ABSTRACT
The relationship between globalization and violence is complicated. However, what we can say first is that war is a globalizing force and, secondly, that processes of globalization have over the past few decades intensified and extended the impact of localized wars. Iraq and Afghanistan provide obvious examples. Notwithstanding the decline in the number of state-based armed conflicts over the course of the late-twentieth century, globalization has contributed to the disruption of relations, conflict over resources, and a reinvigoration of identity politics, including neo-fundamentalism, sectarianism, and nationalism. This does not mean that globalization in itself causes war, or that war is globalizing across all levels of social life, but it does mean that in understanding the changing nature of war, conflict, and violence in the present that processes of globalization need to be at the center of any analysis. To clarify these points we need to first go back to how globalization is
defined. Globalization is the process of extending a matrix of social relations-practices and subjectivities of production, exchange, communication, organization, and enquiry-across world-space, where the notion of worldspace is itself defined in the historically variable terms that it has been practiced and understood (James 2006). In terms of this definition, and most others, the statement that globalization does not in itself cause war should almost go without saying. Globalization is simply a form of spatially extended interconnection that may fundamentally affect the nature of war, but processes and relations of spatial extension do not in themselves entail either war or peace. Given the tendency for hyperbole to enter discussions of globalization we need to be very clear about this. For example, on the back cover of a recent book called Globalization and War one of the reviewers says, “If you thought that globalization led away from war or that liberals have traditionally been anti-war, you’ll learn a lot from Tarak Barkawi. Globalization, he tells us is war.” Actually, Barkawi tells us nothing of the sort. He is careful not to treat globalization and war as the same thing, or even to conflate them rhetorically. He writes very precisely,
A consistent theme of this volume is that it is not sufficient to claim that globalization causes war and other violent conflict but rather that war
itself is a form of interconnection. War is not only an example of globalization, it is one of the principle mechanisms of globalization, a globalizing force.
