The conundrum of the violent non-state actors (VNSAs) became the center of gravity in global politico-military settings especially after the disappearance of “patron-proxy” relationships. The threat to the authority of the central administration in internationally recognized boundaries by both deploying an assortment of tactics and more sophisticated structural stand points strengthened their competence. On the other side, social, economic, religious, environmental, and demographic conditions of the current century also contributed minacious divaricated frondeurs to sprout up. This chapter examines the interplay between territorial control and VNSA. There are empirical case studies related to the position of the VNSAs in the relevant literature, but little is known about the interplay between them that leads to governance functions and even foreign policy. The intention is to substantiate how these actors created legitimacy that ended up in almost all state activities although they are not recognized internationally.
TopIntroduction
States and their relations with a broad diversity of Violent Non-State Actors1 (henceforth VNSAs) in the framework of the international arena have taken attention especially at the turn of the 20th century and on the later period when significant chronicle regarding derivation and distribution of power of states and its exercise has been transformed through practices. The inversion mostly bred from the weakness of the state that ultimately turns into failure. It is clear that there always had existed failed states (seen as lack of sovereignty) but characterizing the “failed state2” became prominent not only in academia but also within the international arena, especially after the 9/11 attacks. In those days, transnational terror organizations in the heaven of failed states (Rice, 2003) became perceived as the gravest degree of threat to global security rather than rival great powers.
The weakness of the state emanating from various conditions throughout the historical process, causes, objectives give rise to human rights abuses, migration, civil war, criminal networks and international terrorism. The recognition of the ‘failing states’ exposes the threat not only to its indigenous but also to the global security, commonly impaired by a serious intra-state conflict that conjointly also has a multiplier effect on destabilizing vicinal states (Cojanu, Valentin, Popescu, Alina Irina, 2007).
The state failure and the VNSAs such as frondeur groups, transnational terrorist groups, warlords, criminal networks and so on have been on the agenda regarding their integration and threat to the present world order. The turbulent environment resulting from weaknesses consequently have sucked international organizations and other actors into highly eclectic (due to ever-increasing interdependence) and anomic structural chaos. The Cold War period and its aftermath added a higher degree of state breakdown in return; it emaciated a ‘social contract’ between the ruling elites and the ruled crowds.
Although the crisis in statehood (more destructive than ever) is mostly perceived as an internal issue, its roots and ramifications have comprised the entire region even beyond. The layered correlation between VNSAs and territorial control is mostly embedded into the lack of factual capacity (an authority on the monopoly on violence that mostly results in civil violence and intra-state conflicts) of the state and reluctance to allow non-state actors to proliferate.
As in disruptive effects of state failure topic, the security environment has gone through fundamental changes over the years. Therefore, some other researchers have focused on the results of the failed state and claimed that the territories that are part of failed state turned into ungoverned spaces. These areas, as Cronin (2009) counsels, “exist not only in fragile, failing and failed states” but also in inaccessible border regions, isolated regions or inhospitable terrain. Indeed, they are not new, however; Hillary Clinton who pointed to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region as a security matter popularized them. In these spaces, armed groups such as al-Qaeda, Boko Haram or PYD have carved out strongholds or provided the type of fertile ground to extend their regional and global impact.
The debate regarding these areas followed the concept of ‘limited statehood’ that emphasizes the inability to govern and control the territory. Unlike the ungoverned spaces that are the result of a failed state, and the limited statehood resembles failed state (Nay, 2013; Robert, 1998; Schneckener, 2006) or quasi-state (Jackson, 1995; Malejacq, 2017; Stanislawski, 2008) it, indeed, is an orientation towards the Western model (Eurocentrism) and its benchmarks are the democratic, capitalist, and interventionist apparatus.