65906948 new or old wars debating a clausewitzian future 01402390902743175

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New or Old Wars? Debating aClausewitzian FutureColin M. Fleming aa Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

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To cite this article: Colin M. Fleming (2009): New or Old Wars? Debating a ClausewitzianFuture, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32:2, 213-241

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New or Old Wars? Debating aClausewitzian Future

COLIN M. FLEMING

Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

ABSTRACT Over the last 18 years or so, much of the debate about modernwarfare has been about whether it should be described as ‘old’ or ‘new’.However, there has not been a definitive answer as to which best reflects war inthe modern world. Increasingly, the alternative arguments are polarised intoopposing camps. Indeed, it would be fair to say that there is little in the way ofdebate at all. By revaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each argument, thispaper aims to reinvigorate that discussion by examining whether changes in theway we understand war are really required. Finding that the ideas are not in factmutually exclusive, it suggests that future research could benefit from a combinedapproach.

KEY WORDS: Strategy, Clausewitz, New Wars

Since the end of the Cold War, the literature focusing on strategicstudies has highlighted a multiplicity of changes affecting war as itenters a supposedly post-modern age. It has even become customary tohear that transformational changes within the international systemhave altered the very nature of war itself. Consequently, an increasingnumber of scholars have repudiated traditional theories of strategicthought. Clausewitzian theory, in particular, has taken a bit of abashing. As Paul Hirst notes, ‘we are living in a period when theprevailing political and economic structures are widely perceived notmerely to be changing but subject to radical transformation’.1 In this‘new’ era it is broadly accepted that the political and economic forcesreshaping international relations are causing equally profound changesin the nature and conduct of war. Moreover, since the end of the ColdWar, speculation about a future not set neatly by the parameters of theEast/West stand-off has resulted in varied interpretations of bothpresent and future. Would it be a radically different world to thatwhich had passed? What would replace the Cold War rivalry? What

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

The Journal of Strategic StudiesVol. 32, No. 2, 213–241, April 2009

ISSN 0140-2390 Print/ISSN 1743-937X Online/09/020213-29 � 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/01402390902743175

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would define international relations (IR) as it entered a newmillennium?

Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the ‘West’s’ Cold Warvictory, Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History famously heralded thetriumph of capitalism over communism as confirmation that the worldhad entered an age free from the antagonisms of ideology. According toFukuyama, Western liberalism now held the trump card as the globalcure to war, inequality and domestic insecurity.2 Indeed, as theinternational system reacted to the freedom afforded by the West’ssuccess, the strength of capitalism and Western liberal values seemed toindicate that a truly transformational and progressive period wasunderway. Driven by economic and liberal values, what is now termedas the ‘globalisation’ of world politics has become one of the centralfeatures of contemporary international politics. It is widely acceptedthat 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 terminaldecline, has stimulated claims that war in the twenty-first century isundergoing profound change. A growing cosmopolitanism and a sensethat economic interdependence now restricts the actions of states hasensured that many analysts query previously accepted approaches tounderstanding international relations (IR). It has even been argued thateconomic interdependence and a rising intolerance to the horrors ofconflict – resulting from a Revolution in Attitudes towards the Military(RAM)3 – has produced an era in which war between the major states isobsolete.4 By the late 1990s, commentators such as MichaelMandelbaum were claiming that the trend towards obsolescence hadaccelerated.5 Mandelbaum even suggested that ‘the rising costs of war,and the diminishing expectations of victory’s benefits, have trans-formed its status’.6 In short, major war was thought to be a thing of thepast.

2Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and The Last Man (London: Penguin Books1992).3James C. Kurth, ‘Clausewitz and the Two Contemporary Military Revolutions: RMAand RAM’, in Bradford A. Lee and Karl F. Walling (ed.), Strategic Logic and PoliticalRationality: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London: Frank Cass 2003),274–98.4John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York:Basic Books 1989).5Michael Mandelbaum, ‘Is Major War Obsolete?’ Survival 40/4 (Winter 1998–1999),1–2.6Ibid., 23.

214 Colin M. Fleming

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Furthermore, when war does take place it has been argued that it willdiffer fundamentally from the rest of strategic history; it is even claimedthat the nature of war itself is changing. For proponents of this view,war has ceased to be a political and rational undertaking. Conse-quently, the claim is made that new ways of comprehending war’smodern dynamics are required to cope with political, cultural andtechnological transformation.7 Yet, though a range of ideas seem to beaffecting wars’ utility, and have thus been presented as grand narrativesin 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 thenature of war. Attacking the traditional position propounded by Carlvon Clausewitz, that ‘war is the continuation of policy’, the new waridea focuses on changes in the international system stimulated byglobalisation – particularly the perceived decline of the state.

As new war theorists believe Clausewitzian theory is coterminouswith the state, they repudiate his work as a result. However, the debatebetween these competing ideas has been ongoing from the early 1990s,without definitive answer as to which offers the greatest success ofunderstanding modern war. This paper will revaluate the strengths andweaknesses of each, consider whether changes are required, and suggestways in which the debate can be reinvigorated.

New Wars: Into The Fourth Generation?

While the new war argument is diverse, its primary claim is thatmodern conflict differs from its historical antecedents in three majorways: (i) structure; (ii) methods; and (iii) motives – each elementinterpenetrates the other.8 Moreover, though what is now termed thenew war thesis is in fact a collection of different ideas about war in themodern world, the notion of a new, emergent type of warfare has beenprimarily attributed to scholars and practitioners such as William S.Lind, Martin van Creveld, and Mary Kaldor, among others.9 Like

7For a comprehensive examination of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and itshistorical underpinnings, see: MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray (ed.), TheDynamics of Military Revolution 1320–2050 (Cambridge: CUP 2001).8For an alternative classification, Mary Kaldor claims that ‘new wars can be contrastedwith earlier wars in terms of their goals, the methods of warfare and how they arefinanced’. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars (Oxford: Polity Press 2001), 6.9See William S. Lind, Keith Nightengale, John F. Schmitt, Joseph W. Sutton, and GaryI. Wilson, ‘The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation’, Marine CorpsGazette (Oct. 1989), 22–6; Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (NewYork: The Free Press 1991); and Kaldor, New and Old Wars. It was Kaldor who coinedthe term ‘new war’. See also: Herfried Munkler, The New Wars (Cambridge: PolityPress 2005).

New or Old Wars? 215

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fellow advocates, Lind’s claim that future war will be markedlydifferent from the past is premised on the decline of the state. Lind’sargument focuses on his concept of fourth-generation warfare (4GW),which he claims is part of an historical process that has alreadyproduced first, second, and third generation war. Although attention isnow focused on 4GW, it is only a step towards the fifth, sixth andseventh generations of warfare at some point in the future. Thisirregular mode of conflict is believed to be a return to the way warworked before the state monopolised violence.10

Lind’s 4GW analysis starts from the Peace of Westphalia (1648),when the state monopolised mass violence. The First Generation ofWar (1648–1860) was one of line and column – battle was perceived tobe orderly and there was an increasingly clear distinction betweencombatant and civilian.

Second-generation warfare addressed mass firepower first encoun-tered in the Great War (1914–18) by maintaining order despite theincreased indirect destructiveness of artillery fire. Mass firepowerinflicted huge damage on the enemy, followed by the advance ofinfantry.

Third generation war, another product of World War I, wasdeveloped from 1916–18. Exemplified by the Blitzkrieg of the GermanArmy in the opening campaigns of World War II, third generation waris based on speed rather than attrition and firepower. The primaryemphasis is to attack the enemy’s rear areas and ‘collapse him from therear forward’. For advocates of this idea, despite the high tempo,technologically dominated ‘effects’ based warfare practised by therichest modern armies, contemporary state/military structures encap-sulate and practise third generation war. For many, this is precisely whyvictory in modern war appears so elusive. Colonel Thomas X. Hammesof the US Marine Corps explains:

Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) uses all available networks –political, economic, social, and military – to convince the enemy’spolitical decision makers that their strategic goals are eitherunachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit. It is anevolved form of insurgency. Still rooted in the fundamentalprecept that superior political will, when properly employed, candefeat greater economic and military power, 4GW makes use ofsociety’s networks to carry on its fight. . .Fourth-generation

10William S. Lind, ‘Understanding Fourth Generation War’, Military Review 83/5(Sept.–Oct. 2004), 14.


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wars are lengthy – measured in decades rather than months oryears.11

A new type of emergent warfare is also envisaged by Martin vanCreveld, who argues that declining state power is eroding thetraditional structures of IR. Van Creveld predicts that a breakdownof political legitimacy will transform war from a rational pursuit ofstates into an irrational, unstructured activity – fought not by armiesbut by groups with varying motivations. He also argues that war willlose its political purpose. Instead, it will be ‘driven by a mixture ofreligious fanaticism, culture, ethnicity, or technology’.12 In his opinion,the demise of state primacy accelerates the obsolescence of thetraditional Clausewitzian model which posits war as a politicalinstrument. This assumption has formed the cornerstone of themajority of studies shaping the literature of war. Indeed, Clausewitzargues that despite wars’ violent proclivities, it is bound by politicalobjectives; war should be fought for the rational pursuit of politicalgoals. As he reminds readers: ‘The political object is the goal, war is themeans of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolationfrom their purpose.’13

The idea that political rationality interpenetrates all aspects ofwarfare is thought to have been encapsulated in Clausewitz’s‘Remarkable Trinity’. This concept continues to court controversy.Indeed, the sense that the nature of military conflict has changed stemsdirectly from debate about the contemporary role of the Trinity inunderstanding modern war. Clausewitz wrote that:

War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts itscharacteristics to a given case. As a total phenomenon itsdominant tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity –composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity which are tobe regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance andprobability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and ofits element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, whichmakes it subject to reason alone.14

11Col. Thomas X. Hammes USMC, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21stCentury (St Paul: Zenith Press 2004), 2.12Creveld, The Transformation of War, 69.13Carl von Clausewitz, On War [1832] trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (NewYork: Knopf/Everyman’s Library ed. 1993).14Clausewitz, On War, 101.


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He continues:

The first of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; thesecond the commander and his army; the third the government.The passions that are to be kindled in a war must already beinherent in the people; the scope which play of courage and talentwill enjoy in the realm of probability and chance depends on theparticular character of the army; but the political aims are thebusiness of government alone.15

By marrying the ‘Trinity’ to sections of society, many scholars haveassumed that the concept is fundamentally linked to the state. Creveld’sargument that a new type of war is emerging rests with the fact thatthere has been a decline in the number of inter-state conflicts and thatthere has been a subsequent rise in the number of wars within states.For Creveld, the proliferation of Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) inconflicts within states is evidence that Clausewitz’s Trinitarian conceptno longer represents a coherent explanation why war is a rationalinstrument of the state. With state decline, the political base isredundant – leaving the ‘people’ as the only remaining component ofthe ‘Trinity’.

In other words, war would be stripped of its rational elements. As itis thought that the ‘people’ will form armed militias or mobs, which donot have structures able to promote rationality in the advance of theirconflicting cultural aims, it is assumed that war can no longer bedescribed as a rational political activity. This is because the rationalelements of the Clausewitzian Trinity, the military and principally thegovernment, are no longer present. Consequently, the appropriate‘rational’ component of the concept cannot restrict the irrational traitsthat all wars exhibit. With the end of the state, and therefore theinternational system of states, only violent and non-Trinitarian, non-political war will remain.16

Entwined with changes in the structure of modern conflict is theargument that war’s distinctive character, of a clash between opposingarmies, has been replaced. In short, just as the structure of war haschanged, so too have the methods; modern wars rarely followconventional norms and are thought to be distinguishable by theirsheer brutality and lack of strategic rationality. The increasing use ofirregular warfare by terrorist organisations and weaker powers is alsoclaimed to loosen the bonds between state and military, thus

15Ibid.16Non-Trinitarian war is a term coined by Creveld to express the redundancy ofClausewitz’s Trinity.


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accelerating and exacerbating the original problem of state decline.This gives credibility to the claim that state war between recognizablebelligerents is a thing of the past – a post-Clausewitzian approach is,therefore, an immediate requirement. As this trend acceleratestraditional armies will become increasingly like their enemies in orderto tackle the threat that this poses. According to Creveld, ‘armies willbe replaced by police-like security forces on the one hand and bands ofruffians on the other’.17

Following the publications of both Lind’s and Creveld’s theses, warin the former Yugoslavia, Caucasus, and throughout Africa seemed tosubstantiate their claims with much needed evidence. Mary Kaldor haseven claimed that ‘the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has become thearchetypal example, the paradigm of the new type of warfare’.18

Ostensibly, this argument is accurate. These conflicts do appear toexhibit irrational traits and they often seem to be guided by factorsother than governmental policy. In Rwanda and in former Yugoslavia itis argued that ethnic hatred exacerbated the tense political context; it isalso claimed that in Bosnia, war was driven by criminal gangs intent onmaintaining lucrative profit margins.19 After all, during the 1990s,‘traditional militaries’ rarely loomed large as central players. As such, ithas become common for commentators openly to envisage a worldwhere ‘conventional’ armies cannot function properly against a newtype of enemy. It is thought that this trend will be accelerated bydemographic problems exacerbated by economic and environmentalproblems. The feared result is an overspill of unorganised violence fromthe developing world.

Throughout the 1990s wars in the Balkans, Caucasus and Africapropelled the idea of transformative change in IR. Highlighted byRobert Kaplan’s provocative thesis The Coming Anarchy, it is arguedthat global economic inequality and the destabilising effects of failedstates are the primary danger awaiting the modern world – especiallywhen ‘factions’ resort to communal violence in order to restore ‘group’security. For Kaplan, the implications necessitate analysis of, ‘the wholequestion of war’.20 Moreover, he mirrors Creveld’s position; he toorejects the Clausewitzian argument that war is governed by politics.

17Creveld, The Transformation of War, 225.18Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 31.19Important works include: Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Paul Collier, ‘Doing Well outof War: An Economic Perspective’, in Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed andGrievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2000),91–111; David Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, AdelphiPaper 320 (Oxford/London: OUP for IISS 1998).20Rober D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy (New York: Vintage Books 2000), 44.


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Like other ‘new war’ writers, Kaplan warns that a preponderance of‘high-tech’ weapons is useless in a world where ‘conventional’ war isoutmoded. He cautions, ‘something far more terrible awaits us’.21

Wars will not be characterised by the large-scale industrial con-frontations of the twentieth century, or be subject to any notion oflegality; there will certainly be no rules of war as understoodtoday. Rather, devoid of battles, the primary target in new wars isthe civilian population. From 1991, population displacement andgenocide was intertwined both in the war in former Yugoslavia, and inRwanda/Congo. It seems to have been sadly repeated in Kenya in2008.22

If the present conflict in Iraq is any measure, attacking civilians hasbecome the tactic of choice for the non-state actors operating there.Leaving multinational forces (MNF) aside, a cursory assessment of thesituation suggests that direct targeting of civilians has accelerated sinceFebruary 2006.23 Prior to 2005 it has been estimated that there were1,300 police and military fatalities. From January 2005 until January2008 the number of police and military deaths has risen to an estimated6,568 – a total of 7,868. When compared with the total numbers ofcivilian fatalities in the same period from January 2005 until January2008 the results are compelling – estimated civilian deaths duringthis period are a staggering 41,068.24 According to the BrookingsInstitute’s ‘Iraq Index’, the figures for civilian deaths during conflict areeven more telling. From March 2003 until June 2006, the indexestimates the total number of civilian fatalities as a result of conflict at151,000.25

Certainly, the recent experiences of the United States and its allies inIraq and Afghanistan appear to suggest a trend towards difficultirregular warfare. These examples seem to compound the argumentthat future war will be asymmetrical, at least on one side.26 In terms of

21Ibid.22For a study into this tactic, see: ‘Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence during theRwandan Genocide and its Aftermath’, Human Rights Watch, retrieved 1 Nov. 2006,from 5www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Rwanda.htm423Interview with Claire Fleming, Senior Intelligence Analyst: Middle East and NorthAfrica, AKE Limited, 10 Jan. 2007.24‘Iraq Coalition Casualty Count’, 5www.icausalties.org/oif/IraqDeaths.aspt4, in-formation retrieved 15 Jan. 2008. Figures compiled from data from published newsarticles.25‘The Brookings Iraq Index, Jan. 11, 2007’, 5www.brookings.edu/iraqindex4,retrieved 14 Jan. 2007.26The fact that future war will have an asymmetrical component is reflected in: USMarine Corps Doctrine, MCDP 1-1, Strategy, 1997, Ch. 3. Additionally, the US hasbegun to look seriously at how changes in IR affect the way it fights. Perhaps the most


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purely intra-state conflict, some commentators have even suggested thatusing the term ‘war’ at all, gives it a credibility that belies itsunorganised character.27 After all, these ‘new internal wars’ do notexhibit 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 centralcontrol, rules, regulations, etiquette, and armaments. Armies arerag-tag groups frequently made up of teenagers paid in drugs, ornot paid at all. In the absence of authority and discipline, but quitein keeping with the interests of the warlords, ‘soldiers’ discoveropportunities for private enterprises of their own.29

Rupert Smith, a retired top British general with direct experience of warin the Balkans, Northern Ireland and the Middle East, goes evenfurther, claiming that:

War no longer exists. Confrontation, conflict and combat un-doubtedly exist all round the world – most noticeably, but notonly, in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of theCongo and the Palestinian Territories – and states still have armedforces which they use a symbols of power. None the less, war ascognitively known to most non-combatants, war as battle in a fieldbetween men and machinery, war as a massive deciding event ina 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), 18–22. The debate about modern war hasalso generated or revived studies into counter-insurgency techniques. Important worksinclude: 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 ChicagoPress 2002).27Monty Marschall, ‘Systems at Risk: Violence, Diffusion, and Disintegration in theMiddle East’, in David Carment and Patrick James (eds.), Wars in the Midst of Peace:The International Politics of Ethnic Conflict (Pittsburg, PA: Univ. of Pittsburg Press1997), 82–115.28David M. Snow, Uncivil Wars: International Security and the New Internal Conflicts(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1996), 106–7.29Kalevi J. Holsti, ‘The Coming Chaos? Armed Conflict in the Worlds Periphery’, inT.V. Paul and John A. Hall (eds.), International Order and the Future of World Politics(Cambridge: CUP 1999), 304.30Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London:Allen Lane Books 2005), 1.


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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 weretypical of ‘old wars’, the units that fight these wars include adisparate range of different types of groups such as paramilitaryunits, local warlords, criminal gangs, police forces, mercenarygroups and also regular armies including breakaway units ofregular armies. In organizational terms, they are highly decen-tralized and they operate through a mixture of confrontation andcooperation even when on opposing sides.31

For new war proponents, globalisation’s pervasive nature stimulatesdissonance between those able to play a part in a globalised world, andthose who are not. Central to this is the idea that the more competitiveaspects of globalisation are exacerbating cultural and politicalfragmentation. As Mark Duffield argues: ‘The changing competenceof the nation-state is reflected in the shift from hierarchical patterns ofgovernment to the wider and more polyarchial networks, contracts,and partnerships of governance’.32 It is an opinion championed byKaldor, who claims the process of globalisation is tearing up thepreviously stable state system – a system which for many has provided astarting point for understanding war and its role in IR.33 As a result, shetoo rejects the Clausewitzian paradigm.34

As the 1990s opened up new opportunities for international peaceand prosperity, the wars grabbing the front pages seemed totally atodds from their historical antecedents. There seemed to be a generalfeeling that wars stemmed from cultural and religious factors.35 Thisargument gained immediate currency when the wars in countries suchas former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda hit Western televisionscreens. It became increasingly common to talk about war in the 1990sas if it were an inexplicable mistake, as an emotional and irrationalmalady; an historical curse. In other words, they were thought to lackrationality.

31Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 8.32Mark Duffield, ‘Globalisation, Transborder Trade, and War Economies’, in MatsBerdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars(London: Lynne Rienner 2000), 71.33Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 70.34Ibid., 86–9.35Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order(London: Simon & Schuster 1997).


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Like other commentators, Kaldor believes the pervasive nature ofglobalisation is the root cause of modern political instability and war.As globalisation erodes the state system, there will be a parallel trendhighlighting an increase in identity politics. Just as there has been achange in structure and methods so too are there changes in themotivations of modern war. With socially ostracised communitiesunable to express their political grievances, it is thought they willemploy war as the most attractive expression of their local cultural/religious needs.36 To grab power, this process is supported by politicalelites.37

An additional new war argument hinges on an acceptance ofsubstantive difference between the economies of old and new wars.Whereas the wartime economies found in ‘old’ Clausewitzian conflictswere centralised by state authority to maximise resources, in ‘new wars’the economy is pervaded and supported by organised crime. In contrastto ‘old’ war economies, in new wars the opposing forces favour thecontinuation of conflict as an exercise in economic enrichment.The purpose of war is not to win a knockout blow, but to perpetuatethe cycle of violence in order to protect profit margins. David Keen evenclaims that ‘war is not simply a breakdown of a particular system, but away of creating an alternative system of profit, power and evenprotection’.38

Several studies into the economies of new wars suggest that ‘greed’plays a large role in contemporary civil conflict.39 They also agree thatthe economic element found in new wars is directly linked to why thedistinction between war and peace has become blurred.40 For MarkDuffield, ‘war is no longer a Clausewitzian affair of state, it is a

36Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 69–89.37For Yugoslav example, see V.P. Gagon, The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatiain the 1990s (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2004) and Eric Gordy, The Culture of Power inSerbia: Nationalism and the Destructions of Alternatives (Philadelphia: PennsylvaniaState UP 1999). For an account of the situation in Rwanda see: ‘Leave None to Tell theStory: Genocide in Rwanda’, Human Rights Watch (1999), 5www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-302.htm438Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, 11.39Important works include: Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Keen, The EconomicFunctions of Violence in Civil Wars; Collier, ‘Doing Well out of War’; and Indra deSoysa, ‘The Resource Curse: Are Civil Wars Driven by Rapacity or Paucity?’ in MatsBerdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2000), 113–28.40See William Reno, ‘Shadow States and the Political Economy of Civil Wars’, inBerdal and Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, 43–68.


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problem of underdevelopment and political breakdown’.41 Moreover,as Paul Collier observes, ‘if economic agendas are driving conflict, thenit is likely that these groups are benefiting from conflict and that thesegroups therefore have some interests in initiating and sustaining it’.42

Ethnic violence, the disintegration of the state, and the shadoweconomy which is established by the ‘have-nots’, act as a precursor, as aforce that drives and deepens war. Additionally, the return to identitypolitics exacerbates the warfare itself. It is even claimed that thewarring actors can survive only as long as the war continues; it is intheir interests to perpetuate the cycle of violence. It is best reflected bytheir shadowy wartime economies, where drugs, warlordism, and thecreation of wealth through extortion form a central pillar of the newsecurity environment. It is a situation recognisable in conflicts rangingfrom the wars of former Yugoslavia to the decades-long RevolutionaryArmed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency against the electedgovernment in that country; not to mention current wars in Iraq andAfghanistan.

There are problems with this argument, however. For example,Kaldor’s chapter on the Bosnian war is intended to mirror otherexperiences of modern war, thus demonstrating that organised crimeperpetuates conflict, prohibiting any meaningful political settlement.43

Yet, her case study of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) onlydemonstrates that it was different to the widely accepted picture of awartime economy – modelled on the total wars of the twentiethcentury. One obvious problem with this approach is that there is anoverwhelming sense that war can only be viewed through the lens of aworld war. Can such an historical rarity be used as a model forunderstanding future wars? That some forms of modern war do notresemble the model of a world war, even a inter-state war, does notnecessarily mean that the nature of war, what Clausewitz called its‘logic’, has changed.

Kaldor views the war economy in BiH as a Mafioso-style protectionracket, for her a true reflection of the altered nature of post-modernwar. This fails to demonstrate the whole picture. The very fact that warfragmented the state made the implementation of an ‘organised’wartime economy impossible. While it is axiomatic that the situation inBiH did not mirror a ‘world’ war, neither did it resemble an altogetherdifferent activity. Moreover, though there is evidence that organisedcrime proliferated throughout all of the wars of former Yugoslavia, and

41Mark Duffield, Global Governance And The New Wars (London: Zed Books 2001),44.42Collier, ‘Doing Well out of War’, 91.43Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 90–111.


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though there are undoubtedly examples when politics merged withcriminality, evidence that organised crime restricted strategic ration-ality is exiguous.

On their own, it is uncertain whether such factors automaticallyherald an emergent type of war. The very idea that looting, certainly aproblem in the Balkans, is a characterisation of a new type of war lackssubstance. As Stathis Kalyvas argues, ‘the concept of looting isanalytically problematic because it is unclear whether it refers to thecauses of war or to the motivations of the combatants (or both)’.44 Hecontinues: ‘The first problem is the distinction of causality – do peoplewage 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 isstriking that when the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) stabilised its position,after a shaky start, it suppressed and subsumed the very groups thatsuggest something new.46 Furthermore, the argument that ‘looting’heralds something new lacks historical foundation and is easily refutedby reference to conflicts such as the Thirty Years War; and much ofmedieval 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. Itis thus returning to a period that lacked strategic rationality. Thoughtto be irrational, favouring plunder and murder over battle, manymodern wars seem to resemble their medieval and early modernantecedents. Yet, although ostensibly accurate, the strength of thisclaim seems somewhat diminished by the fact that medieval and earlymodern historians have, concurrently, been advancing the argumentthat war in these periods were in fact driven by political and strategicrationality.47 Looting and plunder were certainly characteristics ofmedieval warfare; however, they were implemented strategically.Brutality, and political and social complexity, does not determinewhether war is devoid of political rationality. Even when war stemsfrom irrational impulses, it does not follow that it will be fought

44Stathis N. Kalyvas, ‘‘‘New’’ And ‘‘Old’’ Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction?’ WorldPolitics 54/1 (Oct. 2001), 103.45Ibid., 103–4.46See: Marko A. Hoare, How Bosnia Armed (London: Saqi Books 2004). In onepertinent example during Operation ‘Trebevic’ in 1993, the ARBiH purged the 10thMountain Division and 9th Motorised Brigade which had formed a criminal fiefdom inSarajevo.47For 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),28–34; see also J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During theMiddle Ages, trans. S. Willard and S.C.M. Southern (Woodbridge, UK: The BoydellPress 1997).


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irrationally – as the role of Al-Qa’eda and the Taliban in contemporarywars in Iraq and Afghanistan indicate.

Clausewitz Returns?

Despite enthusiasm for the fashionable ‘new war’ idea, several questionsremain unanswered. This is especially true of the conviction that currenttrends in warfare alter its nature. One of the key new war claims is that itattacks the traditional Clausewitzian notion that the nature of war ispolitical. It is a position which requires further examination. Even if the‘new war’ writers are correct, and the state is entering its final demise, anargument that seems premature, it is unclear why this should transformthe nature of war. While there is plenty of evidence to verify the claim thatnon-state actors participate in modern war, evidence explaining why theseshould be irrational or unusually apolitical is scarce.

As noted above, the apparent decline of the state is thought to negatethe rational base upon which war is founded. Consequently, it is thusargued that the rational element of the Clausewitzian ‘Trinity’ is erased.As such, the other two elements, ‘the people’ and ‘the military’, are leftwithout direction, a situation thought to provoke irrational violence.Without the stabilising, governmental, rational, element of the Trinity,conflict becomes an increasingly irrational activity driven more byethnicity and culture than political expediency. As the detractors of theClausewitzian model contend, ‘new wars’ are about ethnicity andparticularistic identity, which is assumed to be apolitical and irrational.As a result, these wars can no longer be thought of in the Clausewitziansense, as a ‘continuation of politics’.

Yet, while it was Clausewitz who married his Trinity withcorresponding sections of society, it is important to remember that atits basic level the concept comprises (i) passion, hatred and enmity, (ii)the play of chance and probability, and (iii) war’s subordination torational policy. According to Clausewitz, if one is truly to understandthe non-linear maelstrom of war, it will be by assessing the interplay ofthese three tendencies. While the Trinitarian concept is thought bymany to be premised on the state, there seems little reason why the‘core’ Trinity cannot continue to inform this esoteric subject – theseforces exist independently of the state structure.48 Anyway, that

48Michael Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, Third Revised andExpanded Edition (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 2004), 102. See also ChristopherBassford and Edward J. Villacres, ‘Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity’, Parameters25/3 (Autumn 1995), 9–19; and Antulio J. Echevarria II, ‘War and Politics: TheRevolution in Military Affairs and the Continued Relevance of Clausewitz’, JointForces Quarterly (Winter 1995–96).


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modern war displays irrational proclivities is not something terriblyunusual, nor can it be confined to war in one particular period. AsMichael Handel remarks:

It has often been argued that Clausewitz emphasizes the need toview war as a rational instrument, as a means for the leaders topromote and protect their state’s vital interests. From this accurateinterpretation, however, some readers have erroneously inferredthat Clausewitz also considers it possible for war itself to bewaged as a rational activity. In fact, Clausewitz, repeatedlyreminds us that this is not so, for he knows that war in all of itsdimensions is permeated by non-rational influences, or what hecalls ‘moral factors’ (moralische Grossen), ‘spiritual forces’(geistigen Krafte), or ‘spiritual factors’ (geistigen Grossen), which‘cannot be classified or counted’.49

Although Clausewitz’s Trinity does not require the state for it tocontinue as an explanatory model, the ‘new war’ focus on theredundancy of the state is understandable. In the years immediatelyfollowing the Cold War there was evidence that war within states,rather than between them, was becoming more prevalent. As theInternational Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty(ICISS) reported in 2001, ‘The most marked security phenomenonsince the end of the Cold War has been the proliferation of armedconflict within states.’50

During these wars it was often hard for outside observers tounderstand the inherent regional complexities frequently displayed. Itwas equally difficult to distinguish between political groups or theirmilitary forces. Moreover, their origins seemed to exhibit an irrationalpredilection towards religion, culture and ethnicity as motivatingfactors in conflict causation. Though clearly war, they were at variancewith common perceptions of what ‘it’ should look like. This appears tohave been a particular problem for those approaching the subject froman international relations background.

Since the foundation of IR as an academic discipline following theGreat War (1914–18), conflict has been explained as a military clashbetween two or more opposing states. Moreover, following the ‘GreatDebate’ of the late 1930s, realism, with its focus on the state, became

49Handel, Masters of War, 81.50The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission onIntervention and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Development ResearchCentre 2001), 4.


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the dominant theoretical approach. Sceptical that the interwar liberaltheorists had fully accounted for the scramble for power that led toWorld War II, a wave of realist writers began to shape the discipline byemphasising the competitive nature of states. Arguing that realistmaxims 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 neo-realism became the mainstream approach in the second half of thetwentieth century.51 In his seminal work, Man the State and War,Waltz identifies the causes of war in (i) man; (ii) the state; and (iii) theinternational system of states.52 Of these three levels he views theinternational system of states as the most critical; it is this level that hasbeen crucial to understanding war causation.

Since the inception of IR as an academic discipline, scholars havesought to understand the contours of war. In the majority of studiesthey have looked at the relationships between states as their startingpoint. The ‘new war’ theorists are part of a much larger group ofwriters who have historically viewed military conflict as an activityperformed by states – anything other than this is deemed to be out ofthe ordinary, indeed new. Of course, a major problem with such state-centric accounts is that they fail to encompass a broad enough range ofwarfare under their scope. Although it is evident that the state retainsits special place as the primary political unit in IR, too much researchposits the origins of wars exclusively at the feet of states. This is equallytrue for theorists who by concentrating on ‘hegemonic war’ – warbetween the great powers and their alliance systems – reject the reasonsfor war in other systems or periods.

One problem with such attitudes is that when forms of conflict thatdo not correspond with hegemonic or inter-state war arise, it is eitherdiscounted or presumed to be something transformational. Writing inthe 1960s, Quincy Wright observed that:

International lawyers have attempted to elaborate precise criteriafor determining the moment at which a war begins and ends, butthey have not been entirely successful, and, furthermore, they havebeen obliged to acknowledge the occurrence of interventions,

51Important works include: Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 5th ed.[1973] (New York: Knopf, Rosecrance, Richard 2001); and E.H. Carr, The TwentyYears’ Crisis [1939], introduction by Michael Cox (Basingstoke, UK: PalgraveMacmillan 2001).52Kenneth N. Waltz, Man the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis [1954] (NewYork: Columbia UP 2001).


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aggressions, reprisals, defensive expeditions, sanctions, armedneutralities, insurrections, rebellions, mob violence, piracy, andbanditry as lying somewhere between war and peace as thoseterms are popularly understood.53

In the twenty-first century, arriving at suitable criteria can prove evenmore elusive; a fact that for many seems to confirm the idea that thetransformation of war is ongoing. The difficulty in finding anappropriate framework with which to understand the causes of waris a reflection of the problems finding an adequate definition. It is aproblem that lies in the level of analysis.54 However, although it isevident that models viewing war as a state activity fail to account forother types of warfare, this is not a criticism that ‘should’ be attributedto Clausewitz. It is possible to find in the writing of the classical warthinkers definitions that cover war in all its many guises. It is unclearwhy these ‘classical’ writers cannot be used as a guide in the modernera, Clausewitz in particular.

In terms of conflict causation, one thinks also of Thucydides;especially his claim that the answer to understanding the motivationsfor war is posited in his own trinitarian formula: honour, fear, andinterest. It may be that this type of framework is as close as we come tofinding the answer to – why war? Thucydides’ formula is as relevanttoday as it was for the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) he sought tounderstand.55

The idea that war is a result of political action comes directly fromthe pages of On War. As Clausewitz himself put it, ‘war is not merelyan act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation ofpolitical intercourse, carried on with other means’.56 Though Clause-witz was certainly a product of his time – formulating his theorythrough his own experiences as a soldier in the French Revolutionaryand Napoleonic Wars, for many his ideas resonate throughout thehistory of warfare. For the Prussian general, the symbiotic relationshipbetween war and politics stems from the very essence of what conflictis – it plays a vital and functional role. Indeed, as Clausewitz is at pains

53Quincy Wright, A Study of War [1942] abridged by Louise Leonard Wright(Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press 1966), 114.54Handel, Masters of War, 33.55Robert B. Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to‘The Peloponnesian War’, trans. Richard Crawly, rev. ed. (New York: Free Press1996), 43.56Clausewitz, On War, 99.


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to remind readers, war is ‘an act of violence intended to compel ouropponents to fulfill our will’.57

From this starting position the Prussian general understood war as acontinuation of politics. He was cognizant that if war is intended tocompel an enemy to accept your will, it should be remembered that ‘thepolitical object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and meanscan never be considered in isolation from their purpose’.58 Clausewitzmay have famously conceptualised an ‘ideal’ type of war with no limitson the levels of violence, however, he was acutely aware this theoreticalideal existed abstractly only. Though violence drives violence, real waris restricted by political aims – and the physical ability to coerce one’sopponent. By conceptualising his real/ideal war dichotomy it becomesclear that war’s proclivity towards violence must, at some point, becurtailed by policy. If it does not, then it has become something otherthan war.59 As Colin Gray puts it:

Some confused theorists would have us believe that war canchange its nature. Let us stamp on such nonsense immediately.War is organized violence threatened or waged for politicalpurposes. That is its nature. If the behaviour under scrutiny isother than that just defined, it is not war.60

In terms of the ‘Remarkable Trinity’, Clausewitz intended his famousconcept to act as a model with which to comprehend the complexity ofwar once hostilites had begun. In short, when one understands that waris shaped by the interplay of complex forces – passion and hatred,chance, and rationality – it is clear that strategic calculations must beconstantly re-correlated to account for ‘ends and means’. What is thepolitical aim of the conflict, and how do we reach that outcome? Aswar is a reciprocal activity, its fluid and unpredictable nature ensuresnot just that prescription is difficult, but that prediction about theoutcome of a particular war founded upon anything other than politicaldexterity, will, sooner or later, end disastrously.61 The Trinitarianconcept simply describes the forces that make war so unpredictable,comprehension of such complexity in turn focuses attention towardsfinding a suitable strategy, albeit one which needs constant reflectionand adaptation. According to Christopher Bassford, ‘the Trinity is the

57Ibid, 81.58Ibid., 99.59Ibid., 83–4.60Colin Gray, Another Bloody Century (London: Weidenfeld 2005), 30.61Alan D. Beyerchen, ‘Clausewitz, ‘Nonlinearity and the Unpredictability of War’,International Security 17/3 (Winter 1992/93), 59–90.


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concept that ties all of Clausewitz’s many ideas together and bindsthem 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 positionpropounded by Clausewitz. Scholars such as Colin Gray, ChristopherBassford, Alan Beyerchen, Antulio J. Echevarria, Hew Strachan, andAndreas Herberg-Rothe, among others, have revitalised Clausewitzianscholarship in response to the ‘new war’ polemic.63 Indeed, building ona conference paper delivered in 2005 to an Oxford Universityconference on ‘Clausewitz in the 21st Century’, Christopher Bassford’sworking draft, ‘Tip-Toe Through The Trinity’, demonstrates therelevance of the Trinitarian concept by returning to the original textof Clausewitz’s On War.64 Our comprehension of the Prussian’s truemeaning of the Trinity has been aided even further by the meticulousanalysis given to the subject by Echevarria’s Clausewitz and Con-temporary War, and Andreas Herberg-Rothe’s excellent Clausewitz’sPuzzle, both of which rightly place the concept at the heart of On War.Though much of the debate surrounding modern war stems fromdebate about the role of the Trinity, few ‘new war writers’ candemonstrate an appreciation of the core concept. Most simplyaccept that Clausewitzian theory is premised on a position of stateprimacy.

By reflecting on Clausewitz’s original arguments, these writers havebeen able to generate a new corpus of Clausewitzian scholarship. In theprocess they have demonstrated that the core Trinitarian concept is infact comprised of (i) hatred passion and enmity, (ii) the play of chanceand probability and (iii) wars subordination to rational policy, rather

62Christopher Bassford, ‘Tip-Toe Through the Trinity, or The Strange Persistence ofTrinitarian Warfare’, 3 Oct. 2007, p.4 5www.Clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/TRI-NITY/TRINITY8.htm4. An earlier version is published as: Christopher Bassford, ‘ThePrimacy of Policy and the ‘‘Trinity’’ in Clausewitz’s Mature Thought’, in Hew Strachanand Nadreas Herberg-Rothe (ed.), Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford:OUP 2007), 74–90.63Important works include: Beyerchen, ‘Clausewitz, Nonlinearity and the Unpredict-ability of War’; Antulio J. Echevarria II, Clausewitz and Contemporary War (Oxford:OUP 2007); and Hew Strachan, Clausewitz’s On War (New York: Atlantic MonthlyPress 2006); Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Clausewitz’s Puzzle (Oxford: OUP 2007); andJon Tetsuro Sumida, Decoding Clausewitz: A New Approach to On War (Lawrence:UP of Kansas 2008).64The proceedings of the conference are now available as an edited volume. See HewStrachan and Andreas Herbeg-Rothe (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century(Oxford: OUP 2007).


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http://www.Clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/TRINITY/TRINITY8.htm

http://www.Clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/TRINITY/TRINITY8.htm

than the people, army, government model favoured in the wider newwar literature.65 As such, they claim that the real Trinity is universallyapplicable and can thus be used to analyse war in the modern world.Though the second model – people, army, government – is widelythought to encapsulate the state, and is thus open to criticism in a worldwhere war can be fought increasingly by a range of actors, the coreTrinity championed by Bassford can account for war between anyvariety of actors. Crucially, by building on the important work of AlanBeyerchen, scholars such as Bassford, Gray and Echevarria havehighlighted the non-linear focus of Clausewitzian theory. As such, theyhave revivified Clausewitz’s ideas just when international politicsregularly displays its non-linear characteristics. The Trinity is not astaid expression of state war from the Napoleonic period; rather, itexpresses the very complexity of war itself.

As noted already, part of the confusion surrounding Clausewitziantheory is the widely held assumption that it is coterminous with thestate. Therefore, in an era when the primacy of the state is thought to bein decline, the traditional Clausewitzian position is thought to beredundant. Yet, as has been highlighted, it is perhaps true that too oftencommentators declare transformational changes in the nature of warwhen in fact what is changing is the way it looks. Although war’scharacteristics may change, it is unclear why such transformationshould affect its nature.

Examples of this misconception are widespread throughout thecurrent literature. For example, in The Utility of Force retired BritishGeneral Sir Rupert Smith reflects upon his operational experience withthe British Army, concluding that a trend away from interstate conflicthas resulted in the need for a new paradigm which can account for ‘waramongst the people’.66 This is a useful discussion; debate about theutility of force is greatly welcomed, especially by someone with directoperational command experience. Certainly, his claim that Westernmilitaries are employing force wrongly, and often counterproductively,merits closer attention – especially at a time when UK and US forcesgrapple with the problems of overcoming a complex ‘irregular’opponent. However, that a completely new approach is required must

65Like Bassford, Handel and Echevarria support the continued use of the Trinitarianconcept. However, even supporters of Clausewitz disagree on its exact use. WhileHandel argues that the Trinity should be ‘squared’ to account for the role oftechnology, Echevarria, like Gray and Bassford, claims that technology does notundermine 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 ContinuedRelevance of Clausewitz’.66See Smith, The Utility of Force, 1–26.


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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 associatesClausewitz directly with wars between states. Yet, his ideas are notexclusive to the state and they do not exclude other types of war. Likehis contemporary, Lieutenant General Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini,Clausewitz was aware of the role that ‘people’s’ 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 Kriegsschuleduring 1811–12.67 Jomini, who had participated in a guerrilla war inSpain himself, even noted that:

As a soldier, preferring loyal and chivalrous warfare to organisedassassination, if it be necessary to make a choice, I acknowledgethat my prejudices are in favour of the good old times when theFrench and English Guards courteously invited each other to firefirst, – as at Fontenoy, – preferring them to the frightful epochwhen priests, women, and children throughout Spain plotted themurder of isolated soldiers.68

The classical war thinkers may have desired a return to an era whenconflict did not deviate from the strict parameters imposed by the rulingelites of the eighteenth century, yet they were acutely aware of othermodes of warfare. Indeed, as Clausewitz made clear in Chapter 3 ofBook 8, every age has its own kind of war, ‘its own limiting positions,and its own peculiar preconceptions’.69 Clausewitz’s assessment of thechanging character of war throughout history illustrates his awarenessthat the character of war was constantly changing, often dramatically,from one age to the next. The very point that the Prussian was makingwas that despite war’s 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 itscharacteristics to a given case. As a total phenomenon its dominanttendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity.’70 By stressing that

67Christopher Daase, ‘Clausewitz and Small Wars’, in Strachan and Herberg-Rothe,Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century, 183. For further information of Clausewitz’sconception of guerrilla war, see Werner Hahlweg, ‘Clausewitz and Guerrilla War’, inMichael Handel, Clausewitz and Modern Strategy (London: Frank Cass 1986),127–33.68Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini, The Art of War [1838] ed. with an introduction byCharles Messenger (London: Arms & Armour Press 1992), 34–5.69Clausewitz, On War, 715.70Ibid., 101.


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war is ‘more that a chameleon’, Clausewitz informs readers that war’snature should not be confused with the way it looks. That it alters itsappearance and character ‘to a given case’ is neither here nor there.The unifying element that ensures the universality of the nature of warhas nothing to do with the way war is conducted; instead it relatesdirectly to the fact that its nature comprises the interplay of thedifferent elements within his Trinitarian concept: emotion, chance, andreason.

As such, thinking that irregular conflict is somehow a modernphenomenon which must recast our understanding of the nature of warmay be a big mistake. Thomas Hammes, for example, argues that thearchitects of 4GW ‘convince the enemy’s political decision makers thattheir strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly’.71 As astrategy, this hardly seems revolutionary. In his On Guerrilla War MaoTse-tung argues that protracted conflict is a critical stage in his ‘three-phased war’.72 Moreover, that belligerents use a long-term strategicapproach questions the idea that modern war lacks political rationality.As Beatrice Heuser highlights, ‘Clausewitz made quite detailedprescriptions for the use of the guerrilla’.73 She even asserts that he‘laid the foundations of our thinking on asymmetric warfare’.74 Shecontinues:

He realised that while the best way to victory is unquestionably tohave larger armies and to defeat a smaller or weaker enemy armyutterly in one main battle, other factors can favour smaller orweaker power. Apart from morale, this could be a greater staminaand patience, so that a larger enemy might not be prepared toinvest the same amount of time to a particular conflict as theweaker force.75

Employing irregular warfare as a mode of fighting a technologically orquantitatively superior opponent, a belligerent is subject to the samestrategic logic as their ‘conventional’ opponents. Though the char-acteristics of such a conflict will be different to war between states, it isunclear why it should delimit war’s political nature. As Sir MichaelHoward remarks, after ‘allowances have been made for historicaldifferences, wars still resemble each other more than they resemble any

71Hammes, The Sling and the Stone, 2.72Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare [1936], trans. Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Griffith[1961] (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press 2000), 51–7.73Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico 2002), 136.74Ibid., 137.75Ibid.


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other human activity’.76 In fact, as M. L. R Smith argues: ‘AsClausewitz above all recognised, the elemental truth is that, call it whatyou will – new war, ethnic war, guerrilla war, low intensity war,terrorism, or the war on terrorism – in the end, there is really only onemeaningful category of war, and that is war itself.’77 Indeed, it is clearthat Clausewitz’s principles relating to ‘small wars’ are evident in thetactics employed by forces in those contemporary conflicts described as‘new’:

A general uprising, as we see it, should be nebulous and elusive; itsresistance should never materialize as a concrete body, otherwisethe enemy can direct sufficient force at its core, crush it, and takemany prisoners.. . . On the other hand, there must be someconcentration at certain points: the fog must thicken and form adark and menacing cloud out of which a bolt of lightning maystrike at any time.78

As to the claim that we have entered into an era of ‘constant conflict’,with individual wars petering on without end, with the distinctionbetween peace and war is blurred, qualification is badly needed. War,as Clausewitz was aware, is an extremely volatile activity – he was atpains to remind readers that it should not be entered into lightly. Whenwar was joined he cautioned that it should be the means of reaching abetter political settlement. As the Prussian observes: ‘the ultimateoutcome of a war is not always to be regarded as final. Thedefeated side often considers the outcome merely as a transitory evil,for which a remedy may still be found in political conditions at somelater date.’79

Again, it is left to Michael Howard to remind us that even duringwhat is thought of as the epitome of Clausewitzian conflict in thenineteenth century, war frequently proved indecisive. It was a situationregularly repeated during the twentieth century.80 That war in thetwenty-first century should also be regularly indecisive should not come

76Michael Howard, The Causes of War and Other Essays (London: Temple Smith1983), 214.77M.L.R. Smith, ‘Guerrillas in the mist: reassessing strategy and low intensity warfare’,Review of International Studies 29/1 (2003), 34.78Clausewitz, On War, 581.79Ibid., 89.80Michael Howard, ‘When Are Wars Decisive?’ Survival 41/1 (Spring 1999), 126–35. Itis widely accepted that grievances at the end of World War I led to another, moredestructive, conflict in 1939. In the aftermath of World War II, the world was facedwith a new and potentially more dangerous Cold War.


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as a great shock. Yet again, the notion that war has become unusuallyinconclusive 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 warwithin states at the end of the twentieth century, should this herald theend of existing explanations of strategic theory? As already highlighted,a growing number of commentators have proclaimed that these existingparadigms are now superfluous and must be superseded in favour ofnew models. If new explanations offer a better understanding of whywars begin, and of the strategic calculations that must ultimatelyfollow, then they are gladly welcomed. However, as alluded to already,the problem is that it is not at all clear whether these new explanationsare better than their predecessors. Even if modern theories demonstratenew strategic realities, should it follow that traditional models are nowuseless?

For example, in Kalevi J. Holsti’s The State, War, and the State ofWar he grapples with the idea that war within states has radically recastthe security environment.81 The increase in ‘civil’ war and thesubsequent decrease in interstate wars have brought him to the opinionthat the predominant realist explanations for war are unfounded. Yet,though Holsti produces a highly articulate argument, it is not clear whyrealist maxims pertaining to causative theory should be set aside soreadily. In many of the situations motivating civil conflict, state-likeactors are clearly affected by regional security dilemmas. Indeed, it isoften the case that the collapse of central authority results in an‘emerging anarchy’, where power, greed and fear are exacerbated bythe lack of any overriding political authority.82 All of these factorsserve as motivation towards warfare; all are entwined with the widerrealist tradition.

Geoffrey Blainey’s penetrating argument, that war is about themeasurement of power, is another example to reflect upon. Intended asan insight into war between states, it retains its potency in the modernworld. As Blainey argues:

War itself provides the most reliable and most objective test ofwhich nation or alliance is the most powerful. After a war whichended decisively, the warring nations agreed on their respectivestrength. The losers and the winners might have disagreed about

81Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge UP1996).82Barry Posen, ‘The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict’, Survival 35/1 (1993),27–47.


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the exact margin of superiority; they did agree however thatdecisive superiority existed.83

This is equally true of Clausewitz’s remarkable Trinity. Although atsome point in the future the state may lose its central status, his conceptis as equally relevant to any polity engaged in warfare.

This does not imply that the trends flagged by the ‘new war’ writersare not important. They highlight important developments whichappear to be changing the conduct of modern conflict; and these trendsmust be taken seriously. The very fact that non-traditional securityconcerns exacerbate traditional security calculations is in itself enoughto warrant significant attention. Furthermore, focusing attention onnon-state conflict, the ‘new war’ theorists have opened up a morecomplex strategic environment for analysis. At the very least, they havereignited debate about warfare in the modern world, so long shaped bythe contours of the international state system. If one is truly going tograsp the complexity of war, then reflection of what factors arecritical to understanding it is a positive step. Nonetheless, despiteapparent prescience, there is a danger that many of the ‘new war’claims become exaggerated. Moreover, the founding premise that itoffers an insight into a non-Clausewitzian universe is on very shakyground indeed.

Understanding Modern War: A Clausewitzian Future?

Although the intention of the ‘new war’ idea was to offer a moderninsight into contemporary conflict, in order to distinguish ‘old’ warsfrom ‘new’ it needs to repudiate the traditional position of Clause-witzian theory. Yet, while this is a perfectly acceptable scholarlyenterprise, its major flaw is that it wrongly presumes that Clausewitziantheory is premised on state primacy and the rational actions ofgovernments. As we have seen, not only is the core ClausewitzianTrinity – the major object of ‘new war’ criticism – not in factcoterminous with the state at all, the Prussian writer also understoodand assessed the contribution of other modes of warfare. The central‘new war’ claim that modern war is post-Clausewitzian is thereforeunfounded. Yet, does this necessarily mean that the entire ‘new war’idea is now irrelevant? Indeed, in light of Clausewitz’s seeminglyuniversal model, what direction should future research adopt?

Of course, the obvious answer is to pursue a Clausewitzian analysisof war in the modern world. After all, this latest challenge toClausewitz has again demonstrated the timelessness of his core

83Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: The Free Press 1988), 118.


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principles. It would be less than prudent to discard his ideas asirrelevant to our own period. This is not to suggest that we do notcontinue to test the centrality of Clausewitzian ideas against modernexamples. After all, this is something clearly in keeping withClausewitz’s own belief that theory should be studied, rather thanbecome doctrine on its own. As he reminds readers, it is ‘inquiry whichis the most essential part of any theory’.84 To garner a greaterawareness of the complexity of war we must continue to test and assesscontemporary problems. Indeed, if Clausewitzian theory is to retain itsprimacy it must continue to demonstrate its modern salience.Moreover, in terms of the Trinity, there is room to build from theplatform offered by Clausewitz – both to test the strength of his ideasagainst contemporary examples, and if appropriate refine them toenable a modern analysis of war. The Clausewitzian Trinitarianmodel may have demonstrated that it is not coterminous with thestate, but for it to be a useful analytical tool its supporters mustillustrate its strengths by using it to generate a better understanding ofmodern war. Put simply, it must prove itself against hard empiricalevidence.

Though possibly less obvious, and though certainly moreintriguing, is to draw on the strengths of Clausewitzian and ‘newwar’ theory as a means of generating a fuller understanding ofmodern conflict. Though there is a danger that the ‘new war’ ideabecomes exaggerated, it nevertheless highlights trends that if correctwill impact, if not on the nature of war, then certainly on itscharacter and conduct. Too often the two competing approachespolarise 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 reasonwhy analysts cannot draw on a combined approach. Clausewitzianconcepts can be used as analytical tools in ostensibly new wars, just asthe ‘new war’ trends can open up the complexity of war and therequirement to find a political solution to contemporary humanitarianand conflict situations. If anything the complexity of ‘new wars’ requirethat the primacy of politics, rather than violence, is even more essentialthan in wars between ‘states’. Such conflicts require a Clausewitzianapproach even more than ‘conventional’ war. Rather than competition,there is room for finding common ground, essential if an esotericsubject such as war is to be better understood.

84Clausewitz, On War, 162–3.


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