Meta-Warfare

[TheCurmudgeon]

I realize you and AP are playing it safe, because the dogmatic ones who tend to dominate the military education systems love to promote that the nature of war doesn't change, only its character.

I don't believe I am playing it safe. I believe that Clausewitzian "war" is all about politics and the political realm, where natural war is a natural state of human affairs that never changes.

" I define natural war as non-spontaneous, organized, lethal violence committed by one identifiable group of people against another identifiable group of people, executed by warriors and morally sanctioned by the entire group, for some purpose other than the violence itself. There are seven elements to this definition:
1.war is not a spontaneous act of violence like a riot;
2.war is organized—even simple raids by one group against another require planning and preparation;
3.from the onset, the probability of the violence leading to death on either or both sides is understood;
4.the fighting involves two groups that have a distinguishable identity based in anything from familial relationships (hunter-gatherer bands), to ethnic identity, religious identity, national identity, or ideological identity;
5.war is generally executed by a subpart of the group, the warriors;
6.the killing is morally sanctioned by the rest of the group—the warriors are not viewed as criminals; and
7.it is for a purpose other than simply violence, such as to gain resources, eliminate competition for resources, or to retaliate for attacks or territorial incursions."

"There Is Only War, But War Isn’t Always Political"

In that same paper I argue that our ideas about what war is and how it should be fought have transitioned in the last five centuries or so from "natural war" to "political war," which has a number of rules about legitimate targets and proportionality. So I truly believe that war has always been the same, but our political frame of reference both expands war into areas that are not lethal (like cyber warfare) and limits war by constricting legitimate targets (surrounding a city and starving out the population is now not war, but a crime).

In today's modern, political society, everything is defined by the frame of reference we surround ourselves with, including war. As that frame of reference changes, so do our ideas about war. What I think AP is saying is that, not everyone agrees with our ideas about what a government should look like. Because of that, their definition of "war" is different from ours. As a result of that, how it is fought and, most important, what it takes to win (or lose) is different than ours. We can fight till we are blue in the face, but we are, in essence, not fighting against each other but fighting past each other. I believe that is the crux of the problem both AP and I are thinking about.

Thanks for clarifying my thoughts, I know what my next paper will be about.