LIT1: Williams, P. D. (2013). Security Studies (2nd ed., pp.187-205), “Chapter 13: War”. New York: Routledge. Flashcards
What is the definition of war according to Williams?
War is an intense form of political relations that impacts upon virtually every dimension of human life.
- It has caused huge amounts of suffering and destruction but it has also been a major engine for social, political, economic and technological change.
War is much more than the strategies and tactics of war-fighting: it is a ‘full-spectrum’ social phenomenon that is present beyond the war front and beyond wartime, in and among apparently pacific social, cultural and economic relations.
What are the 3 philosophies on war according to Williams?
- Political (Clausewitz)
a. Warfare as an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will
b. It was essentially a rational, national and instrumental activity: the decision to employ the military instrument ought to be made on the basis of rational calculation taken by the political authority concerned in order to achieve some specified goal- Eschatological
a. A teleological view of history which would culminate in a “final” war leading to the unfolding of some grand design - divine natural or human
b. Two variants:
i. Messianic
1) The agency destined to carry out the grand design is presumed to exist already
ii. Global
1) The grand design is presumed to arise from the chaos of the final war - Cataclysmic
a. War as a catastrophe that befalls some portion of humanity or the entire human race. War could be seen as a scourge of God or as an unfortunate by-product of ‘human nature’ or the anarchic ‘international system’
b. Two variants are
i. Ethnocentric
1) War as something disastrous that is likely to befall us; specifically war is something that others threaten to do to us
2) All that can be done is to forestall the impending disaster or alleviate its worst effects.
ii. Global
1) War as a cataclysm that affects humanity as a whole not just this or that group of humans, no one is held responsible and no one will benefit from it
2) Focuses attention on the prevention of war
- Eschatological
Based on these descriptions, Rapoport suggested that ‘in political philosophy war is compared to a game of strategy (like chess); in eschatological philosophy, to a mission or the dénouement of a drama; in cataclysmic philosophy, to a fire or epidemic’
Is Clausewitz still relevant? (Williams)
The debate continues over whether Clausewitzean thinking (political philosophy) is still relevant for analysing today’s wars
1. The concept of the battlefield, so central to the way in which Clausewitz understood warfare, has dissolved. 2. As the speeches of both Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush made clear, leaders on both sides of the "war on terror" have often rejected political narratives of warfare. Instead, they have adopted eschatological philosophies in their respective rallying cries for global jihad and a just war against evil-doers. 3. A third problem for advocates of the political philosophy and one which Clausewitz obviously never encountered - is war involving nuclear weapons-. Far from furthering the political objectives of the participants, this is more likely to resemble a mutual suicide pact between the states involved. 4. When confronted by ‘revolutionary’ wars, ‘military forces’ are often indistinguishable from the local populace and one can never be sure they have been eliminated ‘unless one is ready to destroy a large portion of the population’. Generally, in the traditionally Anglo-American-dominated field of security studies the political philosophy has been the most popular.
What are the functions of war according to Williams?
Warfare is not just an instrument of policy or an entirely negative phenomenon with ‘causes’ and ‘effects’; it also has functions.
As significant sectors of society may benefit from war
1. Limit violence a. Geographically, efforts could be made to fight away from one’s own homeland. b. Politically, one could ‘farm out’ violence and its adverse consequences to militias or proxies. c. Militarily, violence could be limited by avoiding direct confrontation/battles with a competent armed enemy. 2. Fulfil the desire for immediate gain a. This might be economic gain through the accumulation of commodities or the desire for improved safety for one’s friends and supporters. But war may also deliver psychological benefits. 3. Weakening political opposition Not solely the enemy, but also by suppressing, dividing or delegitimizing actual or potential critics within one’s own camp.
Importantly, all three of these aims ‘may not only compete with the priority of winning but may also be actively counterproductive from a military point of view’
What are the trends in armed conflict since 1945? (Williams)
- Particularly from the mid-1970s there has been a significant decline in interstate armed conflict with intrastate conflicts accounting for the vast majority of organized violence
- A second major trend is that since reaching a peak of 51 in 1991–1992, the number of state based armed conflicts has dramatically declined.
a. This decline can be explained with reference to 4 main factors
i. The end of colonialism removed a major source of political violence from world politics.
ii. The end of the Cold War, which encouraged the superpowers to stop fuelling ‘proxy wars’ in the developing world.
iii. The increased level of international activism spearheaded by the UN that followed the end of the Cold War.
iv. The increasing popularity of global norms that proscribe the use of military force in human relationships. - The decline in in battle deaths
- More than 400 non-state armed conflicts too place around the world since end of cold war
- The final trend worth identifying here is the shifting regional spread of armed conflicts.
Since 1945, it is clear that at different times, different regions have experienced far more wars than others. Until the mid-1970s, East and Southeast Asia suffered the most battle deaths, whereas during the latter stages of the Cold War, most such casualties were spread between the Middle East, Asia and Africa. During much of the 1990s, however, sub-Saharan Africa proved to be, by far, the world’s most conflict prone region.
- A second major trend is that since reaching a peak of 51 in 1991–1992, the number of state based armed conflicts has dramatically declined.
Who fights and who dies in armed conflict (Williams)
States are not the only belligerents in contemporary armed conflicts; armed actors come in many shapes and sizes, including international organizations and a variety of non-state actors.
- Historically, the most prevalent armed non-state actors have been mercenaries, private military companies, insurgents and a wide variety of paramilitaries, militias and self-defence forces, tribal and clan-based groups as well as the infamous suicide bombers.
With the reduction in the number of major engagements and the subsequent drop in the number of battle-deaths, it is not surprising that a major part of violent deaths in contemporary armed conflicts are civilians
- Humanitarian aid workers have also found themselves more likely to become the targets of intentional violence.
However, the vast majority of fatalities in contemporary armed conflicts are so-called ‘indirect deaths’
- These are people (mainly children, the elderly and women) who die from war exacerbated disease and malnutrition, usually brought on and/or intensified by the process of displacement.
Is the nature of war changing according to williams?
In recent years debates about three questions have been particularly important in addressing this question:
1. Whether the concept of ‘total war’ is useful for thinking about developments in warfare.
2. Whether the processes of globalization have given rise to a ‘new’ type of warfare.
Whether advanced industrialized democracies in the West are waging a new type of war compared to earlier historical periods.
What is the concept of Total War according to Williams?
At its heart, the idea of total war revolved around the notions of escalation and participation
- Fears of escalation derived from the concern that once started, warfare was difficult if not impossible to control.
Now, total war is seen as a set of circumstances which reality can approach but never reach.
- As in practice, limits have always been placed or imposed on warfare.
Given these practical limitations, why has the idea of total war occupied such an important place in the collective psyche of analysts and practitioners alike?
Several tendencies encouraged the growing ‘totality’ of warfare, especially from 1914 to 1945
1. Technological and industrial advances during this period permitted the methods of warfare to become more destructive, thus facilitating the slaughter of people quickly and on a consistent basis.
2. Governments were increasingly able to mobilize national resources (both through state institutions and the energies of private or semi-private actors) and harness them to the war effort.
3. The expanding scope of war aims, from economic or political gain to total victory.
These tendencies combined to blur the distinction between the civilian and military spheres; a key characteristic of ‘total wars’.
What is Williams “New Wars” debate?
A second way of thinking about how warfare might be changing involves the argument that, especially since 1945, globalization has given rise to a distinctive form of violent conflict commonly labelled ‘new wars’.
According to Kaldor (1999) new wars are distinct from ‘old wars’ in terms of their:
1. Goals
a. The goals of combatants can be understood in the context of a struggle between cosmopolitan and exclusivist identity groups.
2. Methods
a. New wars are fought through a novel ‘mode of warfare’ that draws on both guerrilla techniques and counterinsurgency
b. Decisive engagements are avoided and territory is controlled through political manipulation of a population by sowing ‘fear and hatred’ rather than winning ‘hearts and minds’.
3. Systems of finance
a. New wars are financed through a globalized war economy that is decentralized, increasingly transnational and in which the fighting units are often selffunding through plunder, black-market or external assistance
These illustrate the ongoing erosion of the state’s monopoly of legitimate organized violence.
Wars that reflect these characteristics are often very difficult to bring to a decisive end.
As a result, Kaldor suggests that the resolution of these new wars lies with the reconstruction of legitimate (that is cosmopolitan) political communities that instil trust in public authorities, restore their control of organized violence, and re establish the rule of law.
What is the contemporary western way of war according to Williams?
A third way of thinking about the changing patterns of warfare has focused on the ways in which Western states prefer to use military force through an analysis of the campaigns in Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011) and elsewhere.
- For some analysts, these campaigns show that in the contemporary Western world warfare has become akin to a spectator sport.
Colin McInnes (2002) developed the idea further to argue that in contrast to the dynamic of escalation that provided the backdrop for fears of total warfare, contemporary wars waged by Western states have been localized in both their conduct and impact.
The other key contrast is that the West’s contemporary wars don’t involve high levels of societal participation but are instead fought by a small number of its professional representatives i.e. the armed forces and private contractors
- As a consequence, a relatively small number of casualties can have dramatic political repercussions.
- This low tolerance of casualties is related to the fact that the contemporary wars waged by Western states have been wars of choice to help achieve liberal policy objectives rather than wars of survival.
In this context, McInnes identified several key characteristics of spectatorsport wars:
1. They are expeditionary – based on the localization of the conflicts concerned and a desire to fight away from the Western homeland.
2. The ‘enemy’ is narrowly defined as the leadership/regime of the target state rather than the whole of the enemy state’s society.
3. There is a desire to minimize collateral damage because only small elements of the enemy society are identified as legitimate targets.
4. Force protection, that is, the need to minimize risks to Western forces, is a significant priority.
In pursuing these wars, Western states have emphasized the importance of airpower. In practice, however, there are significant limitations to thinking of airpower as an ideal instrument to conduct ‘humane’ and ‘riskfree’ war.
1. Difficult to seperate combatant and civilian.
2. Targeting errors, operational mistakes and technical malfunctions produce civilian deaths.
3. Many ‘strategically’ significant installations are part of the civilian economy.
4. Even ‘surgical’ strikes on cities terrorize civilians because of the constant fear of errors.
5. The protection afforded to pilots by flying at high altitude is offset in terms of efficiency by the presence of such awkward phenomena as clouds.
What is Williams opinion about the current state of war in relation to the philosophies?
Although the Clausewitzean, or political, philosophy of war has traditionally held sway in much of the security studies literature, warfare can be conceived in different ways.
And in several respects, other ways of thinking about (and practising) war are gaining in prominence.
War certainly brings many dangers but as a socially generative process it also serves a variety of functions which have a huge but often under-acknowledged impact on contemporary politics and society
