ABSTRACT
Only the German term Bandenkrieg, conventionally translated as "guerrilla" but literally and more usefully "warband war", properly describes what is happening in Sierra Leone, as also in Liberia, Somalia and some two-dozen other places that were once countries, including Afghanistan, Georgia, and the former Yugoslavia. When there is enough Bandenkrieg in the mixture, wars tend to be made by lulls of fighting in between long bouts of commerce. Fashionably entrepreneurial, self-reliantly financed by trafficking or economic predation (diamonds in Sierra Leone, opium in Afghanistan, and smuggled goods in Yugoslavia) and capable of lasting for ever, the Bandenkrieg is becoming today's most prevalent expression of armed violence. Evidently with the shameful goings-on of Bosnia and Somalia freshly in mind, the authors of Our Global Neighbourhood use all sorts of adjectives to indicate that United Nations (UN) force cannot be like many of the member-state armed forces in UN service.
