ARTIKEL /ARTICLES The New World of Privatized Violence STEFAN MAIR S ince end of the Cold War European and American decision-makers have tended to consider conflicts in apparently unimportant countries as none of their business. This was partly changed by September 11 – just as it changed many other things in world politics. Suddenly, the North realized that state failure, authoritarianism, cultural disintegration, social deprivation and economic hopelessness are not only tragic developments for the have-nots in the South but also affect the haves in the North. The question became relevant of whether the industrialized countries could afford more Afghanistans – territories, in which state control and the state’s monopoly on violence had collapsed, and which offered safe havens and the necessary isolation for terrorists to organize themselves. In due course, war economies, conflict regions and failed states became a focus of attention. As the National Security Strategy of the u.s.a. 2002 rightly puts it on its very first page:»America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.« The concern grew that the rise of private violence in marginalized regions of the world could in fu­ture leave its marks in Europe and America as the Afghan warlords have done in New York. The danger with putting the emphasis on terrorist threat is the that any form of private violence is classified as terrorism – negligently by Ameri­can decision-makers because they are not willing or able to differentiate; deliberately by authoritarian regimes because calling rebels and opposi­tions movements terrorists serves to justify their repression and can gen­erate additional resources to do this job more effectively. This alone demonstrates why it is so important to differentiate. Con­tainment of private violence requires an understanding of the motives, strategies and powers of the different non-state actors who control the means to exercise organized violence. There are four ideal types of privatized violence: criminals, terrorists, warlords and rebels. They share a willingness to use violence in order to attain their objectives. They differ in their objectives, target groups, and ipg 2/2003 Mair, Privatized Violence 11