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On War: A Study of War & Warfare |  |
The Contents Dedication This work
is dedicated to the unknown men buried in plots 179 and
180 of the Introduction "A Prince, therefore, should have no care or thought but for war, and the regulations and training it requires, and should apply himself exclusively to this as his peculiar province. . ." Niccolò Bernardo di Machivelli
"I know the disciplines of wars." William
Shakespeare "It is said the warrior's is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both ways. Even is a man has no natural ability he can be a warrior by sticking assisously to both divisions of the Way." Miyamoto Musashi "War
is the father of all things." War. I am perversely fascinated with its philosophy, history, and tools. Indeed, my enthrallment even goes so far as to make me awe at the simplicity of the word. One syllable, three letters, it takes less than an instant to conjegate, yet entire lifetimes have been spent in attempts to understand it. Like "art," "life," "death," and "God" it is basic, essential to our understanding of ourselves and our world, as elemental as hydrogen and oxygen. To ask, "why should I study war" is like asking, "why should I study humanity?" We study war because we must, because it is what we are. To say that the company I am entering when endeavoring to study this subject is imposing is to understate on a Promethean scale. To begin with, there are the practicioners of war, the master warriors themselves. Hannibal, Ghengis Khan, Shaka Zulu, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Robert E. Lee, and al-Mu'tasim are but a few of these warriors, these kshatriya.(2) They are the doers, those who take the art of war and wield armies like the brushes of a painter. Furthermore, there are the historians of war(3), those who have taken it upon themselves to render articulate chronicles of martial endeavors in an effort that some wisdom might be taken from them by future generations. The ancient Thucycdides, father of history, founded this discipline in the West, his disciples continuing his work even until today (Theodore A. Dodge of the nineteenth century and John Keegan and Donald Kagan of the twentieth are among the finest). Strategists who have taken up the pen, among them Niccolò Bernardo di Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Miyamoto Musashi, have created masterful works of realist philosophy which are simultaneously skillful renderings of how war is conducted at its most effective, its most rewarding. And indeed, the wise have not ignored the condrums of the morallity of war, and such great minds as Karl Marx, G.W. Hegel, Karl von Clausewitz, M.K. Gandhi, and St. Augustine have all tackled the subject with as much proficiency as the human mind can muster. Thus we know the company with whom we reside and their accomplishments, and so one is drawn to question: what is left? How can one be original when writing on a subject so thoroughly examined? The answer is as decievingly simple as the question: by writing about the obvious. The answer lies in writing down what all these great warriors, historians, philosophers, and theologians have perhaps known, yet never truly endeavored to enunciate. What is war? This piece is composed of five primary parts. The first seeks to create a definition of warfare which is of value both in the theoretical realm and the realistic, as well to extrapolate the why of war, being simply, why do human beings participate in warfare? In the next section we find an investigation into the concept of the theoretical scale of war as percieved in the concepts of toal and limited war. Ideology of war is the primary concern of the third section, being an study of the three doctrines of war: Crusader Doctrine, the Doctrine of Just War, and Pacifist Doctrine. Fourth is a contemplation of the seven "ways" of war, or the various overarching means by which war is conducted. Finally, tactics and strategy are defined and differentiated between and the various forms of strategy illustrated. Simply put, this work seeks to create a framework of concepts which will allow the student of warfare (be a participant in, enemy thereof, or casual observer of war) to grasp the basic principles of martial interaction before indulging into other works which illucidate the various particulars in far more detail (which, consquently limits their ability to encompass the whole of warfare, thus providing for a less well-rounded vision thereof). It is a primer, a short text for WAR 101to prepare the student for more complex problems to come. Yet in this role I feel it is valuable, for just as it is easier to grasp calculus if one has mastered "lower" (though more commonly used) forms of mathematics, this document might serve to simplify the process of digesting military intelligencia. War "War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied." Sun Tzu(4) The title of this work should betray to even the most casual observer the nature of this work: On War. And, since this is the first chapter of a book which is, again, On War, it stands to reason that the question "what is war" should probably serve as our launching point. We may begin by noticing that war is always the means to an end or ends, often both realistic and idealistic. The possible range of ends is phenomenal, and deserves further elaboration later. Secondly, war is an interaction between entities, as opposed to individuals.(5) Hackett 3 Individual human beings certainly enter into conflict, yet this contention is different by its very nature from war, illustrated in the fact that conflict between individuals does not inherently require any form of organization, while war, a conflict between masses of individuals, does.(6) The utilization of multiple elements (people, weapons, etc.) requires organization, even if it is only the most base of operations. Thus the mass organization requirement of war also eliminates riots from inclusion into war, due to the anarchic nature of riots. In war near anarchy is possible, but one cannot be in a state of anarchy and a state of war simultaneously.(7) Violence is another aspect of war. Economic conflict utilizes entities on a mass scale toward an end, yet it lacks violence, therefore it is not war in the literal sense. It is aimed violence, violence towards an end that gives war both its form and function. Rioting, on the other hand, randomly directed and without aim, and the participants in this activity lack cohesive structure. War is a tool, regardless of its effectiveness, strength, or precision, and is fought by both sides to accomplish a task (even if that task is simply preventing the enemy from achieving their ends). Thus, we have formulated a basic definition of war: organized mass violence with an end.(8) Of further note is General Sir Hackett's statement, "The function of the profession of arms is the ordered application of force in the resolution of a social problem (Hackett 3)." Yet while we now have a general outline of what war is, we as of yet lack any understanding as to why war is fought. If war is a means to an end, then what are the ends of war, and to what degree are these ends consciously perceived by the participants in warfare? Ultimately, all human actions may be seen as derived from a few basic human desires. Humans desire pleasure and detest pain. Humans crave life and revile death. And, at least among the vast majority of humans, humans long for justice and pray for freedom from injustice. Yet if this is the case, why is it that human beings continually engage in such acts as warfare which is laden with cruelty, death, destruction, pain, and injustice? Human beings engage in warfare and other acts of violence because they perceive that ultimately the end result of evils of war will be a greater good. The perception of this greater good is extremely flexible, however, and may exist in relatively different forms for different individuals with "interests" in any particular war. The rulers of an entity might see the greater good in economic and geopolitical terms, while the commonfolk who takes up arms and actually take part in the altercation perceive themselves as fighting fire with fire, fighting against "evil" religions and ideologies, gaining land for the "people," or perhaps just serving as warriors because they believe that their lives would be worse were they to abandon their occupation. In summary, we may conclude human beings continually live in need and lust, jealousy and hate, fearing of domination and desiring to dominate. Because we want honor, wealth, and power and because we live in fear of both our peers and "unfriendly" entities, we ourselves are therefore logically forced to arm ourselves, to give ourselves the tools of both conquest and defense. (9) and glory. Humans continually perceive themselves as in competition, thus forcing them into a Hobbesian state of war.(10) It is the desire for security and expansion of situation, both personal and collective, that demands that we throw ourselves into battle. If humans perceive themselves as superior to their peers, be it on any level, then in their own sight they are capable of justifying their actions. All human beings are to some point Machiavellian, realizing that the means by which good and just ends are achieved are often evil, and as in some forms of warfare, often "completely transgress the bounds of humanity."(11) Humans engage in warfare because they it is necessary to achieve ends which are perceived as just, because they desire to imitate God, forging a greater order from chaos.(12) Havoc "Cry
'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war." The concept of scale is of the utmost importance in nearly all disciplines of human endeavor. Geometry is a study of physical scale: degrees, volume, weight, force, length, width, and depth. The historians and anthropologists depend on their understanding of the scale of time as related to human existence and actions. The geographer seeks to know the scale of the earth and her territories, while the physicists and chemists of the world are continually obsessed with the relationship of scale to the laws of the universe, from the tiniest quark to the most massive of galaxies. The political scientist must continually balance the individual and the group, requiring an understanding of the scale of human entities if they hope to have any pertaincy to their work. Similarly, the student of war must understand the scale of war, the level of motivation and utilization of resources both tangible and intangible and their relationship to the situation at hand in order to be able to accurately scrutinize reality. Warfare is amorphus. War can be swift and decisive, like the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War. War can be drawn-out and terrible, stretched over multiple fronts, composed of entrenched forces refusing to withdraw on principle, hating war but fearing peace, sacrificing millions of civilians and warriors. The World Wars, Iran/Iraq War, and Vietnam Wars are all embodiments of this form. War is like life itself, capable of evolving into a multitude of forms and designs, all destructive and wasteful to some extent. Yet despite the host of technologies developed throughout history, the vast corpus of tactics and scales, and the throngs of officers and regulars of so many nations and heritages, war may be seen as existing Platonically in two forms of scale: limited war and total war. Limited war is that form of conflagration in which the parties involved voluntarily set limits on themselves, recognizing that not all forms of military action which are technologically and logistically possible are morally acceptable, traditionally acceptable, and/or logical. An example would be the Western world's general condemnation of the practice of genocide. It should be reiterated that this procedure of war is not always practiced on the basis of moral beliefs, but is often a result of the Law of Anticipated Reaction, in that parties fear that if they were to use a particularly devastating or horrible form of tactic or weaponry on the field of battle their enemies might respond in kind, retaliating in a manner equally or more ruinous.(13) This particular concept has been illustrated time and time again, yet most explicitly in the Twentieth century with the development of weapons of mass destruction. The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) has played a major role in modern political arenas, beginning with the Second World War (in which Hitler refrained from using poison gas against Allied troops for fear of retaliation in kind) and continuing on into the Soviet-American Cold War with its massive arms race which focused on nuclear capability but also included the development of chemical and biological warfare technology. This led to the develoment of a world order whose stabililty rested on the two semi-hegemonic powers self-restraint as derived almost solely from their fear of their primary enemy. The Geneva Conventions with their concept of the "Law of War" are a prime example of a formalized limitation of warfare.(14) In other words, Keegan is stating that the scale of warfare is limited by the will of the culture/ideology/philosophy/religion of the participants in each particular conflict. Clausewitzian warfare with its emphasis on the battle and rejection of terrorist and guerrilla techniques is therefore not binding for the whole of armed contention, but rather is simply a single possible manifestation thereof, one possible form of limited war which claims to be the only true and "total" war. Total war is considerably different. In limited war the objective is gaining strategic superiority over the enemy in order to force the enemy into submission in order to reach ones ends. On the other hand, total war seeks not submission but annihilation of the enemy's entire power base.(15) It is the use of every available strategy and resource to their fullest capacity, utlizing the whole of an entity's resources in an effort to achieve the conflict in question's aims. This is the order of the day among crusaders, ultranationalists and bigots, whose end goal is either the implementation of an entirely new world-system in the conquered lands, the elimination of the unity of a entity (thereby eliminating of the entity's capability to present a danger to the aggressor), or the literal annihilation of the enemy people/culture in question through genocidal techniques. Furthermore, total warfare is not without its strategic advantages. By utterly eradicating an enemy, the victor gains the fear of their enemies (and peers), the most valuable political tool available according to Machiavelli.(16) Because potential enemies know that the victor has both the capability and initiative to use total warfare techniques, these potential enemies are likely to desire concilliation with the victor, the result of the victor's acquistition of considerable amounts of symbolic/psychological influence and power, allowing the victor to achieve later victories through limited war techniques, or even to avoid violence altogether. This tactic has been utilized by the Mongols in their campaigns throughout Eurasia(17), by Alexander the Great in his Hellenistic campaigns(18), by Carthage in the Punic Wars (et al Hannibal)(19), by Vlad the Impaler of Wallacia(20), by the Vietcong in the Vietnamese War, by the Communists and Nationalists of China, and by the United States in the Second World War. Jihäd "O you who believe, fight the unbelievers who are near you." Koran 9:125 "Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;" Psalm 144:1 In war their are essentially three ideologies: that of the crusader, that of the adherent to just war doctrine, and that of the pacifist. The key point of differentiation between these broad categories is their concepts of justice as applied to war. The Crusade Doctrine rests on the assumption that superiority justifies aggression, therefore if an aggressor considers his faction to be superior to their enemy, they may justly seek to overcome them with the ends of expansion of their own power and the elimination, assimilation, or domination of their enemy.(21) In any particular instance the assumed realm of superiority may be one or many of numerous possible attributes: religion, morality, nation, ethnicity, ideology, race, language, culture, eugenics, political structure, and various others.(22) The Doctrine of Just War is, in concept, the polar opposite of the Crusade Doctrine. Just War champions would claim that the only type of war which is justified is that war which is waged either in self-defense or in defense of another entity which has been unjustly attacked.(23) Blackburn 204 It assumes the equality of all human beings and thus the right to diversity and the right to survival, therefore, in theory, would restrain war to only those instances in which the "evil" have assailed the "good."(24) Ebstein and Ebstein point to the fact that ". . . whenever he [Hobbes] speaks of war it is defensive war, and there is no glorification of war, let alone aggressive war , in the Leviathan (Ebstein 405)." However, when we consider that many practitioners of the military and strategic arts consider that the key to victory in any situation is a properly executed offense backed by a properly discharged defense, this indicates that the defensively oriented Just War Doctrine is inadequate tactically and strategically, and in fact may lead to evermore protracted conflicts or the defeat of the Just defender by the unjust aggressor. Thus two new forms of Just War have evolved (which may not be all that just) to compensate: Offensive Just War and Induced Just War. Offensive Just War occurs when an entity "knows" its enemy is a danger to itself or to a particular subgroup within the enemy entity and order to offset the possible losses of a defeat or protracted defensive war or to defend the interests of the endangered subentity, takes the position of aggressor. Therefore, assumes this doctrine, because the aggressor is in fact defending its own interests, it is just in its actions. On the other hand, Induced Just War entails the use of intelligence and psychological techniques in order to force the enemy to attack or simulate an enemy attack in order to justify military actions. By forcing an attack the "defender" gains the upper hand because they control the "field of battle." By simulating an enemy attack the "defender" gains the upper hand by becoming the controlling aggressor while simultaneously justifying the aggression.(25) By the interjection of realism into Just War Doctrine we find that war is not easily moralized absolutely, either for right or wrong. Pacifism, or the ideology that claims that any action which would harm is in just, therefore all forms of warfare are immoral, reveals an important fact. All war is, to some degree, evil, because all warfare is violent by definition. Yet the question of relative morality has split pacifism into three camps: Active Positive Pacifism, Active Negative Pacifism(26), and Passive Pacifism. Active Positive Pacifism recognizes the moral in acceptability of warfare, yet refuses to deny the legitimacy of the actions of the entity of which they support and/or are a part of. Thus the Active Positive Pacifist actively supports the entity in question while denying the morality of warfare on the whole, perhaps even in a non-combatant role, such as in the medical field. Active Negative Pacifists also take an active role in society, but rather than supporting the actions of the entity, they actively seek the end of combat through various means of mass utilization. Finally, Passive Pacifists do exactly what their title would imply, nothing. They, in their denial of the justice of any form of violence take the position of non-action, neither for or against any particular conflict, in essence approving of the conflicts in question through their acquiescence. Ways A man is
born gentle and weak. Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle
and yielding is the disciple of life. The hard
and strong will fall. Lao
Tzu ". . . I have lived without following any particular Way. Thus with the virtue of strategy I practise many arts and abilities-all things together with no teacher." Miyamoto
Musashi There are in essence seven "ways" by which an entity may wage war: Embattlement, Guerrilla Warfare, Terrorist Warfare, Intelligence, Lesser Strike Warfare, Greater Strike Warfare, and Propaganda. Whether or not a particular entity utilizes one or more of these ways is determinent entirely on the particular situtation in which the warring entity finds itself, derived from both internal factors, such as economy, religion, philosophy, tradition, and military capability as well as regional and global factors such as international pressure, political alliances and agreements, geography, and climate, all the while weighing tactical and strategic considerations. The way of Embattlement is essentially that form of war traditionally pursued by Western, Japanese, and Chinese militants, namely the meeting of enemy armies and/or navies on the "field" of conflict along lines with the parties in question occasionally clashing in battles which may exist on the most massive or miniscule of scales both temporally and spacially. Embattlement is by its very nature a form of limited war in that it limits the conflict to particular realms, generally far enough away from civilized areas as to limit infrastructural destruction and noncombatant involvement but close enough to these self-same areas to allow for the transportation of necessary resources to the front. The concept of the siege, however, is an exception to this rule, in that the siege is by its very nature both a front war with well defined lines and a direct attack on a civilized area. It is important to note that the way of Embattlement, like all other ways, has rarely been used by itself in practice, and grows ever rarer in the modern era as total war gains ever more precesence. Guerrilla Warfare is, on the other hand, that type of warfare which is fought without defined lines of battle, using whatever techniques are available to eliminate the enemies power structure. It is by nature limited war of a type with so few morays that they need not be mentioned immediately. Harassment is the key to victory in Guerrilla Warfare, the victor eventually either forcing protracted warfare until the enemy seeks concilliation or forcing the enemy to utilize its resources faster than it can replace them, leading to the same ends.(27) (O'Sullivan 111) While Guerrilla Warfare utilizes fear and emotion in the pursuit of its ends, it differs from Terrorism in an important sense: Terrorism intentionally seeks out noncombatant targets, whereas Guerilla Warfare limits itself to targets of military value. While these two ways are often used in conjunction, they are different, and are very much seperable. Intelligence is also a form of warfare. The art of the cloak and dagger is different from that of the infantryman or naval officer, but both may have the same ends, both are implicitly dialectic and by their nature violent. Warfare of this nature is "delicate," retreiving information about the enemy, sabotaging their infrastructure, scientific research and military capabilities, eliminating individuals or smaller entities which present a danger to the interests to the entity in question, subverting members of the enemy entity against their rulers (be it the people at large or a few individuals), inciting strategic revolutions, and practicing acts of counter-intelligence.(28) Anyone who doubts the importance of intelligence to a successful military campaign should take steps to acquire a copy of Sun Tzu's Art of War and read through Chapter XIII several times. Entitled "Employment of Secret Agents," this chapter may still be taken as a handbook on the proper use of intelligence holdings, its only weakness, and I regard this as a minor one, is its lack of knowledge of modern technological assests, which is to be expected of a work written approximately 2500 years ago. If a child strikes his playmate, then he has inflicted a single damage on his friend, one punch on the arm perhaps. Similarly, that type of warfare known as Strike Warfare is unitary by definition. When entity A uses a singular attack against enemy B, then entity A has struck its enemy. This may be followed by many other strikes, making for a campaign of such actions, all of which may allow for the influx of more permanant conquering troops to wage Embattlement and/or Guerrilla Warfare, but this does not deny the individuality of the attack. German U-boats, Mongol horsemen, American cruise missles, and Pictish charioteers all have their place in the annuals of this particular form of warfare, and indeed maybe classified into a unique group of their own, Lesser Strike Warfare. The "Lesser" is derived from the limited destruction resultant from each individual attack when compared to those types of attacks utilized in Greater Strike Warfare. Greater Strike Warfare utilizes weapons of mass destruction. Each individual weapon is by its very nature an attack on a phenomenal scale. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons are all weapons of mass destruction. Similarly, any very large scale tactic in which the singular attack yields mass destruction is a form of Greater Strike Warfare.(29) Finally, Propaganda is essentially that form of warfare which seeks to utilize psychological techniques to either make friendly forces more effective, enemy forces less effective, and/or to actively decieve the enemy(30) . This is achieved through fostering a sense of superiority, be it moral, ideological, religious, physical, cultural, etc., on one or more levels among the friendly forces, thus developing the forces' sense of unity and drive. This is key in getting individuals whose instinct is self-preservation to enter into a situation in which death or injury may not only be possible, but in fact may be imminent. On the other hand, propagandists also seek to create a sense of inferiority in their foes, through attacking the same sensibilities which they are fostering among their own allies. When an enemy begins to feel a sense of inferiority, be it moral, ideological, religious, physical, cultural, etc., the enemy begins to lose its sense of purpose and unity. Doubt enters into the enemy's mind and thus the enemy forces become destabilized, thus creating a higher number of mistakes and disunity, thereby allowing friendly forces the opportunity to take advantage of their enemy's disheartenment, or possibly even inciting a friendly revolt(31). Finally, the propagandist seeks to decieve the enemy (including creating a false sense of superiority among enemy forces(32) ) to use various techniques to create false impressions which will lead to the enemy to act in such a fashion as it leaves them open to attack. (33) Five Rings One of the defining elements of warfare is that it seeks to achieve an ends, that the participants in warfare seek to achieve something. Therefore the participants in warfare organize, utilizing various forms of action. Form of action exists in two forms: tactics and strategy. Tactical maneuver are concerned with short term action. The student of tactics seeks victory in the immediate. This is not opposed to the work of the strategist, whose primary interest is that of victory of the war itself, e.g. the long term actions. One might compare strategy to the ultimate plans a sculptor has for the development of pillar of marble into a statue, whereas each individual mark the sculptor makes on the stone with his chisel may be compared to a tactic. The tactic exists as a single part of a more complex whole.(34) O'Sullivan and Miller, whose workThe Geography of Warfare provided me with the above quotes, also note that, "Tactical and strategic questions merge into each other. Tactics and strategy are usually defined in terms of each other, like boats and ships. Strategy merely implies a greater level of generallity than tactics (O'Sullivan 8)." While tactics are a concern which depends heavily on the situation at hand, strategy can easily be broken down into Platonic forms. These forms are five in number, and while they may be used in either alone or in conjunction with each other, they are the basis of all strategy. The strategist may seek to overcome the enemy, dominate the enemy, eliminate the enemy, assimilate the enemy, or isolate the enemy.(35) To overcome the enemy implies the defeat of the enemy in such a fashion as to end aggression. This type of strategy may not seek absolute victory, but rather may simply seek to make the war "unaffordable" for the enemy, thus forcing the enemy into conciliation with the possibility of gaining concessions. This is the strategy used successfully by the Americans in the American Revolutionary War and by the Vietcong in the American/Vietnam War, while it was used unsuccessfully by the Confederate forces of the American Civil War. The domination of the enemy means the obliteration of the vanquished's capability to stand against the victor, resulting in their complete submission to the victor. The United States sought to fight by such a strategy in the Second World War, just as the Corinthians and Spartans did during the Peloponnesian War. In general, though not always, this type of strategy is used either to obviate an enemy perceived as a threat, as a means of increasing one's own honor while abasing one's enemy, or as a blend of both.(36) Elimination of the enemy implies either the eradication of the enemy through genocidal warfare or dispersion. The essence of elimination is the permanent removal of an entity perceived of as inferior in some manner, thus giving the conqueror access to the whole of the conquered's resources without the dangers implicit in attempting to maintain control over conquered peoples.(37) Assimilation of the enemy insinuates the elimination of the defeated's leadership and social structure, allowing the victor to integrate the fallen into its own ranks. This particular tactic is generally derived from a crusader mentality (i.e. the desire to convert), the libido dominandi (the desire to dominate for the sake of domination/honor), and/or the more "practical" economic concept of the human being as a resource, therefore the conqueror gains from the input of new population with its new skills and intellects just as if it was infused with capital.(38) Finally, isolation of the enemy presupposes that the victor seeks only to eliminate the enemy as a competitor and threat to the victor's security, thus necessitating the elimination of the conquered's capability to wage war and/or maintain economic growth/stability. By isolating an enemy one cuts off its ability to interact with the surrounding world. Therefore its "channels" of interaction, be the diplomatic, military, economic, or political in nature must be successfully blocked through a combination of strategic use of military force and diplomatic will. Conclusions In the course of this fairly brief text we have examined several of the pressing generallities of warfare, those aspects of warfare which are universal and Platonic, there definitions relevant regardless of culture, state or time. I have simply attempted, thus far, to avoid moralizations or philosophical musings on war, instead concentrating on the issue of explaining what war as accuately and "scientifically" as possible. This is not to imply, however, that this text is not of value in making moral considerations, nor is it to infer that this text is in any way, shape, or form amoral. We may begin making a moral examination of war by noting its definition:organized mass violence with an end. War is always violent. Violence is always, regardless of form or purpose, evil. This is not to say, however, that it cannot serve a good purpose. When a parent spanks a child, the negative reinforcement is meant to improve the child, to make the child a better person. War may also seek an end or ends that are just, following the Machiavellian concept of the ends justifying the means. For instance, if in War is being waged between party X and party Y, with party X fighting in order to prevent party Y from committing acts of genocide against part Z, War is a just war (this is regardless of whether it is also a crusade). This is not to imply that the act of determining whether a war is truly moral or not is always a simply one. Rather, the opposite is generally true. Most wars are fought in order to achieve numerous ends, and often the moral arguements for those wars are as in direct conflict. Furthermore the means of fighting a particular war are often called into question. How far is too far? Truth be known, there is no real answer. Theory portrays the world black and white. The shades of gray that make up reality are simply unpleasant annoyances to the theorist. One can only carefully weigh the considerations of a particular conflict in the context of its environment and attempt to glean some inkling of truth: is this war more or less evil? Bibliography Allen, Thomas B. Offerings at the Wall. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc., 1995. Baynes, Lt. Col. J.C.M. (M.Sc.). The Soldier in Modern Society. London: Eyre Methuen Ltd., 1972. Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Burnham, James. The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom. Chicago: Gateway Edition, 1970. Byfield, Robert S. The Fifth Weapon: A Guide to Understanding What the Communists Mean. New York: The Bookmailer, 1954. Carpenter, Andrew N. Hegel's Defense of War. University of California at Berkeley. http://socrates.berkeley.edu/phlos-ad/hegelwar.html
Chatterjee, Margaret. Gandhi's Religious Thought. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. Clausewitz, Karl von. War, Politics, & Power: Selections from On War and I Believe and Profess. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1970. Cleary, Thomas. The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1992. Dawood, N.J., ed. The Koran. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Denny, Frederick Mathewson. An Introduction to Islam. New York: Macmillian Publishing Company, 1994. Demarest, Geoffrey, LTC. The Just War Idea and the Ethics of Intervention...Book Review. Fort Leavenworth, KS: United States Army, Foreign Military Studies Office, 1996. http://leav-www.army.mil/fmso/books/reviews/just.htm
Dodge, Theodore A. The Great Captains: The Art of War in the Campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, and Napoleon. New York:Barnes & Noble Books, 1995. Dupuy, R. Ernest & Trevor N. Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History from 3500 B.C. to the present. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1970. Ebstein, Alan O. & William Ebstein. Great Political Thinkers: Plato to Present. USA: Harcourt, Brace, & Company, 1991. Erikson, Erik H. Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1969. Falk, Richard. On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. Germino, Dante. Machiavelli to Marx: Modern Western Political Thoght. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979. Glatstein, Jacob, Israel Knox, & Samuel Margoshes, ed. Anthology of Holocaust Literature. New York: Atheneum, 1975. Grazia, Sebastian de. Machiavelli in Hell. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Green, Martin, ed.. Gandhi in India: In His Own Words. Hanover: Tufts University Press, 1987. Greenwood, Christopher. "The International Court of Justice and the use of force." Fifty Years of the International Court of Justice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Hackett, Lt. General Sir John Winthrop (K.C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O., M.C.). The Profession of Arms: The 1962 Lees Knowles lectures given at Trinity College, Cambridge. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1986. Hassner, Pierre. "Beyond the three traditions: the philosophy of war and peace in historical perspective." International Affairs. pp. 737-56. London: Royal Institute for International Affairs (Cambridge University Press), 10/94. Heinlein, Robert A. Starship Troopers. New York: Ace Books, 1987. Jones, Walter S. The Logic of International Relations. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. Kagan, Donald. On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. New York: Anchor Books, 1995. Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Kohn, George C. Dictionary of Wars. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1986. Koht, Halvdan. Driving Forces in History. New York: Atheneum, 1968.< Lao Tsu. Tao Te Ching. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Lin Yü-sheng. The Crisis of Chinese Conciousness: Radical Antitradtionalism in the May Fourth Era. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1979. MacDonald, John. Great Battlefields of the World. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985. Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. New York: Dover Publications, 1992. Marx, Karl & Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Penguin Books, 1985. Mayers, Teena. Understanding Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control. Arlington, VA: Arms Control Research, 1983. Metzger, Bruce M. & Roland E. Murphy, ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Musashi, Miyamoto. A Book of Five Rings. New York: The Overlook Press, 1974. O'Sullivan, Patrick & Jessee W. Miller, Jr. The Geography of Warfare. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983. Otterbein, Keith F. The Evolution of War: A Cross-Cultural Study. USA: HRAF Press, 1970. Parshall, Gerald. "The Strategists of War." U.S. News & World Report. pp. 50-79. New York: 3/16/98. Pilgram, Martin. Against a revival of the "Just War". http://homepages.muenchen.org/bm974548/erklaerungen/erk13_eng.html
Pinkney, David H. Problems in Civilization; Napoleon: Historical Enigma. St. Louis: Forum Press, 1978. Ropp, Theodore. "War and Militarism." Dictionary of the History of Ideas:Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas; Volume IV. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973. Seth, Vikram. Three Chinese Poets: Translations of Poems by Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu. USA: HarperPerennial, 1992. Smith, Eric D. An Examination of
Tactical Nuclear Assault in the Moral Perspective.
unpublished, 1996. Strategic Decisions Group. Ethical Limits in Military Work by Scientists and Health Professionals. http://www.laurentian.ca/www/psyc/r/Prof_Ethics/Just-War.html
Stoessinger, John G. The Might of Nations: World Politics in Our Time. New York: Random House, 1975. Strauss, Leonard & Joseph Cropsey, ed. History of Political Philosophy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987. Sun Tzu. The Art of War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. Toinbee, Arnold J. A Study of
History: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI. New York:Oxford
University Press, 1947. Twain, Mark. The War Prayer. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1984. Van den Burghe, Pierre L. "Dimensions for Comparing Military Organizations." War: A Historical, Political, and Social Study. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, Inc., 1978. Notes 1. 0 Toynbee XVII 364 2. 0 Kshatriya are the members of the second caste of the traditional Indian varna system, composed of warriors and rulers. 3. 0 This leads me to point out a fact John Keegan ardently makes, "The written history of the world is largely a history of warfare, because the states within which we live came into existence largely through conquest, civil strife, or struggles for independence (Keegan 386)." 4. 0 Sun 63 (Chapter I, verse 1) 5. 0 General Sir John Winthrop Hackett supports this conclusion when he notes the importance of warfare as a social force, and the relationship that exists between organization within society and that within the military units created by that society:
From the beginning of man's recorded history physical force, or the threat of it, has been freely and incessantly applied to to the resolution of social problems. It presists as an essential element in the social pattern. History suggests that as a society of men grows more orderly the application of force tends to become better ordered. A completely biataxic society is probably no more than a contradiction in terms. On the other hand a society of men in which no resort to force is possible, either for the common good or against it, either for individual advantage or against it, is inconcievable, so long as man remains what he is. 6. 0 Keith F. Otterbein illustrates the necessity of mass organization as a central aspect of war in the brief section "Military Organization" of his The Evolution of War: A Cross-Cultural Study. He notes: The
type of military organization employed by a political
community Also of note from this text is Otterbein's hypothesis on the relationship between the level of centralization of polity and the level of military organization, a supposition which is vaguely reminiscent of Rousseau's theories on the relationship between population and necessary centralization of government. Otterbein states (the italics are his own), "The higher the level of political centralization, the more likely that the military organization is composed of professionals (Otterbein 22)," i.e. the higher the level of organization. One might therefore speculate that Rousseau and Otterbein's speculations are both generally correct, than the high level of organization and complexity of modern national armies is not only understood, but predictable. 7. 0 This is a decisive split with the understanding of the concept of war as held by one of my mentors, Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes would indicate that the State of War is in essence identitcal to anarchy, which, depending on ones interpertation of his writings, may exist either in the literal or philosophical/theoretical sense, thus allowing the further development of his line of logic. Essientially, the matter is one of terminology, yet I feel it deserved clarification. 8. 0 Note that I do not make any indication of the state being requisite in order to conduct war. Indeed, I have come to see the state as only the modern legitimization of warfare. Theodore Ropp's "War and Militarism" article in the The Dictionary of the History of Ideas supports this distinctly counter-Clauswitzian view when it states: The
history of ideas about war and militarism is largely one
of 9. 0 I here turn to Alan O. Ebstein and William Ebstein's analysis of Thomas Hobbes' theories of the motivations for warfare when they indicate that: .
. .Hobbes adds that the nature of war consists not in the
actual < 10. 0 I will in this paragraph continually reiterate the word "perceived," and not without reason. If warfare was undertaken in only those circumstances in which it was absolutely the most logically means of achieving an ends, then the majority of wars in history would not have occurred. Rather, human beings seek to engage in war when they "feel" like they should, when there is a perception of moral responsibility, a perception of ideological, religious, or philosophical conflict, a perception that the enemy in question might someday harm oneself or one's allies, a perception of a challenge to one's honor, a perception that the ends will increase one's relative power. Since the end result of a war cannot be determined before its fruition, the participants have to believe that they will achieve some goal by joining in battle, be it victory or honorable defeat. Warfare exists only because humans believe it must, not because of some genetic predisposition. As Donald Kagan puts it in his On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace when he is comparing the causes of the Peloponnesian War to those of the colonial wars of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries," the real motives were often psychological and irrational rather than economic and practical. . . " (Kagan 38). 11. 0 Germino 32 12. 0 I turn for illustration of this idea of "good from evil" to Sigmund Freud who, in a letter responding to the League of Nations request for him to develop a theory on how war might be eliminated, began to discuss the futility of the idea, and then discussed the perception that sometimes war could in fact be an acceptable evil in the quest for a higher good, turning to the Paz Romana as an example. Paradoxical
as it sounds, we must admit that warfare might 14. 0 I here draw heavily on the chapter "Stone" of John Keegan's A History of Warfare. In this chapter Mr. Keegan takes great pains to obliterate the notion that the only "true" kind of war is Clauswitzian dialectic embattlement, the pitting of cultures against each other so that through the victory of the "right" ideas of the victorious (and thus apparantly superior) state (Clausewitz does not acknowledge the legitimacy of non-state entities participating in warfare), civilization might take further steps in the direction of the end of the military conflict (i.e. intellectual and moral conflict) and thus in the direction of the end of history itself. In this scenario in which whole cultures are pitted against other whole cultures all wars are preceived as both total wars and crusades. Keegan, on the other hand, asserts that many cultures have developed limited warfare as their doctrine, either conciously or subconciously, citing the Yanomamö of the Brazilian/Venezulan borderlands (94-98), the Maring of New Guinea (98-103), the Maoris of New Zealand (103-106), and the Aztecs of Central Mexico (106-115) as example civilizations. In each case warfare continues to exist, but generally is a highly symbolic and ritualized event which limits the amount of damage possible while still resolving questions of power and various disagreements. Indeed, in the case of the Aztecs, warfare has become so stylized that its primary purpose is to support the Aztec religion which effectively blends the ideology of the state with that of the "church," therefore the aim is not to kill the enemy but to capture the enemy alive, thus providing a means of acquiring satisfactory sacrifices. 15. 0 I feel that this is an excellent point to interject what I refer to as Keegan's Exception, the inherent geopolitical limitation on any attempt on total warfare. He states, "War is always limited, not because man chooses tomake it so, but because nature determines that it shall be (Keegan 75)." I have ventured to include this inherent reality into my theoretical definition of Total War by noting that this form of war uses all available resources to their fullest possible extent. This final component of the phrase keeps the theory in line with Keegan's observation while simultaneously maintaining adaquate flexibility to give the definition value in theory. 16. 0 Chapters VII ("Of New Princedoms Acquired by the Aid of Others and by Good Fortune"), VII ("Of Those Who by Their Crimes Come to Be Princes"), and XVII ("Of Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better to Be Loved or Feared") of The Prince are of particular value in helping the student of war to understand the role of cruel behavior, which may include total war, in both the achieving of victory in warfare and the maintainance of stability afterwards. We find that Machiavelli is stating that "the ends justify the means," which simply states that if one desires a precieved good than it is sometimes both necessary and morally acceptable to commit evils in the pursuit thereof. 17. 0Keegan 200-206 18. 0Dodge 1-37 19. 0I take my estimations of Alexander and Hannibal from my reading of Lectures I and II of Theodore A. Dodge's Great Captains which discusses the various campaigns of this phenomenal general and his motley crew of warriors assembled from throughout the Mediterrean world (Dodge 38-72). 20. 0McNally (I'm afraid that I refer to McNally and Florescu some years after reading their work, and have been unable to find a copy of the work in order to refer to any particular passage, though their enterprise has been essential in helping me to understand Machaivellian-esque political philosophy as a whole.) 21. 0 I think that it is of value to note here Machiavelli's concept of war. An ardent believer in the blending of the political and religious (in order to appropriate a higher level of dedication to the state) Machiavelli's belief that ". . .conquest is . . . summum bonum of political life. . ." (Germino 29). This would indicate that Machiavelli believes that for the highest degree of success all rulers should promote the wars in which they engage as being crusades, though it is to be questioned as to whether he advocates this type of military philosophy on primarily on religious or pragmatic grounds. I am inclined to believe it is the latter, since Machiavelli's realist philosophy allows him the leeway he needs to absorb such an action without creating a moral paradox. 22. 0 I here point out the relevancy of including many modern Western philosophies into any discussion of crusades by noting that the dialectic philosophies of Hegel, Von Clausewitz, and Marx all infer a clash of entities on a basic and primal level, leading to the ultimate and absolute victory of one entity that is "right" over one or more "wrong" entities, requisitely through war. Dante Germino notes that Hegel "speaks of selected peoples as being carriers of the world spirit at different epochs in history; in comparison with them, other peoples are 'without right' (rechtles) and 'count no longer in world history'." (Germino 338-339) This sort of radical outlook with its good-guy/bad-guy assumption has been used as justification for countless conflicts, including the French Revolution (a progeniter to modern dialectic thought), the American Civil War, the Second World War, and the Soviet-American Cold War with its various sub-conflicts ranging thorughout the post-colonial world. Simply put, just because Westerners follow banners for the sake of nation and or ideology, they are not therefore immune from the originally religious title of crusader. 23. 0 I quote the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy which states that just war is: The doctrine that a state may justly go to war for some restricted reasons, which are centrally those of self-defense, and the rescue of another state from an aggressor. Blackburn also takes steps to note the implicit difference between jus ad bellum and jus in bellum, the former being just cause for war, the latter being justice in war. 24. 0 In order to illustrate from whence I have derived my definition of just war, I point to various texts, including the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 which "renounced war as an instrument of national policy, authorizing war only as a response to aggression, in a posture of self-defense.(Falk 245)" This provision was backed by the "UN Charter in form of Article 2(4), which prohibits altogether the use of force, although it is qualified by Article 51 which preserves the inherent right to 'self defense (Falk 245).'" Cropsey and Strauss illustrate Grotius' view that, "As for just wars, they fall into two general cataegories: those waged in defense of self and property, and those waged to prosecute injuries and to inflict deserved punishment (Cropsey 393-394)." Again, I turn to Cropsey and Strauss, this time to point out Montesquieu's stance that, "the only just war is one of self-defense, and the only just treatment of a conquered territory is that which aims to preserve the the conquest rather than to destroy or oppress the vanquished (Cropsey 528)." 25. 0 I seek to illustrate the motivation behind these transmutations of Just War doctrine by quoting a bit of Pinkney's brief discussion of Napoleon's: "All is defense," he said to Benadotte, in the Council of State, "all is defense, even in conquest that becomes the necessary consequence of the war." It is no great stretch to say that the people many of the world's great states (including the Roman Empire, the Napoleonic Empire, the United States, Israel, and the Russian Empire) firmly have believed that they have justly aquired all the territory they currently hold because they fought either in reaction to precieved danger or preceived wrong. 26. 0 27. 0 I turn to O'Sullivan and Miller for some illumination on the subject, and quote them below: Since
in the tactics of guerrilla war, such as hit and run, the
lure 28. 0 Sun 144-149 29. 0 O'Sullivan and Miller state that the use of nuclear strategies/tactics derives from the post-World War preception of the rapid and overwhelming offensive as the most viable and likely to succede as the basis for the proliferation of nuclear armaments (and by their similar nature I would imply similar preceptions have lead to the proliferation of biological and chemical warfare agents). I quote from page 89 in which they state, "In 1948, Bradley enunciated the doctrine of 'massive retaliation.' Defense was to take the form of enormous, offensive destruction." This illustrates basic state legitimization of Greater Strike Warfare, yet it also provides understanding of why non-state entities would seek to procure weapons of mass destruction. The primary reason for aquiring these weapons is not in order to conduct Greater Strike Warfare, but in fact to utilize the weapons (to be used only on a limited or threatening capacity) as tools of Propagandist activities in order to utilize the threat of force in order to aquire ends. 30. 0 Ivor Thomas, a member of the British House of Commons, defined propaganda as "Warfare by Words," a phrase which the staunchly McCarthyist Robert S. Byfield reiterates by stating the Latin "argumentum ad hominem," which he loosely translates as '"lying" statistics.' These definitions are my inspiration for the inclusion of propaganda into this section. Byfield 1 31. 0 Robert S. Byfield quotes a phrase by Stalin which I feel illustrates the importance of propaganda to any war effort, though its strict dependence on revolution as a condition for true victory is undoubtably an overexageration, though it might be seen as at leaast in part necessary to maintain control of conquered lands and territories. I quote, "In order to win a war, one must not only triumph at the front but also revolutionize the enemy's rear, his reserves. . . ." Byfield 14 I further reiterate the role of propaganda as a way of war by quoting a passage from Toynbee's A Study of History which notes the role of propaganda in the Soviet war-machine: The
Communist successors of the Petrine régime had gone one
step further 32. 0 To capture the essence of deceptive propaganda, I turn to Psalm 55:21, which states: with
speech smoother than butter, 33. 0 I again refer to Sun Tzu. I begin here by noting Chapter VII, part 20 (Sun 108) where Sun Tzu states " Now an army may be robbed of its spirit and its commander of his courage." Also, Chapter I includes the following verses which insinuate the value of propaganda: 17.
All warfare is based on deception. Finally, I include this final passage from Chapter III along with accompanying commentary by Tu Yu (the emphasis is my own): 27. He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious.
34. 0 Field Marshal Montgomery once credited proper knowledge of ,"'transportation, administration and geography,'" as the sole means of achieving, "victory in battle (O'Sullivan 7)." This concept may be seen as among the primary concerns of tactics and strategy. 35. 0 It occurred to me that another possible strategy might be that of ravaging the enemy, in other words the act of despoiling in property and/or body the enemy. Yet on further consideration I decided that if party A attempts to ravage party B they must first achieve one of the other strategies listed in this text. The fact that party A does not necessarily seek to consolidate their gains and control territories and/or peoples permanently is simply the consequent that the ends of party A do not dictate a need to do so, derived often from a desire to avoid a defensive war, or perhaps from cultural aspects of the warring party. 36. 0 Van den Berghe 39-40 37. 0 Van den Berghe 40 38. 0 The digestion of individuals whom are members of a conquered enemy, assimilation is discussed by Pierre L. Van den Berghe who states, "There are two basic formulas for conquering territory so as to exploit its population. One is assimilation, in which conquered populations are absorbed culturally into the dominant group and forced to use its language, customs, etc (Van den Berghe 40)." Van den Berghe then goes on to describe indirect rule imperialism (which would be a form of domination under my organization) as the other form of alien population utilization, which Van den Berghe theorizes is the cheapest of the two. Yet I feel it is important to note that unless the subservient peoples begin to feel some love towards the conquering peoples (or at least lost all feelings of animosity against it) they will invariably come to hate the conquering entity, a condition which Machiavelli insists leads to an end of power over the conquered lands invariably. |
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