16,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: And Political Theory
- Sprache: Englisch
In a world that continues to be riven by armed conflict, the fundamental moral and political questions raised by warfare are as important as ever. Under what circumstances are we justified in going to war? Can conflicts be waged in a 'moral' way? Is war an inevitable feature of a world driven by power politics? What are the new ethical challenges raised by new weapons and technology, from drones to swarming attack robots? This book is an engaging and up-to-date examination of these questions and more, penned by a foremost expert in the field. Using many historical cases, it examines all the core disputes and doctrines, ranging from realism to pacifism, from just war theory and international law, to feminism and the democratic peace thesis. Its scope stretches from the primordial causes and perennial drivers of war to the cyber-centric space-age future of armed conflict in the 21st century. War and Political Theory is essential reading for anyone, whether advanced expert or undergraduate, who wants to understand the pressing empirical realities and theoretical issues, historical and contemporary, associated with armed conflict.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 368
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Ähnliche
CONTENTS
Cover
Front Matter
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The Ontology of War
1.1 The Elements of War
1.2 Military Capability in General, Weaponry in Particular
1.3 What Causes War, and Is There a Solution?
1.4 Conclusion
Notes
2 Realism: Power, Security, and Nationalism
2.1 Realism in General
2.2 Classical versus Structural Realism
2.3 More on Power, and Further Realist Insight into War’s Origins
2.4 The Tools of Foreign Policy
2.5 Rival Criticisms and Realist Responses
2.6 Conclusion
Notes
3 Pacifism: Ethics, Cosmopolitanism, and Non-violence
3.1 Defining Pacifism
3.2 Describing and Evaluating TP: War at Odds with Virtue and Human Flourishing
3.3 Describing and Evaluating CP: War’s Costs Always Exceed Its “Benefits”
3.4 Describing and Evaluating DP: War Violates Basic Moral Duties
3.5 Conclusion
Notes
4 Just War Theory and International Law: Start-of-War
4.1 Standard, Classical Jus ad Bellum
4.2 Non-standard, Contemporary Amendments to Jus ad Bellum
4.3 Conclusion
Notes
5 Just War Theory and International Law: Conduct-during-War
5.1 The Function of the Jus in Bello
5.2 The Six Rules of Right Conduct in War
5.3 Reprisal for “Supreme Emergency”? Justification versus Excuse
5.4 Excuse Again, and the “Moral Equality of Soldiers” Debate
5.5 Rules for the Rich? An Objection by Some Non-State Actors
5.6 Conclusion
Notes
6 Just War Theory and International Law: End-of-War
6.1 The Three Big Theories, Historically, on Post-War Justice
6.2 Drawing on Some International Law
6.3 Drawing on Historical Policies of Post-War Justice
6.4 Eizenstat’s “Gaps” Analysis
6.5 Conclusion
Notes
7 The Future of Warfare
7.1 The More Things Change …
7.2 Emerging Military Technologies and Tactics (EMTs)
7.3 Cyber-warfare
7.4 A Glimmer of Hope? The Democratic Peace Thesis
Notes
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Pages
Page ii
Page iii
Page iv
Page vi
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
Page 25
Page 26
Page 27
Page 28
Page 29
Page 30
Page 31
Page 32
Page 33
Page 34
Page 35
Page 36
Page 37
Page 38
Page 39
Page 40
Page 41
Page 42
Page 43
Page 44
Page 45
Page 46
Page 47
Page 48
Page 49
Page 50
Page 51
Page 52
Page 53
Page 54
Page 55
Page 56
Page 57
Page 58
Page 59
Page 60
Page 61
Page 62
Page 63
Page 64
Page 65
Page 66
Page 67
Page 68
Page 69
Page 70
Page 71
Page 72
Page 73
Page 74
Page 75
Page 76
Page 77
Page 78
Page 79
Page 80
Page 81
Page 82
Page 83
Page 84
Page 85
Page 86
Page 87
Page 88
Page 89
Page 90
Page 91
Page 92
Page 93
Page 94
Page 95
Page 96
Page 97
Page 98
Page 99
Page 100
Page 101
Page 102
Page 103
Page 104
Page 105
Page 106
Page 107
Page 108
Page 109
Page 110
Page 111
Page 112
Page 113
Page 114
Page 115
Page 116
Page 117
Page 118
Page 119
Page 120
Page 121
Page 122
Page 123
Page 124
Page 125
Page 126
Page 127
Page 128
Page 129
Page 130
Page 131
Page 132
Page 133
Page 134
Page 135
Page 136
Page 137
Page 138
Page 139
Page 140
Page 141
Page 142
Page 143
Page 144
Page 145
Page 146
Page 147
Page 148
Page 149
Page 150
Page 151
Page 152
Page 153
Page 154
Page 155
Page 156
Page 157
Page 158
Page 159
Page 160
Page 161
Page 162
Page 163
Page 164
Page 165
Page 166
Page 167
Page 168
Page 169
Page 170
Page 171
Page 172
Page 173
Page 174
Page 175
Page 176
Page 177
Page 178
Page 179
Page 180
Page 181
Page 182
Page 183
Page 184
Page 185
Page 212
And Political Theory series
Hawkesworth, Gender and Political TheoryOrend, War and Political Theory
War and Political Theory
Brian Orend
polity
Copyright © Brian Orend 2019
The right of Brian Orend to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2019 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press101 Station LandingSuite 300Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2500-3
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Orend, Brian, 1971- author.Title: War and political theory / Brian Orend.Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2019. | Series: And political theory | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2018039928 (print) | LCCN 2018056307 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509525003 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509524969 | ISBN 9781509524969(hardback) | ISBN 9781509524976(pbk.) | ISBN 9781509525003(ebook)Subjects: LCSH: War (Philosophy) | Politics and war. | War--Moral and ethical aspects. | Just war doctrine.Classification: LCC U22 (ebook) | LCC U22 .O638 2019 (print) | DDC 355.0201--dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018039928
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Acknowledgements
Thanks so much to everyone at Polity for helping to bring this book into being. Special thanks to Julia Davies, and extra-special thanks to George Owers, for the initial invitation to join the series and for very helpful, constructive editing efforts. Plus, for patience! Thanks to Neil de Cort for his production expertise, and also to Adam Renvoize for the excellent cover. Thanks so much, too, to my anonymous reviewers and to my copy-editor Ian Tuttle: the result of all the excellent feedback is a much-improved book.
A bit of an unusual dedication but sincerely expressed: I’d like very much to thank everyone who’s ever invited me to come to their institution to talk about war and peace. Such invitations have been amazingly generous and the source of much stimulation and happiness for me over the years. Thanks again, and here’s to the continuing conversation!
Brian OrendAugust 2018
Introduction
Our world can seem in constant conflict. Such struggles range from bullying and bitter Twitter debates all the way up to crime, terrorism, and war. War is, historically, one of the most impactful forms of conflict, shaping all our lives. Even if you haven’t been personally involved in war – whether through fighting or fleeing fighting – it has been involved with you. The social institutions of your country, for example, have been deeply determined by the wars of the past. This may have decided the very language you use to speak and think, and the population of people from which you’ve chosen your friends and loved ones. Many of today’s most prized pieces of technology – notably, the Internet and mobile phones – began as military inventions. Into the future, the realities of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), campaigns of cyber-harms, and the rivalrous schemes of such countries as America and Russia, as well as China, Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia (and let’s not forget all those armed non-state actors like al-Qaeda and ISIS) will configure some of the contours of our common life.
This book strives to widen and deepen reflection on three crucial questions about war: What is war? What should we do about it? And: How will war unfold in the future? In other words, this book aims to both describe and analyze war as a vitally important factual phenomenon, both now and into the future, as well as to evaluate war from a prescriptive or normative point of view. Ideally, this book aims to do so in a way both accessible and instructive for those with minimal education about armed conflict, yet will still stimulate worthwhile thinking, and rewarding questions, even amongst those with advanced background in the subject. The ambition is genuinely interdisciplinary, drawing heavily on facts and real-world cases, both historical and (mainly) contemporary, as well as such diverse theoretical resources as applied ethics, feminism, military strategy, philosophy, political science, and international law. The approach here is less one of arguing in favor of a particular theory or perspective and much more one of crafting an excellent, detached understanding of the pros and cons of the most important theories, and the most meaningful factual contexts which make the theories come alive.
Though the ontology of war is, inescapably, present throughout the whole book – “ontology” meaning the nature or reality of something – it will inform chapter 1 especially, and be rejoined at the end in chapter 7. It is pivotal to define and examine war in its manifold forms – e.g., civil versus international, symmetrical versus asymmetrical – alongside its various actors, and their means and ends of action, prior to a rewarding discussion of what we should do about it. There is not much point making judgments about, or recommendations for, something without knowing its form and nature, and how these evolve through time.
When we turn to such value judgments – in chapters 2–6 – we shall do so while drawing most heavily on what have been, and remain today, the three most foundational, detailed, influential, and richly suggestive theories. They are on a logical continuum, as shown in table I.1.
One such theory states that we should never go to war, especially when we know from history how devastating it is, how costly, brutal, and painful it is, and how frequently wars do not unfold the way one hopes or predicts. And there are compelling moral reasons, and abiding ethical principles, as to why we should not deliberately kill our fellow human beings, much less on the mass scale (and for “merely political” reasons) demanded by warfare. This, of course, would be the doctrine of pacifism, and it occupies what is arguably the optimistic and idealistic extreme in this regard: there’s always a superior option to war-fighting, and in terms of violent armed conflict, nothing is permissible and war should be outlawed and banned. A simple slogan of pacifism, in connection with war, might be: “Nothing goes!”
Table I.1 Continuum of Foundational Theories about Warfare
JWT, just war theory; LOAC, laws of armed conflict
Realism
JWT/LOAC
Pacifism
Pessimistic extreme
Middle ground
Optimistic extreme
About war:
“anything goes”
About war:
“sometimes,
something goes”
About war:
“nothing goes”
One large internal division: Classical vs. Structural realism
One large internal division: Traditional vs. Revisionist JWT
One large internal division: Religious vs. Secular pacifism
At the other extreme, the bleak and pessimistic one, would be realism. Realists tend to view all of human relations – or, at least, all of international relations – as governed by an endless power struggle. War is an entirely predictable consequence of this fact, as it’s one major method humans have to try to gain and hold power. There might not even be much we can do about it: there’s certainly no historical reason for thinking we can successfully ban warfare, or do away with it completely, as we all march together peacefully into a sun-lit future. To the extent to which we can do something about armed conflict, it should be to try to ensure that, when we get involved in warfare, we do so only because it’s manifestly in our self-interest (i.e., that it’s worth our while in terms of cost–benefit analysis) and, once we’re in it, we should be in it to win. So, anything conducive to the end of victory is fair game, and should be considered according to the same self-interested cost–benefit calculation as the original decision to go to war. Thus, the simple slogan capturing the essence of realism, in connection with war, might be: “Anything goes!”
To complete our basic logical continuum: if one option is to let anything happen in connection with war, and just leave it to the vicissitudes of perpetual power struggle; and if another option is to condemn all warfare absolutely, and assert that it’s never the proper thing to do, then of course that would leave a middle-ground option, according to which sometimes war might be both wise and even morally permissible, whereas other times it’s ill-considered and even unethical. This is the core proposition of just war theory or JWT (sometimes, war might be morally justified). It’s also an axiom of the so-called “laws of armed conflict” (LOAC) which have been agreed upon by most state governments around the world as one form of international law. Though the relationship between JWT and LOAC is not totally straightforward, as we’ll see and explore, it does make substantial sense to suggest they are close conceptual allies in this regard.
JWT/LOAC is thus the most complicated of the three basic doctrines or theories, as it takes quite a bit of time, effort, and complexity to specify which exactly are the times when war might be smart and just, and which other times it’s unwise or unjust. Realism and pacifism are more streamlined and straightforward, as they are more conceptually “pure” and one-sided in their attitude and understanding. This has the virtue of making them easier to understand and develop, and to see their forceful strengths, but may come at the cost of being more extreme and, in the end, harder to endorse overall. We will see that JWT/LOAC has substantial problems of its own. Alas, the perfect perspective on warfare may yet to have been invented. But such realities explain the breakdown of this book: after some good definitions and salient facts, we can orient ourselves quickly and powerfully by looking at the basic theories at either extreme of opinion. Realism thus gets chapter 2, and pacifism chapter 3. Then, we need more time and effort to explore the complex middle ground which, in a sense, attempts to split the difference. So, chapters 4–6 will analyze and critically evaluate JWT/LOAC, applying it fruitfully to many concrete cases.
We won’t ignore other theories – such as anthropology, Freudian psychology, “IR theory,” and the democratic peace thesis – and will draw upon them when the time is right. Moreover, we’ll pay considerable attention to the internal pluralism, and issues of division, within each of The Big Three theories. There are a number of such internal divides, and some of the most elemental are charted in Table I.1. In any event: the heart and soul of this book, when it comes to the issue of what to do about armed conflict and warfare, is to explore in rigorous, colorful, factually informed fashion, the powerfully stimulating and instructive debate between realism, pacifism, and JWT/LOAC, alongside the internal debate each tradition has regarding how best to view and apply its own core ideas and values. Out of such a spirited conceptual clash comes deeper theoretical understanding as well as a greater practical grasp of what we might do about the specter of constant conflict.
1The Ontology of War
Ontology, as we’ve seen, means the being, nature, or reality of a thing. Our investigations into war’s ontology in this chapter will thus involve definitions, components, key players, and theories regarding the ultimate causes and origins of warfare.
War is well defined, at least initially, as an actual, intentional, and widespread armed conflict between groups of people. This is true whether these groups are within one country (civil war) or in different countries (international warfare).1
Nearly every country in the world has suffered from a civil war at some point in its history, often with profound impact on its future. There is a civil war raging today in Syria, for example, between the government and those who wish to overthrow it. This brutal conflict has destroyed entire cities, killed nearly half a million people, and sent millions more fleeing for their lives as refugees into countries as diverse and far-flung as Turkey, Germany, Canada, Lebanon, and Australia.2
There are of course thousands of examples of international warfare between countries, perhaps most impactfully the two world wars: World War I (1914–18), which saw about 20 million people killed, and the largest single war in human history, World War II (1939–45), which involved more than 50 countries and saw at least 50 million people killed (recent research suggests the number may actually be more than 70 million). Both conflicts had profound effects on the world. New weapons were invented, ranging from the tank to nuclear bombs; the modern Middle East was deeply shaped, both for good and ill; the old empires of Europe (especially the world-wide ones of Britain and France) began to fall apart forever; discriminatory, undemocratic, mega-violent regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan were destroyed; and the two largest winners of the second war, America (USA) and Soviet Russia (USSR), immediately plunged into a world-wide Cold War between themselves, which was to last for the next 50 years, taking us into our own time.3
1.1 The Elements of War
Let’s analyze further the elements within our basic definition of war. A war, whether civil or international, must be actual. This is to say that there must be actual fighting, and the deployment of armed force and violent physical attacks – as opposed to mere threats, angry talk, a military build-up along the border, and even policies like economic sanctions, which are blockades or bans on commercial trade with a target country. All these other measures, while no doubt intended to influence (or manipulate, or even coerce) the target country or group, do not count as acts of war. Logically, it simply must involve violence – physical force, designed to harm and coerce the other4– for it to count as war. Sometimes today the term “hot war” is employed in this regard: an actual, violent, shooting war between the opponents, involving killing, injury, property destruction, and such like, as opposed to other terms, like “phony war” or most clearly “The Cold War.” The “phony war,” for example, was a period very early on in World War II, after Nazi Germany had invaded Poland in 1939 – triggering declarations of war from Britain and France – but before any further fighting happened, which came several months later in 1940, when the Nazis launched their blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) to very rapidly invade and conquer France and Holland, serving up a stunning initial setback for the Allies.5
The Cold War, as mentioned, refers to the complex, multi-faceted world-wide struggle – from the end of World War II in 1945 until approximately 1989–91 – between the two largest winning powers of that war, namely the US and the USSR. These two “super-powers” each represented totally different forms of political and socio-economic organization: with America being the leader and champion of democratic, free-market, liberal capitalism and Russia serving as the symbol of undemocratic, centrally planned, “scientific” communism. As these countries were both so powerful, and in particular had developed such enormous arsenals of nuclear weapons, they really couldn’t dare to go to war against each other, lest mutual destruction occur. But they were bitter enemies, committed to the defeat and collapse of each other’s political values and social systems. So, it was a “cold war”: no direct violence (or hot, killing war) between the two, yet still a committed and costly multi-generational effort, using a variety of methods, to bring about the defeat of the other. Eventually America won, and the Soviet Union collapsed, with such symbols of the Cold War as the Berlin Wall crumbling in 1989, and elected governments coming into power throughout Central and Eastern Europe in the early- to mid-1990s. It is sometimes jokingly said that the Cold War is the only major war with zero casualties, yet global consequences.6
But that’s not quite true, actually: the “zero casualties” part. For, even though the USA and USSR could never afford to fight each other directly in a hot war – lest it escalate to the point of world-wide nuclear devastation – they each nevertheless funded and armed, and manipulated and allied themselves with, various groups and countries around the world, who themselves engaged in hot wars. This phenomenon is important, and it’s called a “proxy war.” This is when powerful rival countries support other, lesser players, and essentially get them to “fight their battles for them,” as a way to harass, impose costs on, and thwart the agenda of the other powerful rival. The Cold War was filled with many proxy wars, which generated millions of deaths and injuries, and affected the fate of regions as diverse as Southeast Asia (e.g., Vietnam), the Caribbean and Central America (e.g., Cuba and Nicaragua), and sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Mozambique and the Congo). Proxy wars endure today; one of the reasons why Syria’s civil war has been raging for so long is because regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia – bitter rivals within the Middle East, for ethnic, cultural, and religious reasons – have treated it like a proxy war between themselves, each arming and enabling different local actors or belligerents (i.e., those who do the fighting in a war).7
Back to the elements of our initial definition of war: the armed conflict in question must not merely be actual, but also intentional and widespread. The belligerents must, in some robust sense, truly want to go to war with each other, and to cause each other substantial harm. Traditionally, this has been signaled through things like a formal, public declaration of war by some official government body, be it the head of the executive branch (usually, the head of state such as a president) or, instead, a majority vote in the legislative branch (like a parliament or congress). While such proclamations do signal hostile intentions, they don’t of themselves count as war: witness “the phony war” above, for example, wherein there had been declarations but no actual fighting yet. The reverse can be true, too: deliberate, war-scale violence has been known to occur in the absence of such public declarations (like the early stages of the Vietnam War, until the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1964, or many proxy wars, such as in Syria, wherein Iran and Saudi Arabia have never declared war on each other). The actual behavior is the crucial thing, or test; and thus, many experts think that we should see the “deliberate intentions” part going together with the “widespread” part as an indicator of actual war: presumably, there cannot be widespread exchange of “hot war” physical violence without the belligerents sincerely wanting that to happen, and setting all that into motion. This may be important to distinguish a genuine war from things which might look like war (or are indicators of imminent war) yet which aren’t.
Consider that sometimes some fighting can break out between isolated military units who are on patrol along a tense international border. There were reports of fisticuffs between border patrols along the India–China border in the summer of 2017, for example, and sporadic shots are quite regularly fired across the India–Pakistan border. We can see how such can readily happen: a few hot-headed words occur, someone gets angry and fires a shot across the border, return shots are fired, there might even be a casualty or two before the heated exchange ends. But we wouldn’t say that, therefore, there’s now a war between these two countries. Sometimes the chain of command breaks down, and there are some soldiers, or even whole units of soldiers, which in the heat of the moment have been known to do their own thing, even in defiance or violation of their own government’s orders. So, here’s a clear illustration of how the requirements of deliberate intent and widespread violence go together: such border skirmishes do not show the intent of the respective national governments to go to full-blown war against each other, and the killing isn’t widespread enough for us to clearly diagnose a war in action. There needs to be a certain quantum of force, and killing, for us to talk about war.
Now: what quantum, exactly? How many people need to be killed before we can talk of war? Social scientists for a long time have used the figure and language of “1,000 battlefield casualties” (i.e., deaths and severe injuries) to diagnose when a war has actually broken out. On the one hand, this number seems arbitrary: why not 2,000? Why not 800? On the other, the number was selected as a serious standard to distinguish between a true war between determined belligerents who are “in it” for the long haul and, say, a large-scale police action (like a raid on a criminal gang’s headquarters, which produces 25 deaths in a shoot-out); or an urban riot between different private groups of people (such as in times of extreme racial or ethnic tension), resulting in the deaths of 47 people over the course of a hot summer weekend. One thousand is also a number which can actually be counted, and therefore is empirical and evidence-based. The standard has also been chosen because 1,000 seems to reveal that element of hostile intention: presumably, so many people cannot be killed or severely injured by violence unless the belligerents are truly committing to the significant and ongoing use of physical force to try to achieve whatever objective they have in mind. And why “battlefield” casualties? Precisely to distinguish between a war and other mass-casualty events like earthquakes, famines, epidemics, some terrible accident like a plane crash, and so on. And don’t let the “battlefield” induce too many historical images. The term is still used, not so much to refer to so-called “set-piece battles” on an old-school battlefield – such as the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, which saw the final defeat of Napoleon – the language is retained to show that it must be deliberate fighting between belligerents who genuinely want to go to war against each other, whether such is in a field, in the jungle, in underground cave networks, in dense urban environments, or indeed on the water or in the air.8
There’s further value in something like “the 1,000 battlefield casualties” standard: if we apply it, we see that there have been more than 200 wars (including both civil and international wars) in the last 100 years alone. So, on average, there are two new wars every single year: a fact which is important to know and may have serious implications for how we think about politics, both domestic and international, as well as the use of deliberate, killing violence as a tool in pursuit of a political agenda. At the time of writing in 2018, there seem to be, around the world, about 14 genuine wars ongoing – and perhaps close to 50 more if one drops a bit below the 1,000 casualties standard. War, clearly, is a grave, regular, and ongoing feature of human history, shaping nearly everyone’s experience and life in some way, either directly or indirectly. This naturally raises questions as to whether anything can, or should, be done about it, which forms an undercurrent to this entire book.9
The next element of our basic definition of war as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between groups of people is the “armed conflict” part. By this, we mean the use of weapons and physical violence with the intention of inflicting damage and harm upon people in an effort to get them to do what you want. About weapons: more in a minute. Ditto for “groups of people.” For now, consider the thoughts of one of the few so-called “philosophers of war,” Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz was both a soldier and a strategist. He was a Prussian (East German) officer during the Napoleonic Wars (1800–15), and over 16 long years wrote a landmark book called On War, still studied at today’s military academies around the world. It’s mainly about military strategy but also contains meaningful philosophical reflections on the essence of war. His most famous quote is that “war is the continuation of politics by other means,” commonly interpreted to imply that war is just another tool people use to try to get what they want, and that warfare centrally revolves around the distribution of power between groups of people. We’ll come back to such notions. For now, note Clausewitz’s own definition of war: “an act of violence, intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.” War “is like a duel,” he concludes, “only on an extensive scale.”10 Such an account seems consistent with what we have offered here.
Before analyzing the “groups” component of our initial definition of war, there are two further aspects to mention, before leaving them on the table for deeper consideration at the right time in later chapters. In chapter 4, we’ll delve into the LOAC’s definition of war, which revolves in the first instance around the use of physical force across a border in violation of state sovereignty. The thick concept of “aggression” is crucial here, and raises complexities regarding civil wars and other phenomena – like genocide and ethnic cleansing – which look an awful lot like war yet which may not spill over an international border.
In chapter 7, we’ll consider how the rise of advanced computer technologies has enabled malign, harmful cyber-attacks between groups. Is cyberwar truly war? Obviously, cyber-tools can complement and further conventional, physical war as we’ve defined it. But does cyber also mark a unique kind of war, consistent with our initial definition? There’s a spirited debate about this which we’ll rejoin at book’s end, as we ponder whether the nature of warfare itself is changing as we move into the future.
1.1.1 Which Groups?
We’ve already distinguished between two kinds of groups which might get involved in warfare: competing groups within one country, sparking civil war, or else two or more different countries, in classic international warfare. An important distinction used today is between so-called symmetrical and asymmetrical warfare. Symmetrical warfare refers to “old school,” government versus government, warfare, like the world wars: epic clashes between official national militaries. (“Symmetry” in the abstract sense of “balanced,” “one-to-one,” or – most accurately – “between the same sorts of thing.”) More recent cases of symmetrical warfare would include the two wars involving Iraq. First there was the Persian Gulf War of 1991, to drive the Iraqi military out of neighboring Kuwait, which it had invaded and conquered the previous year (mainly to get Kuwait’s oil, but also because Iraq’s President, Saddam Hussein, wanted to give his huge military something to do, following its displeasure at his having called off Iraq’s war with despised rival Iran the year before). The United States led that quick war – successful in the sense of ejecting Iraq from Kuwait – and was joined by nearly 30 allied countries from around the world (including Arab countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia). This was quite unlike the case in the second war, in 2003, when the US only received the support of the UK, as for various controversial reasons George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, and the forcible removal of Saddam’s regime, resulting in prolonged and problematic US occupation of that country.11
Asymmetrical warfare refers, by contrast, to armed conflict between a government and various “non-state actors” (thus, “asymmetry” in the sense of “between different kinds, or levels, of thing”). The official government of a country, we know, is that country’s “state.” Thus, a non-state actor refers to an organization which is not in any way part of the official government of that country. Non-state actors are of increasing importance in today’s politics, both nationally and internationally; the most influential of them range from business corporations to media sources (both old and new), and from religious associations (like churches) to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) focused on performing a specific task, often on a not-for-profit basis and focused on important social issues like protecting the environment (Greenpeace), human rights (Amnesty International), or emergency medical care (Doctors Without Borders).12
Alas, not all non-state actors are peaceful, nor are they all selflessly focused on humanitarian causes which benefit the world. These are the sorts of non-state actors typically involved in asymmetrical warfare. They could include:
Revolutionaries or insurgents
: i.e., those trying to overthrow the official government of a country, and replace it. Examples range from those sparking the French Revolution (1789), the Russian Revolution (1917), and the Chinese Revolution (1949), to Iran’s more recent revolution (1979), wherein the old “Shah” or king was overthrown and replaced by a regime committed to the use of state power to realize a strict religious vision, in this case that of an immoderate understanding of Islam. This regime, founded by Ayatollah Khomeini, is still in power today.
13
Armed separatists
who wish to leave a particular country, taking some territory and population with them, and forming their own, new, independent country. A classic example would be the American revolutionaries who wished to secede from the British Empire and form their own new country, sparking the US Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. Perhaps the largest group of people right now like this are the Kurds, an ethnic group whose traditional territory overlaps with the existing countries of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The Kurds are often referred to as the world’s largest “stateless nation,” and they have taken up arms on a range of fronts – against each of the governments above – in search of the establishment of their own new, separate country, Kurdistan.
14
Terrorists
, such as al-Qaeda or ISIS. Terrorism, strictly, is a tactic, and not a full-blown “ism” (i.e., a political ideology, or detailed conception of social justice like liberal capitalism). Terrorism refers to the use of random, deadly violence – especially aimed at the non-military, civilian population – with the hopes of spreading fear (terror) throughout that population, believing that such widespread fear will advance an agenda which the terrorist group has. So, al-Qaeda attacked America on 9/11 in 2001, killing thousands of civilians, with the goal of having the American people pressure the US federal government to get out of Middle Eastern politics, thereby strengthening the hand of radical Islamic groups like al-Qaeda (so that they might be able, for example, to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia – long armed and supported by the US – and establish an Islamic state there, in the holy land of Islam). Or consider all the recent truck attacks on civilian tourist centers in Western Europe, by ISIS, wherein the intended goals of such strikes might include: (1) harming a society they see as utterly opposed to their values; (2) getting revenge on a country whose military is involved in harming their interests in the Middle East; and/or (3) using such attacks for propaganda purposes to recruit new members and to inspire existing members.
15
Private military companies (PMCs)
: These are better known, historically, as mercenaries: i.e., people who fight in war merely for personal wages and not for any moral cause, political reason, or national loyalty. Mercenaries actually have a very long history within warfare (e.g., many of the battles in the American Revolution were actually fought between the American revolutionaries and German mercenaries from the principality of Hesse, hired by the King of England). Today’s PMCs hate being called mercenaries, yet the fact remains that they do what they do for the sake of money. Most PMC staff are ex-military, who’ve moved over into PMCs in search of higher wages: they tend to be viewed dimly by those still inside national military establishments. There are many PMCs today in sub-Saharan Africa, and they are often employed by national governments as a way to minimize the involvement of their official militaries (thereby keeping down unpopular things, such as “the body count” of their own official soldiers). During the recent post-war occupation of Iraq, the US government hired a number of PMCs – such as Blackwater (now called “Academi”) – not so much to fight on its behalf but, rather, to do things like hold and help police an Iraqi town after the US military had won it in battle against insurgents and needed to move on to the next. We might see how that
could
be an important and understandable service, deserving of reward, and yet questions remain about accountability and legitimacy when it comes to authorizing the use of potentially deadly force by a non-state actor, much less one devoted to private profit.
16
Well-armed and violent criminal enterprises
, such as drug cartels: Recent examples would include Colombia and the Philippines, but especially Mexico, wherein the national government is pitted in a violent, ongoing conflict with gangs which smuggle people and drugs into the United States, and the scale of such violence over recent years has reached near-warlike intensity and casualties. In some regions of Mexico, it’s actually not clear whether the government actually has control and the ability to govern, as compared with the well-resourced, well-armed, and utterly vicious drug lords. The situation certainly blurs the line between a police action and a military engagement.
17
Self-styled “militias,”
a term used as a catchall phrase for any non-governmental armed group. Most commonly, these militias tend to see themselves as having a political cause or purpose (like preventing the national government “from becoming a dictatorship”) and thus are neither mercenaries nor drug gangs. They might “talk-the-talk” of something which sounds like revolution, or secession, but generally they just seem like angry men with guns, keen on supporting some particular policy, such as their right to own guns. Fans of militias will point to their origins in things like the American Revolution, whereas skeptics will observe that, the more angry men with guns there are, the more likely it is that acts of serious violence will follow.
18
Note how some of these categories may and do overlap: drug lords may employ mercenaries, for example, or militiamen become revolutionaries, or separatists may turn to terrorism as a tactic in their ongoing struggle. Note – moreover and importantly – how so many of today’s wars tend to be complex blends of both symmetrical and asymmetrical elements: involving governments both local and foreign; official national militaries; aspects of civil war between local groups; militias, insurgents, secessionists, and mercenaries; criminals trying to capitalize on the chaos of war; radical terrorist groups; and various agencies (whether state or non-state, whether nearby or far-away) providing assistance to the various local belligerents. All vying to skew things in their own preferred direction. This complex fact is true, for example, of today’s largest conflicts (in terms of casualties): Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and South Sudan.19
1.2 Military Capability in General, Weaponry in Particular
War implies armed conflict between some mixture of such various groups. Let’s therefore quickly define some helpful, much-used, military terms and concepts, and consider some initial things about weaponry, to which we’ll return in chapter 5. We’ll begin with the traditional set-up of a country’s official military and move from there.
Military capability refers to the resources a country has to deploy armed force. Almost all countries have an army, a navy, and an air force, each favoring its own kind of weaponry, ranging from tanks to ships to fighter jets, respectively.20
More recent additions to this core trinity – army, navy, air force – of military capability are cyber-operations and special forces. Cyber-operations are about trying to control and defend “cyberspace” – not just the Internet but, really, anything related to the functioning of crucial computer systems – in accord with that country’s national interests. Special forces exist to execute unusual, very specific military objectives, which usually fall under the rubric of “measures-short-of-war” (MSOW) but still involving the projection of professional, potentially lethal, armed force. Special operatives in the US military, for example, include the Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and several branches of the Marines. Much of their work is highly classified. Counter-terrorism has been a large part of recent missions: a high-profile instance of special forces activity was the manhunt for, and execution of, Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. Such so-called “targeted killing” – perhaps otherwise known as assassination – is not usually considered an act of war, despite its violence, precisely because it is individually targeted and thus fails to meet the standard of being widespread.21
When working together during wartime, a nation’s military forces aim to control the air, water, and land of a given region, and to use the tools of special forces and cyber-operations to complement these core objectives. This would give that nation maximum leverage to inflict its will upon that region’s population, enabling the fulfillment of its war aims.
Two further aspects of military capability must be stressed. The first is logistics, which concerns the ability of a country to supply its armed forces with everything they need to fight, which ranges well beyond weapons to include such things as food, clothing, medicine, and gasoline. Supporting a military is a massive effort of resources, planning, and organization. Historically, it has often been as damaging to strike an enemy’s supply chain as to strike directly at its armed forces. Both Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) and Napoleon (1769–1821) had to give up their campaigns of conquest because of severe logistical problems. The second aspect is intelligence, which entails the gathering and analysis of data about the enemy: its weapons and capabilities, its plans and intentions, its most vulnerable or most strategic targets, and so on. Most countries have some kind of intelligence agency to serve this function. In the US, for example, it’s the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); in the UK, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, still often referred to as “MI6”); and in Canada, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).22
