Military action may sometimes be necessary to create the conditions for an alternative kind of politics. But in these new wars there is no such thing as military victory. Instead, the military’s task resembles police work: to catch war criminals, protect civilians, and establish areas where individuals and families feel safe and do not depend on extremist networks for protection and livelihood.

Unfortunately, in the case of the current war on terrorism the Bush Administration is still emphasizing military action and alliances with national states. The war is shaping up as a conflict of America and its allies against Islamic fundamentalists. But we must remember we live in a globalized world, and the effects of frustrations in repressive societies (which are often Western allies) cannot any longer be confined to particular territories. And those frustrations will not always be expressed as democratic demands. They will be expressed in the language of extremes and in the acts of nihilistic terrorism that characterize these new wars. The approach now deployed by the U.S. and Great Britain might work for a few years as known terrorists are hunted down. But if the United States continues to act as an imperial superpower, wielding its military might to satisfy public demands for quick responses to acts of terrorism, the danger is that we will see a 'new war' on a global scale—a sort of Israel/Palestine conflict on a global scale.

A new sense of global politics—which seeks justice, not just for the victors but for all the people struggling within repressive and impoverished nations—is the only way we can begin to win the 'new war' in which we find ourselves.

Mary Kaldor, professor at the London School of Economics, is the author of New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Stanford) and co-author of a new report, Global Civil Society 2001 (Oxford). From the progressive political weekly The Nation (Nov. 5, 2001). Subscriptions: $52/yr. (47 issues) from Box 55149, Boulder, CO 80322