Much Ado About Nothing: Future of War v. Clausewitz

In his latest article, Tom Ricks presents an interesting interpretation of Rosa Brooks’ latest piece, describing it as an attempt to “smackdown” 19th century strategic theorist Carl von Clausewitz and his modern disciples. This would be unsurprising as Mrs. Brooks can exhibit a disdain for the old. But the semantic debate is meant to serve a more significant argument about the expanding use of military force to address contemporary threats.

After the release of a concept paper by the Future of War team, of which Mrs. Brooks is a member, Christopher Mewett at War On The Rocks challenged the team’s reference to “the changing nature of war” and cited Clausewitz’s assertion that the nature of war does not change, “But Warfare, of course, doesn't have an enduring, unchanging phenomenological ‘nature,’ as it is merely the way war is made.” Brooks acknowledged that, “War and warfare are different words with a different meaning, and we should be careful about their use.” She challenges, however, that the nature of war is unchanging.

A better phrasing of both points would be to acknowledge that war is as Clausewitz defined it, having many shades and characters but one nature, and that war is also merely one dimension of conflict. Warfare can thus be thought of not so much as the way war is made but the way conflicts are fought, in whatever realm they occur, military or otherwise.

The West has traditionally viewed conflict as ultimately embodied and principally resolved through war, as if the round hole of conflict must be refashioned to fit the square peg of war. This view is in no small part due to the influence of Clausewitz as well as the west’s own dominance in the conventional military realm. The East, however, has often practiced a different philosophy. Examples of this approach can be seen in Communism’s “shift from the battlefield of armies to the battlefield of classes” as described by J.F.C. Fuller, or the writing of the two Chinese People’s Liberation Army colonels which provide a comprehensive view of conflict that includes other dimensions such as terror, cyber, financial and economic combat (or warfare). Especially relevant is the apparent Chinese strategy of denying a decisive transition to war in order to achieve its current goals in the Pacific. The Western hang-up on the term “war” is echoed in Mrs. Brooks article, which highlights how it is misapplied to other dimensions of conflict. But, in this piece and several others, Mrs. Brooks still presents it as one of only two possible options for dealing with entire spectrum of conflict, law or war.

If the 19th century’s most brilliant theorist can cause readers to become lost in the trees, the most brilliant theorist of the 20th century can help them take a step back to see the forest. John R. Boyd understood and valued Clausewitz but he also takes a broader view than both the Prussian’s work and the addendum offered by the Chinese colonels’ unrestricted warfare. Boyd dispensed, in many cases, with the narrow focus on the term “war” and in his corpus of work the word “competition” stands out much more — exemplifying the understanding of conflict as much more than just war.

Cavalier use of the term “war”—as in Mrs. Brooks’ references to the prevalence of terms like “cyber war” and “financial war”—is not done to enhance the logical and philosophical understandings of the topic but largely for political motives or for lack of a better term. Just because many people inaccurately use a term in certain contexts does not redefine it. These statements are in fact an argument for a more strict and narrow interpretation of war. Discrete boundaries are the key to preventing the expansion of the term and its accompanying increase the potential uses of military force and, more importantly, the effects war has on society.

Ricks quotes Brooks as positing that, “Clausewitzian strict constructionists will then respond, ‘You can blather on all you want about cyberwar or financial war, but if what you're talking about is not both violent and political, it's just not war, but something else.’” He goes on to note that Mrs. Brooks’ response is that, “…there are many other ways to understand and define violence. Consider various forms of psychological torture or abuse. Or consider cyber attacks that lead to loss of life as an indirect result of extended power outages. Why not view such attacks as a form of violence if they lead predictably to loss of life?"

A logical fallacy is at work here. If Clausewitzians say that all war is violent, it doesn’t mean that all violence is (or should be defined as) war. Further, the state may have a monopoly on violence but the military does not. The contemporary debate over responsibility for drone operations demonstrates different schools of thought in this regard. A case for redefining war must be made, not simply assumed.

It is also seems as though Ricks is implying that when competition exceeds the boundaries of war, the military is still the best arm for executing policy in these realms: “Then Brooks gets all neo-Westphalian on their asses. ‘It is the state that creates and defines the role of the military....It is also the state that defines the legal contours of war.’ So, for a truly subordinate military, war might be war, but war is what your civilian superiors say it is.”

But, as has been previously noted, there is no need to redefine violence or war to understand that “non-military” conflict exists and must be addressed. Such redefinition merely muddies the waters and extends a concept’s meaning far past its usefulness. Semantically changing the meaning of war to envelope the whole, or a much larger, area of competition will do little to solve our current problems and is likely to cause more of them. The military is raised, organized, equipped and trained for war as it has been defined by our Prussian theorist—not as whatever policymakers decide to call war. We have recently witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan what occurs when the military is asked to do everything, especially those things which are outside the purview of “war,” and without adequate interagency support. We have also seen that, even within the military realm, shifting focus from one method of warfighting to another tends to detract from the capability to conduct the former (e.g., the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War). Some outspoken U.S. commentators have warned of this as well. The capability to fight and win wars is still very much needed and must be maintained. As the saying goes, “When you try to do everything well, you end up doing nothing well.” This does not mean that the military cannot or should not engage in the cyber realm. It simply means that we must identify which framework a form of conflict falls into and determine the best tools and methods to deal with it. Setting aside the cyber warfare discussion and looking instead at “financial warfare” helps illustrate this. In realms outside of war, we may be better served by designing appropriate tools and responses for those arenas outside of war, rather than trying to tell the hammer that to hammer now means to screw, drill, and grip as well.

Mrs. Brooks points out that the state may choose which wars to fight and how to fight them, but this is merely defining a war or number of wars, not the essence of war itself. Mewett’s argument is still valid—as history has shown that the state is often in a reactionary mode rather than a managerial one when it comes to fighting—war influences the state as much as the state directs a war.

Brooks acknowledges this, describing it as a feedback loop and states that war, “can change the relationship between individuals and the state -- by altering ’rights’" for instance, or altering the degree to which the state's use of power is subject to internal checks and balances. Ultimately, by adding more to the war basket, the state may set in motion a cascade of changes that end by transforming the state itself.”

Indeed, the prosecution of the “War on Terror” has fundamentally changed American society in many ways, redefining how we think of both liberty and security.

In Ricks’ own column, an excellent piece by COL C. Anthony Pfaff notes the dangers of doing inherent when these changes result in expanding the concept of war: “However, given that the debate over the nature vs. character of war is largely a linguistic exercise (I don't mean to trivialize it -- words do matter), there is at least some utility in favoring the view that war's nature doesn't change and that it is inherently violent. Otherwise, metaphorical uses of the term could conceivably be employed to justify the use of military force in response to non-military "acts of aggression." Such a situation could set conditions for increased violent conflict, which under our current understanding of war would not be justified.”

Rather than an orchestration by the state, all conflict—especially war—must be viewed not simply as a struggle between two adversaries but also as a struggle between each and the act of war itself. One can win victory but lose oneself in the process. Mrs. Brooks often seems to be advocating for approaches that would actually result in this outcome.

In some ways, the Clausewitzian understanding of war could be viewed as a guide for when military force should be used, or even as a constraint against its excessive use. In this view, discarding it or saying it does not apply is likely to facilitate expansion and redefinition of war.

The semantic “tug-of-war” (pun intended) about defining “war” and “violence” is unnecessary, unless one is trying to expand it, and justify an escalatory, one-size-fits-all military response, as Brooks hints at: “Tell it to the Marines, or the Hellfire missile, whichever comes first.”

The Marines or a Hellfire may very well be the appropriate response but, as practitioners know, the application of violence tends to be a bit more nuanced than academics imagine.

The idea that there are only two choices, between law and war, between liberty and security, is a false dilemma that will lead to both being distorted in order to address problems for which they equally inappropriate. When this is done, not only does efficacy suffer but dangerous consequences emerge, as we have noted previously:

“These pre-existing frameworks [the legal framework and the military framework] emerged to address different challenges than those to which they are now being applied. This is not crime, this is not war and neither approach can sufficiently address the problem when the threat does not fall fully into either category. As such, these approaches have been expanded, modified and essentially stretched. The result has been confusion, indecision, and usurpation. On the one hand, the excessive prohibitions of the war framework hamper our effectiveness in combating non-state actors outside our boundaries, as seen in the failed Somalia raid, controversy over rendition programs, and the continuing issue of how to handle the Guantanamo detainees. On the other hand, the legal framework is being perverted by increasingly oppressive measures, such as the classification of citizens as enemy combatants, drone killings of citizens, and unbridled government surveillance — clearly undermining civil liberty within our borders.”

The current situation, embodied in the about how to address current threats, is the result of the nation not being able to choose between two equally bad options. Brooks thinks we need to just pick one and accept the consequences. Instead, we need to create another option.

The Myth of Bi-partisanship

The term “bi-partisan” in relation to policy is usually meant to imply that the policy is a good and/or reasonable one.  In reality, this is simply an appeal to consensus, a variation of the Argumentum ad populum fallacy and the Argument to moderation fallacy.  It occurs because the average citizen views the Democratic and Republican parties as opposing poles on the political spectrum.  Therefore, if the two extremes can agree, the policy must be acceptable to most along the spectrum.

Unfortunately, this view is misguided.  Contrary to conventional belief, the parties do not represent opposing poles but are merely two sides of the same coin, sharing far more similarities than differences.  When one focuses on a very narrow band of the spectrum, which is characterized by mainstream American politics, the two sides appear distant.  However, when one widens their aperture, and both parties are viewed in the context of the broader political spectrum, they are more akin to neighbors than opposite hemispheres.  The former view is perpetuated by propaganda from both sides of the aisle which reinforces the false dilemma of choosing either Republican or Democrat. 

One example is the discussion during the 2012 presidential election on the issue of contraception.  Narrow-minded voters viewed President Obama and Republican primary candidate Rick Santorum as taking completely opposing sides in the debate over contraception.  President Obama’s Affordable Care Act required all employers and insurers to cover the cost of birth control for employees while Rick Santorum favored the state’s ability to ban birth control.  Superficially, these appear to be contradictory positions: one wants to provide, one wants to deny.  But a deeper examination reveals that both want the government to make choices that belong to individuals.  Both believe that the state has the right, and duty, to make decisions about what transpires in the privacy of the bedroom.  Both are in favor of centralized state power versus individual rights, of an expanded role of the government in its citizens’ lives.  Calling their views opposing is missing the forest for the trees. 

Sadly, this point was missed by most who were content to allow the government to make decisions for themselves, and everyone else, provided the decision was in line with their own personal preferences.  This short-sighted view ignores the fact that what can be done by force to one citizen can be done to any other.  Allowing a coercive policy once because one agrees with it removes any protections available the next time, when one may not agree.  It is as though people being put to death would oblige happily so long as the executions were to be conducted with their preference of bullet or bomb. 

Republican and Democrat differences are not substantive, they are largely differences of degree or type.  An example of the former can be seen in both sides support of entitlement spending (merely differing on how much).  An example of the latter can be seen in their inconsistent definitions of freedom which are discussed here by Antony Davies.  He points out that liberals, as embodied by those in the Democratic Party, define freedom with an emphasis on social liberties while denying economic liberties.  Contrarily, mainstream conservatives, as embodied by the Republican Party, define freedom by extolling economic liberty while undervaluing civil liberties in many cases.  As Professor Davies states, “The liberal-conservative dichotomy leads us to contradictions because it encourages us not to think in terms of first principles but to think in terms of issues.”  Thomas Sowell devotes a section of his book, Intellectuals and Society, to discussing the logical problems inherent in Americans’ pragmatism when he points out the differences between attitudes, based on emotions, and principles, based on ideology.  

In evaluating politics, the most important rule one can practice is to disregard everything a politician says and pay attention only to what he or she does.  Actions speak louder than words—an adage that could not be more applicable to politics.  When the partisan rhetoric is ignored and one actually examines the policies pursued by both Republicans and Democrats, it becomes obvious that the differences between them are far fewer than the similarities (for example, here is this list of 100 such similarities).  Judge Andrew Napolitano made this point brilliantly in this broadcast, supposedly the reason his show was dropped by Fox News, when he eloquently asked, 

What if the widely perceived differences between the two parties was just an illusion? What if the heart of the government policy remains the same no matter who is in the White House?  What if those vaunted differences between Democrat and Republic were actually just minor disagreements?  What if government policies didn’t change when government leaders did?   What if no matter who won an election, government stayed the same?  What if the biggest difference between most candidates was not substance, but style?  What if those stylistic differences were packaged as substantive ones to reinforce the illusion of a difference between Democrats and Republicans?
 

But, how did we arrive at this narrow view, this mistaken assumption that the two parties are substantively different?  This view is enabled by a voter culture in which people simply accept what is fed to them without engaging in critical thinking.  But this view is predisposed by the false model of the political spectrum with which U.S. citizens have been indoctrinated.  Most voters are taught that the political spectrum has liberals on the left extreme and conservatives on the right extreme and moderates in the center.  The typical characterization looks like this:

 
 And this is the wider view of that same representation:

Unfortunately, this is a completely illogical and ideologically erroneous portrayal.  There are several egregious flaws in this contrived model:

1. It assumes that liberalism/conservatism allow less law and more freedom of choice than anarchy (a complete lack of government and law where choice is only limited by means), which is clearly a false presumption.  How can the peak of freedom be the middle ground between liberalism and conservatism when, as just demonstrated by the Santorum/Obama example, both subordinate individual rights to the state in many (most) matters?

2. It assumes that anarchy and communism are ideological neighbors despite the fact that  they share nothing in common and are functional opposites.

3. It shows fascism and communism as opposites when, in reality, both are built around state control of production with the only difference between them being ownership of production (in communism the state is the owner; in fascism the individual can own but he is controlled by the state...essentially a semantic difference). Further, Nazism is merely a racial driven form of Fascism, rather than a separate system.

4. Most importantly, the axis has no inherent value, just labels, as it is built around issues, not first principles.  The axis is rather just an expression of perceived difference between two arbitrary points (liberal and conservative).  A bubble of freedom in the middle is framed by liberals on one side and conservatives on the other with everything beyond, in either direction, being undesirable.  Slavery precariously surrounds the spectrum at both extremes as if it were two different words with two different meanings rather than the same concept. 

But, it is flawed model that is taught to constituents through formal education, the media, and by the parties themselves.  The implications of this erroneous framework are far-reaching.  On this spectrum, the sacred bubble in the middle becomes the goal.  The pinnacle of freedom is the precise midpoint between the two extremes (here again we meet our old friend the appeal to moderation).   It is this fallacy and the false construction of the political spectrum that drive our obsession with “moderates” and “bi-partisanship.”

This illogical framework is not, however, how government has been viewed for most of history.  To see the true political picture we have to create a model that actually represents reality.  So what does a more accurate representation look like?

We begin by giving meaning to the x-axis.  Many factors influence a political system so if we are limiting ourselves to just one axis, one factor of evaluation, then then it must encapsulate the most fundamental, most basic, and most influential discriminator. It must be the ‘first principle’, from which everything else flows, the factor that drives all other factors.   In evaluating political systems, this factor is the power of government over the individual.  On an axis that represents this, the left extreme would be total government control and power over the individual and on the right extreme would be zero control of the government over the individual, the lack of government, or anarchy).  We can then logically construct the graph to more accurately reflect the true political spectrum…essentially recreating how it has always been understood.  The result, the actual political spectrum, looks more like this:

This graph correctly aligns political systems in accordance with their principles relating to government power and corrects the mistakes of the first representation.    Anarchy (where there is so little government people are free to oppress each other) is on the right; totalitarianism (represented by fascism and communism - each substantively as different from one another as republicans and democrats are from each other in terms of government power) is on the left.  

But this spectrum's scale and relative distances are arbitrary;  it still assumes that the moderate view is actually a middle ground between two further extremes; it portrays liberals and conservatives as far more different than they truly are.  Therefore, it is useful to visualize the true axis but it is not much more helpful in analyzing relationships between systems.  

This last figure is a much better portrayal of the spectrum in relation to American politics.  It ties anchors from U.S. history to the spectrum to show, more accurately where practice has intersected ideology:

This spectrum accurately represents stepping back and opening the aperture to take a wider view of the spectrum than the zoomed-in perspective of American politics.  From this distance, as with anything, small differences disappear.  The Republican and Democratic parties' differences are represented vertically, as they are non-existent in terms of government power.  The "conservatism" (“neo-conservatism”) of the Republican Party, is accurately placed outside the traditional area of conservatism.  As empirical examination of the policies (rather than the rhetoric) of both demonstrates, they are much more skewed toward bigger government and more democratic ideals rather than the limited government and republican (not Republican) ideals of the Founders (who were "classical liberals" rather than modern liberals, as there was a redefinition "between 1877 and 1937...from laissez-faire constitutionalism to New Deal statism, from from classical liberalism to democratic social-welfarism").  

This figure also visually depicts the shift in America, over time, from principles of limited government towards more government power.  This shift inevitably resulted in the greater government intervention in individual roles and reduction of liberties that we are seeing today.  Jefferson warned of this shift 200 years ago, stating that “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."  

The middle ground between the Republican and Democrat parties is, in this broad view, as insignificant as the minutia of their differences.  This middle ground, far from being the point of maximum freedom, of balance, of reason, is trapped between two artificial poles.  Here, it can be seen where it truly lies - far from the "middle point" of the spectrum and solidly to the left of center in terms of government power, as can be confirmed by polling data.  Those in the middle ground are provided by both parties with merely the illusion of choice, through the two-party system.  And bi-partisanship simply dispenses altogether with that illusion. 

If the American people desire to have real choice, then they must abandon their fascination with “the middle ground” and their toleration of “moderates.”  Those who occupy the “middle” between two basically synonymous groups are there because they have not put any effort into truly understanding either group, nor the greater system.  They are there because they are ignorant.  Those who are “undecided” are only focusing on how a policy will superficially and immediately affect them, rather than understanding the implications, the long-term effects, the 2^nd and 3^rd order consequences and the history and logic of policies.  These people are not the voice of reason; they are even more witless than the sheep who blindly repeat the party line.  The fallacious assumption that the golden mean is always right is intellectually lazy and demonstrates a complete refusal to engage in critical thinking.  

If the nation wishes to have real choice then it must, through the ballot, dispense with both mainstream parties and move to a multi-party system.  This would require not more short-sighted moderates, more dogmatic shills, or more uninformed centrists, but less of each.  Instead, the nation would need more outliers, more of those labeled “radical” and “extreme” by the mainstream parties in power who only wish to retain and increase that power.  What would be required are opposing viewpoints to both parties, not more bi-partisanship.  The playing field would have to be widened and real options given to Americans rather than the false dilemma presented between Democrats and Republicans.  Until that happens, the term “bi-partisan” will be deluding to voters.  Both mainstream parties are driving the nation like a freight train toward more government power and less freedom…and, in the face of that how we get there, in which compartment we ride, by which party, is a meaningless and insignificant question.  

In contemporary politics, when you hear the word bi-partisan it doesn’t mean you are moving toward a different destination, it simply means the train is moving faster in the direction you were already heading.