Comments on: Conflict in the 21st Century

By: Gary Hart

Gary Hart — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:33:29 +0000

These are all serious and thoughtful comments of the sort I’d hoped this site would generate. To Mr. Byron I can only add to the Welcome plea not to raise the “I notice you didn’t mention…” another plea that brief blogs demand gross summary and do not permit detailed qualifications. I apologize for over generalization on the history of warfare. Your exceptions are noted. I should have said “predominately” or “generally” and will try to do so in the future. Nevertheless, the major point remains: nation-state wars are declining; unconventional war is increasing. And our military, at least until Afghanistand and Iraq, was configured for the former.

By: DavidByron

DavidByron — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:15:49 +0000

What evidence is there for the statements made in this piece? It seems clearly false without the expression, “or at least the major ones”. I suppose you could just imagine only counting “big wars” like WW2 or WW1….

But what about the American Civil War? That was the largest conflict in history at the time and it was not between nation states.

Then again how about the Napoleonic wars? Again they were the largest conflicts in history to that date and although England and France were nation states, Italy and Germany were not. Any war fought across much of Italy or Germany — and there were many in the last 350 years — would also not be between nation states until Italy and Germany were unified.

I am guessing only European wars count as, “or at least the major ones”. What about the Russian Revolution? Seems a fairly big war. What about the Boer War? The Indian Mutiny? The French and Indian War?

Do you have any quantitative evidence for the statements you’ve made?

By: Virgilio Perez Pascoe

Virgilio Perez Pascoe — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:55:54 +0000

Gary:

The connections between power struggles within a nation-state and the balance of power relations inter nation-states has never been that hermetic, have they?

The traditional century of balance of power international relations (from the Congress of Vienna to World-War I)was still subject to internal configurations (Napoleon’s demise, the rise of Victorian England, the American Civil War, the Russo-Japanese war affecting both Russia and Japan).

Also, Collective Security didn’t work ’cause of lack of stability among the powers.
Rather than general equilibrium we are looking at local, temporary equilibrium conditions. Not us and them, but one us against another us. How to operationalize, this–that is the question!

By: C. Kasey Kitterman

C. Kasey Kitterman — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:11:22 +0000

I don’t know if the end(?) of the Cold War ushered in the terrorist attacks. Middle Eastern despots and Clerics, feeding self serving lies to a depressed and oppressed citizenry, would seem at least partly to blame. Wasn’t it in 1973 that the Fatwah was issued against the West? The difference between “light weapons” vs. Nation State weapons, seems moot, given todays reality. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists, require a deterrent response, if indeed one exists. I postulate we got to this point by following a reactive posture to our Nation State competitors. I am not so sure that works with zealots and fanatics. Our future may be to suffer the pay back, for ignoring problems in the past. There does not seem to be time enough, to change course.

By: Michael Carmichael

Michael Carmichael — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:50:27 +0000

Thanks to Gary Hart for providing an encapsulation of the rapidly transforming techniques of warfare. Let us not forget that large scale terrorism of civilian populations was introduced by nation states – a horrific practice that began long ago, but accumulated momentum in WWI & WWII – reaching a critical mass in the introduction of blitzkrieg, the Blitz of London via V1 and V2 rockets, Allied bombardment of European cities and culminating in the most devastating criminal acts in the history of war – Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I hope to read more from Gary Hart about his vision of the future of the US military – an institution that now appears to be riddled with archaic and arcane methodologies in an age where it is rapidly becoming little more than an a costly and accident prone anachronism.