The forms of these conflicts were significant: they were fought on the periphery of states where insurgents and armed groups had strong transnational features, were capable of sowing terror and destabilization, but tended to be small, internally divided, and poorly structured and trained. The second turning point occurred in the late 2000s and early 2010s, in the first decade of the new African Union where conflicts were less about the capture of state power. In some cases, however, the rebel was motivated to capture the state by revolutionary reasons-to argue for more equitably structured political entities, for example. After the Cold War, the rebel became a mercenary and “blood diamond trader”-a “warlord” motivated by financial incentives. These conflicts replaced Cold War conflict formations, where large wars pitted major fighting forces against each other, in which rebel groups threatened to capture a capital or to secede. This major global event changed the nature and forms of Africa’s conflicts, as new insurgent organizations (and old ones with transformed agendas) caused immeasurable harm to the continent’s citizens, leading many observers to claim that Africa was the most endemically violent region in the world. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union, where the weakening of proxy states created political vacuums leading to major contestations. The scholarly literature identifies two major turning points in African conflicts. These conflicts are understood as violent struggles among different political formations, such as national governments, warlords, rebel or insurgent groups, and various armed private interests, pursuing multiple agendas, where the systematic predation of civilians is an instrument of war. Much of the scholarship on conflict formations in sub-Saharan Africa involves the use of case studies to examine intrastate conflict, as well as the way these conflicts spill into neighboring territories.
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