The "global war against terrorism" is the overarching rationale, if not
the main motivation, of two major, international, but US-led, military
interventions in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003. These antiterrorist
interventions, although they both have been justified discursively
or legally by "exceptional circumstances", have in many ways challenged
and changed our common understanding of the place of interventionist
behaviour in international politics. But what is less frequently highlighted,
is that these interventions have seen major developments in military practices
on the ground. Indeed, the shift from "wars between states" to "wars
within states" has highlighted the importance of the relation between
intervening forces
