Introduction

The third annual Kingston Conference on International Security, hosted and organized by Queen's Centre for International Relations (QCIR) and The Defence Management Studies Program at Queen's, together with the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College (USAWC), and the Canadian Land Forces Doctrine and Training System (LFDTS), took place on June 17-19, 2008, on the theme Wars Without Borders. With the aim of learning to better define and respond to the "new wars" of the 21st century, approximately 150 participants from government, the military and academe heard keynote speakers and panels reflecting on recent experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Africa, and in the Western Hemisphere.

The title and theme of the 2008 conference quite unexpectedly brought to mind warfare as a geographic phenomenon - as aggression without regard to the territorial boundaries that define states. But the panelists and other participants engaged in a wider discussion and debate on the idea of wars without borders situated in other meanings and concepts. In particular they used the conference theme to place these wars in a bold, modern context. They were described, for instance, as wars within territories but not about territory, since in many cases traditional borders have little intrinsic meaning. Wars without borders were described also as wars among the people in which the people were themselves the preferred targets for all belligerents, and where civil constraints and laws - two other kinds of borders - are often stripped away. Some speakers described the new wars as borderless in the sense that they seem to have broken way from the traditional Clausewitzian politics/warfare nexus and are now merely irrational conflicts.

In all the regions under review during the conference, participants found a common thread: the wars we are confronting today are often wars conducted without territorial, legal, political, or moral boundaries. From these presentations and discussions participants reached a general consensus that governments and armed forces that might become involved in the new borderless wars of the 21st century will have to develop new and unprecedented ways of preparing for the consequences and contradictions that they will encounter.

Documents

KCIS 2008 Conference Programme (73kb)

Presentations

• Colonel Alex Crowther, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College
  Iraq: Model for the New Wars [PDF 97.3 kb]

• Major-General Marquis Hainse, LFDTS, Canadian Forces
  Afghan Case Study [PDF 2.6 mb]

• Ambassador (ret) John Shram, Queen’s University
  Canadian Peacekeeping and Peacekeeping Interventions [PDF 29.2 kb]

• Ambassador Cynthia Efird, International Affairs, US Army War College
  Violence Without Borders - The Case in Africa [PDF 281 kb]

• Ambassador Albert R. Ramdin, Asst. Secretary General, Organization of American States
  Security in Latin America [PDF 2.6 mb]

• Gabriel Marcella, Department of National Security & Strategy, US Army War College
  The Colombia-Ecuador Crisis 2008 [PDF 184 kb]

• Dr. Arturo Contreras, National Academy for Political and Strategic Studies, Chile
  Asymmetric Armed Conflicts [PDF 7.0 mb]

• Major-General Sergio Etchegoyen, Escola de Commando e Estado-Maior do Exercito, Brasil
  Brazil - Lessons Learned

• LCol (ret) William Bentley, Canadian Defence Academy
  Broadsword or Rapier [PDF 179 kb]

• Kevin Rex, Afghanistan Task Force, Canadian International Development Agency
  Development in the New Context [PDF 2.6 mb]

• Caryn Hollis, Partnering in US Army Southern Command
  Partnering for Hemispheric Security [PDF 26.6 kb]

• Daniele Riggio, Public Diplomacy Division, International Staff, NATO HQ
  Adjusting to New Conflicts [PDF 36.5 kb]