcountriesexperiencingeconomicglobalization.Thus,the badnews is that ethnic conflictsdo not disappear
whensocieties"modernize."
The goodnews,however,lies in the thirdsurprise:
Ethnicconflicts
are likelyto be muchlesslethalin societiesthat aredeveloped,ecoEthnicbattlesin indusnomicallyopen,andreceptiveto globalization.
trialand industrializing
societiestendeitherto be arguedcivillyor at
leastlimitedto the politicalviolenceof marginalgroups,suchas the
in CanaMohawksecessionists
provisional
IRAin theUnitedKingdom,
ethda,or the KuKluxKlanin the UnitedStates.The mostgruesome
nic warsare foundin poorersocieties-Afghanistanand Sudan,for
example-where economic frustrationreinforcespolitical rage. It
contributes
to a counseems,therefore,that if economicglobalization
then
it
also
the
level
of
ethnic
violence
there.
try'sprosperity,
dampens

Fanaticism Makes Ethnic Conflicts

Harder to Terminate
Not really.VojislavSeselj,the commander
of one of the mostmurderousSerbparamilitary
groupsin Bosnia,once warnedthat if U.S.
forceswereused there,"thewar [would]be total.....Wewouldhave
tens of thousandsof volunteers,andwe wouldscorea gloriousvictory. The Americanswouldhave to send thousandsof bodybags.It
would be a new Vietnam."Of course, several years later, after Serb
forces had been handily defeated by a combination of Croat ground
forces and NATO airpower, the president of the Serb separatists,
Radovan Karadzic,admitted their leadershiphad thought all along
20

FOREIGN

POLICY

Sadowski

Tribal

Wisdom

marked
a tenseandoftenviolent
"Forcenturies,
faultlinebetween
[Yugoslavia]
Theendof theColdWarandthedissolution
andreligions.
of that
empires
tensions
... surfaced
allthoseancient
again..."
country
-U.S. president Bill Clinton,addressing the U.S. Naval Academy in 1994

in whichboththefactors
"Weareconfronted
of
phenomena
bycontradictory
anddispersal
areboth
and
and
the
tendencies
division
of
integration cooperation
andcommunications
revolution
is offsetby the
Thetechnological
apparent.
and
ethnic
hatreds."
nationalist
eruption
conflicts
of
-Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa, before the UN General Assembly in 1996

a struggle
between
"InthisEurope
of ours,wherenoonewouldhavethought
It
this
has
come
about.
serve
to
ethnic
open
peopossible,
may
groups
tragically
in
the
even
in
to
the
places.
ple'seyes
unspeakable
possibilities future,
unexpected
andtribal
by thedanger. . . of racial,religious,
Todaywe arethreatened
hatred."
-Italian president Oscar LuigiScalfaro in 1997

"Yet
evenas thewavesofglobalization
sopowerfully
across
ourplanet,
unfurl
so doesa deepandvigorous
countertide.
... Whatsomehavecalleda 'new
tribalism'
isshaping
theworld
asprofoundly
ononelevelasthe'newglobalism'
it onanother."
isshaping
-His Highness the Aga Khan, at the Commonwealth Press
Union Conference in Cape Town in 1996

totribalism.
... Weseeit
"... allovertheworld,weseea kindofreversion
inRussia,
inYugoslavia,
inCanada,
intheUnited
States.... Whatisitabout
allthisglobalization
return
tomorethatismaking
ofcommunication
people
tosmaller
unitsofidentity?"
-Neil Postman, chair of the department of culture and
communication at New York University, in 1995

that "ifthe West put in 10,000 men to cut off our supplycorridors,we
Serbs would be finished."Militarily,ethnic conflicts are not intrinsically differentfrom any other type of combat. They can take on the
form of guerrillawarsor conventional battles; they can be fought by
determinedand disciplinedcadresor by poorly motivated slobs. How
SUMMER

1998

21

ThinkAgain

muchmilitaryforcewill be requiredto end the fightingvarieswidely

fromone ethnicconflictto the next.
However,achievinga militaryvictoryandbuildinga durablepeace
aretwoverydifferentmatters.Sealingthepeacein ethnicconflictsmay
proveharderforpolitical-not military-reasons.Ethnicconflictsare
withone
amongpeoplewholive intermingled
foughtamongneighbors,
other,forcedto sharethe sameresourcesand institutions.When two
statesend a war,they mayneed only to agreeto stop shootingand
Butin ethnicconflictsthereareoftenno estabrespecta mutualborder.
lishedbordersto retreatbehind.Sometimes,ethnic disputescan be
resolvedby drawingnew borders-creatingnew states (such as
and"rump"
Pakistan)that allowthe quarreling
Bangladesh
groupsto
liveapart.Othertimes,theycanbe terminated
byconvincingthe comandlearnto coexist.This
batantsthattheymustsharepowerpeaceably
is the objectiveof the Daytonaccordon Bosnia.
In eithercase,endingethnic warfareoften requiresthe expensive
and delicateconstructionof new politicalinstitutions.Not only may
a "normal"
thisbe moredifficultthanterminating
interstate
war,it may
alsotakemuchlonger.Buildingtrulyeffectivestatestakestime.Forthis
arealreadyorganized
intostates
reason,ethnicwarswhoseparticipants
orprotostates
in CroatiaandBosnia)
(whichwastrueof thecombatants
areprobablyeasierto bringto a conclusionthanbattlesin regionsforexample,not to speakof Somalia-whererealstates
Afghanistan,
haveyet to congeal.
WANT

TO

KNOW

MORE?

The classicintroduction
to the studyof ethnicconflictis still Donald
Ethnic
Horowitz,
Groupsin Conflict(Berkeley:
Universityof California
PeaceResearchInstitute
Press,1985). The StockholmInternational
(sIPRI)inventorieschangingpatternsof warfarein the SIPRIYearbook
(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,annual).Fora specialist's
tallyof particularethnic conflicts,see Ted RobertGurr,Minoritiesat Risk: A
U.S. Instituteof
GlobalViewof Ethnopolitical
Conflicts(Washington:
overviewof the evolvingrelationsbetween
Peace,1993). An absorbing
Tutsiand Hutuis GOrard
Prunier,The RwandaCrisis:Historyof a
Genocide(New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1995).The Human
RightsWatchreport,SlaughteramongNeighbors:The PoliticalOri22

FOREIGN

POLICY

Sadowski

Violence(NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress,1995),
gins of Communal
providesa broadersurveyof modemhate.An excellentaccountof the
havetakenin territodiversityof formsthatethnicityandnationalism
riesof theformerSovietUnionisRonaldGrigorSuny'sThe Revengeof
the Past: Nationalism,Revolutionand the Collapseof the Soviet
Union (Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress,1993). Neal Ascherson
reflectsuponissuesof nationalityandethnicityin his bookBlackSea
(NewYork:Hill & Wang,1995),whichchroniclesthe expansivehistoculryof a regionthathasbeena nexusof severalAsianandEuropean
tures.DavidRohde'schillingEndgame:The Betrayaland Fall of
Straus& Giroux,1997)documentsthe
Srebrenica(New York:Farrar
the genocidein Bosnia.A
carefulorganizational
planningunderlying
recentworkthatdissectsthe questionof whether,or how,the United
States should intervene in ethnic conflicts is David Callahan's
UnwinnableWars:AmericanPowerand EthnicConflict(NewYork:
Hill & Wang,1998).
indexof
Forlinksto relevantWebsites,as well as a comprehensive
relatedarticles,accesswww.foreignpolicy.com.

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