ABSTRACT
Although the previous chapter addressed the internal aspects of armed groups, it is their foreign relations that interest us. In understanding armed groups as enclosed, sovereign units, their ‘foreign’ relations are those that occur with other, separate units. These ‘international’ relations may take place with other actors within the juridical boundaries of a single state but are nonetheless between two or more sovereign units. Given this appreciation of the situation, armed groups can be understood as existing within a system of other actors. The following chapter will examine the nature of the system in which armed groups exist, arguing that it is in fact an anarchical system.
