{"id":49316,"date":"2016-03-19T06:41:12","date_gmt":"2016-03-19T06:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=49316"},"modified":"2016-03-19T06:41:12","modified_gmt":"2016-03-19T06:41:12","slug":"small-wars-and-big-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=49316","title":{"rendered":"Small Wars and Big Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

[by Mark Safranski<\/strong> \/ “zen<\/strong>“]<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nU.S. Marines display captured flag of Nicaraguan rebels led by Augusto Cesar Sandino <\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

While pop-centric COIN<\/strong> may be dead<\/a>, small wars <\/a>and irregular<\/a> warfare<\/a> will always be with us. We might say they are in the fourth <\/a>or fifth generation<\/a>; are an open-source insurgency<\/a>; or have become “hybrid<\/a>“; or exist in some kind of mysterious<\/a> “gray zone<\/a>“. Whatever we call them, small wars are here to stay.<\/p>\n

Two recent publications explore the topic.<\/p>\n

The first is a taxonomic work\u00a0from Robert Bunker<\/strong> at the Strategic Studies Institute<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Old and New Insurgency Forms<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

….Blood Cultist (Emergent).<\/em> Strategic implications:\u00a0 Limited to moderate. This insurgency form can be viewed as a mutation of either radical Islam and\/or rampant criminality, as found in parts of Latin America and Africa, into dark spirituality based on cult-like behaviors and activities involving rituals and even human sacrifice. To respond to this insurgency form, either federal law enforcement or the military will be the designated lead depending on the specific international incident taking place. An all-of-government approach will be required to mitigate and defeat this insurgency form, which has terrorism (and narco-terrorism) elements that represent direct threats\u2014especially concerning the Islamic State\u2014to the U.S. homeland […] <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I strongly agree with\u00a0Bunker’s “dark spirituality” angle present in deviant religious-military movements. For example, ISIS<\/strong>, for all its protestations of ultra-orthodoxy in its Salafism exudes a spirit of protean paganism <\/a>in its words and deeds.<\/p>\n

The second is a book, Clausewitz on Small War<\/a><\/strong>\"\"\u00a0by Christopher Daase<\/strong> <\/a>and James W. Davis (<\/strong>Hat tip to Nick Prime<\/a><\/strong>). From a book review <\/a>at the London School of Economics:<\/strong><\/p>\n

….The current generation\u2019s trend in understanding Clausewitz is that of moving beyond On War<\/em> \u2013 an analysis which Clausewitz himself considered incomplete and which was published posthumously. As part of this shift, 2015 alone saw the publication of a\u00a0new account<\/span><\/a> of his life, together with a biography<\/span><\/a> of his wife and a comparison<\/span><\/a> between Napoleon\u2019s and Clausewitz\u2019s ideas on war, to name a few.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Through Clausewitz on Small War<\/em>, Christopher Daase and James W. Davis make a significant contribution to such efforts of contextualisation. Yet theirs is quite distinct from other works, in that they translate into English writings that were thus far accessible only to those with a reading knowledge of German. This is precisely where the value of the book lies, as well as being the editors\u2019 primary aim: opening up Clausewitz through translating his own words, rather than in interpreting them. In doing so, they offer the tools through which future analyses can be better informed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The editors nonetheless do set out a case in the introduction: Clausewitz\u2019s writings on \u2018Small War\u2019 are testimony to his continuing relevance. To illustrate this, they offer four chronologically arranged texts \u2013 a journey of how his thinking on Small War evolved. Each text was written with a different frame of mind. The first is comprised of lecture notes on small-unit warfare that are informal and rather technical; the second and third are memoranda distributed to military reformers and through which Clausewitz passionately makes the case for militias; and the final is a chapter from On War,<\/em> again on the arming of the people.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I would add that ZP<\/strong> contributor, Lynn Rees<\/strong>, also had a recent post <\/a>on the role of Marie von Clausewitz<\/a><\/strong> in shaping “Clausewitz” and Clausewitzian thought.<\/p>\n

That’s it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[by Mark Safranski \/ “zen“] U.S. Marines display captured flag of Nicaraguan rebels led by Augusto Cesar Sandino While pop-centric COIN may be dead, small wars and irregular warfare will always be with us. We might say they are in the fourth or fifth generation; are an open-source insurgency; or have become “hybrid“; or exist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365,232,360,310,262,16,604,20,126,760,759,78,199,336,894,39,367,822,712,372,626,562,187,66,306,481,127,530,161,605,211,13,18,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-19th-century","category-20th-century","category-21st-century","category-3-gen-gangs","category-4gw","category-5gw","category-clausewitzian","category-coin","category-counterinsurgency","category-counterterrorism","category-hybrid-war","category-ideas","category-insurgency","category-intellectuals","category-lynn-c-rees","category-military","category-military-history","category-military-training-education","category-militia","category-non-state-actors","category-patterns","category-perception","category-politics","category-primary-loyalties","category-robert-j-bunker","category-strategist","category-strategy","category-strategy-and-war","category-swj-blog","category-tactics","category-terrorism","category-theory","category-war","category-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49326,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49316\/revisions\/49326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}