PLAYING WITH WAR

The western way of war in the 21st century is a pale shadow of the warfare it waged in the 20th. The reason is simple: for western societies war is no longer existential. Instead, it's increasingly about smoothing market flows and tertiary moral concerns/threats. As a result of this diminishment of motivation, western warfare is now afflicted with the following:

• Operations of low lethality. Western militaries do not have the desire, nor the sanction, to conduct the high casualty operations typically associated with real wars. Technology has been leveraged to increase the precision of attacks to limit collateral damage and save the lives of civilians. The corollary to this is that western militaries are also fiercely protective of the lives of their soldiers. Warfare, increasingly, is supposed to be costless. What this means is that we will not see Sherman's 'March to the Sea' or Hama in the near future - and - the loss of a hundred soldiers in southern Lebanon will be enough to stop the Israeli army.
• Marginal placement within national priorities. Militaries are increasingly professional (with a trend towards the use of mercenaries) and conscription has become impossible. This drastically limits the number of soldiers that can be applied to any conflict. In addition, to retain competitive positioning on the global stage, states and their economies are operated as if war is not going on. To wit: military budgets are considered just another line item on a more complex national budget. Gone are the days of massive mobilization and economic restructuring for war.
• Muddled objectives. Given the lack of the cohesive and singular reason for war -- the survival of the state and its people through the elimination of its enemies -- the reasons for warfare will drift. This translates into a constantly shifting landscape of military objectives, where current objectives recede in favor of replacements before they can be reached. The result is confusion, mission creep, and conflict escalation.

Playing with War

The upshot of this diminishment of warfare is that wars will become increasingly difficult to win. The reasons are straightforward:

• Asymmetric motivation. In almost all instances, the opposition will approach the conflict as an existential war. This motivation both allows them to fight harder and longer than those western forces sent against it. The only aspects of warfare left in the west's favor are training and technology.
• New methods of warfare will emerge to level (flatten) the playing field Since warfare is a conflict between minds, its natural to expect that as the rest of the world gains capacity through globalization, the delta in training and technology will diminish. We have already seen this in the emergence of open source warfare (Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and more) and 4GW light infantry (Hezbollah).
• Proliferation of opposition. As we have often seen, as western militaries apply violence, they often destroy the structures that hold together societies. This results in the proliferation of groups that adopt violence. Much, if not all, of that violence will eventually be directed at the western militaries themselves.

Learning to Live with Limits

Ultimately, western societies will need to learn to live within the limits of this new framework. It is not possible for us to reverse the clock on this trend. Any mass mobilization for war that lifts existing limitations will be severely punished by both global markets and opinion (both domestically and abroad) if it ever was attempted. Given the inevitability of the limited nature of western warfare from now and into the future, we should avoid the following traps:

• Nation-building as a global social policy. Historically, counter-insurgency against an established enemy has almost never worked (and when it has, it usually involves bloody exterminations). Any attempt to build a nation will likely, particularly in the current environment of globalization, yield an opponent that will be impossible to defeat through limited means. Further, the durations of these conflicts will exceed the capacity of the western states to maintain a cohesive set of objectives -- they will shift with opinion polls and political winds.
• Collapsing rogue states. In almost all instances, despite how easy it is to collapse a weak state with modern weapons, those wars launched to collapse rogue states will not yield positive results. The collapse will necessitate calls for revival (see item one). Unless states are willing to live with partial collapse without resolution, they should not undertake the action in the first place.
• Escalation of tension. Given an inability to resolve conflicts through nation-building and state collapse, western states should endeavor to deescalate conflicts rather than ignite them. Escalation is a false God that promises a return of the motivational clarity found in the wars of the 20th Century. It cannot deliver this.

Comments

[Azrael]

When armies motaviated by the martial traditions of far west eurasia wage war, they still wage that conflict primarily on civilians and they still exact a high body count amongst those self same civilians. This has not changed and will not change.
The only factor that has been altered with the progression of time is the willingness of "western" states to interfere in the affair of certain "eastern" states and regions. This can be explained by a simple cost beneift analysis. In certain regions, such as africa, the gestalt of "the super-western", as opposed to the "franco-western" percieves the marginal benefit of interfering as being far outwayed by the fear of getting involved with something black, unknowable and primal. In states such as china, iran, north korea, the fear of involvement has more to do with the ability of these states to follow a pgm's address all the way back to the interfering "western" state. At no time since before the 15th century has there been such a balance with respect to the military, and purely military, state of relations between east and west. And yes , this balance is a balance of potential results not a balance of equipment. Welcome to the american century?

[Adam Shostack]

Fascinating post. I'm surprised that you don't include nuclear weapons in your analysis, as Creveld does in The Tranformation of War.

[Duncan Kinder]

By coincidence, this morning I was reading an old biography of Sir Francis Drake, which included the following passage describing his revolutionary approach to navel warfare against Spain during Elizabethan times:

QUOTE:
...Drake and his contemporaries were lifting naval warfare to a new level, and the farsighted [Walsingham] was the first to learn the lessons their exploits taught. Hitherto the navy had been the mere handmaid of the military, and had been used by belligerents for nothing more than raids upon each other's coasts. But now the wisest heads in England began to divine for it a higher function than the paltry cross-ravaging of the Middle Ages, and to see the tremendous weapon a powerful fleet would be in the hands of a power that used it against an enemy's trade. It is Drake's chief claim to be called a great admiral, that he was the pioneer of this strategic revolution. Above all countries Spain was most exposed to such an attack, and he saw that the moment had come....
CLOSE QUOTE

Not only did this revolution give rise to British sea power, but also - by a century later - it gave rise to the Buccaneers, a motley mélange of British, Dutch, and French Huguenot pirates, privateers, and erstwhile navel officers who swarmed the Spanish Main, further depleting the Spanish Empire.

All of this makes Global Guerillas sound like the Sea Dogs of the 21st century.

[Bruce Sterling]

I really worry that every word of this post is true.

[Adam]

Blimey, the author of "The Difference Engine" no less... Good book by the way.

I also think that the post is bang on. No pun intended.

Even so I would point out that historically the West now spends considerably more money and resources on military activities than it has ever done. It uses these vast resources against opponents who spend very little of either. The resulting cost ratio is in the thousands to one. Iraq for example spent around a billion or so on its military. The US military outspent them by a minimum of 600:1. I would be willing to imagine a 6:1 outspend against Nazi Germany by the US, 60:1 would be impossible to imagine.

The upshot is that current military operations which cost astronomical sums for the West, have to be politically neutral in terms of corpses (ours, not theirs). For example current operations in Iraq have cost each American roughly a $1,000. Thats Iraq alone, all of the other capital costs aren't included: http://washtimes.com/upi/20060823-051747-8542r.htm

The secondary effect to this spending is that whilst (prior to 1939) it would have been quite possible for an American citizen to have lived their lives without seeing much evidence of a US military existing since then its been "uniforms all the way".

I'd actually tend to add an additional point to this list then, the arrival of the military-industrial-policial complex in Western nations politics: it doesn't matter what the problem is as long as it involves really advanced expensive equipment from traditional defence suppliers.

[enigma_foundry]

The post is, I believe a good summary of trends today.

However, the model that it speaks to is what I would call the 'normal' mode of asymmetrical conflict.

The other occurrance is the so-called 'black swans,' which will, I believe punctuate the (relative) equilibrium that occurs in the lulls between these events.

By their very nature, black swans will not be expected, and unless extraordinary imagination ('imagination is more important than intelligence'- Albert Einstein) is brought to bear on the nurturing of a resilient infrastructure (infrastructure used very broadly) with a durable topology, the effects of such a black swan could quite easily lead to USA becoming failed state.

The failing of a Western state will lie at the intersection of War, Media and Disease. The right manipulation of those elements, becoming more and more probable each year, is a catastrophe that the Western Power Structure is incapable of seeing, (see Paul Virilio re: blindness caused by media and science) and therefore is even less capable of responding to.

[enigma_foundry]

It was noted above by Adam:

"I'd actually tend to add an additional point to this list then, the arrival of the military-industrial-political complex in Western nations politics: it doesn't matter what the problem is as long as it involves really advanced expensive equipment from traditional defence suppliers."

Exactly. The power structure, connected to its reference environment only through the economic network that validates it, leads to filtering of critical information. Thus, there exists no no credible bio-defense. Thus, the 43 million without Health Insurance is not seen correctly as a huge national security issue, but _only_ as a left-right social justice issue. Thus, public health systems being controlled, censored and filtered by the National Security establishment, instead of being run by Public Health officials. All recipes for disaster.

See my post at Freedom-to-Tinker.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1030

National Security taking over Public Health Monitoring?

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2004323,00.asp?kc=EWHCREMNL081605EOAD

[Theway2k]

John Robb's essay is not a glowing assessment of the conflict that will come. The conclusion for a Western victory will be very bloody. It is a mindset that must evolve or the Western way of life will be lost.

[Dimitar Vesselinov]

There are some wild cards that could change the whole picture:
- robots
- nanotechnology

Robotic Nation Evidence
http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/

Responsible Nanotechnology
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/

[Carol_Herman]

Maybe, this is like a thin slice under a microscope? It doesn't tell you anything MACRO. And, that would include population shrinkage due to disease. And, crop failures. Also known to have decimated populations in the past.

As to the future of wars, I keep seeing that in the 20th century, we stood back, for years, While the europeans were reaching disaster levels.

And that within societies, something rules. Despots need something to keep their power glue together. And, it ain't pretty.

As to muslem men, even those that don't go to mosques. And, maybe even eat pork. They still want to marry a "very disciplined" woman. And, that means homelife mimics despotic regimes. But the beatings are done on the sly.

A man will kill his own daughter if she's captivated by romance, ya know? Choices don't exist. Education is poor.

And, from what I saw in lebanon, by the pancake collapse of buildings; I also saw when t'sunamis hit. And, devestate coastal regions that are heavily populated by what was one euphamistically referred to as "heathen."

Since the MSM just did faux-photography of dead bodies; why do you assume the West looks away? Or even cares? I don't care. I think it's stupid to try to sway things with propaganda.

And, America's best generals ALWAYS protected their own troops. As did Arik Sharon. That's why you can see a line from Uylesses S. Grant, to Patton, to MacArthur. None of the espoused theory all that much. Grant is famous for saying very little about military strategy except the dictate: YOU BRING THE FIGHT TO YOUR ENEMY.

Which is what Bush has done.

The short term goals of reaching democracy? Can't happen. And, it's never happened in africa. So something needs to be added to the mix. As it takes a certain growth within society to produce Nobel Prize Winners. And, not just the scum of the earth. Sadr and nasrallah are both uneducated jerks. That they can push Englishmen? Ah. Didn't our own Revolutionary Founding Fathers do that?

Europe's really Mickey Mouse. The real large population centers face the Pacific.

And, while it may be easy to terrorize; it's not so easy to win and rule an entire population of disparate spirits.

America is still armed to the teeth. When push comes to shove, there are enough guns out there that a lot of arabs, to this day, are afraid. So don't be fooled by propaganda.

Again, why do muslems stay muslems? When it's probably not the stories of flying imams that controls? The men like to get their goats. And, so the "faith" will continue to browbeat women.

nasrallah, by the way, didn't "win." Nor did the saudis. The saudis were influencing Bush to push the Israelis into attacking syria. Instead, for 3 weeks the IDF kept baiting the trap. But syria didn't touch it.

The UN? Seems they were constantly updating nasrallah on the IDF's movements. SO the IDF moved a lot, but did little. WHile condi blew her reputation on the french.

And, in iraq, the brits couldn't get a toe hold in basra; where their base, once evacuated got ripped apart like gaza. When the Jews left. (Here's a clue. The robbers leave nothing behind of value. And, society, there, loses its beachfront advantage.)

You know, the American injuns survived for hundreds of years; never improving all that much on their culture of savagry. What finally did them in, was when the cattle ranchers decided to kill all the buffalo. Leaving the injuns without food. And, without all the other benefits from the buffalo. Was cattle ranching all that hard to learn?

Warfare's the same.

We don't need to do the "shoot-em-up's" just yet. But in time, when America grows back and respects the military; you'll see the ivory towers, and their giant debt, collapsing.

How so? Grant went to West Point to learn engineering. Back when he went it was a CIVILIAN ticket to employment. But then, you'd have to be a real philosopher to know the basic truths.

[Pierre Legrand]

I agree that we are playing at war. But must disagree that this is the way it is from now on. It is only this way as long as those we are fighting against don't miscalculate and kill too many of us. If New York City is evaporated by some religious freak, think Iran, then the motivations for being reasonable vanish. After all why worry about markets if one of the centers of world commerce is destroyed?

The premise you seem to have of these freaks not getting a hold of a nuclear or worse weapon and using it is pretty shaky. After all if they are not cowed by our invincible Armies driven by weak need politicians what makes anyone think they are dismayed by the prospect of retaliation from our worst weapons? From their perspective they see the worlds most powerful army being wasted by politicians unable to understand the danger of the same world I see.

The problem the enemy will face is the existential threat of our weapons being wielded by people who won't mind using them to destroy entire areas of the middle east. And if after such a devastating attack on our country our current crop of politicians would either wield our weapons in such a manner or be replaced...either by force of ballot.

President Bush did a fair job of moderating the will of the American people after 9/11. I suspect it won't work twice...more and more people understand that Islam means submission, not peace. Ain't no such thing as submission where I live.

[g510]

John, I'll have to disagree re. "..for Western societies, war is no longer existential..."

While your statement may be correct *at present,* we are rapidly approaching a time when competition for basic resources (energy & raw materials) may lead to the revival of "existential" wars involving Western and other industrial powers.

Consider peak oil, regional water shortages, and the impacts of climate change. Presently we see China and India seeking preferential contracts with oil-producing nations. We also see Russia engaged in geopolitical maneuvering based on its power as an energy supplier (oil and natural gas).

The entire point of the Iraq war (the real point, not the Admin fiction about WMDs or the leftie theory about a simple oil grab) was to build a western-friendly regime that would act as a stabilizing influence both in regional political affairs and in terms of oil production. While Iraq was waged according to the "new" standards, the fact remains that it was fundamentally a resource-related war, the first of many to come.

The urgency of resource wars will increase over time until nations can no longer treat them as anything less than existential. If you want to conceptualize this in economic terms, consider the risks of "massive mobilization and economic restructuring for war" compared to the risks of serious shortage of a vital resource. When the former are less upsetting to markets and economies than the latter, one more barrier to "existential war" will be removed.

When "the survival of the state and its peoples" depends, in an acute and immediate way, on the procurement of resources that are held or threatened by hostile nations or subnational groups, you will have your "cohesive and singular reason for war."

When these circumstances coalesce, you will see a return to the threat of existential war and the increased likelihood of it actually occurring. We can hope that some of the moral advances of recent conflicts, e.g. doctrinal changes that seek to minimize noncombatant casualties, will be retained.

[Adam]

g510,

There have been a number of oil-wars in the past. From a certain perspective the Falklands War was one. As was Desert Storm. Alternatively the British goverment sent thousands of troops across the world to protect the virginity of thousands of British sheep from rampaging Argentine soldiers - instead of the potential oilfields of the South Atlantic; whilst the US rushed to support two dodgy family dictatorships (Kuwait and Saudi) from a long standing and highly trusted pro-American dictator. This was after the Kuwaitis had been caught stealing Iraqi oil, which the Iraqis had planned to use to pay off Kuwaiti debts but the Kuwaitis thought that stealing the stuff would be better. Iraq invaded Kuwait, the US invaded Iraq.

Then again there's the colonial history to consider; looking at the Middle East we have the British Invasions of Iran and Iraq in 1940 and 41. You might wonder about the British invading nations when their homeland is at stake; clearly something more important than Sealion was going on. Elsewhere we have the Japanese invasion of the British Empire (supported by a spoiling attack at Pearl Harbour) to get at the oil resources of Borneo. None of these required fundamental restructuring of the economy however, its the long war that followed that needed it. Rather like today. Invading Afghanistan didn't require economic restructing, but holding it for the next 3 decades will.

All of these were - to an extent - about oil but then is any war about one thing? For current Iraq we could as easily talk about oil, or defense contracts, or Israeli influence or Bush's more than somewhat Oedipal family relationships. Whats changed is that in reality its currently a lot cheaper to buy it than steal it via armed robbery. When planes cost a billion each thats a lot of oil.

Which brings us to Iran. Its clear that the US intends to invade Iran and current US intelligence briefings are intended to create an identical climate of fear in the US as occured before the Iraq invasion. I had thought that they'd do it in July, but I'm now being told September or October. The reason is - again to an extent - that the Iranians plan to sell their oil, and use nuclear power to enable them to do so, whereas of course we want to buy it at our price. Then there's the Iranian oil bourse using Euros and not dollars. The fact that the Iranians did so well out of the Iraqi invasion rankles too. This isn't a battle for existance, its an armed robbery - fair play but hardly new.

The irony is that we know the US invasion will be a failure, just like Iraq and Lebanon have been, for the reasons that John lists above. One of the nice things about being here is being wise before the event.

[syberberg]

Adam,

There was also a British invasion of Iraq at the begining of the First World War (Novemeber 6th, 1914, if memory serves). Coincidentally just after the Royal Navy, rapidly followed by the German Navy, changed from coal as primary fuel source to oil (diesel). This prevented the creation of the Berlin-Byzantium-Baghdad railway and would've come under German control.

It could equally be argued that this action had legitimate military aims, ie protect Royal Navy supremacy, but it was still a campaign faught over oil.

[Cavolonero]

The breakthrough post / John Robb has become the Bodhisavatta of 4GW

[dan]

Cavolanero:

I presume you're aware that oil wasn't discovered in Iraq until the late 1920's in Kirkuk; and the southern oil fields weren't discovered until, IIRC, after WWII.

The 1914 "invasion" was a Government of India venture, reluctantly agreed to by London; they were supposed to take Basra and keep the Turks out of Ahvaz, and the IEF lacked the manpower and resources to do any more than that.

Their motivations were as follows:

(1) Muslim sentiment in India re the Turko-German alliance.

(2) Treaty obligations to the Shaikh of Kuwait, who was threatened by Turkish manouevres at the head of the gulf.

(3) Keeping the Turks out of Abadan and ensuring that the anglo-Persian oil fields were secure.

The 2 tangibles had been achieved by mid-1915, at which point the actual invasion of the region beyond Basra takes place. This was, again, a Government of India decision, not a London decision, and was strenuously opposed by Nixon, who was supposed to run the operation.

[Patrick]

Very interesting post John. You really hit the nail on the head with your observations into the how 21st century economics are changing the nature of war, i.e. mercenaries, war as market stabilization.

I did however take issue with one sentence; "Given the lack of the cohesive and singular reason for war -- the survival of the state and its people through the elimination of its enemies -- the reasons for warfare will drift." I don't think this is entirely true, as we saw in the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. Among the numerous arguments Bush/Cheney stated as the cause for war was that Iraq posed a "clear and present danger" to the U.S. Clearly, this sort of language and other rhetoric by war supporters was meant to evoke the emotion that the survival of America in the post-911 world was threatened by the mere existence of rogue states such as Iraq.

I think it's pretty clear that although the actual survival of the state is no longer in question in the vast majority of these wars, the case is still made for war based on the old argument of survival of the state. And we're beginnning to see the resurgence of that survival argument in the news surrounding Iran's nuclear program. It will be interesting to see how the various populations this rhetoric is aimed at will handle another "clear and present danger" to their existence, or if the wool has been pulled from their eyes.

[Andy]

Excellent post that describes the current state of events very well. However, I see this as new and different only when compared to the 20th century, and only when compared to the first half of that century.

As the only superpower it's unlikely we'll see an existential military threat in the near future. In some ways, the US is in a similar position to Britain after Trafalgar. As the supreme world naval power for the next hundred years, one could argue Britain didn't face an existential military threat either, being an island nation. That did not stop numerous bloody campaigns and proxy wars as Britain tried to hold its empire together.

The major difference today, in my opinion, is that the media battlefield is perhaps more important in some ways than the real one. Triumph in conflict can turn into a pyrrhic victory if an adversary can win the media war. So far, our adversaries have proven more skilled and adept at fighting the media war than western democracies. Governments, no longer able to rely on censorship to manage the media message, have so far failed to adjust to this new reality, especially in the non-domestic media.

[Adam]

Patrick,

The problem with the "case for war" as presented by Powell, Cheney, Bush and others was that it was complete marsh gas. It was intended to scare ill-informed and easily led people into a stampede for war, and it succeeded.

But the threat was not existential. Even had the weapons actually existed (and they didn't) the US wasn't threatened by them. There is no evidence that containment failed, nor is there evidence that Sadaam intended to attack the US (rather the reverse - the number of US casualties in the 12 year long containment operation was zero).

A bad analogy - I tell someone that a dead rat is a beefburger and they believe me. It doesn't make it a beefburger, it remains a dead rat.

[jomama]

"Collapsing rogue states"

Even collapsing states that don't consider themselves rogue.

Fat lady warming up in the wings now...

http://djomama.blogspot.com/2006/07/its-official.html

[mjk1093]

This post states: "as the rest of the world gains capacity through globalization, the delta in training and technology will diminish"

'Delta' means an amount of change in one variable over time, not the difference between two variables at the same time - unless it has a different meaning in poli sci than in math.

Other than that, great article.

[Azrael]

mjk1093
You should read it as deltas, plural. The meaning being the difference between the u.s. hegemony's level of training and technology and the rest of the world. With time this gap is narrowing according to the authour.

In math greek delta is shorthand for the difference in one variable, the derivative using newton's notation could be considered that difference as it infinitesmally approaches zero in terms of another variable and that can be optimized for any variable , not necessarily time.

In engineering, there is a term called delta-vee, which is often just called called delta by engineers,this term is strictly limited to time being the other variable, this may be what you are thinking of.

[mjk1093]

Yes, I admit it... I have a (never used) engineering degree. Although in my defense I know that the independent variable doesn't always have to be time.

[mjk1093]

Yes, I admit it... I have a (never used) engineering degree. Although in my defense I know that the independent variable doesn't always have to be time.

[Adam]

John,

Given Bush's recent desperate speeches to, among others, the American Legion comparing the current situation to world war 2 I'd suggest that even the dimmest politician is beginning to agree with you that "Escalation is a false God that promises a return of the motivational clarity found in the wars of the 20th Century.".

Bush's latest antics (they can hardly be described as policies or beliefs) suggest that the US faces some all encompassing threat on the order of 1940s Germany or Japan. Or Aliens from Mars.

Its a tribute to the weakness of the US that, at the same time as their leaders are proclaiming World War Three (Islam v Christianity...The Clash of Civilisations), with over 50% of the US population no longer believing a word of the babble, it remains politically impossible to do what was easily done in WW2: Mass Conscription, War Loans and Bonds, Nationalisation, Rationing...

And the modern day solution? Invade Iran, again. It does start to feel like 1941 all over again. That time it took the Iranians 5 years to defeat the Russians who retreated from Iran in 1946.