What IS a State of War? Is it only limited to armed conflict?

Allie Elwell, Marissa Diaz and Hattie Schofield discuss with Col Mario Diaz, I Corps Chief of Staff, a Colonel in the US Army with over 25 years of experience with a particular focus on Asia-Pacific, working closely with senior team at the Pentagon; Dr Daniel Fiott from the European Union Institute for Security Studies, who advises the EUropean Commission on security and defence policy issues; Alice Musabende, Cambridge University scholar researching peace building in post-conflict societies with a specific focus on Africa, informed by her personal experience of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsis in Rwanda.

HELPFUL DEFINITIONS

“State of War”: a state of actual armed hostilities regardless of a formal declaration of war

“Peace”: freedom from civil disturbance Peace and order were finally restored in the town.

Types of war:

Intrastate: Political violence between a state-backed armed group and one or more non-state groups, usually confined to a single state… i.e. civil war

Interstate: Conflict between two or more states

Extrastate: Conflict between a state and non-state (or non recognised state) actors/groups 

Hybrid: Conflict utilising mix of conventional and unconventional means of warfare including cyber and information warfare 

Assymetric: warfare that is between opposing forces which differ greatly in military power and that typically involves the use of unconventional weapons and tactics (such as those associated with guerrilla warfare and terrorist attacks)

Source: Contemporary Security Studies, Alan Collins/Oxford University Press/Merriam Webster Dictionary

Types of power:

Hard: use of force or financial means for a desired end

Soft: use of persuasion, focus on building relationships 

Sharp: new term coined to reflect disinformation campaigns that “pierce” or “penetrate” political & media environments of targeted countries 

Source: National Endowment for Democracy