2010 ssi annual strategy conference report "defining war for the 21st century"

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STRATEGIC

STUDIES

INSTITUTE

The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is part of the U.S. Army WarCollege and is the strategic-level study agent for issues related tonational security and military strategy with emphasis on geostrate-gic analysis.

The mission of SSI is to use independent analysis to conduct strategicstudies that develop policy recommendations on:

Strategy, planning, and policy for joint and combinedemployment of military forces;

Regional strategic appraisals;

The nature of land warfare;

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ports, and quick-reaction responses to senior Army leaders.The Institute provides a valuable analytical capability within theArmy to address strategic and other issues in support of Army par-ticipation in national security policy formulation.


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2010Strategic Studies Institute Annual

Strategy Conference Report

DEFINING WAR FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Steven MetzPhillip Cuccia

February 2011

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors anddo not necessarily reect the ofcial policy or position of theDepartment of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) publica-tions enjoy full academic freedom, provided they do not disclose

classied information, jeopardize operations security, or mis-represent ofcial U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empow-ers them to offer new and sometimes controversial perspectivesin the interest of furthering debate on key issues. This report iscleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

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tions 101 and 105. It is in the public domain and may not be copy-righted.


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ISBN 1-58487-472-4


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FOREWORD

For more than 2 decades, the Strategic Studies Institute(SSI) has hosted an annual strategy conference. Each con-ference was designed to convene some of the worlds topexperts on a major strategic issue, and to use cutting edgescholarship and analysis to help the U.S. Army and Depart-ment of Defense (DoD) leadership understand the issue.The April 2010 Strategy Conference was entitled DeningWar for the 21st Century.

The conference included a keynote address by Profes-sor Martin van Creveld, a banquet presentation by MajorGeneral (Retired) Robert Scales, and panels on the his-torical context; the instigation of war; the end of wars; theparticipants in war; the rule sets governing war; and thepolicy, strategy, and organizational implications of den-ing war. The conference speakers, which included wellknown scholars, former policymakers, and former seniormilitary leaders, agreed on some points, but often had verydifferent perspectives. Most importantly, they identiedthe most pressing questions that the American and inter-national defense communities are grappling with as theyrene their denition of war.

In the report which follows, Steven Metz and PhilipCuccia of SSI have summarized the presentations and de-bates at the conference and placed them in their wider in-tellectual and strategic context. SSI is pleased to offer thisreport in fulllment of its mission to assist U.S. Army andDoD senior leaders and strategic thinkers in understandingthe key issues of the day.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.DirectorStrategic Studies Institute


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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

STEVEN METZ is Chairman of the Regional Strat-egy Department and Research Professor of NationalSecurity Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute. Hehas been with SSI since 1993, previously serving asHenry L. Stimson Professor of Military Studies andSSIs Director of Research. Dr. Metz has also beenon the faculty of the Air War College, the U.S. Army

Command and General Staff College, and severaluniversities. He has been an advisor to political cam-paigns and elements of the intelligence community;served on national security policy task forces; testiedin both houses of Congress; and spoken on militaryand security issues around the world. He is the au-thor of more than 100 publications including articles

in journals such as Washington Quarterly, Joint ForceQuarterly, The National Interest, Defence Studies, andCurrent History. Dr. Metzs research has taken him to30 countries, including Iraq immediately after the col-lapse of the Hussein regime. He currently serves onthe RAND Corporation Insurgency Board and blogsfor The New Republic and National Journal. He is the au-thor of Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy and

is working on a book entitled Strategic Shock: EightEvents That Changed American Security. Dr. Metz holdsa Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University.

PHILLIP R. CUCCIA is the Director of EuropeanStudies in the Regional Strategy Department of theStrategic Studies Institute. He is currently assigned

to the International Security Assistance Force in Af-ghanistan. Prior assignments included the staff of theOperations Chief of the Ofce of Defense Cooperation

v


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at the U.S. Embassy to Italy, and assistant Political Ad-visor and Planning Ofcer at the NATO Joint Forces

South HQ in Naples, Italy. Lieutenant Colonel Cucciahas served in armor and cavalry units in various posi-tions from the platoon through regimental level. Heparticipated in Operations DESERT SHIELD/STORMand UPHOLD DEMOCRACY, and the NATO mis-sion in Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Cuccia holds a B.S.degree from the United States Military Academy, andan M.A. and Ph.D. in military and European historyfrom Florida State University.


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SUMMARY

The Strategic Studies Institutes XXI Annual Strat-egy Conference, held at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, fromApril 6-8, 2010, addressed the topic of the meaningof war. While it did not seek to produce a denitiveanswer to questions about the nature and denitionof war, it did highlight the crucial questions and theirimplications, including issues such as whether the

cause of war is shifting, whether all forms of orga-nized, politically focused violence constitute war, andthe distinction between passive and active war.


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2010Strategic Studies Institute Annual

Strategy Conference Report

DEFINING WAR FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Introduction.

Since the end of the Cold War, debate has ragedamong scholars of security strategy as to whether thenature of war has changed and, if so, what that means.Concepts such as new and hybrid war have en-tered the lexicon, suggesting that there is an impor-tant, perhaps profound, distinction between the warsof the past and those of the present and future. Someanalysts even suggest that the concept of war itself

is obsolete. For such radicals, militaries and defenseestablishments must undertake wholesale retoolingor transformation to adjust to contemporary war.Traditionalists, by contrast, focus on continuity. Theycontend that while the character of war has changed(as it often does), its essential nature persists. Strategyshould not, for the traditionalists, succumb to fads.This debate has profound implications for strategy,force development, and leader development. For theUnited States (and other nations) to prepare for futuresecurity challenges, its military and civilian leadersmust grapple with the changing meaning of war.

The Strategic Studies Institutes XXI Annual Strat-egy Conference, held at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, fromApril 6-8, 2010, addressed this important topic by

gathering nearly 200 of the worlds top experts onwar. While the conference certainly could not producea denitive answer to questions about the nature and


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denition of war, it did highlight the crucial questionsand their implications. Speaker biographies can be

found in the appendix to this report.

The Meaning of War.

Dr. Martin van Creveldone of the worlds mosteminent military historians and strategic theoristsprovided the conferences keynote address. Van Crev-eld stressed that throughout history, war has had twodistinct meanings. The Clausewitzean meaningwhich dominates American thinkingdenes war asorganized violence to achieve political ends. This di-vorces war from ethical or normative structures. Carlvon Clausewitz and his followers devoted little atten-tion to the question of whether war in general or a spe-cic war was legal or ethical. The goal was an amoral,

even scientic approach. Ethics and legality remainedimportant but fell within the realm of politics ratherthan strategy. The other meaning, which has beenused at least since the Roman empire, approached waras a legal condition, dening the permissible limits oforganized violence. War allowed the use of differentethical and normative frameworks than peace. Thesespecied who could kill, whom they could kill, and

under what conditions they could kill. Ethics andlegality, in other words, could not be divorced fromstrategy and the conduct of war.

While the Clausewitzean notion pervades theWestern military and strategic communities, vanCreveld argued, there is great value in the second ap-proach. Without an organizing and constraining ethi-

cal/legal framework, violence can devolve into unmit-igated barbarity. Law is part of the rationality whichClausewitz considered the constraining factor which


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prevents all war from becoming total war. But, vanCreveld noted, war unconstrained by a legal or ethi-

cal framework has become common in places such asBosnia, East Timor, Eastern Congo, and Sierra Leone.There was no formal declaration of war and often nopeace treaty in conicts of that type. Nothing deneswars beginning and end. As a result, the conicts be-came barbarous, particularly for noncombatants.

Van Creveld noted that there also have been warswhere the state and government of the losing side isannihilated and thus unable to formalize the passagefrom war to peace. Examples include the Jewish con-quest of Israel and Alexanders conquest of Persia. Insuch cases, the only constraint on violence was thewill of the winning side. It could choose to destroythe population of conquered territoriesthe Jews inIsraelor to leave the population intact in order to

extract tribute (Alexander in Persia). A third form ofwar is one in which one or both of the antagonists lacka formal government from the beginning. This meansthat they cannot participate in shifting the legal situ-ation from peace to war and back. Such conicts tendto simply peter out rather than having a formal, recog-nized end point. This leaves little distinction betweenwar and peace. The long warongoing conict be-tween the West and al Qaedais an example. At othertimes, none of the antagonists constitute a formal gov-ernment operating within a legal framework, so warbecomes endemic, Hobbesian, parasitic violence. Thisis relatively rare in the West but increasingly commonelsewhere.

Van Creveld argued that there are advantages to

strengthening the ruling structure of a stateless an-tagonist to give at least the potential for a negotiatedand enforceable peace. This idea has important stra-


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tegic implications. For instance, it suggests that highvalue targetingkilling the leadership of insurgent

or terrorist groupsas used by the United States inAfghanistan, Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, Russiain Chechnya, and some other nations may, in the longterm, prove counterproductive. A decapitated insur-gency or terrorist movement may be degraded or frag-mented but it cannot participate in a peace settlementor enforce the terms of the settlement on its followers.Ultimately, van Creveld suggested, the ensuing ano-mie and endless war may prove worse than a peacenegotiated with and enforced by the leadership of anenemy organization.

The Historical Context.

The rst panel of the conference focused on the

historical context for the evolution of war. It includedDr. John Lynn, Dr. Brian Linn, Mr. Frank Hoffman,and Dr. Antulio Echevarria.

Dr. Lynn explained that the character of war hadbeen far different in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thedominant imageat least in the Western worldwasinterstate war involving conventional armies and na-vies ghting battles in line and column. But in real-ity, sieges were far more numerous than battles, whilesmall wars against guerrilla and partisan forceswere common. In fact, every epoch witnesses this mix.Often a single war combined the forms. The Boer War,for instance, started with battle and siege, devolvedinto guerilla insurgency, and ended with often-harshpopulation control. While warfare took different op-

erational forms, Europeans preferred or felt mostcomfortable with war between states led by legitimaterulers. Other forms were seen as less important and


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glorious. They were to be tolerated only when abso-lutely necessary. War, like law, should be an affair of

states.For Lynn, the heroic picture of U.S. General GeorgeS. Patton waiting for German Field Marshal ErwinRommels attack captured what Americans, as theinheritors of the European tradition, wanted war tolook like. He contrasted that with a picture of a soldierin an Iraqi home using a small mag-light to inspect adresser drawer while a clearly terried woman and

her son crouch nearby. This, to Americans, is inglo-rious war. Young soldiers did not enlist for it, andthe American public has difculty understanding it.Americans still yearn for conventional maneuver war-fare with its power, clarity, and glory. In dening warfor the 21st century, we must be able to face reality inour own cultural expectations of war. This observa-

tion highlighted a key point that recurred throughoutthe Strategy Conference: War has other functions thansimply the pursuit or protection of national intereststhrough the use of force. If it did not, the distinctionbetween heroic and nonheroic, legitimate and illegiti-mate, and preferred or unpreferred war would notmatter. That it does matter shows that war plays otherpsychological, cultural, and political roles beyond thepursuit of national interests.

Dr. Brian Linn discussed the American way ofwar but warned that many who analyze this are moreinterested in inuencing current policy than provid-ing reasoned and balanced analysis of the past or thepresent. History, he suggested, offered several differ-ent ways to look at the American way of war. One is to

view it as an aspect of a national culture as Victor Da-vis Hanson does.1 Americans treat war in a certain waybecause of their broader perspectives on politics, eco-


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nomics, history, and national purpose. Another wayis to derive a pattern from the American experience in

major war. Emory Upton pioneered this, arguing thatthe public viewed war and peace as two separate andwholly distinct conditions.2 This led Americans to en-ter wars unprepared but, after getting bloodied, learn-ing to defer to military professionals and becomingadept at combat. This view is popular in the military.A third method focuses on weapons and the methodsof using weapons. Advanced by U.S. Army GeneralBilly Mitchell and popular among techo-centric think-ers, particularly in the Air Force, this is advanced bythose who tend to think of net-centric warfare andthe revolution in military affairs.3 They contend thatwith the new methods, the validity of historic prin-ciples and lessons are limited. The denition that mostAmerican historians accept is derived from the work

of Russell Weigley. This traces the evolution of U.S.military operations from a concentration on attritionto an approach based on annihilation.4 This risks over-simplication by using large-scale, conventional warsas the paradigm.

A useful denition or concept, according to Linn,must transcend specic conicts and the methods of aparticular commander. This would allow it to be usedto anticipate (but not predict) the future. But, Linnnoted, this is difcult. Thinking about future war isshaped by assumptions and traditions which are oftenunrecognized. This can lead to an overestimation ofthe degree to which a concept or organization is newor innovative. Hence to dene war for the 21st cen-tury, it is vital to understand how it was dened in

the past. Scholars and strategists must recognize thatevery era involved contesting and often politicizeddenitions, all designed as much to inuence policyas to illuminate the subject.


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Mr. Frank Hoffman noted that dening war is vi-tally important for the military profession, but it is

important to move beyond the study of battles to un-derstand the political, socio-cultural, techno-econom-ic, and geo-dimensional elements of armed conict.Like most of the conference participants, Hoffmanaccepted the Clausewitzean notion that war has anenduring nature and a changing character, and thatit is crucial to understand both elements and to dis-tinguish between them. He considered hybridization

the most important ongoing change in the characterof war.5 This blends conventional warfare with orga-nized crime, irregular conict, and terrorism.

Dr. Antulio Echevarria noted that attempts to re-dene war or rene the denition have been commonwithin academia, but they are often problematic. Oneexampleand one of the most widely discussed at-

temptswas the new war theory which arose inthe 1990s.6 This, Echevarria argued, had limited ap-plicability outside the European context. Within themilitary profession, there is a divide between thoselike Lieutenant General (Retired) Paul van Riper, U.S.Marine Corps, who believe that war has an immutablenature and a changing character, and those like Lieu-tenant General David Deptula, U.S. Air Force, whobelieve that the nature of war is also changeable. Eche-varria also noted that there is debate within the mili-tary profession as to whether war has a second gram-mar based on insurgency. Proponents of this positioncontend that many of the problems the United Statesfaced in Iraq and Afghanistan arose when the mili-tarys infatuation with Clausewitz led it to conclude

that war has only one grammar.


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Echevarria then explained that the Clausewitzeannotion of war is comprehensive and exible enough

to explain contemporary and future forms without theneed for wholesale redenition. Clausewitzs deni-tion, which was developed in stages through his workrather than in one passage, views war as the compos-ite of hostility, chance, and purpose. It is not subjectsolely to the laws of logical necessity, but also to thelaws of probability and to the dictates and constraintsof policy or politics. This implies the need to use meansappropriate to the desired end. Echevarria argued thatthe world is not in a post-Clausewitzean period, butis in a post new war period.

How Do We Know That We Are at War?

Until recently, this question would have struck

strategists and political leaders as peculiar, perhapseven absurd. At least in the Western world, the in-ception of a war was clear. War began when politicalleaders declared that it had, or through a stunning sur-prise attack like that by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor,Hawaii, or the German invasion of the Soviet Union inJune 1941. Even when one antagonist felt that war hadbegun before the other didal Qaedas war againstthe United Statesan unambiguous attack markedthe opening of mutual hostility. That changed every-thing. As van Creveld noted, norms, laws, and valuesshifted. Militaries mobilized and expanded. This oftenrequired the instigation of or expansion of conscrip-tion. In an era of total war, the economy also went ona war footing. This would almost certainly include

increased production of weapons and war material,but also increased taxation and government borrow-ing. And there was a general change in political dis-


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course and public attitudespartisanship normallydeclined (at least early in a war) while demonstrations

of patriotism expanded. The opening weeks of WorldWar I saw public celebration across Europe, as didthe beginning of the Civil War in the American Southand World War II in Germany and Japan. Long beforethe rst casualties struck at a nations communities, itknew that war had begun.

Today this may have changed. The opening sal-voes of 21st century war may not be armed attack, buta range of other hostile actions designed to weakena state. Strategic futurists have speculated that thismay take the form of cyber attacks from unidentiedsources, engineered economic crises, or even pandem-ics. Thus, the argument goes, a nation may be at warwithout knowing it. And without knowing preciselywho the enemy is. To examine this issue, the second

panel of the Strategy Conference included Dr. MichaelVlahos, Lieutenant General (Retired) Peter Leahy, Dr.Peter Dombrowski, and Dr. James Carafano.

To begin exploring this issue, Vlahos drew ideasfrom his seminal book, Fighting Identity.7 Most modernwars, he argued, are wars of the people or sacredwars which shape and become part of national iden-tity rather than simply being the pursuit of limitedregime interestsconsider the difference between thesacred wars of the Napoleonic period and the dynasticwars which dominated Europe following the end ofthe Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years War. Sacredwars involve rituals to indicate that the nation is atwar, and thus should behave differently. These in-clude investing the enemy with perdy and portray-

ing it as the other, and banding the people of thestate together for victory over the perdious other.Ritual and national sacrice is important not only


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for the actual ghting of a war, but also for clearlyindicating the status of being at war. War, in other

words, is distinct from not war at multiple levels,many inextricably connected to the identity of the na-tion which undertakes it. It is a national time out,when all else is put aside or becomes less importantthan prosecution of the war. This is a vital point: Waris not only a method by which one state imposes itswill on another, but also a vital component of creatinga nation and driving its evolution. Participation in warchanges a nation just as profoundly as it changes anindividual.

Sacred warone which plays a major role in thedevelopment or evolution of national identityin-volves a great goal or mission, universal sacrice ofsome sort from the citizenry of the nation at war, anda great enemy. Triumph moves the national narrative

ahead: A nation victorious in sacred war is differentthan it used to be in signicant ways. This could cer-tainly be seen in Americas previous sacred wars likethe Civil War and World War II. The post-September11, 2001 (9/11) global war on terror (GWOT) at-tacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and thePentagon in Washington, DC, though, were different.Initially, they appeared to be a sacred war, with tran-scendent, system-altering goals once a perdious en-emy was vanquished. But President George W. Bushelected to pursue them as a war of the state or a co-lonial style war rather than a sacred war, even whileusing the rhetoric of a sacred war to describe it. TheAmerican population never became an active partici-pant through sacrice. And the transcendent, system-

altering goals were only words. Eventually PresidentBush recognized the corrosive impact of this disso-nance and toned down the rhetoric, but the problem


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was never fully resolved and, to an extent, continuedinto the Obama administration.

Vlahos felt that the United States now has threechoices in its conict with Islamic extremists: It couldmove it below the threshold of at war. It could re-design Americans national narrative into a transfor-mative mission not driven by war. Or it could carryon with the dissonance between the national narrativeand national actions and hope for the best. This, hesuggested, was a recipe for a divided and irresolutenation.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Peter Leahy, formerChief of the Australian Army and currently professorand foundation director of the National Security In-stitute at the University of Canberra, approached theissue differently, contending that the West is at warbecause its military is engaged with an enemy utiliz-

ing armed violence. This is an important point, sug-gesting that war can begin unilaterally rather thanrequiring mutual consent. But the bounding of warshas changed as it becomes increasingly difcult tosegregate the military and nonmilitary dimensions.Contemporary wars require a much more integrateduse of the elements of national power. They also tendto last longer than previous wars, involve more civil-ian casualties, and entail rapid adaptation on the partof the combatants. War, in other words, is persistentand pervasive. The nations of the worldand theirmilitariesare still adjusting to this.

Dombrowski, like Vlahos, argued that war is so-cially constructed. He also agreed that the GWOT didnot meet the standard of a sacred war, given that

the American public was not called on to participatein or sacrice for it. Even its monetary costs have beenpassed to later generations. Dombrowski did stress


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that this conict entails a signicant amount of stra-tegic choice. The Bush administration, and later the

Obama administration, did not have to portray theconict with al Qaeda as a war with postponed pay-ment and a limited burden on the public. Historically,a high degree of strategic choice characterizes Ameri-can involvement in war. A case can be made that all ofAmericas wars are wars of choice. This has majorrepercussions, making meaning and purpose moresignicant than for nations which enter wars purely

for survival. Americas wars must be sold to the pub-lic. Often this is an ongoing process as fatigue and dis-traction set in, demanding that the purpose of the warbe rened, redened, or at least re-explained. Dom-browski also noted that how the United States electsto portray and perceive a war has a major effect on thedenition of victory or success. That is certainly clear

in the war against al Qaeda. Initially, the Bush admin-istration dened victory as the destruction of terror-ism by altering the political and economic structureswhich gave rise to extremism. Now, it is less clearwhat victory means. Is it the absence of major terroristattacks on the United States itself? On American tar-gets around the world? The destruction of al Qaeda asan organization? The further delegitimization of ter-rorism? Each of these has its supporters, but there areno denitive answers, leaving America claiming to beengaged in a war in which it cannot identify victory oreven acceptable success.

Carafano approached the panel topic from a dif-ferent angle, contending that the important questionis not whether the United States is or is not at war,

but why that issue is debated. Like Leahy, Carafanosuggested that attacks by organized groups constitutewar even without a formal or ritual declaration. De-


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bate over whether the United States is currently at warreects a broader and deeper divide between a neo-

liberal and realist approach to statecraft. For a neo-liberal, distinguishing war from not war mattersgreatly. The objective is to develop institutions andprocesses which diminish war to the maximum extentpossible. War occurs because of aws in internationalinstitutions and conict resolution processes. To aneo-liberal, the existence of war implies that institu-tions and processes need strengthening. For a realist,what matters is the preservation and augmentation ofnational power. Distinguishing war and not war isunimportant. Strategy should reect the convergenceof rules and power rather than some updated or re-vised denition of war. As it has been for at least acentury, America is torn between these two perspec-tives.

The panels discussion indicated that there is de-bate over whether armed conict and warare the same.Leahy and Dombrowski argued that it was; the dis-tinction is mostly semantic. Vlahoslike van Creveldduring the conference keynote addressdifferenti-ated war and other forms of armed conict, or sa-cred war from other types of war. One question leftunanswered was whether sacred war, as Vlahosdescribed it, is an enduring historical feature or pe-culiar to a stage in the evolution of a state. Might it bepossible for states to transcend the need or the impera-tive to advance the national narrative and solidify orchange national identity through war, perhaps ndingalternative means? Sacred war, in other words, mightbe part of becoming a state but not necessarily part of

being a state, serving as a violent rite of passage.


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How Do We Know When a War Is Over?

Historically, wars end in one of three ways. Theremay be a negotiated settlement which signals to mili-tary forces, the publics in participant nations, and oth-er states that the war is over. Admittedly, it may takesome time for the word to get outthe largest landbattle of the War of 1812 took place after the peacetreaty was signed, and some Japanese soldiers re-mained in the eld for years after World War IIbutthe end is denitive and unambiguous. One side maybe victorious and impose the terms of the settlement,or it may reect a compromise giving both sides someof what they wanted. Although, as van Creveld noted,it is now less common, wars may end through the an-nihilation of one side or the other. The third option

is for a war to simply peter out without any formalrecognition that it has ended. This is most common inwars involving a nonstate combatant using a strategyof insurgency or some other irregular method. Thelosing side simply blends back into society, often hid-ing or abandoning its weapons. Just as states facingirregular enemies may not know when a war begins,they may also not know when one ends. In August2010, President Obama referred to today as an agewithout surrender ceremonies.8

To examine the issue of how to tell when a waris over, the third panel of the Strategy Conference in-cluded Dr. Jeremy Black, Dr. Andrew Bacevich, andMajor General (Ret.) William Nash.

Black argued that in assessing the question of when

a war was over, it was important to move beyond apurely or peculiarly Western perspective. Most of thewars underway today do not involve the West and


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thus have different characteristics than Western war.The denition of war and the way it is understood, in

other words, have a cultural dimension. Cross cultur-al wars, which are the kind the United States is mostlikely to engage in, are particularly challenging. Thismeans that the United States must work to understandhow other cultures dene war and its end.

To begin developing such understanding, Ameri-cans must rst realize how eccentric their use ofmilitary power is. Unlike the rest of the world, theUnited States has seldom used its military against itsown citizens. This is, however, the norm. For mostnations, military success is not defeating a foreignenemy, but reaching an acceptable level of domesticstability with violent opposition under control andthe state safely ensconced in power. This particularkind of war, Dr. Black argued, will become even more

common as states struggle with resource competition,growing populations and urbanization, and the inher-ent instability of democratization. Economic growthmakes the pressures and ssures of democratizationtolerable. Democratization without economic growthcan be highly unstable as segments of the populationconclude that their interests are not being adequatelyaddressed, and other people are responsible for thiscondition. The resulting violence will not conform toWestern notions of war and its set of values, rules, andconstraints. Thus, the assumption that war and peaceare distinct and identiable conditions may not hold.Black also suggested that economic classwhile outof fashion in academiamay return as an analyticaltool for explaining armed violence, thus reclaiming

the prominence it held before the collapse of the So-viet empire appeared to unleash a spate of ethnic con-ict in Europe, Africa, and Asia.


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Ultimately, Black noted, when a war ends dependson how it is dened. For example, if the American Civil

War was really about revolutionizing the racial orderrather than simply preserving the union, then it didnot end until the 1960s. Often the end of a war comesnot when a elded military is defeated, but when thepolitical leadership and population of one side acceptsthat it has been defeated. Because the stakes are oftenhigher in internal wars than in wars between statesand since most wars in the coming decades will be civ-il wars involving control of resources, Black believesthat it will be possible, perhaps even easy, to attaina military outcome, but difcult to convince publicsthat they are defeated and thus reach a sustainableconclusion. The result is likely to be periods of conictinterspersed with truces rather than true peace.

Bacevich agreed that in recent years the United

States has had trouble bringing armed conict to a -nal and sustainable conclusion, in part because it mis-understood the character of those conicts and thusattempted to impose a convenient framework ratherthan one which reected reality. To know when a waris over, American policymakers and strategists mustknow what it is about.

Nash also took a different approach to the problem,suggesting that the crucial question is whether wartermination should be an integral part of the Ameri-can way of war. In recent conicts, the United Stateshas tended to focus on battleeld success, assumingthat the ultimate resolution of the conict would moreor less take care of itself. Operations DESERT STORM,IRAQI FREEDOM, and ENDURING FREEDOM all

exhibited this tendency. The result was embroilmentin insurgency. To avoid this, Nash argued, war termi-nation or the ultimate resolution of the core conictshould be the driving factor in American strategy.


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National Security Strategy and Tactical Art.

During the conference banquet, Major General(Retired) Robert Scales assessed one of the enduringanomalies of the U.S. military: its failure to dominateland warfare at the tactical level to the same extentthat it does other battlespaces like the air and sea, or atthe operational and strategic levels. While the UnitedStates has the best trained military in the world, onthe land it often faces an enemy which is more cleverand adaptive, more familiar with the terrain and lo-cal culture, and nearly equal in weaponry. Because ofthe effect that casualties have on public support forinvolvement in a conict, failure to dominate landcombat at the tactical level has strategic consequences.Recognizing this, enemies seek to kill as many Ameri-

cans as possible, using a strategy of attrition to coun-ter the U.S. strategy of annihilation.Although research suggests that the American

public is not as casualty averse as policymakers be-lieve (so long as it is convinced that the national inter-ests at stake in a conict are important), Scales pointis important.9 It suggests that the United States shouldlessen the vulnerability of its small combat units. ButWashington does not take this as seriously as it should.Policymakers and legislators assume that groundcombat is inherently costly and that limiting casual-ties is solely the responsibility of land force militarycommanders rather than something which should beaddressed at the national level. This means that closeground combat, while causing most American casual-

ties, gets the short shrift in defense resources. Moneyfor research and acquisition gravitates instead towardhigher technology areas and big ticket systems. Be-


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cause small combat units do not employ capital in-tensive equipment, improvements are incremental.

Much of the basic weaponry and equipment of tacticalground units, Scales noted, is years or even decadesold. Moreover, it is difcult to bring technology tobear on the problem of close combat because enemiescan change their behavior faster than the U.S. acqui-sition cycle can react, particularly since the UnitedStates prepares small combat units using an industrialage batch approach rather than a boutique one. Itmight take years for opponents to react to new tech-nology in the aerospace or naval battlespaces but landcombat is shaped as much by tactics as technology,making adaptation quicker.

Yet it does not have to be this way. To remedy theproblem, Scales recommended that the Secretary ofDefense publicly state that dominance of the small

unit battlespace is a strategic priority, and dedicateadequate resources to attain it. The Secretary shouldchallenge the research and development communityto meld physical and human sciences toward this goal.He should create a senior level Department of Defense(DoD) steering group to develop a holistic, multi-ser-vice program to attain and sustain tactical superiority.The DoD should create a small unit community ofpractice combining academia, industry, law enforce-ment, and both public and private research and de-velopment organizations. It should create a nationallevel small unit gaming and simulation program man-aged by the land forces but funded by its own line inthe DoD budget. It should reform the way that smallunit leaders are trained and educated, and challenge

the health and medical communities to improve theirability to prepare individuals for the physical andpsychological stress of small unit combat. The DoD


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budget should add a tactical perspective to strategicpolicymaking to assure that it meets the needs of small

combat units. Finally, the DoD should develop an ob-jective method for assessing and measuring small unitand small unit leader effectiveness to verify that noneare sent into combat unprepared.

However, it is important to note that Scales argu-ments and recommendations reected the existing as-sumptions of American strategy: that Islamic extrem-ists using a strategy of insurgency are the primaryenemy; that it is better (and feasible) to ght extremistswhere they originate; that the American military mustplay a central role in this; and that this conict willlast for years or decades. If all of these assumptionshold, then attaining and sustaining tactical superiorityin land combat against irregular opponents is a strate-gic necessity. But if the United States abandons any or

all of these strategic assumptionsif combat betweenU.S. land forces and irregular enemies no longer is acentral mission of the American militarythen a pro-gram designed to attain and sustain tactical superior-ity in land warfare would be less pressing.

Who Participates in War?

Throughout most of history, war was the businessof warriors. In pre-modern societies, all men of a cer-tain age were warriors and thus participated in war.With the beginning of civilization, warriors becamedistinct from nonwarriors. They were readily identi-able through what they wore and other characteristicsthat demonstrated that they were a professionand a

breedapart from the rest of society. At the extreme,warriors were ethnically different than the rest of thepopulation as in the Mamluk slave armies used in


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Egypt and the janissary units of the Ottoman sultans.10The population writ large might serve as a resource

pool, providing recruits and materiel for it, but theywere not, in the strictest sense, participants. At the ex-treme, most of the population was isolated from andoften disinterested in the conduct of war. In many ofEuropes 18th century wars, for instance, it matteredlittle to most peasants that one dynastic family wasdefeated and another one took its place. All nobilitywas more or less the same.

This began to change in the 20th century when rev-olutionaries like Mao Zedong developed the notion ofpeoples war. Since they sought to overthrow thestate, they initially operated from a position of com-parative military weakness. To address this asymme-try, Mao and similar thinkers transformed the peoplefrom passive to active participants in war. The result

was, in Rupert Smiths phrase, war amongst the peo-ple.11 Many strategic analysts consider this the normtoday. But does it stop there? What other participantsmatter in the contemporary security environment?Should private security rms be considered partici-pants in war? What about transnational corporations?The media? Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)?Organized crime? Hackers? All of these certainly have

a major effect on the instigation, progress, and reso-lution of war, so why should they not be consideredparticipants?12 And, to understand who participates,analysts must also understand why they participate.While Clausewitz may be right that war, as a phenom-enon, is about the pursuit of political or policy objec-tives, the motives of individual participants display

an amazing psychological complexity to include ide-alism, duty, anger, frustration, the desire for personalempowerment, the desire for personal enrichment,


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and peer pressure. The particular mix of motives var-ies across cultures and across time. It is possible that

the combination of motivesor at least the ways inwhich they are mobilized and sustainedis changingtoday.

To examine the participants in modern war, thefourth panel of the Strategy Conference included Col-onel Robert Cassidy, Dr. Paul R. Kan, Dr. Thomas X.Hammes, and Dr. Michael Klare.

Hammes argued that Americans tend to place warin a box, seeing it as an abnormal condition ratherthan natural, even inevitable, as most of the rest ofthe world does. This demonstrates the extent to whichwar reects its economic, political, social, and tech-nological context. The development of war, Hammespointed out, has been characterized by a series of in-novation curves. Innovations emerge and some prove

successful, sparking emulation, renement, and thepursuit of countermeasures. Eventually even success-ful innovations decline in effectiveness as counter-measures are rened.13 Then a new innovation startsthe process over. The current innovation, Hammesbelieves, involves both the methods of warfare andthe participants. The most important of these changesis the emergence of superpowered individuals. Thisis already evident in economics and business, but the2001 anthrax attacks in Washington, DC, demonstrat-ed the extent to which this might inuence the securityrealm. Smaller groups have greater lethality, therebychallenging traditional notions of military strategy,deterrence, and defense.

Klare focused his comments on the economic ben-

eciaries of warvarious warlords, militias, smug-glers, black marketeers, arms merchants, members ofsecurity forces, and political leaders who reap person-


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al nancial gain from the perpetuation of war, or fromsustaining instability or chaos. For this group, victory

or resolution is not the goal, but rather sustaining theconict. This has become a pervasive and powerfultrend in contemporary wars. In addition, the existenceof economic beneciaries creates tremendous ethicalproblems for the United States. For example, shouldthe United States overlook involvement by some of itsAfghan allies or partners in narcotrafcking?

Klare believes that this dilemma will, if anything,become even more common since the places mostprone to armed conict are ones with pervasive pov-erty and a lack of legitimate economic opportunities.Involvement in violence is often the only avenue ofupward mobility for lower class young men. In suchconicts, organizations which began as political onesoften mutate into criminal enterprises. Militias of both

the left and right in Colombia are examples, as areboth the state security forces and militias in the NigerDelta. Terminating a conict which has developed awar economy, Klare pointed out, requires engineer-ing a viable and robust legitimate economy. But, itmust be noted, it is much more difcult to convincethe American public and Congress of the importanceof economic development than of defeating enemies,even if simply defeating enemies without building aviable economy assures that a conict will eventuallyre-emerge.

Kan asked how big it is appropriate to make theaperture of war. Specically, have war and crimeblurred to such an extent that low intensity conictand high intensity crime are indistinguishable? Both

Afghanistan and Mexico, he argued, demonstrate this.Cassidy focused on the question of who participatesin the war in Afghanistan, particularly Afghanistans


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Pashtuns. He described this group and then deriveda series of truths about the conict in Afghanistan.

What Rules Govern War?

Nations and subnational groups have long at-tempted to develop and apply rules to control warsdestructiveness, whether formal ones codied in lawor informal ones.14 This worked when the antagonistsunderstood and accepted the rules. It was less effec-tive in cross cultural conicts or ones in which one orseveral of the antagonists deliberately decided to de-viate from the rules, hoping that the rewards of doingso would outweigh the costs.

In recent centuries, great efforts have been madeto formalize the rules governing war through interna-tional law and conventions and to transcend cultural

differences by applying a single set of normal rulesand law derived from the Western tradition. But morerecently, the proliferation of nonstate antagonists littlebound by these laws and conventions as well as globalchallenges to the domination of Western norms andrules appear to have made the legal and treaty regime,however impressive, ineffective. The best legal sys-tem on earth matters little if it is consistently ignored.Moreover, new participants in war such as privatemilitary and security rms, new technology such asunmanned aerial vehicles, robotics and nonlethal-ity, and new modes of war such as cyberwar test thetraditional, Western-built legal and treaty structurefocused primarily on conventional warfare betweennation states.

Panel 5 of the Strategy Conference examinedemerging challenges to the rules which govern war,and suggested new measures which might augment


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and reinforce the effectiveness of the rule set. Thepanel included Dr. Albert Pierce, Dr. Martin L. Cook,

Colonel Richard Pregent, and Dr. Deane-Peter Baker.Importantly, the panelists differed on whether the tra-ditional norms and laws for war were adequate in thecontemporary environment and simply needed ad-justment, or whether a wholesale revision was neededto deal with war that pitted states and nonstate enti-ties dominated by unconventional methods. Phraseddifferently, should the goal be revision or revolution?

Pierce elected to focus on principles rather thanrules, stressing that it was important to think aboutlaw and ethics together rather than separately. On thecore issue of whether war has changed to the pointthat new principles are needed, Pierce contended thatthe traditional just war tradition, with modication,provides an adequate ethical framework. He did not

subscribe to the idea that the world is experiencingan entirely new form of war which requires differentethical principles. After all, the just war tradition hasbeen adaptive to sweeping changes in geopoliticalconditions and military technology over the centuries.It adapted to medievalism, the rise of the nation state,and the emergence of international organizations, soit can adapt to a world where sub- and transnationalactors are important security participants. Applyingthe traditional principles certainly presents challeng-es, but that alone does not imply that they should beabandoned.

The traditional ethical principles for war dealt bothwith the decision to go to war, and with its conduct.On the decision to go to war, President Barak Obama

has moved away from the expansive Bush notion ofpreventative war but, Pierce argues, it would be help-ful to have even greater ethical clarity to guide policy


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choices. He favors a return to the old distinction of thepreemptive use of forcewhich was legitimate but

required a manifest intent to injure, a degree of activepreparation that makes that intent a positive danger,and a situation where waiting or taking action otherthan the use of force greatly magnied the threatas opposed to preventative war which had much lessstringent requirements.

It is also important, Pierce noted, to consider theprobability of success and proportionality togetherwith the decision to go to war. There might be usesof force which would be ethically justiedperhapsretaliation for the the May 2010 North Korean sink-ing of a South Korean shipwhere considerations ofthe likely outcomes change the equation. Phrased dif-ferently, strategy must consider the likely costs andrisks of an action. This is particularly true when force

is used not simply to ameliorate an existing threat butto alter the political, economic, and even social condi-tions which gave rise to it. Operations IRAQI FREE-DOM and ENDURING FREEDOM are examples. Itremains unclear, though, whether it is inherently un-ethical to use force when there is a mismatch betweenthe strategic ends and means. This is a question withimmense implications: Should the morality of actionsbe all that matters, or should the notion of whether theultimate end state will be a net improvement in aggre-gate ethical conditions matter? Should strategy utilizesome version of the rst do no harm imploration inthe Hippocratic Corpus? This is a philosophical ques-tion with immense practical implications. SaddamHusseins actions certainly merited punishment but

did the likelihood that punishing him would result ingreat violence and misery to the Iraqi people changethe ethical equation? Should the Bush administration


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have considered the likely long-term impact that re-moving Hussein would have on the Iraqi people in

addition to Husseins transgressions?Pierce believes that the traditional standards forthe conduct of wardiscrimination and proportion-alityremain important. It may be more difcult toapply them to war amongst the people but that doesnot obviate the principles. The important thing for theUnited States and other advanced nations is to assurethat an understanding of the principles permeates tothe operational and tactical levels.

There are, Pierce argued, several areas which needadditional analysis and debate. One is how U.S. andcoalition forces should handle rampant, deeply rootedcorruption in states that they are attempting to stabi-lize. Afghanistan and Iraq are, of course, paradigmsfor this problem. What are the relevant ethical prin-

ciples, Pierce asked, which allow the United States toreject corruption without fueling instability? It is easyto gravitate to the poles of potential solution and con-tend that American forces should either totally rejectcorruption or simply accept it as part of the local cul-ture. But both are unsatisfactory. The rst threatensmission success, the second abandons the moral highground. The solution must be somewhere in betweenbut precisely where is not clear. Along these samelines, U.S. and coalition forces should have a soundset of ethical principles for dealing with other culturalnorms and practices which vary from Western ones.One example is the Afghan tolerance for the sexualabuse of minors. Another important and open issue,Dr. Pierce noted, is developing measures of merit or

success as the United States and its coalition partnersattempt to guide nations like Afghanistan through apolitical, economic, and cultural transformation. This


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requires clarity on the limits of the acceptable. Howand when should this shift? Should American expec-

tations be different after nearly a decade of involve-ment in Afghanistan?One of the most crucial issues in need of further

ethical analysis is the use of targeted killing in nationswhich are not at war with the United States. This isvital as targeted killing, or high value targeting, be-comes an ever more important part of Americancounterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations.Currently there is no consensus on the ethical or legalframework for this.15 As one develops, Pierce argued,it should be based on rules or principles which applyboth to the United States and to other nations whichmight use targeted killing (such as Israel and Russia).There should be no American exceptionalism. Suchan ethical framework would emerge from reaching

agreement on the answers to a series of questions: What type of actions qualify someone to be alegitimate target of ofcial killing? Must theyhave committed violence themselves, or is itenough for them to enable violence? Are, forinstance, terrorist nanciers acceptable targets?

What should be the burden of proof before atargeted killing is authorized?

What level of condence must the United Stateshave in intelligence related to a persons activ-ity, location, and proximity to noncombatants?

Are people who support a terrorist, such asfamily members, legitimate targets or do theyhave noncombatant immunity? Conversely, ifthe family members of terrorists are considered

legitimate targets, should violence directlyagainst the family of American military person-nel also be considered acts of war rather than


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terrorism? Phrased more broadly, targeted kill-ing reects the pervasive difculty in distin-

guishing a combatant and noncombatant in thecontemporary security environment. What is the role of the government in which the

target is located? Does the United States needthe permission of the government? Only tacitacceptance? Or is the position of the govern-ment of no regard? What level of inaction onthe part of a government in dealing with thepresence of a terrorist or insurgent justiesU.S. action? All of these question are, of course,most pertinent in the U.S.-Pakistan relationshipgiven the persistent reports that Islamabad al-lows the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership toremain in places like Quetta or, at least, makeslittle effort to capture or expel them.

Cook addressed the relationship of law to ethics inwar. Existing ethics, he noted, have deep roots in theWest, emerging from the Roman and early Christiantraditions. The law of war is more recent, emerging af-ter the Reformation and Europes religious wars of the16th and 17th centuries. Grotius, the father of moderninternational law, sought a source of principles otherthan religion in order to transcend doctrinal differenc-es between Protestants and Catholics. He found themin the common practices of nations (customary inter-national law) and natural law available to all humanreason. But, Cook noted, law always lags changes inthe world condition and conduct of war. It is a stopmotion photograph of an evolving phenomenon.

When major shifts occur, the law must catch up. Thatis the situation today.


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The Westphalian system of law which emerged atthe end of the Thirty Years War (1648) sought stabil-

ity by respecting the sovereignty of the state. It onlyregulated the use of force between states. Over time, itbecame increasingly restrictive on the legitimate useof force, culminating in the Kellogg-Briand Pact of1928, which limited it to self defense. Then, as internalwars superseded international wars as the primaryform of violence in the global security system, this le-gal framework became less and less relevant. With theend of the Cold War, the ethics and law of humanitar-ian intervention became intensely important.16 But the9/11 attacks were the death knell of the Westphalian/Kellogg-Briand system, demonstrating the salienceand capability of nonstate actors. Clearly the state-centric legal framework was no longer adequate.

The Bush national security strategy attempted to

deal with changes in the global security system out-side the framework of international law. It expandedthe traditional concept of preventative or anticipatorydefense, assuming that nonstate actors would oftennot be visible as they prepared for aggression, and thatthe risk they posed was so greatparticularly if theycombined terrorism and weapons of mass destruc-tionthat the standards for preventative defense hadto be lowered. The problem was that this notion couldbe very dangerous if generalized to a rule or principlethat applied to all states. Critics of the Bush doctrinegenerally supported the categorical imperative fromthe moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant: Act only ac-cording to that maxim whereby you can at the sametime will that it should become a universal law.17 Re-

ecting this, the Obama administration has backed offof the Bush doctrine, using a more traditional notionof preventative self defense.


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Cook took issue with Pierces argument that itwas possible to return to the traditional distinction

between legitimate preemption and illegitimate pre-ventative war given that highly dangerous nonstateactors operate from within states. The relationshipbetween these nonstate actors and their host statesis highly complexsome states sponsor and supportthem, some simply tolerate them, some simply can-not do anything about the presence of violent nonstategroups in their territory, and some are unaware of thegroups. Cook believes that there is a different legiti-mate response for each of these relationships, thus de-manding a legal framework more complex than thepreemption/preventative war binary. The terrorismthreat thus requires a new set of norms and custom-ary international law which will not be as focused onstate sovereignty as previous legal frameworks. In this

new framework, discrimination and proportionalityshould remain the guiding principles, but their specif-ic meaning needs revision in a security environmentdominated by counterinsurgency and counterterror-ism. For instance, traditional war between uniformedmilitaries accepted a certain amount of collateral dam-age based on the notion of military necessity. Coun-terinsurgency, with its emphasis on winning publicsupport, requires a more restrictive notion of collat-eral damage and a greater acceptance of military risk.This demands a robust training regime beyond simplerules of engagement.

Finally, Cook addressed the challenges of crosscultural conict when local norms are at odds withAmerican ones. This can, he noted, have morally

corrosive effects on the troops involved. While he of-fered no denitive answer or solution, Cook suggestedthat it might be time to open a wide ranging debate on


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assumptions about the universality of Western valueswhich has driven international law for several centu-

ries. The 20th century notioncodied in the UnitedNations Charter and the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rightsthat an ethical convergence was un-derway which would lead to the global acceptance ofWestern, liberal values, does not reect reality. In fact,a case can be made that the conict between al Qaedaand the West is resistance to this idea. Yet it continuesto undergird the legal and ethical frameworks for war.

Pregent assessed the rules that apply to U.S. mili-tary operations. He noted that the Obama administra-tion believes that current rules are rmly groundedin both international and domestic law. The admin-istration has accepted the Bush administrations con-tention that the United States is ghting a war of selfdefense. This is very important from a legal perspec-

tive. But, Pregent noted, other states and some NGOsbelieve that counterterrorism is a matter of criminaland human rights law rather than the law of war. Thisdissonance can have effects in the eld when the U.S.military is involved in coalition operations. Militaryleaders must maneuver carefully through the chal-lenges it presents.

Baker was the panels revolutionary, arguing fora new framework for thinking about the rule set forwar that is agile enough to deal with the murky con-temporary operational environment. As this takesshape, though, its architects must consider the con-straints that rule sets place on military effectiveness.The tendency is to claim that strategic success requiresstaying within restrictive rules of engagement and at-

tempting to win the information war by dissemina-tion of the truth (implying that what military forcessay is an ethical issue as much as what they do). Baker


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indicated that he hoped this was true but that it war-ranted careful examination and debatesomething

that has not yet happened This absence of analysisreects a long-standing characteristic of the Americanapproach to strategy which assumes, without debate,that in a free market of ideas, the truth will eventuallywin out. The American system uses the free market asa universal paradigm for social interaction, whether inthe political realm, the economic, or the informational.

But there is no real free market of ideas in the in-formation war. Extremists feel no compunction tohew to the truth, instead selecting their themes andnarratives based purely on strategic and tactical effectrather than on the basis of ethics. And in the cultureswhich give rise to violent extremism, truth often hasan afnity element; rather than being judged in someobjective sensereecting the best available informa-

tiontruth is dened, in part, by the audiences af-nity with the person making a statement or telling astory. People are more likely to believe someone withwhom they have an ethnic, sectarian, racial, or tribalafnity than alternative explanations coming fromsomeone with less afnity. U.S. troops in Iraq oftenencountered thisground truth sometimes had lesseffect than a counterfactual explanation coming fromsomeone with an inherent afnity with the target au-dience.

Another consideration is that military effectivenesshas a negative element as well as a positive one. Rath-er than shaping their behavior according to which ofthe antagonists relies on the objective truth or behavesmost ethically, people often act out of fear of violence

or punishment. Strategic thinkers like Ralph Peters,Martin van Creveld, Michael Scheuer, and EdwardLuttwak argue from this perspective.18 The American


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ethos, though, is based on the notion that most peoplewill support the side in a conict that behaves better.

That is the foundation of the Western notion of legiti-macy which plays a powerful role in U.S. counterin-surgency doctrine. Ironically, insurgents who use theMaoist strategy make the same assumption. But manyof the enemies that the United States and its allies arefacing now, and will face in the future, function morewith a maa mentalitythat negative motivationthrough fear is more powerful than positive motiva-tion through good and ethical behavior. The question,then, is whether this ethical asymmetry is a recipe fordefeat. Should the U.S. military rely more on fear thanon good and ethical behavior to attain the desired ef-fects? Has the United States abandoned the mailed sttoo quickly in favor of the velvet glove? Or, to phraseit differently, can ethics which are serious impedi-

ments to strategic success be sustained? Until now,the tendency has simply been to deny that this tensionexists and to assert that good, ethical behavior leadsto strategic success. As Baker suggested, it is time tore-open this discussion.

Baker also noted that as Western military forcesstruggle to adapt to the new normative environment,they often attempt relabeling to make it seem morelike the traditional war environment, using phraseslike human terrain and weaponizing culture. Inthis traditional environment, norms and rules wereconceptualized as barriers which limited the behaviorof military forces. Thus planners, commanders, andstrategists had to consider not only physical terrainand the enemy, but also legal and ethical limitations

which prohibited some actions which might otherwisehave been militarily effective. This was an attemptto apply the logic of domestic law, which has both


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negative and positive dimensions, prohibiting certainactions by the state and enabling certain actions de-

rived from the constitutional order of the state, to thesecurity environment. Todays security environment,Baker argued, demands a radical re-visioning of thenormative dimension of war. Notions of barriers onthe battleeld should be replaced with a core ethicwhich can form the center of strategy. Ethics, in otherwords, must be a core driver of strategywar mustbe ethic centric. The just war tradition is inadequatefor this. The principles of discrimination and propor-tionality, for instance, tell militaries little about whatoperational goals should be and whether to focus onkilling insurgents or protecting the population. Is pop-ulation protection, for example, a moral imperative orsimply a means to politically dened ends? By usingthe domestic legal analogy, traditional thinking only

asks whether an action is justied rather than whetherit is preferred. This was appropriate for a nation statecentric system but needs reevaluation and revision inan era of market states and powerful nonstate actors.

Why Does It Matter?

Scholarship on war and theoretical thinking areof great value when translated into concepts appliedby strategic practitioners within the military andthroughout the government. Rather than only addingto knowledge (a laudable accomplishment), they alsocan change the world. The nal panel of the conferencewas designed to suggest policy, strategy, doctrine, andforce development implications of changing think-

ing about the nature of war. It included Dr. ThomasMahnken of the Naval War College (a former DeputyAssistant Secretary of Defense), Professor John Troxellof the U.S. Army War Colleges Center for Strategic


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Leadership, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Nathan Freierof the Center for Strategic and International Studies,

and Dr. Steven Metz of the Army War Colleges Stra-tegic Studies Institute.Troxell noted that dening war was not simply

an academic or theoretical exercise, but was impor-tant for developing a coherent national strategy andfor convincing the American people and their electedrepresentatives that national resources are being usedeffectively. This is particularly true as economic prob-lems like government decits, mounting debt, andgrowing entitlements begin to crowd out other spend-ing, including that for defense. The result is a strategy-resource gap that makes the need for efciencyforapplying power resources where and how they willhave the greatest impacteven more imperative.Phrased differently, a nation with a surplus of strategic

resources can be sloppy or inefcient in its strategy. Anation without such a surplusas the United States isbecomingneeds coherent strategy to maximize theresults from any expenditure of strategic resources.

Troxell also noted the importance of a convinc-ing and clear narrative to build the consensus neededfor effective strategy. This is true of most nations butis amplied in the United States where strategy and

national security policy are shaped more by publicopinion and the involvement of the legislature than inany other great power today or in the past. Strategieswhich the public does not understand or support, evenif they might in some sense be effective, are doomed tofailure. Finally, Troxell emphasized that understand-ing the changing nature of war or, at least, the chang-

ing denition of war, is important for military forcedevelopment since organizations, equipment, anddoctrine created today are likely to be used for manyyears in the future.


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Mahnken emphasized that it was important to un-derstand what has not changed about war as well as

what has changed or is changing. War remains an actof violence to impose ones will on an adversary. Themotives that lead to war, rst identied by the Greekhistorian Thucydides 2,500 years agofear, honor,and interestspersist. And the possibility of majorwar between states, while it may have diminished,remains.

But while wars essential nature remains constant,Mahnken argued, its character clearly has changed.Precision and discrimination are now expected. Theuse of unmanned systems is routine. Organizationsother than states wage war. The outcomes are less pre-dictable. War takes place in new domains like spaceand cyberspace. And, from the American perspective,potential opponents increasingly prefer types of war

other than large scale conventional combat, thus mak-ing nuclear and irregular war more strategically sig-nicant.

Other important characteristics also may be chang-ing. One is the social context of war. Parts of the de-veloped world such as Western Europe and Japanappear to be undergoing debellicization. Publics thereincreasingly oppose the use of force. Political leadersrecognize this and have shifted the emphasis of thetheir militaries to peacekeeping and similar missions.The developed world also has an increased sensitivityto casualties (even if not an outright aversion). Thismay be related to demographics. People are more ad-verse to losing a child in war when they only have oneor two rather than many. The utility of nuclear weap-

ons may be declining in the developed world but in-creasing elsewhere as new nuclear states emerge. Thelong-standing taboo on the use of nuclear weapons,


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Mahnken contended, may be eroding. Finally, the bal-ance between state and nonstate actors in war may be

shifting toward the latter. But, Mahnken noted, thismay not continue. Nonstate organizations have beenable to function like states in large part because exist-ing states allowed it. States could reverse this if theyelected to.

Freier examined how changes in war have been re-ected in U.S. military strategy. The DoDs prevailingview of war and warfare, Freier argued, are obstaclesto real change. War, as the DoD prefers to see it, pitsone states military against anothers. The DoDs viewreects the American tradition of war as binary, or-ganized, discrete (with an identiable beginning andend), and predominantly military in origin and char-acter. But in the contemporary security environment,that type of war is much less likely than other forms

of armed violence. Freier believes that this legacy de-fense status quo is out of synch with todays real-ity. Thus the United States must decide whether theDoD should be the successor to the War Departmentand continue to focus primarily or even exclusively oninterstate war, or should be something fundamentallydifferent and broader.

The new defense status quo, Freier believes, in-cludes both threats of purposedeliberate hostileactions by enemiesand threats of context whichare dangerous situations or structures. The distinctionbetween strategy, operations, and tactics still matters,but it is different than in the past. There is both thestrategic corporal, whose actions at the tactical levelhave direct strategic consequences, as well as the tac-

tical general who is able to control or, at least, attemptto control units at the tactical level using technology.


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Freier argued that the defense challenge today ismore than war. The DoD should jettison its reluctance

and accept this idea. In addition to its persisting mis-sionscounterterrorism and homeland securitytheDoD must also prepare for two other major challeng-es: irregular conict and high end asymmetric war.It must also, Freier contended, retain the capabilityfor large scale conventional warghting. This threat,though, is more manageable than ones that emergewithout attribution or overt violence, those whichcome from substate and transnational networks, orwithout explicit enemy design (such as ecological col-lapse or natural disasters). In the broadest sense, thegoal is no longer to be able to undertake two nearlysimultaneous major regional wars (which was theU.S. militarys force sizing construct from the end ofthe Cold War until the 9/11 attacks), but to conduct

a wide range of dissimilar simultaneous operations.The DoD now must be the Department of Doing orDefending Against Many Things when the situationinvolves violence or exceeds the capabilities of otheragencies.

Freier suggested that there are ve new immu-table defense truths:

1. The DoD will remain the nations rst responder

to crises and contingencies;2. Complex all hazard responsibilities will post

the most persistent and urgent demands for the DoD;3. Enemy military forces will not always be a cen-

tral player in such all-hazard contingencies;4. Despite the DoDs recent focus on counterinsur-

gency, it will be only one type of unconventional chal-

lenge; and,5. The DoD must learn to both lead and followmore effectively in all-hazard contingencies.


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Metz suggested three overarching questions withextensive strategic implications which the conference

had touched on but not answered. One was whetherthe United States needs to revise and update the Con-stitution to deal with the changing nature of war andthe contemporary security environment. The Consti-tution was framed in a time when war was episodicand unambiguous. It was clear when a war startedand ended, and who the enemy was. The major riskat the time was that political leaders, unrestrained bylegislatures or laws, could commit their nations to ill-advised wars. Thus, the Constitution made the Presi-dent Commander in Chief, but gave Congress the re-sponsibility to declare war. The implication was thatthe United States would only participate in declaredwars. Whether that notion was even realistic at thetime the Constitution was framed, given the extensive

number of undeclared wars along the frontier, a casecan be made that it is no longer valid in a security en-vironment where nearly all wars are undeclared andambiguous. Perhaps it is time to revise the formal andoften ignored division of warmaking power as it cur-rently exists in the Constitution.

Other elements of the Constitution also need seri-ous examination and debate. Take, for instance, per-sonal privacy rights. These are a bedrock of the Con-stitution. Yet in a time when war involves an enemywhich hides within the American population, privacyrights can hinder effective defense. No one supportsabolishing such rights, but a debate over their precisemeaning in an age of terrorism is overdue.

Metzs second question was whether the dominant

Western conceptualization of war simply needed tobe adjusted and updated, or should be abandoned al-together. Is it possible, he asked, that the old notionpersists less because it accurately reects the global


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security environment than because it is in the interestof military and defense establishments to preserve it?

Metzs third question was whether the world isin the midst of another historic shift in the nature ofthe people in war. Throughout history, there havebeen three different roles for the people. They were,at times, detached and disengaged. War was a sportof the elite, with little real impact on most people. Itebbed and owed around them. After the genocidalhorror of the Religious Wars, much of Europes inter-state armed conict was like this, at least until WorldWar I. A second role was one of active participant.The people were mobilized to provide resources andsupport. They sacriced for the effort but were notinvolved in the combat itself. The sacred war thatMichael Vlahos talked about was an example of this.For most Americans, the Civil War and the world

wars followed this pattern. The third model was waramongst the people where the people are a resourceto be controlled by militaries. This is the realm of hu-man terrain. Even though unarmed, the people weremore directly involved in the war. A single war could,under some circumstances, involve multiple models.In World War II, the Americans, Canadians, and mostBritish were active participants but the war was notamongst them. For the people of China, EasternEurope, Russia, and Southeast Asia, though, the warwas, in fact, amongst them. Generally in developednations, active participation was normative in the 20thcentury, but there seems to be a shift back toward apassive role (as Vlahos noted). In todays intercon-nected and information saturated world, though, the

people will probably never return to detachment.This distinction does have important implications.Clearly war amongst the people, as Rupert Smith not-


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ed, involves different operational methods, organiza-tions, and concepts. The distinction between passive

and active participation is equally important. Clearly,the passive model makes it easier for political lead-ers to resort to war since the immediate costs to anddemands on the people will be less. But it may makeit more difcult to sustain a war since, over time, thepeople will become aware that they are bearing thecosts and thus mobilize in opposition. Ultimately, theway that political leaders, militaries, and strategiccommunities dene war shapes not only its nature,but its political utility as well.

The Way Ahead.

Most of the discussion at the Strategy Conferencedealt with the changing form of warfare, the demands

that various forms place on the United States and oth-er nations, and the evolving constraints or controls onwar. Some major questions were left for later debateand analysis.

One of these is whether the causes of war are alsochanging. Throughout American history, a liberal no-tion of the causes of war has dominated. Americanstended to believe that wars were caused by the actionof deviant, evil people who were able to seize controlof a state or movement and use it for their own ends,or by the failure of governments, legal systems, andother institutions to effectively resolve disputes. Peacewas the norm; war occurred when there was someaw in markets or political institutions which allowedevil people to seize power. This suggested that there

would be no war in a world composed of democra-cies and effective institutions for the resolution of dis-putes. The rst denitive article of perpetual peace,


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according to the German Idealist philosopher Im-manuel Kant, was that the civil constitution of every

nation should be republican.19

Under such conditions,evil people could no longer seize power, and mankindcould theoretically transcend war. The conservativeview of war, by contrast, sees it as an inevitable resultof mankinds inherently awed nature. War might bemade less destructive and even less common but, ab-sent an alteration of human nature, it would never beabolished.

There is little doubt that the liberal notion remainsdominant in American strategy. The result is a focus ondeviants and evil doers. The Joint Forces Commands2010 assessment of the joint operating environment,for instance, states:

In many parts of the world, actors will judge costs and

benets differently than we do. Some of our enemiesare eager to die for radical ideological, religious, orethnic causes; enemies who ignore national bordersand remain unbound by the conventions of the devel-oped worldwho leave little room for negotiations orcompromise. Among these, we face irreconcilable en-emies capable of mobilizing large numbers of youngmen and women, to intimidate civilian populationswith machetes or to act as suicide bombers in open

markets. It can become a matter of survival when hu-man passion takes over.20

This philosophical distinction between the clas-sically liberal and classically conservative notion ofthe cause of war has major strategic implications. Ifthe liberal notion is correct, then American strategyshould combine military strength able to reverse ordeter aggression with robust efforts to promote de-mocratization and the development of institutional


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frameworks for conict resolution. If this succeeds,American military strength may not have to be used.

On the other hand, if the conservative notion is cor-rect, democratization and institutional frameworks forconict resolution will invariably fail and may not beworth the cost. This would suggest a strategy whichmaximizes military strength and accepts the idea thatit will be used. War is inevitable, not something thatcan be transcended. Yet for much of American history,the nation has accepted the liberal notion of the causeof war. It may be time to examine this assumption andto discuss whether the United States could developa more effective strategy with a different idea on thecause of war.

Further discussion is also needed on the concep-tual and strategic division between war, dened as or-ganized violence by states or quasi-state organizations

for political purposes, and other forms of organized orsemi-organized violence. Is this still useful in a timewhen, as in Mexico and Central America, criminalviolence creates more casualties than war in the tradi-tional sense? Organized violence for purely commer-cial purposes has probably existed as long as tradi-tional war. Is it different enough that it needs separateconcepts, strategies, and organizations; or should one

overarching strategy incorporate the two? Should theUnited States and other nations distinguish betweentraditional kinetic war and

2010 ssi annual strategy conference report "defining war for the 21st century"

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