Intro to the Tactics and Technique of Small Wars

[Bill Moore]

PLAYING WITH WAR
The western way of war in the 21st century is a pale shadow of the warfare it waged in the 20th. The reason is simple: for western societies war is no longer existential. Instead, it's increasingly about smoothing market flows and tertiary moral concerns/threats. As a result of this diminishment of motivation, western warfare is now afflicted with the following:
Operations of low lethality. Western militaries do not have the desire, nor the sanction, to conduct the high casualty operations typically associated with real wars. Technology has been leveraged to increase the precision of attacks to limit collateral damage and save the lives of soldiers. The corollary to this is that western militaries are also fiercely protective of the lives of their soldiers. Warfare, increasingly, is supposed to be costless. What this means is that we will not see Sherman's 'March to the Sea' or Hama in the near future - and - the loss of a hundred soldiers in southern Lebanon will be enough to stop the Israeli army.
Marginal placement within national priorities. Militaries are increasingly professional (with a trend towards the use of mercenaries) and conscription has become impossible. This drastically limits the number of soldiers that can be applied to any conflict. In addition, to retain competitive positioning on the global stage, states and their economies are operated as if war is not going on. To wit: military budgets are considered just another line item on a more complex national budget. Gone are the days of massive mobilization and economic restructuring for war.
Muddled objectives. Given the lack of the cohesive and singular reason for war -- the survival of the state and its people through the elimination of its enemies -- the reasons for warfare will drift. This translates into a constantly shifting landscape of military objectives, where current objectives recede in favor of replacements before they can be reached. The result is confusion, mission creep, and conflict escalation.

This was recent post on John Robb's Global Guerrilla site. The underlining and bold print are mine for emphasis.

Terminology is critical to facilitate clear thinking, and since several terms were thrown out at random to try to describe what we're dealing with in OIF and more important globally that indicates to me we don't have a clear understanding of what we're countering. Clausewitz fans know the importance of knowing the absolute importance of clarifying the nature of the war you’re about to enter, or in our case have already entered so you can develop a suitable strategy. I concur with Mr Robb's thought that the reason for the conflict will drift if we’re in a prolonged conflict. This phenomenon is compounded when the nature of the war changes concurrently with our objectives. I concur with our President when he said this will be a different type of war. I think the military has not evolved its doctrine sufficiently to deal with it. Using the past as prologue is useful only to a point.