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Killebrew on The End of War

Colonel Robert Killebrew comes to a conclusion I would endorse as both empirical and probable for reasons of economics – interstate warfare and military establishments are very expensive, while irregular conflict is both cheap and accessible to many hands of various motives. Great power wars can still happen, but as ventures of existential risk.

The End of War: Nonstate violence is the new norm

In “The Invention of Peace,” British historian Michael Howard notes that it was the rise of the modern state, with powerful kings, that first brought the idea of “peace” to the Western world. So long as the king or government retained sufficient power, determining “peace” and “war” remained the prerogative of the state, to be managed as required. Hence, the marching armies of August 1914. In the beginning years of the 21st century, though, we are entering into a new historical period. The state no longer has a monopoly on violence, and national borders are not as inviolate as they were in the long-ago 20th century. No other concept for managing fractious relations between states has yet emerged. (Except, perhaps, the concept of “bigness,” as in, “I’m big enough to do this and get away with it.”)

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, constant conflict has been the norm not only for the U.S. but also for much of the world, whether because of ideological struggle (the Balkans and Southwest Asia), political conflict (the Middle East and Eurasia), tribal wars (the Balkans and Africa), criminal insurgencies (Mexico, Central and South America) or terrorism (global). The pat-down at your local airport is a sign that the world has changed. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that Americans and Europeans used to vacation in spots where they would be beheaded today. In Central America – now the most violent region in the world – citizens report the social fabric that held their civic life together is disintegrating in the face of gang violence and government impotence.

Five global conditions that have grown exponentially since the end of the Cold War are challenging governments everywhere: first, the enormous growth in criminal wealth over the past two decades, fueled by drug money, human trafficking, illegal arms sales and other crimes; second, mass migrations of peoples from south to north, pressing in on developed countries; third, the Internet and other technology that has brought violent organizations into the same technical sphere as governments; fourth, the free flow of arms that supplies firepower equal (or superior) to government security forces; and, finally, the empowerment of violent extremists who use the first four conditions to attack states and their legal institutions, whether to overthrow them, neutralize them for criminal or other purposes, or out of simple nihilism.

….It is increasingly clear that the greatest armed threat the U.S. faces is the attack on international civil order that violent extremists represent. The most likely use for U.S. armed forces in the coming century will be to help extend the rule of law to states struggling against extremists that also threaten the U.S. This does not mean the end of armored warfare, for example; future battlefields are impossible to predict. But the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts have already begun to align U.S. military thought toward the more complex world of the 21st century. Conflict changes both winners and losers, and the armed services’ world after Iraq and Afghanistan will not be a return to the good old days of predictable deployments and annual training cycles, any more than the Army in 1946 was able to go back to the garrisons of 1935. While the development of aggressive, highly skilled units and combined-arms capabilities is still very necessary, the uses to which they are put will change….

ADDENDUM:

Posting from me will be light until next Monday.

9 Responses to “Killebrew on The End of War”

  1. Fred Zimmerman Says:

    But from this, he’s not really saying anything about the end of war. What he is actually writing about is the end of peace.  The new norm is constant violence *plus* the ongoing risk of existential conflict.

  2. Curtis Gale Weeks Says:

    Oh I don’t know, Fred.  Even thus far into the new epoch, most people in the U.S., for instance, have only experienced peace.  The conflict is distant, the people don’t have to engage in "war-supporting" activities like constructing shells and so forth, and despite the ultimate drain on our economy due to extended conflicts in the ME and other present economic hardships, business has proceeded as usual for most people.  The "war" or "conflict" experienced by most Americans is not much more real than the violent entertainment in the cinema or on television.
    .
    But it is the indirection, the dispersion, that leads to difficulties defining war and peace.  A state of constant conflict globally may be as destructive, or even more destructive, for a society and the individuals of a society as the old style state-on-state warfare—but not as noticeable on a day-to-day basis and maybe requiring a longer time frame to be felt.

  3. Curtis Gale Weeks Says:

    BTW, does it go without saying that, judging from the extended quote above, states will only be fighting defensive wars and not wars of aggression?  All reactive, and no proactive?  (Where even pro-action in the form of preemption is defensive in nature?)  Is "The End of War" better understood as "The End of Wars of Aggression"?

  4. Lexington Green Says:

    The move to endemic low level violence (low level unless it is you who is getting killed or maimed) is regressive.  As to most Americans still living in a domain of peace, that is ending.  I was talking to a Chicago cop last night who said that if the same thing happened in Chicago that was happening in London it would be worse.  The cops here are even less prepared for it.  The only superior thing we have in the USA is that many places have widely dispersed firepower among the citizens.  

  5. Lexington Green Says:

    Just read the whole thing.  Very Barnettian.  

  6. toto Says:

    The only superior thing we have in the USA is that many places have widely dispersed firepower among the citizens

    This sentence makes no sense unless one judges "superiority" by the number of deaths.

  7. Lexington Green Says:

    The superiority is the capacity of citizens to defend themselves.  

  8. Curtis Gale Weeks Says:

    Defense against direct assault is one thing.  Defense against dispersed/indirect forces is quite another, and I wonder whether Americans are more or less equipped for this. The trade-off seems to be a little like the strategy used by insects and various other creatures:   It is expected that some within the population will have to suffer, but the population on the whole will be preserved and find some measure of what we call success.

  9. Lexington Green Says:

    If some group tried a flash mob attack in a town with widely dispersed firearm ownership, and attacked people based on race, the attackers will  certainly meet gun fire in response.  These attacks are low cost and basically done for amusement or to steal things.  Confronting lethal force changes the equation.   The known existence of widespread lethal force will likely deter the attack in advance or stop it quickly if it occurs.  


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