The year 2010 marks the 60^th anniversary of the Korean War, which began on June 25, 1950. Following the three years of intensely brutal fighting and subsequent devastation, an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. The signing of the agreement stopped the fighting and put the war on hold without a clear trajectory of future plans. To this day, the legacies of the Korean War continue to remain as a source of tension for the divided Korea as well as the regional and international community.

A growing fraction of the world's civil wars seem to be breaking out on the African continent, and in the last few decades it has acquired a reputation as a hotbed of violence and warfare.  Social conflict and political violence in Africa is a complex subject, and it will be useful to note a few trends in African civil violence, discuss a common (but misleading) explanations for civil wars in Africa, and then suggest two alternative framing for the patterns observed.