Terrorism, Crime and Private Armies

The societal changes associated with the accessibility of information

technology that stimulate networked organizational forms are changing the

nature of conflict and crime. New, increasingly non-state, entities and

organizational structures are adapting to these circumstances and altering the

global political landscape. As the United States and its allies pursue a ‘global

war on terrorism’ we are seeing the transition from nation-states to market-

states unfold before our eyes. This essay reviews the actual – and potential –

interaction between terrorism, crime and private armies in order to describe

the change in the organization of global conflict. As the ability to wage war

devolves from hierarchical organizations to internetworked transnational

actors we are witnessing the evolution of new warmaking entities capable of

challenging the primacy and ultimately the solvency of nation-states. This

potential was recognized by eminent military historian Martin van Creveld in

his prescient observation that ‘in the future, war will not be waged by armies

but by groups whom today we call terrorists, guerrillas, bandits and robbers,

but who will undoubtedly hit upon more formal titles to describe themselves’.

For example, we see Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda continually morphing to

retain relevance as a malignant and mutated version of the emerging