Meta-Warfare

[Azor]

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.

Lt. Col.,

I mostly agree with your take on “terrorism”. Firstly, I have always been of the opinion that it is unconventional warfare. Secondly, states have always been worse terrorists than non-state actors, and invariably refer to their enemies (usually unarmed civilians and their own citizens) as terrorists. On the one hand, terrorism as a term has been rendered almost meaningless; on the other, it is used so often that it cannot be ignored, and tends to mean indiscriminate violence and/or violence against civilians by non-state actors.

Technology is an issue as well. The types of improvised explosive devices utilized by the NLF/NVA against American forces in Vietnam were not available to the resistance movements of World War II. Quite frankly, the insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq had an abundance of explosive and detonation devices unavailable to prior guerrilla/terrorist forces.

One question, I would have for you is the moral sanctioning of non-state actors. What "entire groups" are specifically sanctioning Al Qaeda, Daesh and their affiliates? The Taliban is very much a Pashtun movement, and Hezbollah is a Shia movement, so I've left them out...