This podcast is about how war is changing. Over the past three years, our researchers have spent months in some of the most war-torn places on Earth. They have gone into parts of Iraq where ISIS occupied vast territories. They have witnessed first-hand how the battle against al-Shabaab is being waged in Somalia. They travelled to northern Nigeria where Boko Haram still threatens hundreds of thousands of people today. 

In this first episode, Adam Day speaks to Erica Gaston to consider the complex role and impact of paramilitary groups in some of the most conflicted-affected areas in the world. This draws on a recent United Nations University report entitled Hybrid Conflict, Hybrid Peace. Paramilitary and militia forces are often hybrid actors, playing a role somewhere in between official State and non-State armed groups. They are creatures of fragmented, hybrid systems who then often go on to further uphold such systems and structures post-conflict.