Month: March 2021

Starting a new series on War and Warfare, beginning with definition of war.

Defining War

Dictionary Definitions. Definitions of war in different dictionaries are as follows:

• • A state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country.

• • A state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations.

• • A conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation.

• • A state or period of armed hostility or active military operations.

• • A contest carried on by force of arms, as in a series of battles or campaigns.

• • War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, aggression, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces.

These definitions are understandable and accurate definitions in the general context however, they are too simplistic to convey the complexity and many facets of war. The war needs to be conceptualized and defined in a broader perspective. War has been defined over the years by the strategists. Each has added a new facet (highlighted in italics in the text) to the definition. Some of the definitions are as follows:

Von Clausewitz (1911) defined war as “an act of violence intended to compel our opponents to fulfil our will”, and “War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means.”

Sorel (1912) defined war as a “political act by means of which States, unable to adjust a dispute regarding their obligations, rights or interests, resort to armed force to decide which is the stronger and may therefore impose its will on the other”.

Russell’s (1916) definition of war as “conflict between two groups, each of which attempts to kill and maim as many as possible of the other group in order to achieve some object which it desires” is even more general and uncritically inclusive. Russell states the object for which men fight as “generally power or wealth”.

Johnson (1935) defines war as “armed conflict between population groups conceived of as organic unities, such as races or tribes, states or lesser geographic units, religious or political parties, economic classes”.

Kallen (1939) gave a political definition of war: “If war may be defined as an armed contest between two or more sovereign institutions employing organized military forces in the pursuit of specific ends”. The significant term in the definition is `organized’. He further adds that this organization of the contending armed forces extends back behind the battle lines and tends in modern wars to embrace all civilian activities, such as the industrial, productive, and commercial, and also the social interests and individual attitudes.

Bernard (1944) stated as follows: “War is organized continuous conflict of a transient character between or among collectivities of any sort capable of arming and organizing themselves for violent struggle carried on by armies in the field (or naval units on water) and supported by civil or incompletely militarized populations back of the battle areas constituted for the pursuit of some fairly well-defined public or quasipublic objective.” This objective is of course not always defined to the satisfaction of all concerned and it is liable to change according to circumstances during the continuance of the struggle.

Wallace (1968) considers war to be “the sanctioned use of lethal weapons by members of one society against members of another. It is carried out by trained persons working in teams that are directed by a separate policy-making group and supported in various ways by the non-combatant population”.

Ashworth (1968): “Mass or total war may be defined as a type of armed conflict between large nation-States in which populations and resources are rationally and extensively organized for conquest. It is important to note that populations are mobilized both in terms of activities and psychological states: the former implies comprehensive military and civilian conscription; the latter implies the systematic development of belligerent and hostile attitudes towards the enemy among all or most of the population.”

Deutsch and Senghaas (1971): “By ‘war’ we mean actual large-scale organized violence, prepared and maintained by the compulsion and legitimacy claims of a State and its government, and directed against another State or quasi-State, i.e. a relatively comparable political organization”.

Barringer (1972) considers war to be “one possible mode of policy activity aimed at effectively and favourably resolving an ongoing conflict of interests. In this sense war is but one of numerous conflict procedures, others being negotiation, conciliation, mediation, arbitration, and adjudication. It is merely a particular subset of the larger set of all conflict modes.

All the definitions read together cover most of the facets of war. However, in the modern times the very nature of warfare are changing rapidly. More about these changes later.

Coming up next : Types of War

References:

1. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12857871.pdf
2. 2.https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/what-is-war-a-new-point-of-view
3. Brian Orend, “War”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed September 18, 2012.
4. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/war/.
5. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75
6. Joseph S. Nye, The Future of Power, (New York, NY: Public Affairs), 113.
7. Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21^st Century, 2005 (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
8. Michael Howard, The Causes of War from the Causes of War and Other Essays, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 16.
9. United States Government, The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, January 2011, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), 417-420.
10. Jack Sine, Defining the ‘Precision weapon’ in effects-based terms, Air & Space Power Journal, Spring 2006, accessed March 3, 2011, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Air-Space-Power-Journal/154817984.html.
11. General Norton A. Schwartz and Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert, “Air-Sea Battle: Promoting Stability in an Era of Uncertainty”, The American Interest, February 12, 2012, accessed September 12, 2012.
12. http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1212.
13. Dr. Robert C. Nation, U.S. Army War College Seminar Lecture, September 6, 2012.
14. Gene Sharp, The Role of Power in Nonviolent Struggle, (Boston, MA: The Albert Einstein Institution, 1990), 9.Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963).