Contemporary strategic challenges
Introduction
For years, military theories and theories of defense have been overly reactive to the strategic challenges that emerged as a result of numerous military operations. For centuries and decades, military professionals and strategic planners have failed to produce a single and relevant justification for active military interventions. With time, the leading powers have come to realize the futility of their military attempts against predominantly political strategic instruments employed by smaller (and seemingly weaker) states. Now, in the center of the new Middle Eastern conflict, and with the decline of the strategic military operation in Iraq, the United States faces a major challenging need for restructuring its traditional (outdated) attitudes toward military operations. From the viewpoint of earlier works on military strategy and war, the U.S. should be more attentive to what it takes to be a talented warrior: modern wars with their almost unlimited technological potential are nothing more but a military deception, for a true strategist will never promote a battle for the sake of a battle, but will seek better adaptability and compromise as the key to continuous military dominance.
Sun Tzu was probably the first to emphasize the role and importance of non-military approaches to conventional military operations. Now, his work on military strategy looks like an expressive defense of counter-insurgency principles as opposed to the use of technologically advanced military instruments in war. At the edge of the twenty-first century with its wars and local conflicts, no other country better reflects Sun Tzu’s concerns with regard to over-use of purely military means, than the United States. With the growing political tensions in the Middle East, and in the face of the strategic military failure in Iraq, the United States should be more attentive to what it means to be a true warrior. In the light of all previous military operations, the United States should finally realize that the essence of military success lies far beyond the traditional technologically advanced means of conducting war. International wars are becoming more asymmetrical, and the war is no longer a battle in its traditional sense, but is a combination of adaptability, well-calculated compromise, surprise, and movement.
At the very beginning of the military operation in Iraq, the American authorities were targeting the largest military objects and were seeking victory by means of numerous victims and material losses. Certainly, “victory is the main object in war”[1]; but “if this is long delayed, weapons are blunted and morale depressed. When troops attack cities, their strength will be exhausted”.[2] Throughout the centuries, talented warriors have been promoting the value of non-military approaches in wars. Throughout the centuries, talented military leaders have been trying to prove, that a war was nothing more, but a wise combination of non-military instruments (a policy), with adaptability, surprise, and compromise in its center. Adaptability and compromise are “the inevitable consequence of the fact that was is a two-party affair, so imposing the need that while hitting one must guard”.[3] Not only have these assertions preserved their relevance in modern times; but have strengthened the confidence that the United States needs to shift its military emphases and to restructure its outdated beliefs into the superiority of technological warfare.
Truly, “all warfare is based on deception”[4]; moreover, “the perfection of strategy is to produce a decision without any serious fighting”[5]; finally, all wars are political by nature, and to ensure that the state is able to achieve the anticipated insurgency outcomes (i.e., victory), it should avoid large battles “except in the rare instances when they have the advantage”.[6] In the light of everything said above, even a non-professional will assume that the United States has already made several strategic mistakes and currently finds itself in the center of the growing uncertainty, with traditional warfare losing its relevance, and without an overwhelming political support that could potentially replace outdated military forms. This restructuring and the need for a new “non-military consciousness” is probably the major challenge the U.S. faces on its way to continuous and long-standing international dominance. “The contemporary environment is inherently complex. It will remain so. The likeliest and most dangerous security challenges emerging from it will be unconventional. Unconventional connotes national security conditions and contingencies that are defense-relevant but not necessarily defense-specific”.[7] All future attacks and interventions will go beyond the limits of traditional war fighting, and will require developing a set of strategic qualities and decisions so excellently well described by Sun Tzu: “War is a matter of vital importance to the State; […] Therefore, appraise it in terms of the five fundamental factors; […] the first of these factors is moral influence; the second, weather, the third, terrain; the fourth, command; and the fifth, doctrine”.[8]
Conclusion
The time has come, when the United States has to re-evaluate its previous failures and to come to relevant non-military conclusions. Asymmetry and the declining power of traditional warfare should become the two central elements moving the U.S. onto the new quality level of strategic thinking. Whether the United States is able to face and overcome this challenge, will depend on its ability and desire to review and reinterpret the ancient strategic wisdom as applied to modern asymmetrically military conditions, and despite the centuries that lay behind the military wisdom of earlier strategists, never before have their strategic provisions been as relevant as they are now for the U.S.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bartholomees, J.B., Jr. “A survey of the theory of strategy.” In J.B. Bartholomees, Jr. (ed),
Theory of war and strategy, pp. 13-42. Department of National Security and Strategy, 2008.
Freier, N. Known unknowns: unconventional ‘strategic shocks’ in defense strategy
development. Strategic Studies Institute, 2008.
Liddel Hart, B.H. “Theory of strategy.” In B.H. Liddell Hart, Strategy: second revised
edition, p. 319-360. Plume, 1991.
Sun Tzu. The art of war. Translated by Samuel B. Griffith. Oxford University Press, 1963.
[1] Sun Tzu, The art of war, Translated by Samuel B. Griffith, (Oxford University Press, 1963), 73.
[2] Sun Tzu, The art of war, Translated by Samuel B. Griffith, (Oxford University Press, 1963), 73
[3] B.H. Liddel Hart, ed. Strategy: second revised edition, (Plume, 1991), 329.
[4] Sun Tzu, The art of war, Translated by Samuel B. Griffith, (Oxford University Press, 1963), 66.
[5] B.H. Liddel Hart, ed. Strategy: second revised edition, (Plume, 1991), 324.
[6] J.B. Bartholomees, Jr. ed. Theory of war and strategy, (Department of National Security and Strategy, 2008), 30.
[7] N. Freier, Known unknowns: unconventional ‘strategic shocks’ in defense strategy development, (Strategic Studies Institute, 2008), 4.
[8] Sun Tzu, The art of war, Translated by Samuel B. Griffith, (Oxford University Press, 1963), 63.