Project White Horse Forum

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

 To say “warfare is changing” is banal, obvious and thus irrelevant. When did warfare ever not evolve? The acts of Sept. 11 changed nothing in the Thucydidean and Clausewitzian nature of war, or even its modern practice. America’s choice of response did change U.S. foreign policy and defense planning, but the attacks themselves were in no way indicative of any change in the aims and purposes, or even methods, of political violence.

 In order to provide a very different perspective on “what kind of war is it,” excerpts of William Owen’s essay on Armed Forces Journal are provided below.  Owen is former British Army and currently a full time writer, theorist and critic concentrating on infantry and doctrinal issues.  His writing is most easily found on highly recommended  Small Wars Journal. 

My guess would be that he would disagree with much written in this series. My argument with his article would focus on the idea of serious need for  clarity by use of  appropriately defined terms as compared to consideration as “buzzwords,” simply because they did not appear in the text of On War by Carl von Clausewitz.

Essay: The war of new words: Why military history trumps buzzwords (excerpt)
by William F. Owen
War isn’t just transforming — it’s ushering in a whole new language to describe conflict, and this language is used in a way that pays little attention to logic or military history. Thus the forces we used to call guerrillas are now “hybrid threats.” Insurgencies are now “complex” and require “complex and adaptive” solutions. Jungles and cities are now “complex terrain.” Put simply, the discussion about future conflict is being conducted using buzzwords and bumper stickers.

The evidence that the threats of the 21st century are going to be that much different from the threats of the 20th is lacking. Likewise, there is no evidence that a “new way of war” is evolving or that we somehow had a previously flawed understanding.

In fact, the use of the new words strongly indicates that those using them do not wish to be encumbered by a generally useful and coherent set of terms that military history had previously used. As war and warfare are not changing in ways that demand new words, it is odd that people keep inventing them.

… The most common attempt to redefine the activities of irregular forces and guerrillas has been the using the word “asymmetric,” predicated on trying to describe a dissimilar employment of ways and means that was apparently new. Yet history does not support this thesis, nor does it usefully inform thinking about the future.

…It may be that there is a generation of serving soldiers who do not understand war and warfare as well as past generations, but that is not to say that war today is more complex. The Internet does not make warfare more complex. TV coverage does not make war more complex. Public opinion does not make war more complex. If the root of the argument is that society is becoming more complex, therefore warfare will be more complex, then 20 years from now it will become supercomplex or hypercomplex. Obviously, this is rubbish.

To say “warfare is changing” is banal, obvious and thus irrelevant. When did warfare ever not evolve? The acts of Sept. 11 changed nothing in the Thucydidean and Clausewitzian nature of war, or even its modern practice. America’s choice of response did change U.S. foreign policy and defense planning, but the attacks themselves were in no way indicative of any change in the aims and purposes, or even methods, of political violence.

… The use of the new words arguably puts good old wine in shabby new bottles. Most of this new vocabulary has been spawned by the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. But despite the large amount that has been written about counterinsurgency, very little, if any of it, contains new insights or thinking that was not already part of the vast collection of English-language counterinsurgency writing. For whatever reason, the new words frame obvious and enduring observations about insurgency in a new light, creating an aura of discovery rather than simple relearning. The riposte that every insurgency is unique and requires unique solutions is true, but this is generally true for every war and every form of warfare. What worked for the German Army in France in 1940 failed in Russia in 1942.

… War is not changing. The aims and purpose of organized violence for political gain are enduring and unchanging. Insurgencies are war, and most if not all of the observations made in the Army’s new FM 3-24 “Counterinsurgency” manual could have been written in 1991 or earlier. Future wars will be born of future politics, not “globalization” or the Internet. Yes, there will be “unknown unknowns,” but they are just that: unknowable. New words won’t change that.

… The only thing that can obscure that obvious truth is the application of new words and altered meanings to bend the problem to fit the writer’s purpose — or to pretend that military history is less useful than the insights of those incapable of expressing themselves in plain English.

Tags: Culture of Preparedness, Essential Elements of Information, Terrorism