warlord

Um senhor da guerra é uma pessoa que exerce controle militar, econômico e político sobre uma região, frequentemente em um país sem um governo nacional forte; em grande parte devido ao controle coercitivo sobre as forças armadas. Senhores da guerra existiram ao longo de grande parte da história, embora em uma variedade de capacidades diferentes dentro da estrutura política, econômica e social de estados ou territórios não governados. O termo é mais frequentemente aplicado à China em meados do século XIX e início do século XX. O termo também pode ser usado para qualquer líder militar supremo.<ref>The Merriam Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2000) definition is: 1: a supreme military leader; 2: a military commander exercising civil power seized or maintained by force usually purely from self-interest and usually over a limited region with or without recognition of a central government, sometimes having effective control over the central government or administration, and sometimes obtaining de facto or de jure recognition of foreign powers."</ref> Historical origins and etymology The first appearance of the word "warlord" dates to 1856, when used by American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson in a highly critical essay on the aristocracy in England, "Piracy and war gave place to trade, politics and letters; the '''war-lords to the law-lord; the privilege was kept, whilst the means of obtaining it were changed." During the First World War, the term appeared in China as Junfa (軍閥), taken from the Japanese gunbatsu. It was not widely used until the 1920s, when it was used to describe the chaos after 1918, when provincial military leaders took local control and launched the period that would come to be known in China as the Warlord Era. In China, Junfa is applied retroactively to describe the leaders of regional armies who threatened or used violence to expand their rule, including those who rose to lead and unify kingdoms. Conceptions of warlordism