All roads lead to and from Iraq: the Long War and the transformation of the nation-state system

Abstract

This concluding article returns to some of the key themes of this volume in relation to insurgency, counter-insurgency and collapsing states. In particular it attempts to characterise the relationship between the Long War and the Cold War, in relation to the transformation of the nation-state system. More broadly it emphasises that the Cold War was an often misdirected, militarised struggle between ‘genuinely existing’ liberal capitalism and ‘genuinely existing’ state socialism (the First World and the Second World) against each other and for influence and power in the erstwhile Third World. The Long War, meanwhile, reflects both the triumph of ‘genuinely existing’ liberal capitalism as the dominant form of secular modernity over an equally, if not more virulently secular ‘genuinely existing’ state-socialism, and the emergence of an anti-secular neo-traditionalism (often, but not exclusively, Islamic) at both the nation-state and the transnational level. At the same time the binary that drove the Cold War and led to considerable bloodshed, was often characterised by contradictions within the two main ostensible challengers which were as potent as those between them. This is also the case in relation to Islamic revivalisms and their neo-traditional challenges to secular modernity and ‘genuinely existing’ liberal capitalism. (In fact, it is worth noting, that although Islamic fundamentalisms are at the forefront of the neo-traditional revival, there are other religious-based neo-traditionalisms seeking to counter the global spread of ‘genuinely existing’ liberal capitalism.) We conclude that the ‘real’ Long War may be a struggle within the ‘Muslim world’ rather than the ostensible struggle between the ‘West’ and ‘Islam’.