How Non-State Actors are Affecting The Global Transformation and Warfare, A Case Study of Conflict Zones and Hot Spots

Past five years have witnessed a paradigm shift in warfare, where Non-State Actors (NSAs) have challenged the leading powers. Non-State Actors have displayed an ability to leverage limited military power and geostrategic positioning to seriously challenge Western military power in a way that is unprecedented in modern history. Russia and Ukraine have used Private Military Companies like Wagner Group and Georgian Legion. Why militaries are relying on Private Military Companies, is it rebirth of the ‘condottiere’; and how it will change the form of warfare? The paper analyses the rise of Non-State Actors in three case studies of Afghanistan, Palestine- Israel conflict and Russia Ukraine War through empirical evidence. In the first part, the paper intends to differentiate between behavior of a rational state and the Non-State actors like Hezbollah, Hamas, Taliban and Houthis, who are not fringe elements but control part of a state or run the state altogether. The second part deals with impact of Non-State Actors on Clausewitz’s trinity of Time, Space and Relative Strength (TSR) as well as the notion of Centre of Gravity. The 3rd part deals with how NSAs have challenged conventional and nuclear deterrence. The paper will be built as qualitative research by pitching NSA strategy against existing theories of Deterrence, Nuclear Strategy and Coercive Credibility proffered by André Beaufre, Peter Parret and Thomas Schelling etc. to determine the contours of new form of warfare. In part four, an effort will be made to determine the NSAs use of social media to offer an alternative narrative against western dominated media in the Post Truth environment and how the information warfare is affecting leadership and decision making. Study becomes imperative due to two reasons, deterrence normally works against rational states; when Non-State Actors start holding states and use unconventional strategy to dent conventional and nuclear deterrence of larger powers, how does academia learn from it. And the stereotyping of Taliban and Axis of Resistance as negative entities tends to deny any meaningful debate on Strategy and Tactics applies by these groups against a Super Power, this creates a major gap in study of modern warfare which needs to be bridged through a structured discourse.

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