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Journal of Strategic Studies

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New or Old Wars? Debating a Clausewitzian Future

Colin M. Fleming
a a

Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Available online: 24 Apr 2009

To cite this article: Colin M. Fleming (2009): New or Old Wars? Debating a Clausewitzian Future, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32:2, 213-241 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390902743175

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The Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 32, No. 2, 213241, April 2009

New or Old Wars? Debating a Clausewitzian Future

COLIN M. FLEMING
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

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ABSTRACT Over the last 18 years or so, much of the debate about modern warfare has been about whether it should be described as old or new. However, there has not been a denitive answer as to which best reects war in the modern world. Increasingly, the alternative arguments are polarised into opposing camps. Indeed, it would be fair to say that there is little in the way of debate at all. By revaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each argument, this paper aims to reinvigorate that discussion by examining whether changes in the way we understand war are really required. Finding that the ideas are not in fact mutually exclusive, it suggests that future research could benet from a combined approach. KEY WORDS: Strategy, Clausewitz, New Wars

Since the end of the Cold War, the literature focusing on strategic studies has highlighted a multiplicity of changes affecting war as it enters a supposedly post-modern age. It has even become customary to hear that transformational changes within the international system have altered the very nature of war itself. Consequently, an increasing number of scholars have repudiated traditional theories of strategic thought. Clausewitzian theory, in particular, has taken a bit of a bashing. As Paul Hirst notes, we are living in a period when the prevailing political and economic structures are widely perceived not merely to be changing but subject to radical transformation.1 In this new era it is broadly accepted that the political and economic forces reshaping international relations are causing equally profound changes in the nature and conduct of war. Moreover, since the end of the Cold War, speculation about a future not set neatly by the parameters of the East/West stand-off has resulted in varied interpretations of both present and future. Would it be a radically different world to that which had passed? What would replace the Cold War rivalry? What
1

Paul Hirst, War and Power in the 21st Century (Cambridge: Blackwell 2001), 1.

ISSN 0140-2390 Print/ISSN 1743-937X Online/09/020213-29 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/01402390902743175

214 Colin M. Fleming would dene international relations (IR) as it entered a new millennium? Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the Wests Cold War victory, Francis Fukuyamas The End of History famously heralded the triumph of capitalism over communism as conrmation that the world had entered an age free from the antagonisms of ideology. According to Fukuyama, Western liberalism now held the trump card as the global cure to war, inequality and domestic insecurity.2 Indeed, as the international system reacted to the freedom afforded by the Wests success, the strength of capitalism and Western liberal values seemed to indicate that a truly transformational and progressive period was underway. Driven by economic and liberal values, what is now termed as the globalisation of world politics has become one of the central features of contemporary international politics. It is widely accepted that these changes are also affecting the nature of war. Although not without its weaknesses, the argument that the state hitherto the central actor in international relations is in terminal decline, has stimulated claims that war in the twenty-rst century is undergoing profound change. A growing cosmopolitanism and a sense that economic interdependence now restricts the actions of states has ensured that many analysts query previously accepted approaches to understanding international relations (IR). It has even been argued that economic interdependence and a rising intolerance to the horrors of conict resulting from a Revolution in Attitudes towards the Military (RAM)3 has produced an era in which war between the major states is obsolete.4 By the late 1990s, commentators such as Michael Mandelbaum were claiming that the trend towards obsolescence had accelerated.5 Mandelbaum even suggested that the rising costs of war, and the diminishing expectations of victorys benets, have transformed its status.6 In short, major war was thought to be a thing of the past.

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Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and The Last Man (London: Penguin Books 1992). 3 James C. Kurth, Clausewitz and the Two Contemporary Military Revolutions: RMA and RAM, in Bradford A. Lee and Karl F. Walling (ed.), Strategic Logic and Political Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London: Frank Cass 2003), 27498. 4 John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books 1989). 5 Michael Mandelbaum, Is Major War Obsolete? Survival 40/4 (Winter 19981999), 12. 6 Ibid., 23.

New or Old Wars? 215 Furthermore, when war does take place it has been argued that it will differ fundamentally from the rest of strategic history; it is even claimed that the nature of war itself is changing. For proponents of this view, war has ceased to be a political and rational undertaking. Consequently, the claim is made that new ways of comprehending wars modern dynamics are required to cope with political, cultural and technological transformation.7 Yet, though a range of ideas seem to be affecting wars utility, and have thus been presented as grand narratives in their own right, it is the salience of what is now termed the new war thesis which has done most to undermine traditional ideas about the nature of war. Attacking the traditional position propounded by Carl von Clausewitz, that war is the continuation of policy, the new war idea focuses on changes in the international system stimulated by globalisation particularly the perceived decline of the state. As new war theorists believe Clausewitzian theory is coterminous with the state, they repudiate his work as a result. However, the debate between these competing ideas has been ongoing from the early 1990s, without denitive answer as to which offers the greatest success of understanding modern war. This paper will revaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each, consider whether changes are required, and suggest ways in which the debate can be reinvigorated. New Wars: Into The Fourth Generation? While the new war argument is diverse, its primary claim is that modern conict differs from its historical antecedents in three major ways: (i) structure; (ii) methods; and (iii) motives each element interpenetrates the other.8 Moreover, though what is now termed the new war thesis is in fact a collection of different ideas about war in the modern world, the notion of a new, emergent type of warfare has been primarily attributed to scholars and practitioners such as William S. Lind, Martin van Creveld, and Mary Kaldor, among others.9 Like
For a comprehensive examination of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and its historical underpinnings, see: MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray (ed.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution 13202050 (Cambridge: CUP 2001). 8 For an alternative classication, Mary Kaldor claims that new wars can be contrasted with earlier wars in terms of their goals, the methods of warfare and how they are nanced. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars (Oxford: Polity Press 2001), 6. 9 See William S. Lind, Keith Nightengale, John F. Schmitt, Joseph W. Sutton, and Gary I. Wilson, The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation, Marine Corps Gazette (Oct. 1989), 226; Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: The Free Press 1991); and Kaldor, New and Old Wars. It was Kaldor who coined the term new war. See also: Herfried Munkler, The New Wars (Cambridge: Polity Press 2005).
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216 Colin M. Fleming fellow advocates, Linds claim that future war will be markedly different from the past is premised on the decline of the state. Linds argument focuses on his concept of fourth-generation warfare (4GW), which he claims is part of an historical process that has already produced rst, second, and third generation war. Although attention is now focused on 4GW, it is only a step towards the fth, sixth and seventh generations of warfare at some point in the future. This irregular mode of conict is believed to be a return to the way war worked before the state monopolised violence.10 Linds 4GW analysis starts from the Peace of Westphalia (1648), when the state monopolised mass violence. The First Generation of War (16481860) was one of line and column battle was perceived to be orderly and there was an increasingly clear distinction between combatant and civilian. Second-generation warfare addressed mass repower rst encountered in the Great War (191418) by maintaining order despite the increased indirect destructiveness of artillery re. Mass repower inicted huge damage on the enemy, followed by the advance of infantry. Third generation war, another product of World War I, was developed from 191618. Exemplied by the Blitzkrieg of the German Army in the opening campaigns of World War II, third generation war is based on speed rather than attrition and repower. The primary emphasis is to attack the enemys rear areas and collapse him from the rear forward. For advocates of this idea, despite the high tempo, technologically dominated effects based warfare practised by the richest modern armies, contemporary state/military structures encapsulate and practise third generation war. For many, this is precisely why victory in modern war appears so elusive. Colonel Thomas X. Hammes of the US Marine Corps explains: Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) uses all available networks political, economic, social, and military to convince the enemys political decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benet. It is an evolved form of insurgency. Still rooted in the fundamental precept that superior political will, when properly employed, can defeat greater economic and military power, 4GW makes use of societys networks to carry on its ght. . .Fourth-generation

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William S. Lind, Understanding Fourth Generation War, Military Review 83/5 (Sept.Oct. 2004), 14.

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New or Old Wars? 217 wars are lengthy measured in decades rather than months or years.11 A new type of emergent warfare is also envisaged by Martin van Creveld, who argues that declining state power is eroding the traditional structures of IR. Van Creveld predicts that a breakdown of political legitimacy will transform war from a rational pursuit of states into an irrational, unstructured activity fought not by armies but by groups with varying motivations. He also argues that war will lose its political purpose. Instead, it will be driven by a mixture of religious fanaticism, culture, ethnicity, or technology.12 In his opinion, the demise of state primacy accelerates the obsolescence of the traditional Clausewitzian model which posits war as a political instrument. This assumption has formed the cornerstone of the majority of studies shaping the literature of war. Indeed, Clausewitz argues that despite wars violent proclivities, it is bound by political objectives; war should be fought for the rational pursuit of political goals. As he reminds readers: The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose.13 The idea that political rationality interpenetrates all aspects of warfare is thought to have been encapsulated in Clausewitzs Remarkable Trinity. This concept continues to court controversy. Indeed, the sense that the nature of military conict has changed stems directly from debate about the contemporary role of the Trinity in understanding modern war. Clausewitz wrote that: War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to a given case. As a total phenomenon its dominant tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone.14

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Col. Thomas X. Hammes USMC, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St Paul: Zenith Press 2004), 2. 12 Creveld, The Transformation of War, 69. 13 Carl von Clausewitz, On War [1832] trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (New York: Knopf/Everymans Library ed. 1993). 14 Clausewitz, On War, 101.

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218 Colin M. Fleming He continues: The rst of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; the second the commander and his army; the third the government. The passions that are to be kindled in a war must already be inherent in the people; the scope which play of courage and talent will enjoy in the realm of probability and chance depends on the particular character of the army; but the political aims are the business of government alone.15 By marrying the Trinity to sections of society, many scholars have assumed that the concept is fundamentally linked to the state. Crevelds argument that a new type of war is emerging rests with the fact that there has been a decline in the number of inter-state conicts and that there has been a subsequent rise in the number of wars within states. For Creveld, the proliferation of Low Intensity Conict (LIC) in conicts within states is evidence that Clausewitzs Trinitarian concept no longer represents a coherent explanation why war is a rational instrument of the state. With state decline, the political base is redundant leaving the people as the only remaining component of the Trinity. In other words, war would be stripped of its rational elements. As it is thought that the people will form armed militias or mobs, which do not have structures able to promote rationality in the advance of their conicting cultural aims, it is assumed that war can no longer be described as a rational political activity. This is because the rational elements of the Clausewitzian Trinity, the military and principally the government, are no longer present. Consequently, the appropriate rational component of the concept cannot restrict the irrational traits that all wars exhibit. With the end of the state, and therefore the international system of states, only violent and non-Trinitarian, nonpolitical war will remain.16 Entwined with changes in the structure of modern conict is the argument that wars distinctive character, of a clash between opposing armies, has been replaced. In short, just as the structure of war has changed, so too have the methods; modern wars rarely follow conventional norms and are thought to be distinguishable by their sheer brutality and lack of strategic rationality. The increasing use of irregular warfare by terrorist organisations and weaker powers is also claimed to loosen the bonds between state and military, thus
Ibid. Non-Trinitarian war is a term coined by Creveld to express the redundancy of Clausewitzs Trinity.
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New or Old Wars? 219 accelerating and exacerbating the original problem of state decline. This gives credibility to the claim that state war between recognizable belligerents is a thing of the past a post-Clausewitzian approach is, therefore, an immediate requirement. As this trend accelerates traditional armies will become increasingly like their enemies in order to tackle the threat that this poses. According to Creveld, armies will be replaced by police-like security forces on the one hand and bands of rufans on the other.17 Following the publications of both Linds and Crevelds theses, war in the former Yugoslavia, Caucasus, and throughout Africa seemed to substantiate their claims with much needed evidence. Mary Kaldor has even claimed that the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has become the archetypal example, the paradigm of the new type of warfare.18 Ostensibly, this argument is accurate. These conicts do appear to exhibit irrational traits and they often seem to be guided by factors other than governmental policy. In Rwanda and in former Yugoslavia it is argued that ethnic hatred exacerbated the tense political context; it is also claimed that in Bosnia, war was driven by criminal gangs intent on maintaining lucrative prot margins.19 After all, during the 1990s, traditional militaries rarely loomed large as central players. As such, it has become common for commentators openly to envisage a world where conventional armies cannot function properly against a new type of enemy. It is thought that this trend will be accelerated by demographic problems exacerbated by economic and environmental problems. The feared result is an overspill of unorganised violence from the developing world. Throughout the 1990s wars in the Balkans, Caucasus and Africa propelled the idea of transformative change in IR. Highlighted by Robert Kaplans provocative thesis The Coming Anarchy, it is argued that global economic inequality and the destabilising effects of failed states are the primary danger awaiting the modern world especially when factions resort to communal violence in order to restore group security. For Kaplan, the implications necessitate analysis of, the whole question of war.20 Moreover, he mirrors Crevelds position; he too rejects the Clausewitzian argument that war is governed by politics.
Creveld, The Transformation of War, 225. Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 31. 19 Important works include: Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Paul Collier, Doing Well out of War: An Economic Perspective, in Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2000), 91111; David Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, Adelphi Paper 320 (Oxford/London: OUP for IISS 1998). 20 Rober D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy (New York: Vintage Books 2000), 44.
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220 Colin M. Fleming Like other new war writers, Kaplan warns that a preponderance of high-tech weapons is useless in a world where conventional war is outmoded. He cautions, something far more terrible awaits us.21 Wars will not be characterised by the large-scale industrial confrontations of the twentieth century, or be subject to any notion of legality; there will certainly be no rules of war as understood today. Rather, devoid of battles, the primary target in new wars is the civilian population. From 1991, population displacement and genocide was intertwined both in the war in former Yugoslavia, and in Rwanda/Congo. It seems to have been sadly repeated in Kenya in 2008.22 If the present conict in Iraq is any measure, attacking civilians has become the tactic of choice for the non-state actors operating there. Leaving multinational forces (MNF) aside, a cursory assessment of the situation suggests that direct targeting of civilians has accelerated since February 2006.23 Prior to 2005 it has been estimated that there were 1,300 police and military fatalities. From January 2005 until January 2008 the number of police and military deaths has risen to an estimated 6,568 a total of 7,868. When compared with the total numbers of civilian fatalities in the same period from January 2005 until January 2008 the results are compelling estimated civilian deaths during this period are a staggering 41,068.24 According to the Brookings Institutes Iraq Index, the gures for civilian deaths during conict are even more telling. From March 2003 until June 2006, the index estimates the total number of civilian fatalities as a result of conict at 151,000.25 Certainly, the recent experiences of the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to suggest a trend towards difcult irregular warfare. These examples seem to compound the argument that future war will be asymmetrical, at least on one side.26 In terms of
Ibid. For a study into this tactic, see: Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath, Human Rights Watch, retrieved 1 Nov. 2006, from 5www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Rwanda.htm4 23 Interview with Claire Fleming, Senior Intelligence Analyst: Middle East and North Africa, AKE Limited, 10 Jan. 2007. 24 Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, 5www.icausalties.org/oif/IraqDeaths.aspt4, information retrieved 15 Jan. 2008. Figures compiled from data from published news articles. 25 The Brookings Iraq Index, Jan. 11, 2007, 5www.brookings.edu/iraqindex4, retrieved 14 Jan. 2007. 26 The fact that future war will have an asymmetrical component is reected in: US Marine Corps Doctrine, MCDP 1-1, Strategy, 1997, Ch. 3. Additionally, the US has begun to look seriously at how changes in IR affect the way it ghts. Perhaps the most
22 21

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New or Old Wars? 221 purely intra-state conict, some commentators have even suggested that using the term war at all, gives it a credibility that belies its unorganised character.27 After all, these new internal wars do not exhibit military objectives; at least, not ones we are used to seeing.28 According to Kalevi Holsti: War has become de-institutionalized in the sense of central control, rules, regulations, etiquette, and armaments. Armies are rag-tag groups frequently made up of teenagers paid in drugs, or not paid at all. In the absence of authority and discipline, but quite in keeping with the interests of the warlords, soldiers discover opportunities for private enterprises of their own.29
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Rupert Smith, a retired top British general with direct experience of war in the Balkans, Northern Ireland and the Middle East, goes even further, claiming that: War no longer exists. Confrontation, conict and combat undoubtedly exist all round the world most noticeably, but not only, in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Palestinian Territories and states still have armed forces which they use a symbols of power. None the less, war as cognitively known to most non-combatants, war as battle in a eld between men and machinery, war as a massive deciding event in a dispute in international affairs: such war no longer exists.30
famous model to emerge from this discussion is that of the Three Block War. See Gen. Charles C. Krulak, The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War, Marines Corps Gazette 83/1 (Jan. 1999), 1822. The debate about modern war has also generated or revived studies into counter-insurgency techniques. Important works include: David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice [1964] (Westport, CT: Praeger 2006); and John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press 2002). 27 Monty Marschall, Systems at Risk: Violence, Diffusion, and Disintegration in the Middle East, in David Carment and Patrick James (eds.), Wars in the Midst of Peace: The International Politics of Ethnic Conict (Pittsburg, PA: Univ. of Pittsburg Press 1997), 82115. 28 David M. Snow, Uncivil Wars: International Security and the New Internal Conicts (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1996), 1067. 29 Kalevi J. Holsti, The Coming Chaos? Armed Conict in the Worlds Periphery, in T.V. Paul and John A. Hall (eds.), International Order and the Future of World Politics (Cambridge: CUP 1999), 304. 30 Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Allen Lane Books 2005), 1.

222 Colin M. Fleming Mary Kaldor, perhaps the best known of the new war advocates, explains the difference inherent in new wars: In contrast to the vertically organized hierarchical units that were typical of old wars, the units that ght these wars include a disparate range of different types of groups such as paramilitary units, local warlords, criminal gangs, police forces, mercenary groups and also regular armies including breakaway units of regular armies. In organizational terms, they are highly decentralized and they operate through a mixture of confrontation and cooperation even when on opposing sides.31 For new war proponents, globalisations pervasive nature stimulates dissonance between those able to play a part in a globalised world, and those who are not. Central to this is the idea that the more competitive aspects of globalisation are exacerbating cultural and political fragmentation. As Mark Dufeld argues: The changing competence of the nation-state is reected in the shift from hierarchical patterns of government to the wider and more polyarchial networks, contracts, and partnerships of governance.32 It is an opinion championed by Kaldor, who claims the process of globalisation is tearing up the previously stable state system a system which for many has provided a starting point for understanding war and its role in IR.33 As a result, she too rejects the Clausewitzian paradigm.34 As the 1990s opened up new opportunities for international peace and prosperity, the wars grabbing the front pages seemed totally at odds from their historical antecedents. There seemed to be a general feeling that wars stemmed from cultural and religious factors.35 This argument gained immediate currency when the wars in countries such as former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda hit Western television screens. It became increasingly common to talk about war in the 1990s as if it were an inexplicable mistake, as an emotional and irrational malady; an historical curse. In other words, they were thought to lack rationality.
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Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 8. Mark Dufeld, Globalisation, Transborder Trade, and War Economies, in Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (London: Lynne Rienner 2000), 71. 33 Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 70. 34 Ibid., 869. 35 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Simon & Schuster 1997).
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New or Old Wars? 223 Like other commentators, Kaldor believes the pervasive nature of globalisation is the root cause of modern political instability and war. As globalisation erodes the state system, there will be a parallel trend highlighting an increase in identity politics. Just as there has been a change in structure and methods so too are there changes in the motivations of modern war. With socially ostracised communities unable to express their political grievances, it is thought they will employ war as the most attractive expression of their local cultural/ religious needs.36 To grab power, this process is supported by political elites.37 An additional new war argument hinges on an acceptance of substantive difference between the economies of old and new wars. Whereas the wartime economies found in old Clausewitzian conicts were centralised by state authority to maximise resources, in new wars the economy is pervaded and supported by organised crime. In contrast to old war economies, in new wars the opposing forces favour the continuation of conict as an exercise in economic enrichment. The purpose of war is not to win a knockout blow, but to perpetuate the cycle of violence in order to protect prot margins. David Keen even claims that war is not simply a breakdown of a particular system, but a way of creating an alternative system of prot, power and even protection.38 Several studies into the economies of new wars suggest that greed plays a large role in contemporary civil conict.39 They also agree that the economic element found in new wars is directly linked to why the distinction between war and peace has become blurred.40 For Mark Dufeld, war is no longer a Clausewitzian affair of state, it is a

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Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 6989. For Yugoslav example, see V.P. Gagon, The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2004) and Eric Gordy, The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destructions of Alternatives (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State UP 1999). For an account of the situation in Rwanda see: Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch (1999), 5www.hrw.org/reports/ 1999/rwanda/Geno1-302.htm4 38 Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, 11. 39 Important works include: Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars; Collier, Doing Well out of War; and Indra de Soysa, The Resource Curse: Are Civil Wars Driven by Rapacity or Paucity? in Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2000), 11328. 40 See William Reno, Shadow States and the Political Economy of Civil Wars, in Berdal and Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, 4368.
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224 Colin M. Fleming problem of underdevelopment and political breakdown.41 Moreover, as Paul Collier observes, if economic agendas are driving conict, then it is likely that these groups are beneting from conict and that these groups therefore have some interests in initiating and sustaining it.42 Ethnic violence, the disintegration of the state, and the shadow economy which is established by the have-nots, act as a precursor, as a force that drives and deepens war. Additionally, the return to identity politics exacerbates the warfare itself. It is even claimed that the warring actors can survive only as long as the war continues; it is in their interests to perpetuate the cycle of violence. It is best reected by their shadowy wartime economies, where drugs, warlordism, and the creation of wealth through extortion form a central pillar of the new security environment. It is a situation recognisable in conicts ranging from the wars of former Yugoslavia to the decades-long Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency against the elected government in that country; not to mention current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are problems with this argument, however. For example, Kaldors chapter on the Bosnian war is intended to mirror other experiences of modern war, thus demonstrating that organised crime perpetuates conict, prohibiting any meaningful political settlement.43 Yet, her case study of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) only demonstrates that it was different to the widely accepted picture of a wartime economy modelled on the total wars of the twentieth century. One obvious problem with this approach is that there is an overwhelming sense that war can only be viewed through the lens of a world war. Can such an historical rarity be used as a model for understanding future wars? That some forms of modern war do not resemble the model of a world war, even a inter-state war, does not necessarily mean that the nature of war, what Clausewitz called its logic, has changed. Kaldor views the war economy in BiH as a Maoso-style protection racket, for her a true reection of the altered nature of post-modern war. This fails to demonstrate the whole picture. The very fact that war fragmented the state made the implementation of an organised wartime economy impossible. While it is axiomatic that the situation in BiH did not mirror a world war, neither did it resemble an altogether different activity. Moreover, though there is evidence that organised crime proliferated throughout all of the wars of former Yugoslavia, and
Mark Dufeld, Global Governance And The New Wars (London: Zed Books 2001), 44. 42 Collier, Doing Well out of War, 91. 43 Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 90111.
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New or Old Wars? 225 though there are undoubtedly examples when politics merged with criminality, evidence that organised crime restricted strategic rationality is exiguous. On their own, it is uncertain whether such factors automatically herald an emergent type of war. The very idea that looting, certainly a problem in the Balkans, is a characterisation of a new type of war lacks substance. As Stathis Kalyvas argues, the concept of looting is analytically problematic because it is unclear whether it refers to the causes of war or to the motivations of the combatants (or both).44 He continues: The rst problem is the distinction of causality do people wage war in order to loot or do they loot to be able to wage war?45 Anyway, although organised crime proliferated in the Balkans, it is striking that when the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) stabilised its position, after a shaky start, it suppressed and subsumed the very groups that suggest something new.46 Furthermore, the argument that looting heralds something new lacks historical foundation and is easily refuted by reference to conicts such as the Thirty Years War; and much of medieval warfare. Of course, for writers such as Kaldor or Creveld this is the very point; war is returning to a form found before the birth of the modern state. It is thus returning to a period that lacked strategic rationality. Thought to be irrational, favouring plunder and murder over battle, many modern wars seem to resemble their medieval and early modern antecedents. Yet, although ostensibly accurate, the strength of this claim seems somewhat diminished by the fact that medieval and early modern historians have, concurrently, been advancing the argument that war in these periods were in fact driven by political and strategic rationality.47 Looting and plunder were certainly characteristics of medieval warfare; however, they were implemented strategically. Brutality, and political and social complexity, does not determine whether war is devoid of political rationality. Even when war stems from irrational impulses, it does not follow that it will be fought
Stathis N. Kalyvas, New And Old Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction? World Politics 54/1 (Oct. 2001), 103. 45 Ibid., 1034. 46 See: Marko A. Hoare, How Bosnia Armed (London: Saqi Books 2004). In one pertinent example during Operation Trebevic in 1993, the ARBiH purged the 10th Mountain Division and 9th Motorised Brigade which had formed a criminal efdom in Sarajevo. 47 For a study which dispels the myth that medieval war was somehow un-strategic, see: Sean McGlynn, The Myths of Medieval Warfare, History Today 44/1 (Jan. 1994), 2834; see also J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages, trans. S. Willard and S.C.M. Southern (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press 1997).
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226 Colin M. Fleming irrationally as the role of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in contemporary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan indicate. Clausewitz Returns? Despite enthusiasm for the fashionable new war idea, several questions remain unanswered. This is especially true of the conviction that current trends in warfare alter its nature. One of the key new war claims is that it attacks the traditional Clausewitzian notion that the nature of war is political. It is a position which requires further examination. Even if the new war writers are correct, and the state is entering its nal demise, an argument that seems premature, it is unclear why this should transform the nature of war. While there is plenty of evidence to verify the claim that non-state actors participate in modern war, evidence explaining why these should be irrational or unusually apolitical is scarce. As noted above, the apparent decline of the state is thought to negate the rational base upon which war is founded. Consequently, it is thus argued that the rational element of the Clausewitzian Trinity is erased. As such, the other two elements, the people and the military, are left without direction, a situation thought to provoke irrational violence. Without the stabilising, governmental, rational, element of the Trinity, conict becomes an increasingly irrational activity driven more by ethnicity and culture than political expediency. As the detractors of the Clausewitzian model contend, new wars are about ethnicity and particularistic identity, which is assumed to be apolitical and irrational. As a result, these wars can no longer be thought of in the Clausewitzian sense, as a continuation of politics. Yet, while it was Clausewitz who married his Trinity with corresponding sections of society, it is important to remember that at its basic level the concept comprises (i) passion, hatred and enmity, (ii) the play of chance and probability, and (iii) wars subordination to rational policy. According to Clausewitz, if one is truly to understand the non-linear maelstrom of war, it will be by assessing the interplay of these three tendencies. While the Trinitarian concept is thought by many to be premised on the state, there seems little reason why the core Trinity cannot continue to inform this esoteric subject these forces exist independently of the state structure.48 Anyway, that
Michael Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, Third Revised and Expanded Edition (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 2004), 102. See also Christopher Bassford and Edward J. Villacres, Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity, Parameters 25/3 (Autumn 1995), 919; and Antulio J. Echevarria II, War and Politics: The Revolution in Military Affairs and the Continued Relevance of Clausewitz, Joint Forces Quarterly (Winter 199596).
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New or Old Wars? 227 modern war displays irrational proclivities is not something terribly unusual, nor can it be conned to war in one particular period. As Michael Handel remarks: It has often been argued that Clausewitz emphasizes the need to view war as a rational instrument, as a means for the leaders to promote and protect their states vital interests. From this accurate interpretation, however, some readers have erroneously inferred that Clausewitz also considers it possible for war itself to be waged as a rational activity. In fact, Clausewitz, repeatedly reminds us that this is not so, for he knows that war in all of its dimensions is permeated by non-rational inuences, or what he calls moral factors (moralische Grossen), spiritual forces (geistigen Krafte), or spiritual factors (geistigen Grossen), which cannot be classied or counted.49 Although Clausewitzs Trinity does not require the state for it to continue as an explanatory model, the new war focus on the redundancy of the state is understandable. In the years immediately following the Cold War there was evidence that war within states, rather than between them, was becoming more prevalent. As the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) reported in 2001, The most marked security phenomenon since the end of the Cold War has been the proliferation of armed conict within states.50 During these wars it was often hard for outside observers to understand the inherent regional complexities frequently displayed. It was equally difcult to distinguish between political groups or their military forces. Moreover, their origins seemed to exhibit an irrational predilection towards religion, culture and ethnicity as motivating factors in conict causation. Though clearly war, they were at variance with common perceptions of what it should look like. This appears to have been a particular problem for those approaching the subject from an international relations background. Since the foundation of IR as an academic discipline following the Great War (191418), conict has been explained as a military clash between two or more opposing states. Moreover, following the Great Debate of the late 1930s, realism, with its focus on the state, became

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Handel, Masters of War, 81. The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre 2001), 4.
50

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228 Colin M. Fleming the dominant theoretical approach. Sceptical that the interwar liberal theorists had fully accounted for the scramble for power that led to World War II, a wave of realist writers began to shape the discipline by emphasising the competitive nature of states. Arguing that realist maxims provided a better account of the workings of world politics, scholars such as Hans J. Morgenthau and E. H. Carr, among others, began to dominate the new discipline of international relations. It was a theme developed by Kenneth Waltz, whose structural neorealism became the mainstream approach in the second half of the twentieth century.51 In his seminal work, Man the State and War, Waltz identies the causes of war in (i) man; (ii) the state; and (iii) the international system of states.52 Of these three levels he views the international system of states as the most critical; it is this level that has been crucial to understanding war causation. Since the inception of IR as an academic discipline, scholars have sought to understand the contours of war. In the majority of studies they have looked at the relationships between states as their starting point. The new war theorists are part of a much larger group of writers who have historically viewed military conict as an activity performed by states anything other than this is deemed to be out of the ordinary, indeed new. Of course, a major problem with such statecentric accounts is that they fail to encompass a broad enough range of warfare under their scope. Although it is evident that the state retains its special place as the primary political unit in IR, too much research posits the origins of wars exclusively at the feet of states. This is equally true for theorists who by concentrating on hegemonic war war between the great powers and their alliance systems reject the reasons for war in other systems or periods. One problem with such attitudes is that when forms of conict that do not correspond with hegemonic or inter-state war arise, it is either discounted or presumed to be something transformational. Writing in the 1960s, Quincy Wright observed that: International lawyers have attempted to elaborate precise criteria for determining the moment at which a war begins and ends, but they have not been entirely successful, and, furthermore, they have been obliged to acknowledge the occurrence of interventions,
Important works include: Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 5th ed. [1973] (New York: Knopf, Rosecrance, Richard 2001); and E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis [1939], introduction by Michael Cox (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2001). 52 Kenneth N. Waltz, Man the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis [1954] (New York: Columbia UP 2001).
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New or Old Wars? 229 aggressions, reprisals, defensive expeditions, sanctions, armed neutralities, insurrections, rebellions, mob violence, piracy, and banditry as lying somewhere between war and peace as those terms are popularly understood.53 In the twenty-rst century, arriving at suitable criteria can prove even more elusive; a fact that for many seems to conrm the idea that the transformation of war is ongoing. The difculty in nding an appropriate framework with which to understand the causes of war is a reection of the problems nding an adequate denition. It is a problem that lies in the level of analysis.54 However, although it is evident that models viewing war as a state activity fail to account for other types of warfare, this is not a criticism that should be attributed to Clausewitz. It is possible to nd in the writing of the classical war thinkers denitions that cover war in all its many guises. It is unclear why these classical writers cannot be used as a guide in the modern era, Clausewitz in particular. In terms of conict causation, one thinks also of Thucydides; especially his claim that the answer to understanding the motivations for war is posited in his own trinitarian formula: honour, fear, and interest. It may be that this type of framework is as close as we come to nding the answer to why war? Thucydides formula is as relevant today as it was for the Peloponnesian War (431404 BC) he sought to understand.55 The idea that war is a result of political action comes directly from the pages of On War. As Clausewitz himself put it, war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means.56 Though Clausewitz was certainly a product of his time formulating his theory through his own experiences as a soldier in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, for many his ideas resonate throughout the history of warfare. For the Prussian general, the symbiotic relationship between war and politics stems from the very essence of what conict is it plays a vital and functional role. Indeed, as Clausewitz is at pains

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53 Quincy Wright, A Study of War [1942] abridged by Louise Leonard Wright (Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press 1966), 114. 54 Handel, Masters of War, 33. 55 Robert B. Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War, trans. Richard Crawly, rev. ed. (New York: Free Press 1996), 43. 56 Clausewitz, On War, 99.

230 Colin M. Fleming to remind readers, war is an act of violence intended to compel our opponents to fulll our will.57 From this starting position the Prussian general understood war as a continuation of politics. He was cognizant that if war is intended to compel an enemy to accept your will, it should be remembered that the political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose.58 Clausewitz may have famously conceptualised an ideal type of war with no limits on the levels of violence, however, he was acutely aware this theoretical ideal existed abstractly only. Though violence drives violence, real war is restricted by political aims and the physical ability to coerce ones opponent. By conceptualising his real/ideal war dichotomy it becomes clear that wars proclivity towards violence must, at some point, be curtailed by policy. If it does not, then it has become something other than war.59 As Colin Gray puts it: Some confused theorists would have us believe that war can change its nature. Let us stamp on such nonsense immediately. War is organized violence threatened or waged for political purposes. That is its nature. If the behaviour under scrutiny is other than that just dened, it is not war.60 In terms of the Remarkable Trinity, Clausewitz intended his famous concept to act as a model with which to comprehend the complexity of war once hostilites had begun. In short, when one understands that war is shaped by the interplay of complex forces passion and hatred, chance, and rationality it is clear that strategic calculations must be constantly re-correlated to account for ends and means. What is the political aim of the conict, and how do we reach that outcome? As war is a reciprocal activity, its uid and unpredictable nature ensures not just that prescription is difcult, but that prediction about the outcome of a particular war founded upon anything other than political dexterity, will, sooner or later, end disastrously.61 The Trinitarian concept simply describes the forces that make war so unpredictable, comprehension of such complexity in turn focuses attention towards nding a suitable strategy, albeit one which needs constant reection and adaptation. According to Christopher Bassford, the Trinity is the
Ibid, 81. Ibid., 99. 59 Ibid., 834. 60 Colin Gray, Another Bloody Century (London: Weidenfeld 2005), 30. 61 Alan D. Beyerchen, Clausewitz, Nonlinearity and the Unpredictability of War, International Security 17/3 (Winter 1992/93), 5990.
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New or Old Wars? 231 concept that ties all of Clausewitzs many ideas together and binds them into a meaningful whole.62 Furthermore, just as there is a proliferation of new war adherents, there is also a growing body of literature supporting the position propounded by Clausewitz. Scholars such as Colin Gray, Christopher Bassford, Alan Beyerchen, Antulio J. Echevarria, Hew Strachan, and Andreas Herberg-Rothe, among others, have revitalised Clausewitzian scholarship in response to the new war polemic.63 Indeed, building on a conference paper delivered in 2005 to an Oxford University conference on Clausewitz in the 21st Century, Christopher Bassfords working draft, Tip-Toe Through The Trinity, demonstrates the relevance of the Trinitarian concept by returning to the original text of Clausewitzs On War.64 Our comprehension of the Prussians true meaning of the Trinity has been aided even further by the meticulous analysis given to the subject by Echevarrias Clausewitz and Contemporary War, and Andreas Herberg-Rothes excellent Clausewitzs Puzzle, both of which rightly place the concept at the heart of On War. Though much of the debate surrounding modern war stems from debate about the role of the Trinity, few new war writers can demonstrate an appreciation of the core concept. Most simply accept that Clausewitzian theory is premised on a position of state primacy. By reecting on Clausewitzs original arguments, these writers have been able to generate a new corpus of Clausewitzian scholarship. In the process they have demonstrated that the core Trinitarian concept is in fact comprised of (i) hatred passion and enmity, (ii) the play of chance and probability and (iii) wars subordination to rational policy, rather

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62 Christopher Bassford, Tip-Toe Through the Trinity, or The Strange Persistence of Trinitarian Warfare, 3 Oct. 2007, p.4 5www.Clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/TRINITY/TRINITY8.htm4. An earlier version is published as: Christopher Bassford, The Primacy of Policy and the Trinity in Clausewitzs Mature Thought, in Hew Strachan and Nadreas Herberg-Rothe (ed.), Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: OUP 2007), 7490. 63 Important works include: Beyerchen, Clausewitz, Nonlinearity and the Unpredictability of War; Antulio J. Echevarria II, Clausewitz and Contemporary War (Oxford: OUP 2007); and Hew Strachan, Clausewitzs On War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press 2006); Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Clausewitzs Puzzle (Oxford: OUP 2007); and Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Decoding Clausewitz: A New Approach to On War (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 2008). 64 The proceedings of the conference are now available as an edited volume. See Hew Strachan and Andreas Herbeg-Rothe (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: OUP 2007).

232 Colin M. Fleming than the people, army, government model favoured in the wider new war literature.65 As such, they claim that the real Trinity is universally applicable and can thus be used to analyse war in the modern world. Though the second model people, army, government is widely thought to encapsulate the state, and is thus open to criticism in a world where war can be fought increasingly by a range of actors, the core Trinity championed by Bassford can account for war between any variety of actors. Crucially, by building on the important work of Alan Beyerchen, scholars such as Bassford, Gray and Echevarria have highlighted the non-linear focus of Clausewitzian theory. As such, they have revivied Clausewitzs ideas just when international politics regularly displays its non-linear characteristics. The Trinity is not a staid expression of state war from the Napoleonic period; rather, it expresses the very complexity of war itself. As noted already, part of the confusion surrounding Clausewitzian theory is the widely held assumption that it is coterminous with the state. Therefore, in an era when the primacy of the state is thought to be in decline, the traditional Clausewitzian position is thought to be redundant. Yet, as has been highlighted, it is perhaps true that too often commentators declare transformational changes in the nature of war when in fact what is changing is the way it looks. Although wars characteristics may change, it is unclear why such transformation should affect its nature. Examples of this misconception are widespread throughout the current literature. For example, in The Utility of Force retired British General Sir Rupert Smith reects upon his operational experience with the British Army, concluding that a trend away from interstate conict has resulted in the need for a new paradigm which can account for war amongst the people.66 This is a useful discussion; debate about the utility of force is greatly welcomed, especially by someone with direct operational command experience. Certainly, his claim that Western militaries are employing force wrongly, and often counterproductively, merits closer attention especially at a time when UK and US forces grapple with the problems of overcoming a complex irregular opponent. However, that a completely new approach is required must
Like Bassford, Handel and Echevarria support the continued use of the Trinitarian concept. However, even supporters of Clausewitz disagree on its exact use. While Handel argues that the Trinity should be squared to account for the role of technology, Echevarria, like Gray and Bassford, claims that technology does not undermine the original concept. A very good account of this debate can be found in: Echevarria, War and Politics: The Revolution in Military Affairs and the Continued Relevance of Clausewitz. 66 See Smith, The Utility of Force, 126.
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New or Old Wars? 233 be queried. When considering the possible developments of future war, one must ask what it is that will make it so fundamentally different? Like other writers, Smith shares a predilection which associates Clausewitz directly with wars between states. Yet, his ideas are not exclusive to the state and they do not exclude other types of war. Like his contemporary, Lieutenant General Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini, Clausewitz was aware of the role that peoples war could play. In fact, he dedicated an entire chapter in Book 6 of On War to this very issue, and lectured on the subject of small wars at the Berliner Kriegsschule during 181112.67 Jomini, who had participated in a guerrilla war in Spain himself, even noted that:
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As a soldier, preferring loyal and chivalrous warfare to organised assassination, if it be necessary to make a choice, I acknowledge that my prejudices are in favour of the good old times when the French and English Guards courteously invited each other to re rst, as at Fontenoy, preferring them to the frightful epoch when priests, women, and children throughout Spain plotted the murder of isolated soldiers.68 The classical war thinkers may have desired a return to an era when conict did not deviate from the strict parameters imposed by the ruling elites of the eighteenth century, yet they were acutely aware of other modes of warfare. Indeed, as Clausewitz made clear in Chapter 3 of Book 8, every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting positions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.69 Clausewitzs assessment of the changing character of war throughout history illustrates his awareness that the character of war was constantly changing, often dramatically, from one age to the next. The very point that the Prussian was making was that despite wars evolving character, its special nature is universal. Returning once more to his Trinity, Clausewitz reminds readers that: War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to a given case. As a total phenomenon its dominant tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity.70 By stressing that
Christopher Daase, Clausewitz and Small Wars, in Strachan and Herberg-Rothe, Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century, 183. For further information of Clausewitzs conception of guerrilla war, see Werner Hahlweg, Clausewitz and Guerrilla War, in Michael Handel, Clausewitz and Modern Strategy (London: Frank Cass 1986), 12733. 68 Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini, The Art of War [1838] ed. with an introduction by Charles Messenger (London: Arms & Armour Press 1992), 345. 69 Clausewitz, On War, 715. 70 Ibid., 101.
67

234 Colin M. Fleming war is more that a chameleon, Clausewitz informs readers that wars nature should not be confused with the way it looks. That it alters its appearance and character to a given case is neither here nor there. The unifying element that ensures the universality of the nature of war has nothing to do with the way war is conducted; instead it relates directly to the fact that its nature comprises the interplay of the different elements within his Trinitarian concept: emotion, chance, and reason. As such, thinking that irregular conict is somehow a modern phenomenon which must recast our understanding of the nature of war may be a big mistake. Thomas Hammes, for example, argues that the architects of 4GW convince the enemys political decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly.71 As a strategy, this hardly seems revolutionary. In his On Guerrilla War Mao Tse-tung argues that protracted conict is a critical stage in his threephased war.72 Moreover, that belligerents use a long-term strategic approach questions the idea that modern war lacks political rationality. As Beatrice Heuser highlights, Clausewitz made quite detailed prescriptions for the use of the guerrilla.73 She even asserts that he laid the foundations of our thinking on asymmetric warfare.74 She continues: He realised that while the best way to victory is unquestionably to have larger armies and to defeat a smaller or weaker enemy army utterly in one main battle, other factors can favour smaller or weaker power. Apart from morale, this could be a greater stamina and patience, so that a larger enemy might not be prepared to invest the same amount of time to a particular conict as the weaker force.75 Employing irregular warfare as a mode of ghting a technologically or quantitatively superior opponent, a belligerent is subject to the same strategic logic as their conventional opponents. Though the characteristics of such a conict will be different to war between states, it is unclear why it should delimit wars political nature. As Sir Michael Howard remarks, after allowances have been made for historical differences, wars still resemble each other more than they resemble any
Hammes, The Sling and the Stone, 2. Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare [1936], trans. Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Grifth [1961] (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press 2000), 517. 73 Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico 2002), 136. 74 Ibid., 137. 75 Ibid.
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New or Old Wars? 235 other human activity.76 In fact, as M. L. R Smith argues: As Clausewitz above all recognised, the elemental truth is that, call it what you will new war, ethnic war, guerrilla war, low intensity war, terrorism, or the war on terrorism in the end, there is really only one meaningful category of war, and that is war itself.77 Indeed, it is clear that Clausewitzs principles relating to small wars are evident in the tactics employed by forces in those contemporary conicts described as new: A general uprising, as we see it, should be nebulous and elusive; its resistance should never materialize as a concrete body, otherwise the enemy can direct sufcient force at its core, crush it, and take many prisoners.. . . On the other hand, there must be some concentration at certain points: the fog must thicken and form a dark and menacing cloud out of which a bolt of lightning may strike at any time.78 As to the claim that we have entered into an era of constant conict, with individual wars petering on without end, with the distinction between peace and war is blurred, qualication is badly needed. War, as Clausewitz was aware, is an extremely volatile activity he was at pains to remind readers that it should not be entered into lightly. When war was joined he cautioned that it should be the means of reaching a better political settlement. As the Prussian observes: the ultimate outcome of a war is not always to be regarded as nal. The defeated side often considers the outcome merely as a transitory evil, for which a remedy may still be found in political conditions at some later date.79 Again, it is left to Michael Howard to remind us that even during what is thought of as the epitome of Clausewitzian conict in the nineteenth century, war frequently proved indecisive. It was a situation regularly repeated during the twentieth century.80 That war in the twenty-rst century should also be regularly indecisive should not come
Michael Howard, The Causes of War and Other Essays (London: Temple Smith 1983), 214. 77 M.L.R. Smith, Guerrillas in the mist: reassessing strategy and low intensity warfare, Review of International Studies 29/1 (2003), 34. 78 Clausewitz, On War, 581. 79 Ibid., 89. 80 Michael Howard, When Are Wars Decisive? Survival 41/1 (Spring 1999), 12635. It is widely accepted that grievances at the end of World War I led to another, more destructive, conict in 1939. In the aftermath of World War II, the world was faced with a new and potentially more dangerous Cold War.
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236 Colin M. Fleming as a great shock. Yet again, the notion that war has become unusually inconclusive rests with the idea that war is solely the domain of states. Yet again, it is a claim that depends on the level of analysis. Even after acknowledging a higher than usual incidence of war within states at the end of the twentieth century, should this herald the end of existing explanations of strategic theory? As already highlighted, a growing number of commentators have proclaimed that these existing paradigms are now superuous and must be superseded in favour of new models. If new explanations offer a better understanding of why wars begin, and of the strategic calculations that must ultimately follow, then they are gladly welcomed. However, as alluded to already, the problem is that it is not at all clear whether these new explanations are better than their predecessors. Even if modern theories demonstrate new strategic realities, should it follow that traditional models are now useless? For example, in Kalevi J. Holstis The State, War, and the State of War he grapples with the idea that war within states has radically recast the security environment.81 The increase in civil war and the subsequent decrease in interstate wars have brought him to the opinion that the predominant realist explanations for war are unfounded. Yet, though Holsti produces a highly articulate argument, it is not clear why realist maxims pertaining to causative theory should be set aside so readily. In many of the situations motivating civil conict, state-like actors are clearly affected by regional security dilemmas. Indeed, it is often the case that the collapse of central authority results in an emerging anarchy, where power, greed and fear are exacerbated by the lack of any overriding political authority.82 All of these factors serve as motivation towards warfare; all are entwined with the wider realist tradition. Geoffrey Blaineys penetrating argument, that war is about the measurement of power, is another example to reect upon. Intended as an insight into war between states, it retains its potency in the modern world. As Blainey argues: War itself provides the most reliable and most objective test of which nation or alliance is the most powerful. After a war which ended decisively, the warring nations agreed on their respective strength. The losers and the winners might have disagreed about

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Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996). 82 Barry Posen, The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conict, Survival 35/1 (1993), 2747.

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New or Old Wars? 237 the exact margin of superiority; they did agree however that decisive superiority existed.83 This is equally true of Clausewitzs remarkable Trinity. Although at some point in the future the state may lose its central status, his concept is as equally relevant to any polity engaged in warfare. This does not imply that the trends agged by the new war writers are not important. They highlight important developments which appear to be changing the conduct of modern conict; and these trends must be taken seriously. The very fact that non-traditional security concerns exacerbate traditional security calculations is in itself enough to warrant signicant attention. Furthermore, focusing attention on non-state conict, the new war theorists have opened up a more complex strategic environment for analysis. At the very least, they have reignited debate about warfare in the modern world, so long shaped by the contours of the international state system. If one is truly going to grasp the complexity of war, then reection of what factors are critical to understanding it is a positive step. Nonetheless, despite apparent prescience, there is a danger that many of the new war claims become exaggerated. Moreover, the founding premise that it offers an insight into a non-Clausewitzian universe is on very shaky ground indeed. Understanding Modern War: A Clausewitzian Future? Although the intention of the new war idea was to offer a modern insight into contemporary conict, in order to distinguish old wars from new it needs to repudiate the traditional position of Clausewitzian theory. Yet, while this is a perfectly acceptable scholarly enterprise, its major aw is that it wrongly presumes that Clausewitzian theory is premised on state primacy and the rational actions of governments. As we have seen, not only is the core Clausewitzian Trinity the major object of new war criticism not in fact coterminous with the state at all, the Prussian writer also understood and assessed the contribution of other modes of warfare. The central new war claim that modern war is post-Clausewitzian is therefore unfounded. Yet, does this necessarily mean that the entire new war idea is now irrelevant? Indeed, in light of Clausewitzs seemingly universal model, what direction should future research adopt? Of course, the obvious answer is to pursue a Clausewitzian analysis of war in the modern world. After all, this latest challenge to Clausewitz has again demonstrated the timelessness of his core
83

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Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: The Free Press 1988), 118.

238 Colin M. Fleming principles. It would be less than prudent to discard his ideas as irrelevant to our own period. This is not to suggest that we do not continue to test the centrality of Clausewitzian ideas against modern examples. After all, this is something clearly in keeping with Clausewitzs own belief that theory should be studied, rather than become doctrine on its own. As he reminds readers, it is inquiry which is the most essential part of any theory.84 To garner a greater awareness of the complexity of war we must continue to test and assess contemporary problems. Indeed, if Clausewitzian theory is to retain its primacy it must continue to demonstrate its modern salience. Moreover, in terms of the Trinity, there is room to build from the platform offered by Clausewitz both to test the strength of his ideas against contemporary examples, and if appropriate rene them to enable a modern analysis of war. The Clausewitzian Trinitarian model may have demonstrated that it is not coterminous with the state, but for it to be a useful analytical tool its supporters must illustrate its strengths by using it to generate a better understanding of modern war. Put simply, it must prove itself against hard empirical evidence. Though possibly less obvious, and though certainly more intriguing, is to draw on the strengths of Clausewitzian and new war theory as a means of generating a fuller understanding of modern conict. Though there is a danger that the new war idea becomes exaggerated, it nevertheless highlights trends that if correct will impact, if not on the nature of war, then certainly on its character and conduct. Too often the two competing approaches polarise themselves as rivals. In fact, as this paper has demonstrated, the new war thesis false premise means that they are not, in fact, mutually exclusive at all. In short, as they do not inhabit separate worlds there is little reason why analysts cannot draw on a combined approach. Clausewitzian concepts can be used as analytical tools in ostensibly new wars, just as the new war trends can open up the complexity of war and the requirement to nd a political solution to contemporary humanitarian and conict situations. If anything the complexity of new wars require that the primacy of politics, rather than violence, is even more essential than in wars between states. Such conicts require a Clausewitzian approach even more than conventional war. Rather than competition, there is room for nding common ground, essential if an esoteric subject such as war is to be better understood.

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84

Clausewitz, On War, 1623.

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