After the end of the Cold War, along with the emergence of the Contemporary Security and Human Security agenda, the discourse on the effects of globalization on the nature of warfare and irregular warfare (e.g. terrorism) has acquired much prominence. Within this context some scholars adopted the word “new” as a way of characterizing what they perceived as the result of the impact of globalization – and the post-Cold War international order – on wars and terrorism for example; thus, theses such as “New Wars” or “New Terrorism”.

Focusing on terrorism, it is true that it went through certain changes during the course of history; however, the word “new” is too absolute to describe these changes. There is not a clear distinction between “old” and “new” terrorism. There are only a few new characteristics that gradually emerged due to globalization and evolution dynamics, which do not constitute fundamental changes and could be simply attributed to evolution.