WHAT IS WAR? WHAT IS CONFLICT?

JEN TAN SRI DATO’ SERI PANGLIMA HJ ZULKIFLI BIN ZAINAL ABIDIN VICE CHANCELLOR

NATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITY OF MALAYSIA

WAR

1. A state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country 2. A state of competition or hostility between different people or groups 3. A sustained campaign against an undesirable situation or activity

CONFLICT 1. A serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one 2. A prolonged armed struggle 3. A state of mind in which a person experiences a clash of opposing feelings or needs 4. A state of mind in which a person experiences a clash of opposing feelings or needs:

PART 1 CLAUSEWITZ AND THE THEORY OF WAR

CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ AND THE THEORY OF WAR

• Clausewitz explained the essential nature of war, how it endures through time and circumstance, even as its character is ever changing. He emphasized the effective, logical unity between politics and war, and he laid stress upon war’s moral dimension.

• Clausewitz insisted that war has to be a duel between competing wills, that it is subject to the many frustrations of what he termed, collectively, ‘friction’; and he insisted that war was the realm of chance, risk and uncertainty.

• Soldiers and statesmen should be so educated by Clausewitz’s general theory of war that they understand how war must serve politics, as well as how the nature of war can frustrate strategic intentions.

• Policymakers and soldiers do not demand strategic philosophy, vital though that is to their intellectual preparation. Instead, they demand pragmatic answers to such questions as:

- What are the strategic implications of railways?

- What is the strategic meaning of steam propulsion and screw propellers for warships?

• Clausewitz aimed to educate the mind, not to advise directly for action. Many of the politicians and soldiers who have been familiar with Clausewitz’s theory either failed to grasp its key elements or chose to ‘cherry-pick’ those ideas, lifted out of intellectual context, which best fitted their preferences

ANTOINE HENRI DE JOMINI • Jomini is the most influential theorist of modern times.

• Jomini promised to instruct soldiers in how to win. Also unlike the Prussian, he effectively abstracted military science, or the art of war, from its political context.

• His theory was advanced as timeless professional guidance, supposedly immune to changing political conditions.

• Jomini ‘proposed to show that there is one great principle underlying all the operations of war – a principle which must be followed in all good combinations’.

ORIGINS OF THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR

The best strategy is always to be very strong; first in

general, and then at the decisive point. Apart from the effort

needed to create military strength, which does not always

emanate from the general, there is no higher and simpler law

of strategy than that of keeping one’s forces concentrated. No

force should ever be detached from the main body unless the

need is definite and urgent. We hold fast to this principle, and

Regard it as a reliable guide.

(Clausewitz, 1976: 204; emphasis in original)

• Clausewitz’s theory of war is considered here from two broad perspectives: what he has to say about the relationship between politics and war; and then on the nature of war itself.

• It may be important at this juncture to restate exactly why a book on the strategic history of the past two centuries requires a discussion of strategic theory.

• Clausewitz unraveled the complexities of war and strategy. He provided the soundest education available to anyone who wished to understand how and why those activities function.

• In short, Clausewitz rules all of strategic history: the past, the present and the future.

• He insists that ‘the only source of war is politics’ and ‘war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means’, then argues that ‘policy converts the overwhelmingly destructive element of war into a mere instrument’ and that ‘If war is part of policy, policy will determine its character’

CONSCRIPTION

MILITARY

GOVERNMENT (STATE)

PEOPLE

THE CLAUSEWITZ TRINITY

CHANCE

It [the political aim] must adapt itself to its chosen means, a process which

can radically change it; yet the political aim remains the first consideration.

Policy, thus, will permeate all military operations, and in so far as their violent

nature will admit, it will have a continuous influence on them.

(Clausewitz, 1976: 87)

• The heart of Clausewitz’s theory is his proposition that all war is driven by the ever-changing unstable relations among the trinity of passion and enmity, chance and creativity, and policy reason.

• Famously, he wrote, ‘Our task therefore is to develop a theory that maintains a balance between these three tendencies, like an object suspended between three magnets’

• Clausewitz did not exactly equate passion with the people, chance and creativity with the army and its commander, and reason with the government, but he did grant that the three aspects of war did, respectively, mainly concern those agencies.

PART 1- CONCLUSION • Despite the diversity of its events and the changes in its contexts, all of strategic

history is explained adequately by a common theory of war and strategy.

• Revolutions in warfare come and go, new technologies rise, age and generally are replaced, and public attitudes to war alter. But war remains war and the inevitable changes in its character matter not at all for the authority of the general theory bequeathed by Carl von Clausewitz.

• Strategic ideas are important: they move people and machines, and they have been known to persuade, and mislead, policy-makers. However, strategic thought is not a strictly intellectual, let alone philosophical, pursuit.

• It does not seek objective truth as an endeavor that is self-validating. Instead, such thought is a pragmatic effort, even though it is often deemed unhelpfully abstract by soldiers.

• Clausewitz ideas were explained as falling into two categories: those on the relationship between politics and war; and those on the nature of war itself. After probing and discussing his pre-eminent dictum that war must be an instrument of policy.

• In addition, attention was drawn to his important concept of the fog of war, his emphasis on such moral qualities as courage and determination or will, and his essential idea of the centre of gravity.

PART 2 APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT

APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT

• Conflict dates from the beginning of human history and will probably never end.

• Many of these accords curtailed violence successfully and transformed conflicts into more constructive relations between states, peoples and groups.

• Others failed utterly and remained signatures on paper with no effect in the lives of human beings exposed to fighting and warfare.

• In the early 1990s knowledge in conflict resolution for war conditions was limited. There was considerable insight in negotiations in domestic political affairs, the art of deal-making. Understanding was generated from societies and conditions, which involved little violence and war. It referred to situations of shared values and norms, where few cultural borders were transgressed.

• In understanding conflict, it is imperative to examine the sources of discontent and animosity, to identify the phases of evolving relationships between adversaries, and to illuminate the escalation of their struggles and the eventual recession of violent cycles to the peaceful resolution of differences.

THE NATURE OF CONFLICT

• Conflict represents the persistent and pervasive nature of inter group and international competition among disparate interests and values that underlies power dynamics.

• Most actors in conflicts will find themselves in need of negotiations at one time or another. Even if a conflict results in war and destruction, there may have been other options and alternative paths for the conflict.

• There are frequent statements on the inevitability of conflict, violence and war. Indeed, finding solutions may often be difficult.

• This difficulty not only arises out of political constraints, but can also be due to a lack of insight or imagination.

• Conflicts will come to an end at some point in time. Whether that ending is a solution, a victory or a stalemate has to be scrutinized. To this should be added the question of whether the conflict is likely again to be armed and violent.

• Every conflict involves political, ethical and psychological dimensions. Identity and power differentials underlie the social, organizational dynamics of conflict.

• In popular understanding it is expressed as ‘it takes two to conflict’.

• There are many observations which evoke this theme, notably the prevalence of mirror images, that parties and issues are seeing the conflict in the same way, only reversing the picture.

• There are also dynamics pushing the actors in conflicts into two camps (polarization), creating commanding leadership (centralization), and forming institutions with particular responsibilities and little insight (secrecy and protection).

• The conflict takes on a life of its own, engulfing the actors and, seemingly irresistibly, pushing them into an ever-increasing conflict.

• The idea of conflict as a social phenomenon moving by itself is powerful. It is invoked when parties say that they have no alternatives.

• The dynamics of the conflict have removed all other possible actions, and are said to give a party no choice but to continue to react at increasing levels of threat and violence.

CONCLUSION

• Ho-Won Jeong explains and assesses major approaches to dealing with ethnic conflict, communal violence, inter-state war and social injustice. The article analyses not only the sources of violence and conflict, but also how to manage and prevent them.

• As peace is relevant to improvement in human well-being and the future survival of humanity, the volume encompasses a variety of themes, ranging from alternative security policies, methods of peaceful settlement, human rights, self-determination, environmental politics, global governance and non-violence.

• Reflecting on the current thinking and drawing lessons from the past, the article can be considered as the most authoritative introduction to the field since the end of the Cold War.

REFERENCES

• Colin S. Gray. War, Peace and International Relations : And

Introduction To Strategic History, (London: Routledge, 2007)

• Jeong Ho- Wan. Understanding Conflict and Conflict Analysis

(London : Sage, 2008)

Q & A