Flemming (2003, p. 213-241) and Clausewitz (1984, p. 87) define war as ‘a continuation of political intercourse carried on with other means.’ Gaining a profound comprehension of the nature of war is not only central to policy making but also international relations. In fact, among the primary goals of the policymakers is to comprehend the trends of war, and subsequently formulate effective policies for preventing the conflicts, crafting a resolution framework or reconciliation. It is on such grounds that theorizing about the dynamics, trends, causes and implications of violent conflict has become a major occupation for both policy makers and scholars. In the recent past, scholars have embarked on examining and understanding of armed conflicts especially the civil war through a postulation that the trends in current wars qualitatively differ from those of the old wars. Kaldor (2012, p. 7), hypothesizes that “the new wars can be contrasted with earlier wars in terms of their goals, the methods of warfare and how they are financed.” Hordes of concerned parties continue to acknowledge the change in the warfare trends, with an equal proportion denying the shift; thus, charging the debate further. In the course of the contention, Mary Kaldor, the owner of the idea, defined and outlined features of new wars. Dillon (2014) describes new wars as the violent conflicts that occurred after the World War II while the term ‘old wars’ imply the traditional warfare which comprised two uniformed armies engaging each other in combat especially in interstate conflicts, with the state being the major financier of the warfare. The individual characteristics of the ‘new wars’ are the ones that define the differences between the new wars and the old conflicts. On the overall, new wars feature conflicts between a wide spectrum of non-state and state players, fighting that lies on identity politics rather than ideology. Besides, new wars involve tendencies to attain political, as opposed to physical, manipulation of the population through mechanisms involving terror and fear, and conflict is not only financed by the state, but other interested parties that gain from the ongoing violence. Kaldor (2013, p. 4) adds other descriptive terms for the ‘new wars’ including ‘wars among the people’, ‘wars of the third kind’, ‘hybrid wars’, ‘privatized wars’, and ‘post-modern wars.’
There are other definitive features of new wars including the perpetuation of ethnic divisions, exacerbation of state disintegration, and the conflicts target non-uniformed civilians instead of two warring uniformed combatants. In this logical line, the Sierra Leone war qualify as a new war. Contextually, the RUF intended to delegitimize the leadership, and never fought for territory, but consideration as a legit political opposition. Borrowing from the movie ‘Blood Diamond’ one gets an overview of the techniques incorporated during the war. Dillon (2014) notes such tactics as amputation, mental, and physical abuse among other terror tactics. On the one side, the RUF represented the non-uniformed party in the conflict with the government representing the uniformed party. The RUF mostly targeted the civilians, not a national army, with a view to attracting the attention of the government. On that note, it suffices to say that “during the last decades of the twentieth century, a new type of organized violence developed” (Kaldor 2006, p.1); thus, the contemporary warfare qualitatively differs from old conflict.