Meta-Warfare

[TheCurmudgeon]

Did political warfare exist before the modern nation-state? During feudalism, tribalism, or the ancient Roman/Greek era(s), were there forms of warfare that existed that don't now, or vice versa?

Realism obviously has a major influence in today's political-military thinking. Even self-professed true believers, whether communist or Islamist or fascist, are met with cynicism about their motives and their actions re-framed in the realist prism, which is a framework for nation-state conflict. But even fascism at its ideological core believed in warfare (and violence generally) as more than just diplomacy by other means- it was a purifying force for the individual and the nation. The state was the tool for war, not war a tool for the state.

Realism is useful as far as it goes. But as Clausewitz points out, you must have the passion of the people to complete the Triad of the Government, the Military, and the People. Realism would discount the passion of the people. Besides, the average person does not fight and die for realism.

Realism cannot explain humanitarian interventions, which date back at least as far as Oliver Cromwell and his military expedition to help the Huguenots in France. Only emotion, and the belief in a ideology (Protestantism) can cause people to go to a foriegn country, in which they have no rational interest, and fight a war.

In as far as I describe the Ideological Systems, it is to identify a COG. I believe that we have failed to identify the proper COG in groups like ISIS. We fight ISIS like it was any other Autocratic System, but it is not. It's true power does not emanate from al Baghdadi. It emanates from the dream of the Caliphate. At least that is my theory.

A related question: when machines drive supply convoys, refuel unmanned aircraft, and perform increasingly more complex combat tasks, what happens to warfare? And when there are vast social changes - such as the displacement of factory workers, truck drivers, servers, and warehousing people - what happens to the political system? In some countries, the military forms a portion of the state's social welfare program, keeping the restless employed and off the street. Is that our future?

This is a very interesting question, and well beyond me. I have seen strings of it in various places, including Rosa Brooks "How everything became war and the Military became everything." Somewhere out there is a paper (or book) that theorized that the middle class was created to fight wars (not far from the truth, at least in the case of Germany), and that, once robots take over the fighting, there will be no need for the middle class and they will be eliminated by the rich/elite.

In any case, I am not really in a good position to answer at this time.