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During the 2000 US presidential campaign George W. Bush made much of the allegation that the Clinton administration had been squandering the military resources of the United States by committing military forces to peace-keeping as well as peace-enforcement operations from Haiti to Kosovo. Post-Cold War military terminology refers to such use of military force as ‘operations other than war’. It was time, Bush argued, for the military to concentrate on what he perceived to be its core function: to ‘fight and win wars’.
But how is one to fight and win wars in the twentyfirst century?
Bush points to the need to prepare for the wars the twenty first century might have in store for us. The way he singles out war and the conventional forces used to fight them, shows he believes that future wars will be fought and won on Clausewitzian terms. ‘War,’ Carl von Clausewitz famously asserted, ‘is simply the continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.’
By that dictum Clausewitz described and defined a modern Western way of warfare that
emphasised the need to seek a military decision to irreconcilable differences between nations in pitched battles. Is that what the twentieth-first century holds in store for us?
At the present, the development in information technology is making Western armed forces in general but the US armed forces in particular transcend their form warfighting paradigms. This has in many ways made the 1990s a ‘Clausewitzian moment’ enabling especially the American military to fight ‘pure war’.
The Clausewitzian moment may soon be over, however, as the practice of information warfare moves the focus of war from decisive battles to the control of information. The Clausewitzian moment may also come to an end because of a paradigm shift in western modernity. As western societies transform from the modern era to a late-modern, or post-modern, era, they transcend the political reason that made war its instrument.
Together, the two ‘paradigm shifts’ constitute revolutions in military affairs (RMA) far more fundamental than the one the term has come to signify in the 1990s. The revolution in military affairs has become a way to describe the crushing American military superiority in the post-Cold War world.
This essay argues, first, that there are two revolutions in military affairs: a technological paradigm shift and a social paradigm shift. Two processes that feed on one another. Second, it is argued that these revolutions seem to bring about a new strategic culture. A strategic
culture focused on operations other than war as the Clausewitz defined it.
The ancient Chinese maxims of war by Sun Tzu provide an avenue for understanding the nature of these new operations. Sun Tzu’s priorities in warfare are completely different from those of Clausewitz. Where Clausewitz focused on applying overwhelming force at the centre of gravity, Sun Tzu argued one could win without fighting. ‘To subdue the enemy without fighting,’ Sun Tzu asserted, ‘is the acme of skill.’
According to Sun Tzu, the first priority in warfare should be to attack the enemy’s strategy, the second priority to attack the enemy’s alliances and only thirdly one should move to attack the enemy’s army.
This essay seeks to map the operational environment created by the revolutions in military affairs by means of Sun Tzu’s three priorities. First, the essay explores the possibility RMA technology gives for realising Sun Tzu’s idea for attacking strategies rather than armies.
Second, Sun Tzu’s notion of attacking alliances is used to show how the dichotomy between politics and war breaks down in late-modernity, and how the Western practice of intervention following the Cold War illustrates this point. Third, it is argued that direct attacks –Sun Tzu’s third priority – is no longer defined in terms of enduring interests of grand strategy but is
the product of what is termed ‘grand tactics’.
This essay seeks to map the strategic paradigm that has developed in the 1990s taking the West beyond war towards a practice ‘of operations other than war’. Sun Tzu serves as the point of departure of this exercise. This is not to say that "The Art of War" should replace "On War" as the constitutive text of the Western way of warfare. Where Clausewitz was constituted by and constitutive of the modern Western way of warfare, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was written 2,400 years ago. The distance in time and space makes it impossible for Sun Tzu to serve the same purposes of double hermeneutics as an analysis of Clausewitz can.
The Art of War serves a heuristic purpose: Sun Tzu is the conceptual crowbar that enables one to transcend the Clausewitzian paradigm. Furthermore, The Art of War serves an analytical
purpose. Sun Tzu focuses on a number of elements of warfare that, though they have had some importance in the Western way of warfare previously, have never before had the importance they have now. Sun Tzu’s thoughts can help us to rediscover their importance.
This essay is an exercise in mapping rather than analysis. It seeks to identify a
problematique by linking a number of issues, rather than researching one or more issues in depth. Depth has been sacrificed depth for breath in order to link a number of issues that are important and mutually reinforcing elements of the strategic discourse of the moment, but rarely brought together. A number of examples may serve to illustrate this. Sun Tzu is often quoted in relation to the technological RMA, but the implications of Sun Tzu’s thoughts for the practice of warfare, and thereby the rationale of the use of armed force itself.
Clausewitz and Sun Tzu are often compared, but the comparison is rarely linked to the growing research programme on strategic culture. The study of new practices of security
following the Cold War are seldom linked to the discussion on RMA. The essay attempts to place these and other issues on one conceptual map in the hope that this map may serve as a guide for broader discussion and deeper analysis.
Before the essay turns to mapping the strategic environment of the revolutions of military affairs, the implications for strategic thought of the research into military culture will be briefly sketched and the differences between Clausewitz and Sun Tzu highlighted.
...
https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/c4d13478-0c4a-4fd7-824f-13397d5f2096.pdf
But how is one to fight and win wars in the twentyfirst century?
Bush points to the need to prepare for the wars the twenty first century might have in store for us. The way he singles out war and the conventional forces used to fight them, shows he believes that future wars will be fought and won on Clausewitzian terms. ‘War,’ Carl von Clausewitz famously asserted, ‘is simply the continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.’
By that dictum Clausewitz described and defined a modern Western way of warfare that
emphasised the need to seek a military decision to irreconcilable differences between nations in pitched battles. Is that what the twentieth-first century holds in store for us?
At the present, the development in information technology is making Western armed forces in general but the US armed forces in particular transcend their form warfighting paradigms. This has in many ways made the 1990s a ‘Clausewitzian moment’ enabling especially the American military to fight ‘pure war’.
The Clausewitzian moment may soon be over, however, as the practice of information warfare moves the focus of war from decisive battles to the control of information. The Clausewitzian moment may also come to an end because of a paradigm shift in western modernity. As western societies transform from the modern era to a late-modern, or post-modern, era, they transcend the political reason that made war its instrument.
Together, the two ‘paradigm shifts’ constitute revolutions in military affairs (RMA) far more fundamental than the one the term has come to signify in the 1990s. The revolution in military affairs has become a way to describe the crushing American military superiority in the post-Cold War world.
This essay argues, first, that there are two revolutions in military affairs: a technological paradigm shift and a social paradigm shift. Two processes that feed on one another. Second, it is argued that these revolutions seem to bring about a new strategic culture. A strategic
culture focused on operations other than war as the Clausewitz defined it.
The ancient Chinese maxims of war by Sun Tzu provide an avenue for understanding the nature of these new operations. Sun Tzu’s priorities in warfare are completely different from those of Clausewitz. Where Clausewitz focused on applying overwhelming force at the centre of gravity, Sun Tzu argued one could win without fighting. ‘To subdue the enemy without fighting,’ Sun Tzu asserted, ‘is the acme of skill.’
According to Sun Tzu, the first priority in warfare should be to attack the enemy’s strategy, the second priority to attack the enemy’s alliances and only thirdly one should move to attack the enemy’s army.
This essay seeks to map the operational environment created by the revolutions in military affairs by means of Sun Tzu’s three priorities. First, the essay explores the possibility RMA technology gives for realising Sun Tzu’s idea for attacking strategies rather than armies.
Second, Sun Tzu’s notion of attacking alliances is used to show how the dichotomy between politics and war breaks down in late-modernity, and how the Western practice of intervention following the Cold War illustrates this point. Third, it is argued that direct attacks –Sun Tzu’s third priority – is no longer defined in terms of enduring interests of grand strategy but is
the product of what is termed ‘grand tactics’.
This essay seeks to map the strategic paradigm that has developed in the 1990s taking the West beyond war towards a practice ‘of operations other than war’. Sun Tzu serves as the point of departure of this exercise. This is not to say that "The Art of War" should replace "On War" as the constitutive text of the Western way of warfare. Where Clausewitz was constituted by and constitutive of the modern Western way of warfare, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was written 2,400 years ago. The distance in time and space makes it impossible for Sun Tzu to serve the same purposes of double hermeneutics as an analysis of Clausewitz can.
The Art of War serves a heuristic purpose: Sun Tzu is the conceptual crowbar that enables one to transcend the Clausewitzian paradigm. Furthermore, The Art of War serves an analytical
purpose. Sun Tzu focuses on a number of elements of warfare that, though they have had some importance in the Western way of warfare previously, have never before had the importance they have now. Sun Tzu’s thoughts can help us to rediscover their importance.
This essay is an exercise in mapping rather than analysis. It seeks to identify a
problematique by linking a number of issues, rather than researching one or more issues in depth. Depth has been sacrificed depth for breath in order to link a number of issues that are important and mutually reinforcing elements of the strategic discourse of the moment, but rarely brought together. A number of examples may serve to illustrate this. Sun Tzu is often quoted in relation to the technological RMA, but the implications of Sun Tzu’s thoughts for the practice of warfare, and thereby the rationale of the use of armed force itself.
Clausewitz and Sun Tzu are often compared, but the comparison is rarely linked to the growing research programme on strategic culture. The study of new practices of security
following the Cold War are seldom linked to the discussion on RMA. The essay attempts to place these and other issues on one conceptual map in the hope that this map may serve as a guide for broader discussion and deeper analysis.
Before the essay turns to mapping the strategic environment of the revolutions of military affairs, the implications for strategic thought of the research into military culture will be briefly sketched and the differences between Clausewitz and Sun Tzu highlighted.
...
https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/c4d13478-0c4a-4fd7-824f-13397d5f2096.pdf
