ABSTRACT
The passing ofthe process of European decolonisation and the end ofthe ideological conflicts that were essentially by-products of the Cold War have not diminished the proliferation of insurgency. In fact, the proliferation in the developing world of readily available weapons from former Eastern bloc sources has had a significant impact. With the end of the Cold War and its concomitant ideological competition, it is clear that the pattern of military activity has changed. Moreover, increasing globalisation and the economic and political links that bind major states have made inter-state conflict much more difficult to sustain unilaterally. The flexibility of the British army has not been the model followed elsewhere, and both the Indian army and the Israeli Defence Forces, which have also faced long-running insurgencies, have persisted with largely conventional responses to similar models of rural insurgency and urban terrorism.
