Clausewitz and the “New Wars” Scholars

Abstract

Since Second World War, western armed forces have been most successful against opponents whose weapons, methods of organization, and ways of thinking closely resembled their own. Conflicts such as Israel's Six-Day War (1967) and first Gulf War (1991) exemplified western militaries' excellence at defeating those adversaries who closely matched their own capabilities. The collapse of Soviet Union in early 1990s seemed to underline West's military, economic, and ideological dominance. Yet even as Berlin Wall fell, threats were emerging. As western hopes of cashing in on peace dividend were dashed in Somalia, Rwanda, and Balkans, academics and military professionals alike sought to explain how world's most powerful militaries failed to defeat ragtag militias armed with most basic of weapons. Many observers concluded that nature of war had changed and that western armed forces had yet to make necessary adaptations to paradigm. The new school of thought has contributed significantly to understanding why conventional military superiority has limited value in civil wars or counterinsurgencies. Victory in such conflicts no longer rests on ability to inflict massive destruction but on ability to wrestle popular support away from one's opponents, isolating insurgent or terrorist from things he needs most. wars theorists have shown that western armed forces have to decisively alter way in which they think about and prepare for armed conflict. Unfortunately, some of these theorists have also attempted to fundamentally change way we think about war in general. This approach has led to several well-entrenched misunderstandings regarding war's fundamental characteristics and relationship between contemporary and historical conflicts. This article will shed some light on these misunderstandings and show faulty reasoning upon which they are based. By doing so, author hopes to make a contribution to development of a more nuanced and robust intellectual framework that can be used to study historical and contemporary warfare. (1) New Wars Thinking A central tenet of wars thinking is that fundamental characteristics of war are subject to change, making it possible for armed conflict to develop through several distinct phases. This proposition stands in direct contradiction to work of formidable Carl von Clausewitz, and it is therefore no surprise that wars theorists have attempted to do away with work of Prussian strategist in order to validate their own findings. As Tony Corn phrases it, Infatuation with Clausewitz can lead to hair-raising absurdities about Global War on Terror. (2) Philip Meilinger expresses a similar sentiment when he writes that [m]istakes have been made in Iraq, and over 3,000 Americans have paid with their lives for those mistakes, as well as tens of thousands of Iraqis. The Clausewitzian paradigm so hastily followed has proven disastrous. (3) Yet arguments for Clausewitz's dismissal are of a highly contested nature. By a closer examination of criticisms leveled at Clausewitz, this article aims to show that instead of validating wars theory, Clausewitz in fact exposes its fundamental flaws. First of all, though, a brief review of several leading wars theorists will illustrate theory and some initial pitfalls. In many respects Mary Kaldor exemplifies wars thinking. She dismisses Clausewitz with argument that he saw war as the use of military means to defeat another state and that this approach to warfare is no longer applicable in today's conflicts. (4) She argues that states are no longer primary actors in war, having been replaced by group[s] identified in terms of ethnicity, religion, or tribe and that such forces rarely fight each other in a decisive encounter. (5) Kaldor believes that contemporary conflicts no longer revolve around attaining a specific military victory but that they are matters of political mobilization through use of violence, which has led to civilians becoming main targets. …