OLIVEIRA, SOUZA, PORTO & Martins. New Era Conflicts: A Brief Study On Non-State Warfare

FORGING
CONNEC
TIONS
W H EN D I A L O G U E P R E VA I L S OV E R WA L L S
Organized by:
Anna Angélica Nogueira Amaral

Camila Belezini Cais
Guilherme Gomes de Barros de Souza
Vinícius Rodrigues de Oliveira
21th AMUN / American Model United Nations 1

INDEX
PREFACE 12
INTRODUCTION 16
MOSCOW, TBILISI AND STRASBOURG

THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ON RUSSIA
AND GEORGIA’S RELATIONSHIP 25
BETWEEN DEVELOPMENT AND STATE CAPTURE

HOW THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL
SYSTEM DEEPENS INEQUALITIES 55
FIRE AND FURY

HOW DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS SHAPE THE
PERCEPTION OF MEXICO AND THE WALL 87
TENSIONING HUMAN RIGHTS’ SILENCES

THE EARLY AND CHILD MARRIAGE PERSPECTIVE 113
INTERNATIONAL DEFENCE POLITICS IN ASIA

THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN SECURITIZATION THEORY
AND SOCIAL FRAMING APPLIED TO CURRENT
EASTERN SECURITY DYNAMICS 163
SEEKING JUSTICE THROUGH ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
NOTES FOR THE DEBATE ON PRISON POPULATIONS
AND DEATH PENALTY 198
NEW ERA CONFLICTS

A BRIEF STUDY ON NON-STATE WARFARE 253
ESTADO CONTRA GUERRILHA

O COMBATE AO NARCOTRÁFICO NA COLÔMBIA E SUAS
IMPLICAÇÕES PARA A CRISE DOS ANDES DE 2008 286
PROBLEMÁTICAS DE GÊNERO E VULNERABILIDADES

PROVOCADAS PELO DESLOCAMENTO FORÇADO NA
ÁFRICA 335
NEW ERA CONFLICTS
A BRIEF STUDY ON NON-STATE
WARFARE
Alexandre Alcântara de Oliveira

Beatrice Irene Neal de Souza
Luís Alves Porto
Lívia Santos Martins
252 21th AMUN / American Model United Nations

1. Introduction
The world is constantly changing and so are issues related
to the international system: the environment, human rights,
development, international trade and security (Bull, 1977).
Hence, it is necessary to adapt the theoretical approach and the
method used to analyze events in the international sphere.
The nature of armed conflicts is no exception to that. Lind
(2004) mentions four generations of modern war, in which the
Fourth Generation marks a loss of the states’ monopoly on war
established in the Peace of Westphalia treaty. In the last few
years, however, the world has seen a dramatic increase in non-
state conflicts – defined by UPPSALA researchers as “the use of
armed force between two organized armed groups, neither of
which is the government of a state, which results in at least 25
battle-related deaths in a year” (Sundberg, Eck, & Kreutz, 2012,
p. 352). Thereby, this article’s goal is to bring a new perception
of non-state warfare in the contemporary world. We also aim to
raise the question of whether or not the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) is prepared to deal with these actors.
On a global level, these actors have become quite powerful
and have even acquired territories – mainly due to a lack of power
from weakened or failed states, religious causes or even ethnic
matters, as this article will present. These conflicts have left
millions of people in need of humanitarian assistance and have
spiked a wave of international concern (World Food Program
[WFP] report, 2017; Hart, 2017).
In order to better study the nature of these conflicts, we
will first analyze how the concepts of “armed conflicts” and even
“war” are defined in the contemporary literature, using mostly
UPPSALA and the Correlate War Project articles. From there, we
will make three case studies regarding non-state warfare in Syria
and Iraq, Yemen, and Mexico. To conclude, this article will show
why international law and punishment have not been effective
on these matters.

2. Changes in the definitions of “armed conflicts” and
“war”
For the complete understanding of this article, this is an
indispensable section, since this is where the concepts to be
treated in the rest of the article will be explained. When the
United Nations (UN) was created, its goal was to achieve and
maintain world peace. In 1945, after the end of World War II, the
world was divided into two extremes: the communists (led by
Union of Soviet Socialist Republic) and the capitalists (led by the
United States of America) (Castillo & Yamada, 2017). After the
horrors of Second World War, the fear of a new global war was
installed, so the UNSC had to do its best to avoid conflict between
these two countries and their allies. Time has passed and so has
the Cold War, but it left a mark. The fear of this conflict, which
could have caused the end of the world as we know it, remained,
and peace between countries became a necessity (Castillo &
Yamada, 2017).
Nowadays, the UN is an international organization with
193 Member states that was founded in that same year to
prevent another world war, and its structures comprehend, on
their normative dimension, the state’s hopes and aspirations for
a peaceful world. The UN consists of several bodies, the most
powerful having started functioning in 1946, the United Nations
Security Council (United Nations [U.N.] Charter, 1945).
However, the conditions have changed in the 21st century.
Wars between countries became a smaller concern, since they
were happening less frequently – it dropped from two hundred
and fifty-two conflicts, in 1946, to thirty-two in 2012 (Thémner
& Wallensteen, 2013). When one analyses UNSC resolutions
since the year 2000, one will notice a change in the framework
of this Council. A committee created in order to avoid war
between countries started to address non-state parties and social
causes – such as the resolution 2242 for the implementation of
the Women and Peace agenda (2015). These changes are proof
of what this section regards: war has changed over the years.

A mark can define the moment in which attention was dragged
to a conceptual failure: September 11, 20011. The referred event
demonstrated the need to combat a new threat (Thémner &
Wallensteen, 2013).
Terrorist groups revealed a form of war that has always
existed, but that has often been ignored: the non-state related
conflicts. The 21st century brought the need to face this different
form of war. From this point further, new definitions of armed
conflicts and war were developed so that the United Nations
Security Council could act upon non-state related situations.
UPPSALA and the Correlate War (COW) Project developed new
concepts – which will be exposed further – that led to a new
quest for peace achieving and peacekeeping, an inquiry that will
guide this century and drive actions of the new leaders (Thémner
& Wallensteen, 2013).
Based on Melander’s research (2015), Organized Violence
can be divided into three different categories: state-based
conflicts, non-state based conflicts, and one-sided violence.
A state-based conflict can be defined as an armed conflict in
which the actors are two or more organized governments (war
between North Korea and South Korea, for example) or between
a government and a rebel organization (conflict between the
Assad government, in Syria, and the Islamic State, for instance).
A Non-state conflict is a conflict between two actors, both
organized, but neither one a state (conflict between the Islamic
State and the Kurdish Democratic Union, in Syria; and conflict
between Catholics and Muslims, in the Central African Republic,
are examples). One-sided Violence happens when one organized
actor – either a government or a non-state related organization
– kills unprotected civilians (Boko Haram’s violence in Nigeria
is a clear and recent example of this type of organized violence)
(Melander, 2015).
1 This is the date related to a serie of terrorist attacks towards the

United States of America, in which the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, led by Osama
Bin Laden, striked both towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The group also tried to reach the White House, but failed (Barbosa, 2002).

The importance of the previous definitions cannot be
stressed enough since they have changed the way the world
relates to subjects such as peace, war, armed conflict, and
violence. When the United Nations was created, its objective
was to search for and maintain peace. However, the concepts of
peace and conflict were different then they are now. In previous
analysis, conflicts were considered as being only those in which an
organized and recognized state was involved, at least indirectly.
Some researches, such as the Correlates of War Project, took
the initiative to switch the way the world understood conflicts
through a concept change. The big change proposed by these
projects was to consider non-state organizations as possible
actors in a conflict, actively being a part of it. This new point
of view is revolutionary, because it avoids drastic mistakes, for
example: According to the former definition of conflict, Nigeria
would be considered a peaceful place, regardless of the actions
of Boko Haram, since this group is a non-state actor (Sarkees,
2010).
For a conflict to be called a war, considering either non-
state related or governments actors, both parties just need to
be capable of resistance against attacks. This resistance can be
done if both parties are already prepared to react before the
attack, or if they are capable to recover after the first attack and
make a counterattack that causes at least 5% of the fatalities
committed by its opponent. In cases in which this resistance is
not a possibility for one of the parties, it is defined as one-sided
violence. This concept is important to distinguish wars from
massacres (Sarkees, 2010).
Another situation that needs to be clarified is related to the
actors involved in conflicts. For a government to be considered
involved in an armed conflict – state-related – it has to either
suffer at least one hundred deaths originated from the battle,
or commit at least one thousand armed personnel to the
conflict. For a non-state related group to be considered part
of an armed conflict, it has to either have suffered twenty-five

deaths originated in the conflict; or have committed, at least, one
hundred troops to the battle. There is need for little casualties or
armed personnel for a non-state organization to be considered
an actor in a conflict for the simple reason that they are, usually,
smaller and non-institutionalized groups (Sarkess, 2010).
As for the definition of war itself – which is the same for
both state-related and non-state related conflicts – states need
to have, at least, one thousand battle-related casualties per
year. The fact that it is harder to identify these characteristics
in a non-state conflict cannot be ignored. This happens because
members of the groups involved in the conflict are not so easy to
distinguish from civilians and non-combatants, making the task
of counting casualties harder when it comes to this type of war
(Sarkess, 2010).
It is important to consider that one-sided violence
associated with non-state conflicts, between the years of 1989 and
2014, were responsible for about 46% (nearly 832.000 deaths)
of the total of casualties in conflicts. It is clear that these forms of
violence cannot be ignored and erased from history, proving the
need for a new concept of “organized violence”. Analysing only
those obsolete concepts, traumatic errors would have happened
and international organisms would not be capable to act upon
armed conflicts situations, since most of them would not be
labeled as a conflict. The attempt to search for peace needs this
type of research to facilitate addressing help to regions in need
(Melander, 2015).
Analyzing only half of the information can be dangerous,
as can be seen by analyzing Africa as an example. Considering
only state-related violence, this region has become increasingly
peaceful every year, but this statement is only true when ignoring
the action of terrorist organizations (such as the Boko Haram),
and non-state related violence (such as civil wars, like the ones
in the Central African Republic and in the Democratic Republic of
Congo) (Melander, 2015).

Therefore, it can be concluded that, along with the concept
of armed conflict, the concept of peace has also changed through
the years and it now comes from the following conditions: there
cannot be any state-related conflicts (this country cannot be
involved in war against any other nation); there cannot be any
non-state related conflict (such as the acting of terrorist groups
or a civil war); and there cannot be any one-sided violence
(for example genocides or massacres). Though International
peace has become more delicate and hard to achieve, the effort
to achieve it is the same, requiring just a different approach.
Conventions and diplomacy, through the UN, need to find a way
to solve this new issue without violation of sovereignty and of
human rights (Melander, 2015).
Considering war itself, it cannot be ignored that the
appearance of non-state actors has made conflicts unpredictable
and asymmetrical, since these new players use both conventional
and unconventional tactics. These new tactics are different
than the ones used by states, which usually use common and
more predictable methods. Terrorism has changed the dynamic
of conflicts, since terrorist groups are willing to use less
conventional, dangerous, and shocking methods in order to get
attention to their causes (Ravichandran, 2011). When analyzing
state-versus-state conflict it is possible to notice that there is
mutual respect between the parties involved, which is also
related to the fact that both of them have similar power, strength,
and methods. Suicide bombing tactics and cyberspace invasion
are unusual methods for governments – because of international
conventions, among other reasons – but that are commonly used
by non-state organizations to debilitate states and spread fear
and terror (Ravichandran, 2011).
These organizations intend to shock in order to gain the
respect a government would have and to be treated equally
by their enemy. The more they are ignored, the more these
organizations tend to make an impact. These groups’ tactics and
goals, along with their international framework, make them

hard to be combated by traditional military methods, due to their
distinguished character. These new forms of war have made it
increasingly important for the UN to act. Simple counter-attack
and retaliation are usually not enough when dealing with non-
state groups, since these groups are active, in most cases, beyond
borders and are not easily identifiable. The 21st century brings
with it the need to unite the international community and to
create ways to combat new enemies (Ravichandran, 2011).
As mentioned before, non-state related groups want their
needs to be heard and to be treated as equals, so respect is an
important part of this new scenario. These organizations pose a
threat, especially when referring to terrorist actions, because they
are new actors in armed conflicts that bring a different challenge
to peacebuilding: how can the international community address
these groups in order to keep peace and the respect for human
rights? The chosen approach by these groups creates the need,
not only to find a new form of battling, but also to create policies
to avoid or reduce collateral damage to the civilian population.
Therefore, it is easy to see a tendency in the UN of trying to find
forms to combat the action of these groups and to implement
social measures to protect vulnerable groups, either in conflict
zones or in zones affected by the action of extremist groups
(Ravichandran, 2011).
An important matter to be kept in mind is not to consider
non-stated organizations as a synonymous to terrorists. Terrorist
groups are non-state actors in conflict, but not all non-state
actors are terrorists. Most groups just want to be heard and have
their basic rights respected, like the Kurdish Democratic Union
in Syria (Ravichandran, 2011). Peace is becoming more and more
fragile and treating all these different groups as if they were
one, reducing their demands to irrational screams in the same
region is the worst form of disrespect that can be committed
by the international community. Tolerance is the first word in
peacebuilding for the present century.

When analyzing a concrete case, it can be easily concluded
that these changes in academic language are a reflection of
changes in the real world. The comprehension of these concepts
is indispensable for the understanding of the rest of this article. It
is important to acknowledge that the United Nations, especially
its Security Council, has changed along with the world’s reality.
Forms of conflict have changed, actors in war have changed, the
context has changed, and so has the UN. The current century
calls for a new framework that has been brought by the UNSC
in order to search for peace and to face a new challenge. The
next sections of this article will attend to the Security Council
itself, analyzing cases to show the advances that have already
been done in order to attend to the new international demand.
3. Non-state conflicts
Kifle (2015, p. 102) understands a state as a “territorially
embedded set of institutions that perform certain basic functions
essential for the existence of a properly functioning political
community”2. Therefore, if a state is unable or unwilling to
provide political good to their citizens, it can be understood as
failed or weak (Carment, 2003, as cited in Kifle, 2015).
These failed or weak states favor the appearance and
strengthening of non-state actors in organized violence – and
vice-versa, generating a cycle of aggressiveness. In a number of
cases, various non-state groups have become powerful in the
same region, leading to stateless violence (Syria, Iraq, Yemen,
and Mexico are some examples we will address in this topic) and
a new challenge for mediation.
Briscoe (2013, pp. 3-4) notices four trends in non-state
violent settings:
2 The author notes that “the low level of institutionalization in many

African States has meant that privately motivated actions and decisions of
individuals holding various positions in the State could be expressed in its
name. Hence, the definition employed here does not exclude the personnel
working in the institutions of the State” (Kifle, 2015, p. 102).

i. Networked structures: With the multiplication on the
number of non-state armed parties, these have also become more
and more complex, becoming more durable and predictable, but
also more likely to fragment due to confusion regarding politic
and economic goals and its difficulty of negotiating internally;
ii. Transnational connections: Briscoe notes that, while the
usage of transnational networks as supporters and/or facilitators
in conflicts is nothing new – being used in diaspora support for
guerrilla or insurgent causes –, transnational operators have
become more instrumental. An example would be the Mexican
cartel’s alliances with providers of violence and protection across
Latin America. Rocha (as cited in Briscoe, 2013, p. 3) argues that
those economic links tend to weaken the non-state groups’ ties
with their local communities. They might also insert them in
competitive dynamics on transnational level, leading to locally
armed violence;
iii. Assimilated violence: It is important not to understand
communities as simple and innocent victims in the hands of non-
state actors. “In sites of non-conventional armed violence the
longstanding existence of illiberal political orders and criminal
groups tends to cement a particular tolerance and even complicity
with ongoing violent practices” (Adams, as cited in Briscoe, 2013,
p. 3). It is uncertain if a community would even recognize more
formal forms of state; or if government officials could deliver the
services that they expect;
iv. Distance from formal power: Despite usually having a
peripheral relation to the government, zones controlled by non-
state parties are not necessarily far apart or even physically
separated from formal power. In Caracas and Medellín they
formed joint urban spaces; while in Burma and Northern Mexico
they existed in areas where legitimate businesses were still
active. In Mali and Guinea-Bissau, members of hybrid politico-
criminal organizations are actively participants in national
political and state bodies, “to the extent that major decisions
on security strategy depend on them” (Briscoe, 2013, p. 4).

However, international law (allied to the national legislation
in certain countries) and the “cultural and political prejudice
against criminal groups and guerrilla forces in many countries”
generate a hostile environment for negotiations with non-state
groups; and the lack of internal coherence inside the group does
not at all favor the establishment of any sort of dialogue.
Bassiouni (2008) discusses yet another important aspect
of these groups: their funding, financing, and arming. The most
common ways to obtain money to maintain their activities are
dominating an area rich with natural resources and selling them
(with the examples of Liberia and Sierra Leone, where non-state
groups held control of diamond mines, smuggling them abroad,
selling them to legitimate businesses in the West and then money
laundering through western banks); and generating revenue by
drug trafficking or providing protection to traffickers (the FARC
in Colombia, the Mexican drug cartel, the PKP in the Kurdish
zones of Turkey, and the Afghan warlords all use the latter one
as a source of currency). Even though financing these groups
is absolutely forbidden by international law, the difficulty of
supervision makes it so that these groups are able to continue
receiving their fundings.
By expanding on this logic, as well as using Al-Qaeda of Iraq
as a basis, the Islamic State (IS) was able to diversify its funding
sources in order to create a self-sustaining insurgency3. Along
with the measures cited above, the group also relies on practicing
terror against the local people and international travelers [“the
most efficient method of financing a terrorist group”, according
to Brisard and Martinez (2014, p. 5)], focusing their kidnap and
ransom and criminal activities on businessmen, local politicians
and clerics (apart from the local population) and receiving as
much as US$10 million per month through ransom payments
alone in 2014 (Brisard & Martinez, 2014).
3 The group even has a chief of finances. Abu Jaafar al-Sabawi, the
predecessor of Mowaffaq Mustafa al-Karmush – killed by the US-led coalition
in 2015 –, has reportedly fled the Islamic State with US$14 million.

Figure 1 – Islamic State funding sources by type (estimates). Infographic
about the Islamic State’s funding sources in 2014. K&R is an abbreviation
for kidnap and ransom. Adapted from “Islamic State: The economy-based
terrorist funding”, by J. Brisard and D. Martinez, 2014. Copyright 2014 by
Thomson Reuters.
Furthermore, the IS has imposed an extortion/taxing

system – a common practice to many terrorist groups worldwide
– that raised about US$30 million per month (equaling US$360
million in a year) in 2014. One final source of funding that is not

at all consistent is the seizing of banks and financial institutions
– when the Islamic State took Mosul, they may have stolen well
over US$1 billion in one bank alone (Brisard & Martinez, 2014).
3.1 Syria and Iraq

Analyzing the United States’ occupation of Iraq is
fundamental to understand the rise of the Islamic State and
other non-state groups in Syria and Iraq. With the support of the
United Kingdom, they
invaded the country; arrested its
president; took over its political, military and
civilian administration; installed a government
it had hand-picked; altered the laws of the
nation; secured control over its resources;
positioned thousands of troops throughout
the land from March 2003 to December 2011
(with 73 per cent of all active US soldiers
having been deployed there or Afghanistan)
and dispatched them anew since 2014; and
built the largest embassy in the world in the
heart of the country’s capital. According to the
organisation Iraq Body Count, 268,000 violent
deaths occurred as a result of these actions
since 2003, out of which 190,000 were civilian
deaths” (Mohamedou, 2018, p. 68).
These actions created a lawlessness atmosphere in Iraq,
which ultimately led to criminals, gangs, and mafias taking over,
as well as to the strengthening of shaqis4 recruited by armed
groups and religious militias after the war. Saddam Hussein’s
totalitarian state and the fear it had imposed was replaced by the
complete indifference to the idea of a state. (Mohamedou, 2018).
Furthermore, the society blamed the US reaction to the 2001
terrorist attack for the rise of the Islamic State ten years later.
4 “In Baghdad, the dominant man in any area was called a shaqi. He
was normally a thug who would sometimes engage in extortion and other
small crimes” (Mohamedou, 2018, p. 69).

In the Syrian civil war, both sides have shown a dependency
on informal non-state actors. The shabiha ethic paramilitary; the
Lebanese Hezbollah – siding with Assad’s forces –; kidnapping
gangs; and the IS – linked to the rebels – are all non-state forces
involved in the conflict (Briscoe, 2013; Tokmajyan, 2014).
The internationalization of the conflict – not only by the
foreign military support already mentioned but also by indirect
economic aid – has also given it a unique character. This situation
has brought up the discussion of whether IS is or not a non-state
actor(Tokmajyan, n.d.).
Currently, the IS has shown gradual signs of weakening
during the last few years, having lost about 45% of its territory by
the end of 2016 (Chia & Xeuling as cited in Speckhard, Shajkovci,
& Yayla, 2017). Its major defeats in battlefield have had a direct
impact on the Islamic State’s source of revenue, consequently
making it harder for the group to “exercise full control over its
membership base and its ability to freely finance itself through the
sale of oil, antiquities, slaves, and through taxing and extorting
monetary payments from its civilian population” (Speckhard &
Yayla as cited in Speckhard, Shajkovci, & Yayla, 2017, para. 1).
Speckhard, Shajkovci and Yayla’s (2017) biggest worry is
what comes next. Even though the IS may be losing the territorial
battle in Syria and Iraq, the group has still been able to recruit
followers online. In addition, its trained and possibly armed
fighters – should the Islamic State be defeated in the territorial
setting – are likely to either migrate elsewhere or return home,
having the necessary means to start another terrorist group
in their new settlements or spike revenge against those who
defeated the Islamic State.
3.2 Yemen
After the Arab Spring in 2011, the movements and protests
to depose longstanding rulers hit a considerable number of
countries. In Yemen, the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh,

who had been in this position since 1990, was the focus of
protests starting in February 2011. At the outset, Saleh used the
government forces to repress the rallies against him and pledged
to respond to the dissatisfaction with improvements in the
country. However, after many conflicts and casualties, he decided
to willingly leave the head of the government willingly because of
the pressure of groups such as the Islamist Islah and the Yemeni
Socialist Party. However, he backed out before the negotiations
were concluded, fled north and, later, attacked the legitimate
government in the south, starting a civil war and drowning the
country in deaths, poverty and a humanitarian crisis (Dalacoura,
2012).
The Yemeni Houthis staged a cooperation with the ex-
president Saleh in order to ensure political survival to the Houthis
– who believed that, as Shi’a Zaydis Islamists and consequently
descendants of the Prophet, they must continue to rule their
territories in the north – and provide support to Saleh. The
bonds between the alliance, however, were not strong at all. The
Houthis did not fully approve Saleh and his closest associates due
to their corrupt past (Serr, 2018).
This crisis continued over the years, developing from a
traditional civil war into a much larger conflict between two sides
trying to control the country: one allied to the former president
Saleh and the other one to the newly vested president Abd
Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi (Cockayne, Mikulaschek, Perry, 2010).
Each one of them started to negotiate with other international
powers, building coalitions and turning the local civil war into an
international conflict (Sharps, 2017).
In 2015, the Houthi rebels took control of the capital
and arrested the president Hadi. However, he fled to Aden and
established the base of the government in the south. Later on,
when they reached the city, Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia. There, he
asked for the support of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), led
by Saudi Arabia and supported by the United States. The GCC
then launched a military offensive to start recovering parts of the

country in an attempt to shake the conflict (Sharp, 2017). In April
2011, an initial agreement was prepared and intermediated by
the actors involved, promising thirty days of immunity to Saleh
and a power-sharing deal between him and the new president
elected. In addition, a new constitution would be written and new
elections would be called during that period, but Saleh disagreed
with the terms and denied to sign the treaty. In June, after a
number of attacks, the former president Saleh was injured and
fled to Saudi Arabia for treatment. Meanwhile, his son and other
relatives united other local leaders and, with an extended part
of the army that remained loyal, attacked the capital (Juneau,
2013).
In 2012, Hadi was elected for a two-year transitional term
and made an attempt to regroup political forces from both sides,
making the democratic and constitutional reforms. He did not
succeed, and the Yemeni dispute increased even further over
the years, leading to continuous disputes that destroyed the
country. Furthermore, Hadi’s control of the provinces and the
central government became even more threatened when other
organizations – which supported Saleh – began to take advantage
of the country’s condition and started to acquire new territories,
cities, and its taxes. The main non-state actors involved are the
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a branch of Al-Qaeda,
and, most recently, the IS (Juneau, 2013).
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia also allied themselves with Hadi.
The country’s government accused Iran of being the Houthis’
provider, providing them with money, training, and equipment.
The tension grew even further as they began to intercept
ships carrying those items. This led to a multinational military
campaign in cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council,
besides counting with the westerns political powers supports
such as the US, Great Britain, and France in order to prevent
threats in its southern border. Their coalition is characterized
by its diversity, being formed by the southern separatists, Sunni
Islamists, and the Saudi Arabia-backed Hadi. The president’s

government shows itself largely dependent on the fear that the
Houthis rule the north of the country and external political forces
(Serr, 2018).
However, this war is not a simple matter of two political
forces, but it is also a religious one, being also influenced by other
states fighting for hegemony in the Arabian Peninsula. Besides to
these facts, there are the other non-State actor as AQAP and the
IS who have gained with the conflict soldiers, territories, access
to new routes to etc (AlJazeera, 2017;Serr, 2018).
The AQAP has operated in Yemen since 2009 and its main
area of activity has been the southern provinces. According to the
U.S. State Department’s 2015 Country Reports on Terrorism (as
cited in Sharp, 2017), the group has continued to take advantage
of the political scenario and the lack of control by the Central
Government, contributing to the attempt of territorial expansion
by all the other organizations in the southern and eastern regions
since 2015.
According to the International Crisis Group:
AQAP is stronger than it has ever been.
While Islamic State has dominated headlines in
other parts of the Middle East and North Africa,
in Yemen, al-Qaeda has been the success story.
Over the course of the country’s failed political
transition and civil war, it has exploited State
collapse, shifting alliances, a burgeoning war
economy and growing sectarianism to expand
its support base, challenge state authority and
even govern territory at times (Alley, 2015).
As stated by the report of the U.S. Department of State,
the IS has also been conducting several attacks in the country,
primarily against Houthi forces and the Central Government –
such as the assault to the Yemen’s Government headquarters,
the Al-Qasr Hotel, on October 6th, 2015. There is a pattern in
the way of action: territories are conquered and used to acquire
funds, while Al-Qaeda forces recruit soldiers, including children,

and set bases in these places, threatening the territories of
other neighbors countries, such as Oman and Saudi Arabia (U.S.
Department of State, 2015).
Due to all the issues presented, Saudi Arabia has sent
military forces with the support of the GCC. Moreover, the UNSC,
on April 14th, 2015, emitted the Resolution 2216 concerning the
disturbed and prolonged conflict in the country. This document
not only called out the opposing forces trying to regain the
Yemeni government – creating a humanitarian crisis – but
also reassured the importance of combating the international
terrorist organizations by acting directly in the country against
the IS and AQPA (United Nations Press, 2015)
However, Saleh’s death, on December 4th, changed the
scenario of the conflict dramatically (RLF, 2017). Throughout the
war, Saleh was the main leader of the opposition, as well as a
precious piece to possibly end the conflict. He was also in charge
of negotiating with the Saudi Coalition, demonstrating his will
to make a pact with president Hadi to make peace, something
unacceptable to the Houthis at the time. (Al Jazeera, 2017)
Furthermore, as the scenario changed in the last year, it is
necessary to understand the new setting. The Hadi government
has almost no support or sympathy and the southern forces
(mostly Sunni Islamists) continue to fight against the Houthis
(Shi’a Zaydi Islamist) (Kendall, 2018). The AQAP and the IS are
still highly active, fighting and gaining territories battling the
Houthis, and in a way weakening them because in their view
they are considered heretics, balancing the power between the
government and the Houthis. However, they also compete with
each other to acquire recruits in the areas where the Houthis try
to conquer southern territories (Sunni Islamist), their main areas
of recruitment. These two actors will continue to be incisive, to
look for opportunities to get more people to fight for their cause
and to obtain more goods as the conflict proceeds – with no signs
of an end and the lack of an effective authority to stop either one
of the belligerents (Kendall, 2018).

3.3 Mexico and the drug cartel
The drug war in Mexico showed its firsts signs in the late
1960’s and 1970’s, when the Mexican government started applying
their first measures to reduce the drug trafficking due to the
United States’ pressure. The violence in the area increased during
the 1980’s, as the Ronald Reagan Administration and President
George H. W. Bush used a substantial amount of resources to
stop the distribution and production in both countries, in order to
reduce the violence. The American government also formulated
successful policies to stop the flow of Colombian drugs into
Florida. As a result, Mexican cartels started to be a means used
by the Colombian cartels to send drugs to the U.S. As time passed,
these cartels started to become highly powerful and independent
in this sector (Lindau, 2011).
Two main events were determinant in Mexico in the 1980’s
are of extreme importance in this analysis. The first occurred
when the Arellano Felix Cartel was destroyed, what allowed
its branches to become independent, therefore creating other
cartels. At the same period, the Guadalajara cartel, led by the
former Mexican Judicial Federal Police agent Miguel Angels
Felix Gallardo, controlled all trade between the U.S. and Mexico.
Although its ties with politicians, violence was kept relatively low
during this period, controlled by the dominant cartel (Crane,
2013 as cited in Scott, 2000).
The first time conflict and violence really increased
in numbers was in 2000, when the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (PRI) lost the Presidency, after 71 years as the
hegemonic party. Subsequently, the corruption system and the
political-criminal partnerships started to be uncovered. This
event led to an imbalance of the power distribution between
cartels and the central government, resulting in conflicts to
obtain dominance in certain regions (Crane, 2013).
Moreover, in 2006 President Felipe de Jesús Calderón
Hinojosa was elected, establishing an agenda focused in security

and launching an intensive and serious campaign against the
drug cartels, increasing violence and homicides significantly.
Statistics show that since 2006 there have been between 80.100
people killed by the drug war (Beittel, 2017).
The non-state organizations in Mexico have shown their
power and influence personified by the drugs cartels, which are
so influential in their controlled areas that the state becomes
weak and is forced to compete for sovereignty. The cartel’s impact
is both national and international, since their biggest neighbor,
the U.S., as well as other states, must deal with the spheres of
influence of these cartels in their own countries (Beittel, 2017).
4. The Security Council’s role in “new-era” conflicts

This section of the article addresses the following question:
how can the UNSC, created on the post-Second World War,
adapt to the 21st century and to the new kinds of conflicts and
challenges that are predominant nowadays. In order to do so, the
basic functioning and history of the UNSC will be addressed, as
well as the definitions of different types of recent conflicts, and
the role of the civil society’s opinions and demands on the UNSC
discussions and decisions.
The United Nations Security Council is the smallest
collective unit of the UN and yet possesses unrivaled power
amongst other international bodies and organizations. It is
empowered by the UN Charter on chapters V and VIII (Articles
23 to 54) to guarantee that states do not resolve conflicts
through war, as well as to solve any conflicts that might happen
(U.N.Charter, 1945). Furthermore, according to Article 24(1)
“In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United
Nations, its members confer on the Security Council primary
responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and
security” (U.N.Charter, 1945, chapter V, article 24).
Thus, the UNSC’s functions and powers are many, such

as taking military action against an aggressor, formulating a
plan for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments,
determining if there is a threat and what course of action should
be taken, amongst many others. Therefore, the UNSC has a power
that no other international body has. The Council is composed
of fifteen Member states, five of them being permanent and
ten who are elected by the General Assembly and exercise their
position during two years. Furthermore, in order to approve a
resolution, all the permanent members must be unanimous in
favor, since they have veto power on non-procedural questions
(U.N.Charter, 1945). However, one question comes to mind: how
much of the initial shape, functioning, and power of the Security
Council can be effectively applied to the security challenges of
the 21st century, in which avoiding wars is no longer enough to
ensure long-lasting peace?
The answer has often been a demand for a reform of the
UNSC. One of the main supporters of this idea is former secretary-
general of the UN, Kofi Annan, who proposed and advocated for a
reform of the UN and of the UNSC. “A big part of the problem is
that the Security Council, which is supposed to maintain world
peace and security on behalf of all Member states, no longer
commands respect — certainly not from armed insurgents
operating across borders, and often not from the United Nations’
own members” (Annan & Brundtland, 2015, para. 3). To that
goal, Annan proposed changes such as increasing the mandate
on non-permanent members and avoiding the veto power unless
strictly necessary, besides having asked for more respect towards
the UN Charter (Annan & Brundtland, 2015).
After having explained the basic functioning of the UNSC,
as well as the claims for the reform, the role of the Security
Council on the new-era of conflicts shall now be debated. As
explained before, on the post-Cold War world, a new challenge
surfaces: conflicts that are not exclusively amongst states or that
do not even involve a state. Hence, the UNSC, with the use of the
new definitions of armed conflicts explained priorly, undergoes

a role adaptation for the 21st century and through the debate of
different themes. Due to the fact that these changes are recent and
constantly happening, there is not one International Relations or
Geopolitics theory that explains the complexity of the globalized
world, making the topic an arduous debate (Dussouy 2010 as
cited in Mahpatra, 2016).
It is primordial to understand the types of conflicts most
common currently. Non-state wars, as explained previously,
are wars sustained among non-state entities, such as the
governments of other geopolitical units (GPUs), dependencies
and non-state autonomous entities, all which do not meet the
criteria of system membership (Correlate War Project as cited in
Sarkees, 2010). Furthermore, non-state actors may include non-
territorial entities (NTEs) and non-state armed groups (NSAs)
that do not have a defined territorial base (Sarkees, 2010).
It is also important to differentiate “non-state”, “intrastate”,
and “extra-state” wars. The first has already been defined as a
conflict between two or more NSAs. “Intrastate” conflicts, one
the other hand, are currently the most common form of warfare
and consist of sustained violence among one or more NSA and
armed groups representing the state. Finally, “extra-state” wars
are the conflicts in which one of the entities is a state and the
other a NSA (Correlate War Project as cited in Sarkees, 2010).
The turning point which brought the international
community’s attention to non-state actors was September 11th
(Ward 2003). The event and its impact on the UN and on the
Security Council have already been widely discussed, however, it
is impossible to examine the UNSC role on the new-era without
making a brief explanation of the transformation brought by
9/11.
Before the tragedy of September 11th, only two countries
had ratified all of the UN conventions on terrorism: the United
States of America and Botswana (Ward 2003). Furthermore,
before the rise of Al-Qaeda, the most common punishment for
acts of terrorism were mere economic and diplomatic sanctions,

such as in the Libyan case. However, 9/11 showed the world
that the measures the UN and the UNSC had been imposing
were not enough, with the US, especially, demanding for more
severe, concrete and internationalized actions against terrorism.
The response to the terrorist acts of 9/11 came quickly - due
to the extensive international attention given to the event - and
on September 12th of 2001, the UNSC approved Resolution
number 1368, which included the recognition of the “inherent
right of individual or collective self-defense in accordance with
the Charter” (SCR 1368, preamble). Furthermore, the Resolution
1373 obliged all countries to legislate in “acting against the
financing of terrorism and other support to international
terrorism” (SCR 1373 paras. 1-2). Therefore, besides creating a
Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), 9/11 also set a mandatory
international legal regime and an enforcement strategy against
acts of terrorism, focusing, for one of the first times, the UN and
the UNSC capabilities and attention not towards an interstate
war, but towards non-state actors and their conflicts (British
Society of Criminology, 2004).
With the new focus of the UNSC on terrorism, non-state
conflicts and actors become a priority for the international
community due to the fact that these strong, organized and often
international NSAs are extremely active in conflict zones. Thus,
an issue surges: how can the UNSC deal with these changes?
How can an international organization, composed of only state
actors, legislate and impose demands on non-state actors? Given
that it is a recent and constantly adapting matter, there is not one
specific correct answer to it; however, there are some theories
and ideas as to how the UNSC can adapt to the new-era’s conflicts
and demands.
First, it is important to understand that the very idea of
peace has changed. Until the 20th century, peace was often
seen as the lack of war, and security was strictly restrained to
the traditional concept of conflicts. However, nowadays, our
notion of peace and security has greatly changed, and so has

the UNSC role, which evolves from simply avoiding wars to also
try to improve the aspects involved in the world’s security and
peace. Therefore, the first step in order to adapt the UNSC to the
post-Cold War reality is to realize the importance of all things
mentioned before, instead of focusing solely on the outdated
concept of security (Ravichandran, S. 2011).
Furthermore, there are concepts and ideas - besides the
basic security issues - that are considered primordial nowadays.
Notions that were deemed secondary and are now seen as pivotal
to life include human rights, sustainability, economic development
and international law, to mention only a few (Ravichandran, S.
2011). Thus, it is the UNSC role to make sure that these topics are
debated and regulated, given that currently it is not enough to
have a war-free planet, since people now also demand their basic
needs and dignity to be met (Ravichandran, S. 2011).
Besides, in order to effectively satisfy the new role and
demands of the 21st century, the UNSC needs legitimacy and
effectiveness, which are defined by the perception of its members
on their authority (Mahpatra, 2016). Hence, on the era of conflicts
that are not strictly state-related, the United Nations Security
Council is not perceived as effective, given that the Council cannot
possibly exercise authority over actors that it cannot control or
even discuss with (Mahpatra, 2016).
Hence, in order to solve that dilemma, the Security
Council must explore approaches in which it can be perceived
as an authority even among non-state actors. That will grant
it the legitimacy and effectiveness it needs to properly exercise
its role in the 21st century. Therefore, we can conclude that the
UNSC, which was created to avoid interstate wars, is currently
discussing different concepts such as non-state groups and wars,
as well as social causes. In addition, it has been proved that the
Council’s role must adapt to these concepts, groups, and causes
in order to enforce its power (Mahapatra, 2016)

Finally, it is impossible to discuss the changes in the
UNSC role without mentioning an actor whose position has
been growing exponentially: the civil society. Despite having a
primordial capacity within multilateral negotiations, especially
those regarding peace, their options and influences are still
severely limited. Within the peace negotiation literature, civil
society has also had a restricted position. It is usually due to the
obstacles in reaching a peace agreement between the primary
parties to the conflict, as well as the difficult choice over which
civil society group should participate. However, there has been
some progress on the matter, for example, the United Nations
has recently highlighted the need to find innovative approaches
to civil society inclusion in mediation (UNSC 2015; U.N. General
Assembly 2011).
One of the examples of a positive transformation in the
way the UNSC discusses and decides matters can be seen when
comparing the Security Council Resolution (SCR) 2242 for the
implementation of the Women and Peace agenda and some older
documents, such as Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s Agenda for Peace
(1992) - a report written by the former UN Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali on how he thought the UN should respond
to conflict in a post-Cold War world. With SCR 2242, which
was adopted unanimously in 2015, the Security Council decided
to integrate the Women, Peace and Security agenda across all
country-specific situations that shall be discussed. Furthermore,
the Council expressed its intention to invite civil society to brief
during the future country-specific consideration on WPS. Hence,
it is visible that, nowadays, the civil society has a pivotal role to
play in discussions and resolutions on several matters, having
been mentioned on a majority of the opening remarks on the
discussion of SCR 2242 (Security Council Resolution 2242, 2015).
However important, that notion is fairly recent, since on
the Agenda for Peace the ideas and beliefs expressed on the
SCR 2242 were barely mentioned. When one analyses both
documents, it becomes visible that the language, focus, and

strategies have changed substantially in a little over twenty
years. The Agenda for Peace, for instance, has a more generalized
aspect when dealing with the human rights topic, and it focuses
on states, not mentioning NSAs. The UNSCR 2242, on the other
hand, discusses human rights with more depth and solemnity, as
well as mentioning NSAs and the importance of the civil society’s
contribution.
Therefore, the Security Council must learn to exercise
its power in a way that compromises not only states, but also
individuals, groups and companies in order to not restrain itself
to the security challenges on a state level. When evaluating UNSC
resolutions from the 21st century, a shift on the framework on the
Council is perceived, given that a committee which was created
in order to avoid war between countries is now addressing non-
state groups and social causes. However, it is still important to
keep striving for more changes in order to continue the adaptation
of UNSC’s role to the current world with the purpose of making
the institution progressively more influential and compelling.
5. Conclusion
This article intended to highlight a theme that has been
openly, but insufficiently, discussed. The media brings up non-
state conflicts, terrorism and the rule of the United Nations in this
new scenario as the singular most important statistics to impress.
However, this subject is indispensable for the understanding of
the complexity of the 21st century, since 46% of the deaths in
combat between 1989 and 2014 happened in non-state related
conflicts and one-sided violence scenarios. Even though this is
such an important topic, little is known about the origin of these
conflicts, their structure, their complexity and the reason why
they are so difficult to resolve (Melander, 2015).
The complexity of this theme comes from the increasing
multiplication and rise of new non-state parties in conflict
during the last few years. These groups have a transnational

network that has consistently grown. Moreover, there is also the
complication that emerges from the fact that these groups are
part of the communities in which they are established, as they
are relatives of the local civilians. Therefore, these groups are
protected and hidden by these communities – sometimes gaining
the people’s trust by growing on the state’s absence, in others
threatening them into staying quiet (Hobsbawm, 2005; Briscoe,
2013) –, making it harder to find their members. Moreover,
another important fact to be considered is that the previous
usual approach taken by the United Nations Security Council is
not sufficient to solve the problem, making a new approach ever
more urgent (Briscoe, 2013).
Non-state parties rise within a country’s borders, usually
taking control of important economic regions of these nations,
making allies within civil society and therefore building resistance
towards the government, or repressing another group. Hence,
these are the reasons for conflict, but considering that the first
approach taken by states is, usually, violent repression, it makes
dialogue an almost impossible alternative. This whole conjecture
progressively fragments countries, weakening them and opening
room for the appearance of extremist and terrorist groups.
Considering that these are non-state related groups, they do not
recognize the United Nations authority, and due to usually being
received with repressive measures, they are not open to dialogue,
which makes UN usual approach insufficient (Briscoe, 2013).
Created in a post-Second World War scenario, the United
Nations Security Council was not designed to work with non-
state actors in war: it was prepared to handle interstate conflicts,
and to avoid these through mediation and dialogue (U.N. Charter,
1945). However, avoiding war is no longer enough to maintain
peace. Given that communication is not an easy option and
repression is also not the solution, what can the United Nations
Security Council do to help? This is the inquiry this article
intended to bring up.
The UNSC must modernize itself to achieve the new

demands of a modern era that goes beyond the absence of war,
such as sustainability and human rights. Considering the need
to protect civilians and to maintain human rights, a change
has already taken place in the way this Council exercises its
role. Nowadays it worries about protecting society and trying
to reduce, avoid and reverse collateral damages, developing
resolutions such as the UNSCR 2242 for the implementation
of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (2015). The idea of
training civil society to mediate conflicts is also important, as
they are the ones who can reach for both non-state and state-
related conflicts (UNSC, 2015; UNGA, 2011).
All of the previous ideas, which were more thoroughly
explained through this article, are foundations for the
understanding of the current international situation, but the
most important word to guide the actions in the 21st century and
its conjecture is “respect”. Cultural differences create stereotypes
that pull these groups away from the idea of negotiation. This is
especially noticeable when referring to Eastern groups, who are
usually not heard due to the preconceived idea that they might be
considered terrorists simply because of where they come from.
Hence, it is indispensable to differentiate terrorist groups from
non-state actors, for some non-state actors have a project whose
goal is to improve the lifestyle of their community, not necessarily
through the best means. Unifying them all and accepting that
none of them have a real project and do not seek respect or the
recognition of their human rights is a drastic misunderstanding.
Finally, more than recognizing these groups as actors, it is
imperative to understand that their members are humans and so
is the civil society they are inserted in. Maintaining human rights
is the main goal, and respect is the only way.

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OLIVEIRA, SOUZA, PORTO & Martins. New Era Conflicts: A Brief Study On Non-State Warfare

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FORGING

Anna Angélica Nogueira Amaral

21th AMUN / American Model United Nations 1

MOSCOW, TBILISI AND STRASBOURG

BETWEEN DEVELOPMENT AND STATE CAPTURE

FIRE AND FURY

TENSIONING HUMAN RIGHTS’ SILENCES

INTERNATIONAL DEFENCE POLITICS IN ASIA

NEW ERA CONFLICTS

ESTADO CONTRA GUERRILHA

PROBLEMÁTICAS DE GÊNERO E VULNERABILIDADES

Alexandre Alcântara de Oliveira

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1 This is the date related to a serie of terrorist attacks towards the

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2 The author notes that “the low level of institutionalization in many

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Furthermore, the IS has imposed an extortion/taxing

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3.1 Syria and Iraq

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4. The Security Council’s role in “new-era” conflicts

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