Hello all,

After several months of deliberation, I think I've settled on a dissertation subject. I'm still working out the particular question(s) to address. I've jotted down notes here and there but this my first time really flushing out the idea, so bear with me. I definitely appreciate any further conversation on this matter.

As many of you are aware, I'm primarily interested in the relationship between the political system and military practice. The long-accepted paradigm, especially in the West, is the Clausewitzian paradigm where "war is diplomacy by other means"; in other words, the goal of military operations is to achieve some politically defined objective on behalf of the state. "Military revolutions" or "transformations" occur within this paradigm, which raises the question of whether they are revolutions or transformations at all. Scale and conduct may change but the principle remains the same. Linking a state's politics to its military practice therefore becomes an exercise in country studies. The Clausewitz paradigm defines the acceptable norms, practice, infrastructure, language, and architecture of the military apparatus in a way specific to it.

My research focus will therefore be on military paradigms - not 'revolutions' or 'transformations' or 'reform' or 'modernization', all of which mean different things. As I see it, there are four kinds of war:

The First Kind: intra-paradigmal conflict. This is conflict between actors of the same military paradigm; i.e. two nation-states.

The Second Kind: transitional paradigmal conflict. This is conflict between actors of the same military paradigm with transition to a new paradigm as a consequence of the war itself. The 'total war' nature of the world wars probably fit in this category, since in my reading, total war is when the object of the war itself subjugates the political object sought, and thus is a different paradigm than Clausewitz.

The Third Kind: cross-paradigmal conflict. This is when actors of different paradigms come into conflict. The Mongol invasion of Japan is a good example, when the large hordes of the Mongols met a Japanese practice focused on single combat. The European wars against the native Americans is another example.

The Fourth Kind: meta-paradigmal conflict. This could be called 'thinking about thinking about warfare'. That is, when an actor deliberately integrates components of other military paradigms into its own practice and is able to fight across paradigms. Good examples of this are probably limited to localized adaptations of practice.

Some other terms:

'military revolution' - sudden change from one paradigm to another

'military transformation' - change from one paradigm to another

'military reform' - deliberate change from one paradigm to another

'modernization' - improving one's capabilities, not paradigm specific, and usually limited to making one's forces more capable within the established practice

'domain' - land, sea, subsurface, air, sub-orbital, space, cyber (and, depending on the paradigm, cultural, political, social, economic, environmental)

Thoughts on identifiable paradigms:

Clausewitz - limited war to achieve political ends established by the state

Total war - conflict in which victory supersedes all other considerations

Revolutionary - overthrow of the current political system

Marxist - seizure of a political system's means of production

Humanitarian - conflict to protect, uphold, or establish human rights

Genocidal - war to eliminate in whole or in part another people

Eschatological - war to bring about the 'end of the world' or 'judgment' according to religious belief

Commercial - war for profit

Honor - war to defend or improve reputation, honor, etc