About War

[litematt]

I've been hearing the term "surgical strikes" for over 20 years. It amazes me that there are people who truly believe you can move a military machine like a doctor moves a scalpel. If you must utilize medical terminology when comparing military operations, then use chemotherapy as the concept. Because military ops SHOULD be the last result, with the understanding that the application of that force might very well kill off or severely damage a shitload of "healthy" populations. - SOTB

I've been reading a lot of threads lately that touch on the subject about how war should be waged in the modern world. I really liked SOTB's statement because it is the exact opposite of what so many people in contemporary times feel about conventional war but men like von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu would agree with SOTB. Our own history would support that war is not a tool to be used lightly and it is very violent which illustrated why waging war is a last resort that must be backed with a hardened conviction of being right. The killing fields of Antietam, Passchendaele, Verdun, Stalingrad, Carthage and others stand as testaments to Clausewitz and Sun Tzu's teachings. Yet today we talk about deploying a division that can only operate under rules XY and Z or bombing select targets to avoid ground combat and casualties.

So, my question to everyone is this: what happened that the accepted view on war is that it should be clean, as least violent as possible and can be used whenever? Did this shift occur due to some kind of post-World War 1 and 2 enlightenment in social thought - that we are in many ways a brotherhood of Man? Perhaps nations and businesses have found wars to be more economically beneficial than in the past? Maybe technological advances in military equipment has created a reliance on machine over man, on specialists over the average grunt, tanker or deckape? Is it a combination of things or something entirely different? Has the concept of war changed at all?

[Greenhat]

"In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it."
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

[ET1/ss nuke]

After World War 1, there was an intellectual backlash in Europe against nationalism and state-sponsored religion, accompanied by an American backlash against international involvement and Wilsonian socialism. The Communist International played upon those feelings with the mantra that all the world's poor peoples should unite as brothers against the world's governments and industrialists who had oppressed them. The elite educated snobs who appointed each other to positions in government and came to dominate the foreign policy apparatus of the US and Western Europe bought into the notion that war was an uncivilized act that must be restrained from affecting the civilian populace, a notion that came to fruition in John Kennedy's "Flexible Response" doctrine. The same effete idiots at the State Department were appalled when Reagan threatened to obliterate the Soviet Union. They still survive today throughout the US State Dept. and may be the only species existing in the European Parliament.

[Spinner]

Our ability to strike an adversary from ever greater distances, and with greater precision, has more than anything else led to this fallacy that wars can be conducted with little or no risk to ourselves, and as little risk to the enemy and its population as possible.

The reality of it all usually snaps people back to how things actually are. Not unlike when the Air Force concluded that guns on fighters were obsolte and redunant with the advent of the missile, only to find out that those integrated cannons were more relevant than ever.

The Gulf War more than any other in recent time led people to view war in antiseptic terms. Clean, "surgical" and precise. My dad gave me some tapes he recorded during my deployment in DS/DS. I don't think I watched more than 10-15 minutes of them altogether. What I saw and experienced on the ground didn't jibe with video shot from 20,000 feet.

Chemotherapy is a good analogy, but if you're going to use the term surgical, think in terms of a field amputation without anesthesia.

[CAP MARINE]

the Gulf War comes to mind,too.although my war,Vietnam,due to political reasons i think the U.S.really was hamstrung and micromanaged.my only thoughts, and i dont have many.

[Cass]

"In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it."
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Sun Tzu was a wonderful philosopher. But philosophy will not down an enemy coming at you with an auto with full mag. And "surgical" is a nice word, but only a word. What has really happened is that the white shirts in Wash DC wants our young men to go to war, but with limitations. And one of those limitations is that if mud is going to be spattered don't get any mud on the white shirts, white shirts remaing clean for the International tables of making rules of how to wage war without gentlemen looking like other than gentlemen.

We won WWII by killing off everything in front of us, no gentlemen's agreements. Just kill. If we are going to put our young men in harms way, then let the young men make the rules. It is their life or death. Truman could trump Sun Tzu at any debate.

[BKK]

Definately some wisdom being offered here.

[RAT]

Sun Tzu was a wonderful philosopher. But philosophy will not down an enemy coming at you with an auto with full mag. And "surgical" is a nice word, but only a word. What has really happened is that the white shirts in Wash DC wants our young men to go to war, but with limitations. And one of those limitations is that if mud is going to be spattered don't get any mud on the white shirts, white shirts remaing clean for the International tables of making rules of how to wage war without gentlemen looking like other than gentlemen.

We won WWII by killing off everything in front of us, no gentlemen's agreements. Just kill. If we are going to put our young men in harms way, then let the young men make the rules. It is their life or death. Truman could trump Sun Tzu at any debate.

Here HERE...

RO!!!

[Offroad]

Sun Tzu was a wonderful philosopher. But philosophy will not down an enemy coming at you with an auto with full mag. And "surgical" is a nice word, but only a word. What has really happened is that the white shirts in Wash DC wants our young men to go to war, but with limitations. And one of those limitations is that if mud is going to be spattered don't get any mud on the white shirts, white shirts remaing clean for the International tables of making rules of how to wage war without gentlemen looking like other than gentlemen.

We won WWII by killing off everything in front of us, no gentlemen's agreements. Just kill. If we are going to put our young men in harms way, then let the young men make the rules. It is their life or death. Truman could trump Sun Tzu at any debate.


Damn fine post!!! Reminds me of "The buck stops here."

[Metalchica]

Military philosophers Sun Tzu, Jomini, Clausewitz, Mahan, Corbett, Douett and Mitchell lived and wrote in times when war was either linear, or eventually incorporated indirect fire and manuever warfare ("Blitzkrieg"). They did not write in the context of the Information Age or an asymmetrical threat - the premise of the GWOT.

A talking point among military scholars past and present is whether war is "science" or "art". While there may be scientific application, war is by and large an art. Clausewitz wrote about "chance" - the Murphy factor. The best-laid plans go to the wayside once the first shot is fired...or perhaps, in today's battlefield, once the first IED blows up.

[RAT]

A talking point among military scholars past and present is whether war is "science" or "art". While there may be scientific application, war is by and large an art. Clausewitz wrote about "chance" - the Murphy factor. The best-laid plans go to the wayside once the first shot is fired...or perhaps, in today's battlefield, once the first IED blows up.

Damn right...

A bomb is all science... It is the art of the placement that makes them deadly.:biggrin:

RO!!!

[MakoZeroSix]

A talking point among military scholars past and present is whether war is "science" or "art". While there may be scientific application, war is by and large an art. Clausewitz wrote about "chance" - the Murphy factor. The best-laid plans go to the wayside once the first shot is fired...or perhaps, in today's battlefield, once the first IED blows up.

I agree. It's an art. Especially nowadays in the "4th Generation" warfare thing. We need a modern Sun Tzu to break it down in Haiku or whatnot.

[lavbo0321]

Our political and military philosophy has been to avoid WWIII by any and all means. Diplomatic, even to the extent of compromising our core values, and conducting small dirty wars when necessary to avoid the big one.

We learned the hard lesson from WWII that with the application of small covert actions, we could have avoided the deaths and slaughter of millions.

Today, we are creeping ever closer to the actually possibility of seeing in our lifetime WMD used by states who should have never been allowed the technology in the first place. And some of these states got it from us and whose blame it will rest on our feet.

War is an obscenity but it is far more preferable to tyranny or oppression. Not to mention the clear fact that there is evil in this world, regardless of religion or breed, that needs to be eradicated off the face of our planet.

We are living in an age defined by massive political failures at the hands of the League of Nations, the UN, and the old imperialistic ways of the past. Divided lands and cultures, old hatreds, and unfinished wars that have been simmering for years.

Remember when the Berlin wall fell down, and people were curious at how Bush Sr. was so calm, and not jumping for joy. He knew that we were about to enter an age not defined by NATO vs. Warsaw Pact. But an age of small ugly violent wars.

War has never been waged by only one method. It has always been a mixture of large and small armies, conventional and unconventional. In order to prevail in the future we need to be prepared for any and all levels of conflict across a broad range of operational environments. I think we are seeing more and more of our conventional forces looking and working like our SF simply because those methods work in the type of conflicts we rare facing today. But we must not loose our ability to fight the old fashioned Green wars the recent past. Todays war fighter has to be a jack of all trades in order to preserve our nation.

Enough ranting.

God Bless America

[TPD1280]

Military philosophers Sun Tzu, Jomini, Clausewitz, Mahan, Corbett, Douett and Mitchell lived and wrote in times when war was either linear, or eventually incorporated indirect fire and manuever warfare ("Blitzkrieg"). They did not write in the context of the Information Age or an asymmetrical threat - the premise of the GWOT.


I will grant you that the great philosophers and thinkers did not have to deal with the information age, but many were quite well acquainted with non-linear battle. And your timeline is a bit miscombobulated.

Sun Tzu is estimated to have lived sometime between 722 and 481 B.C.

Indirect Fire came to be around the same time (circa 400 B.C.) with the invention/evolution of the ballista, catapult, onager, and trebucher.

The Romans, Spartans, Byzantines, Mongols, and Persians, all fought asymmetric warfare. Most started as insurgencies themselves and later became the dominant power fighting counter-insurgencies. They, however, were not followed by a second army of lawyers and reporters thus giving them the freedom to act with resoluteness of purpose without risk of offending the sensibilities of some civilian 15,000 miles away.

Indirect fire and maneuver was used by William the Conqueror during the battle of Hastings in 1066. The tactic was also used to great effect during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), most specifically at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. Longbows were used to soften infantry positions prior to direct attack. (Sounds similar to "Airland Battle" for us old fucks, and "Shock and Awe" for the Nintendo generation.)



Around 600 AD, war got "civilized" by the first Muslim Caliph, Abu Bakr. His instructions were:

Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for your guidance in the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy's flock, save for your food. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone

Before that, anything was fair game. Smart armies pillaged before they burned, but scorched earth was the way of the world. And people accepted it, because that was the way of war.

Later, the Caliphate developed a full code of laws of war including treatment of prisoners, non-combatants, diplomats, etc.

That was the beginning of linear warfare.

Taking the tactics of the Romans of maneuvering Centuries and Regimes, and civilizing it with laws governing conduct, Medieval warlords, Kings, Princes, Dukes, et alia were able to conduct war without getting their OWN hands dirty.

The grunt on the grund was still fighting face to face and wearing the spittle and blood of the enemy he just killed with his own hands.

Many battles never happened. That's where D&C came from. An army would march out onto the field of battle, in perfect step and formation, demonstrating their professionalism and discipline. It was excellent PSYWAR against a rabble of armed peasants, less than disciplined conscripts, or underpaid privateers who would take off running for the hills. Drill was Force Multiplication at it's finest.

If both sides were well turned out, the Kings or commanders would meet in the middle and discuss terms.

The remainder of the philosophers listed in the quote were born about 200 years after all of the above took place.

We have since spent a great amount of time, effort, and ingenuity at getting as far away from the enemy and actual combat as possible.

Being a nation run by a civilian government, especially in an age where for the second time in modern history our CINC has not spent a day in uniform, nor have many of the people elected to Congress (the body which declares and finances wars), it is to be expected that these people are going to want things to be as antiseptic as possible.

As I understand it, President Clinton's explicit instructions to GEN Joulwan prior to the launching of IFOR were, "DO NOT HAVE ANY CASUALTIES." President Clinton had no stomach for a replay of Mogadishu.

As someone who has never heard a shot fired in anger, nor spent a single day in uniform, nor had anything but disdain for our nations military, Clinton had no comprehension of the simple fact that militaries have two purposes: kill people and break things.

If one is not committed (or resolved) to killing and destruction, then one has no business engaging in limited incursions, police actions, peace-keeping, strategic strikes, or any other euphemism for: war.

[Greenhat]

We won WWII by killing off everything in front of us, no gentlemen's agreements. Just kill.

Might make that argument for the Soviet Army (wouldn't be true, but you could make the argument) or the Marine Corps in their island hopping campaign (again, not true, but you could make the argument), but you can't realistically make the argument for the Armies led by MacArthur, Patton, Eisenhower, Bradley, Hodges or Montgomery. Third Army alone captured 765,483 prisoners (plus an additional 515,205 in the last week of the war). Third Army killed 144.500 Germans and wounded 386,200. Doesn't sound exactly like "just kill", does it?

Unlike the claims of the original poster, Sun Tzu gave a great variety of options in his approaches to war. Different approaches for different circumstances, depending on enemy strength, friendly strength, disposition, etc. All of those variables still exist, and so do the wide variety in military responses.

Btw, Sun Tzu (Sun Wu) was not just a philosopher. He was a General and a good one. The quote I noted was for the "best case", the situation that demonstrates the finest control of the battlefield and the use of military force. To be blunt, our Generals in WWII weren't very good (with the exceptions of Patton and MacArthur) at much but pounding straight into the enemy. Manuever, speed, beating the enemy with your brains? For the most part, we let the enemy do those.

[zog]

Ah, Javbo, a light touch on just and unjust wars.

Coming from jmy position as a media whore, I'd have to say that part of the reason for "clean" warfare may date back to Vietnam, when the war was shown on TV. DS/DS, at least the air war seemed more like a video game (unless you were the object of the game). It was easy to take. But the end, with the planes lining up to strafe the road to Baghdad, was a bit tougher. In Iraq, the embedded camera crews did not show the goriest stuff, as was done in Vietnam. (I've seen outtakes... nope, no need to broadcast) Now that the public has more access to war, maybe the politicians in charge want to keep it clean. I think it's a rather silly idea, even though I was raised to curse the name of William Tecumseh Sherman.

[CV]

Zog brings up the exact point that I was going present; Television (and the Internet).

Information spreads faster now and to a larger mass. As a matter of fact, it is so exponentially faster that those in power can't keep up. Everyone is an Armchair General now.

I don't care what anyone says, they do not like to watch footage of a mutilated body or the horrors of war. As a matter of fact, I call bullshit on anyone that ever says they do. Its not pleasant and it does affect decisions when people demand it not happen.

bah, I'm tired- I hope my point is clear.

[Greenhat]

Ah, Javbo, a light touch on just and unjust wars.

Coming from jmy position as a media whore, I'd have to say that part of the reason for "clean" warfare may date back to Vietnam, when the war was shown on TV. DS/DS, at least the air war seemed more like a video game (unless you were the object of the game). It was easy to take. But the end, with the planes lining up to strafe the road to Baghdad, was a bit tougher. In Iraq, the embedded camera crews did not show the goriest stuff, as was done in Vietnam. (I've seen outtakes... nope, no need to broadcast) Now that the public has more access to war, maybe the politicians in charge want to keep it clean. I think it's a rather silly idea, even though I was raised to curse the name of William Tecumseh Sherman.


It actually probably dates back to WWII and the newsreels. The Rape of Nanking was covered fairly comprehensively. However, before Vietnam, there wasn't much showing of the brutality of our side (some, but no where close to what would occur in Vietnam or later). Everybody probably remembers the "Highway of Death" footage from Desert Storm. Well, in WWII, there were probably hundreds of roads in France alone that may have looked like that. Who saw them? The Soldiers, the refugees... and pretty much no one else.

Today, everybody that wants to can see pretty much everything. Which puts a premium on fighting wars in a manner that reduces those images.

That isn't necessarilly a bad thing. It means that the Generals of today have to fight with their brains, that they have to consider deception, manuever, key terrain and key targets.

If some of that attitude would have been in place in WWII, we likely don't take Aachen (we bypass), we don't get bogged down in the Huertgen Forest, we don't hold Patton back from closing the Falaise gap. Of course, it also might mean that we don't invade in Normandy, that we invade in the South of France instead.

[RetPara]

So, my question to everyone is this: what happened that the accepted view on war is that it should be clean, as least violent as possible and can be used whenever? Did this shift occur due to some kind of post-World War 1 and 2 enlightenment in social thought - that we are in many ways a brotherhood of Man? Perhaps nations and businesses have found wars to be more economically beneficial than in the past? Maybe technological advances in military equipment has created a reliance on machine over man, on specialists over the average grunt, tanker or deckape? Is it a combination of things or something entirely different? Has the concept of war changed at all?

VietNam. The FIRST television war, that was the change. For the first time in history the American public was watching ground combat in their living room that is less than week old. I knew people with kids in theater actually would watch every news show they could in case their son came on camera. While it was censored compared to what you can get from live sat feeds now; it was graphic for the time.

Even more changes in attitude really got it start after DS\DS. The pin point accuracy displayed night after night of aerial bombardment and the LACK of footage of ground combat footage cemented in the nations mind the concept of antiseptic, no gore, warfare. This public perception has directly impacted on policy makers which drives tactics and doctrine. (Reality is what I am talking about.)

The pictures that came into those living rooms in the 60's were a universe in difference from the videos of bombs taking out a bridge in 1991. The complete destruction of Army (Iraq) done in less than four days with a casualty rate vastly lower than what the public had been expecting brought higher expectations from the military. These expectations included a reliance on technology that subjugated or in some cases handicapped commanders since their ground actions could viewed by policy makers worldwide in near real time.

So fighting a war with the world watching over your shoulder impacts on the expectations of the population sponsoring the war, the policy makers who generate the national strategy, which directly impacts through the strategy and national intent given to the war fighting command to ROE issued to the troops prosecuting the war at the sharp end.

This is more a topic of a topic for a thesis, than for a web post.

[busdriver]

I've been reading "The Utility of Force" lately, the author Gen Smith contends that the shift to our modern interpretation of "conventional" war occurred during the Napoleonic wars, mostly due to conscription. Previously, Generals had to be very concerned with losses, raising an army was costly and replacing trained soldiers took time. Once the ranks could be filled quickly, higher losses were more acceptable. Following the two world wars and the end of conscription in most of the western world, we once again have to be concerned with losses. This fits in well with the "value of life" view of the western world. It's also not a stretch to see how that view migrated over to non-combatants and even the enemy.

Desert Storm showed many images of precision guided weapons, despite the fact that the vast majority of weapons employed were not precision in nature.

Whether you want to call our current state of affairs fourth generation warfare or war amongst the people as Gen Smith does, it's a reality that you can't kill everything in front of you and expect to keep your popular and political support.

[The Fat Guy]

Zog brings up the exact point that I was going present; Television (and the Internet).

Information spreads faster now and to a larger mass. As a matter of fact, it is so exponentially faster that those in power can't keep up. Everyone is an Armchair General now.



CV,

Good points all.

I believe that war is a factor of society, a means by which society resolves situations, perhaps not the most favorable or the first choice, but none the less History shows us it is a solution and often times a viable one.

Greenhat speaks of the "timeless" (my interpretation) application of Sun Tzu's principles. I think they hold true, regardless of the time frame.

Sun Tzu tells us to "Know Yourselves" Know your capabilities and know what you must protect; "Know Your Enemy" Who is he, how does he fight etc; "Know Your Environment" what about the battlefield or areas of interest can help us or hinder us in the fight? Lastly, "What does the Enemy Know About You?"

To say waging war is either an art or a science is naive. It goes back to my Rubic's Cube theory that if you concentrate ONLY on putting all the orange squares on one side, the rest of the cube (world, society, whatever the domain) is fucked up Waging war is the art of leveraging existing science and other available resources to attain your societal goal. In WWI the science was poison gas. DS/DS it was precision bombing and now with the asymmetric threat and the advent of the Internet, the science with which generals have to fight has changed yet again. The science changes, not the principles of war.

Greenhat's description of Sun Tzu's application of the Art of War is universal and I think CV's description above accurately describes a situation (change in the science) to which today's leaders must adapt.

Jesus, I need a nap....

My .02, Let Fly...

[Tracy]

...Has the concept of war changed at all?

Nope. The Tools and the Fools changed.

I could get deeply involved in the discussion, but I'll leave it with the one-liner. I'll also leave this parting shot:

No matter what we use, how we use it or how long it lasts; we conquer nothing and win the same until a Soldier or a Marine stands on the ground and declare it ours. Until you can put a bayonet on a Virginia-class Sub or an F-22 and make them dig out the enemy, an armed human will be needed to finish the job.

[BigNickT]

The philosophy of warfare presented by Sun Tzu is all well and good as long as it is kept in context. Yet The Art of War is somewhat like the Bible. You can take a single passage and interpret it any way you want. Sun Tzu encompasses far more than just the military aspects of conflict, and for the philosophy to be applied as intended there have to be certain elements present that don't jive with how we choose to resolve conflict in the modern west.

Sun Tzu advocates many tactics that we in the West have decided are distasteful and that we won't take part in. For example he advocated assassination, which our politicians have decided is "against the rules".

Sun Tzu also had purview over everything in the "battlespace". He controlled strategy, tactics, psyops, intel, espionage, diplomacy, the whole enchilada. That's not true today and probably wouldn't even be feasable.

So for Sun Tzu to work you have to accept that the General gets to make the vast majority of decisions without interference from the peanut gallery, and you have to accept that he is going to make use of TTP's that most will find distasteful. Otherwise The Art of War is just another warfighting book that may or may not be applicable to a given situation.

After WWII somebody decided that warfare could be clean, surgical and human involvement could be minimalized. That there needn't be any suffering or even any inconvenience involved. And certainly no bad images of people actually being killed. It could all be done with the push of a button. That idea developed quite a following among the people (politicians) who wanted to flex military muscle, but didn't want to have to stand up to constituents whose offspring would have to be put in harm's way. It's a nice idea, but the theory doesn't hold up under scrutiny. To echo Tracy's words, until you have a 19 year-old with a bad attitude and an M-16 actually standing on the real estate in question, you haven't won shit. So in reality nothing has changed since the first cave man hit his neighbor with a club in order to take his stuff. We just dress it up with a bunch of BS to make it more palatable.

The way we see war being waged nowadays is a result of the decision-makers glomming on to this idea of "clean" warfare and not letting go regardless of history or evidence to the contrary. Not a unique circumstance. If you look to the debates on embryonic stem cell or global warming you see the same sort of thought process. They want their theory to be true so badly that they can't accept that it might not be.

Tax out

[Chaplain]

So, my question to everyone is this: what happened that the accepted view on war is that it should be clean, as least violent as possible and can be used whenever? Did this shift occur due to some kind of post-World War 1 and 2 enlightenment in social thought - that we are in many ways a brotherhood of Man?

Nothing has changed. Theologians debate "Just War" theory and politicians try to find justification for the death, destruction, and poverty caused by their decisions. (Although the Europeans no longer have to get the support of the Pope to declare war.) Nations have always been for war if they get something out of it, and against war if it is messing up their own back yard. I was just reading Herodotus' description of the battle at Thermopylae. He says that Xerxes waited for 4 days before attacking the Spartan/Greek forces, hoping that they would be intimidated by his 300,000 troops and just go away. Everyone wants to get to their objective with the least amount of pain possible, while causing the most destruction on the enemy. Generals have been promising politicians "surgical strikes" since Sun Tzu, but they are rarely accomplished, no matter how sophisticated the technology. Often because some small number of Spartan-like folks refuse to believe that peaceful slavery is preferrable to freedom.

[yojinbukai]

I've noticed more than a few similarities between the work of Sun Tzu and FM 7-8. You can change the weapons, the distance between FLOTS, and everything else you want to change. Eventually, someone will have to close with and destroy the enemy or most likely die trying.

No one appreciates war, like the warrior, and no one likes it any less.

[Longrifle]

...No matter what we use, how we use it or how long it lasts; we conquer nothing and win the same until a Soldier or a Marine stands on the ground and declare it ours. Until you can put a bayonet on a Virginia-class Sub or an F-22 and make them dig out the enemy, an armed human will be needed to finish the job.
Thus the old adage: "There are only two branches - Infantry and Infantry Support."