What is War? I
Lexington Green comments on Waging the Deep War I:
Why is Christianizing Europe any kind of “war”?
It is proselytizing a religion. That is a category all its own, with its own empirically observed patterns and its own history.
What is gained by lumping it into “war”?
War is where one group uses force or the threat of force to compel another group to do its will. That is a huge part of human life and history. The presence of violence or the threat of violence is a distinguishing characteristic that brings into play all kinds of aspects and patterns: cultural, physiological, emotional, etc.
Distinguishing the categories seems more likely to lend itself to useful analysis than lumping them together.
Lexington Green’s comment touches on a similar quandary raised in this interview with former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (and author of Dow 36,000, a volume value investors treasure) James K. Glassman (props MountainRunner):
Q: You’ve mentioned the ‘war of ideas’ and that it’s a very high priority at the moment…you have previously noted that the largest misconception we are dealing with is that the United States is waging war on Islam. Has there been any concern that the phrase “war of ideas” may contribute to the perpetuation of that misconception?
A: Sure…But, we firmly believe that we are engaged in a very important contest around the world and, by the way, it’s not only Muslim societies. This contest involves something much more important in many of these areas than bullets and bombs. It’s ideas. And, I think this is a belief that’s held throughout the government. Secretary [of Defense Robert] Gates has said we’re not going to win this battle with bullets alone—I’m paraphrasing. So we think that it has been a deficiency, since the fall of the Berlin Wall until very recently, that there hasn’t been enough concentration on this. But the idea that it’s going to be too much, I don’t think we have to worry about that. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The second part, about the terminology: we don’t like the term war of ideas, quite frankly. And I’ve said that many times. But we just haven’t come across anything better. And so the way that I usually talk about it is to juxtapose it with actual war, the part where people get killed. What we’re talking about is engaging at the level of ideas rather than at the level of gunpowder. But there is the implication of ‘us’ against ‘them’, which we’re trying to get away from, frankly. We think our enemies have this maniacal view of the world where there are just two sides. And our view of the world is, in fact, quite different. What we’re saying is that there is one pursuit that we are adamantly opposed to and that involves using violence to impose your will on other people, and killing civilians in the process. Whereas the rest of it, the other alternatives, are manifold and glorious. We think that individuals have lots and lots of choices and it should be left to their imagination and free societies to make those choices. They don’t have to be like little Americans; we don’t want them to be. They should be free to make those choices themselves. So we really don’t think it’s ‘us’ against ‘them’.
The problem is, war of ideas is something that people pretty much tend to understand—at least in English—pretty much what it means. And so it’s a convenience more than anything else. But we’re trying to get away from it, and are open to others phrases if we could come up with something else. And let me tell you, people in the government have come up with a bunch of different things. For a while there was a vogue for “global ideological engagement” and we do call our little center the Global Strategic Engagement Center. But when you start using words like that you know, Congress and the public that pays any attention to this don’t know what you’re talking about.
What is war? The easiest answer is what Potter Stewart wrote in Jacobellis v. Ohio:
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.
What can be labeled (using the Indian strategist Kautilya’s term) open war makes itself easy to see. It’s trademark property damage, mass destruction, and general carnage is an unmistakable calling card. However, I’ve always had the feeling that with war there was more to see than I know. Right after high school, I tried to write a how-to pocket manual for war I titled Elements of War (after Strunk and White’s Elements of Style). My first stab at defining war were feeble:
1. War is all action by an individual or group against another believed to result in advantage.
[...]
3. Advantage is all that is believed to be of a positive nature to an individual or group…
My exposition on my definition was even more ridiculously expansive:
Most of humanity considers war a secondary activity of mankind, not worth their attentions, and treat it as such. This is tragic. This has produced more suffering than any other in all of history. History is a constant reminder of man’s inability to learn from past mistakes and this is the greatest. It disregards the great truth about life and war.
Life is war.
[...]
What is peace? Peace is a less forceful form of war. Peace is a breather between more active conflicts. Peace is considered the opposite of war. This perception is incorrect. Peace is the continuation of war by other means.
My ambition, in retrospect, was to be the second coming of Jomini, only more prescriptive and pedantic. My next stab came in a slideshow I did for a class on computer security in college:
The closest I’ve come to a more recent formulation was in a recent post on strategy:
Strategy falls under the sway of politics but its twists and turns as it seeks reconciliation can generate effects that shape politics. War, for example, since it’s a strategy, is a continuation of politics under the domination of a “remarkable trinity“:
- primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force;
- the play of chance and probability, within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and
- its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to pure reason.
The nature of the power used in war (the power of violence) can release raw passions of hatred and enmity in both violator and violated.
Violence and how its defined is the key issue in defining war.
(Read part II here.)
