How to win a war.
How to win a war.
Is a war winnable?
What is meant by war? War is a way of describing a situation were all of a country’s resources are applied under a structured guidance system to meet and match an opposing ‘enemy’. In this case it must also mean that there is some form of dispute that is not resolvable other than the by the use of force and that the opponents are of perhaps equal strength, similarly guided and with focused determination.
The old way of fighting a war was to throw people at the task to kill one another until one has superiority over the other and one gives in. This can lead to a period of peace but if the winner does not allow for magnanimous independence and progress, the issue will break out again.
What wars have been over, at least in the past, has been varied from resources gain ability, political manipulations, dictatorial direction and religious ideology. These wars have been carried out with the deliberate intention of destroying as far as possible the ability of the opponent to disagree with the others actions or to stop them pursuing their own objectives, ultimately to win the war and disputed arguments by any means.
The ferocity of such past wars has been ‘limited’ by the tools available and latterly by a conduct code of war as in the ‘Geneva Convention’. It has not stopped wars or conflicts but has resulted in opposing party’s holding dialogue and in non participants pressing for cessation of the aggression. This attempt to control the organisation of war is a result of the two WW’s that generally resulted in the structured halt to conflict and reparation being made for the ‘victors’. This sort of war if carried out by organised controlled states can be brought to a managed end and despite the bitterness that may remain; some form of reconstruction and dialogue can commence which has shown to be the better way to avoid any further violent extremes. This is only possible between states that have strong internal organised civil, state structure and institutions to which most people recognise as being the legitimate representation of the majority of the population, as perhaps in a democracy or similar accepted authorertive structure.
The past way of war infection could be seen as a stand up fight over what might be, to each party, a clear point; over land, asset, principle, etc. Now in the 21st century it is more likely to occur over diminishing resources, economic ideology control or race.
Past wars of recent history may be seen as the last of the traditional confrontational wars. The 1st WW was the last one were manpower was thrown at the enemy until the superiority of resource and man power waste took its toll. The unsatisfactory conclusion may have laid the foundation of the next. The 2ndWW showed a shift in the use of resources with mechanisation paying a greater part in the end result yet pointed to new factors at play in war; the organised targeted slaughter of a selected people, structures and the new considerably greater measure of destructive ability.
In some ways this indicated the way a future war could be fought, by the use of hugely destructive weapons and the smart select ability of targets. The flaw of this type of possible war was that the destruction removed any chance of asset gain and potentially resulted in one party being decimated to the extent that it could no longer carry forward its re-organised plans and is forced to concede practical active defeat. With very little chance of generational reconstruction or reconciliation after a war of this nature, the population of both antagonists would likely be severely disabled; the after effect would linger on for tens of generations. This was the MAD scenario that some suggest kept the west at peace. This though does not offer any clue as to how a future war may really be fought or how it could turn out, in practice it does show that the clear destructive capability gives raise to some measure of restraint and preference of jaw jaw. However this is only possible between parties that see the economic asset waste and futility of war and are prepare to concede to joint mediation. It is part of the tension that hold western counties back from the brink and it does stimulate reluctance to participate in others disputes.
The recent conflicts such as in Yugoslavia / Balkans, Africa (Rwanda, Congo, etc) and Middle East, are not I suggest true wars as they are fought by internal factions. They are not all out country wars, are not of equal combatable standard and do not trouble the west economically too much. Perhaps because of the lack of direct economical collateral damage to the west, Europe, Asia and the USA have not actively forcefully participate in stopping them before they got out of control, hence the reoccurrences of genocide!
War as indicated above, is perhaps two sides of opposing ideas fighting over an issue generally for material gain and they are or should be of comparable strength. The application of unequal aggressive strength is not a war, it is a conflict that could be seen to be an imposition of force by one country over another for reason not linked to any direct gain or act of overt aggression rather like as has occurred and inflicted on Iraq and the continuing obscenity of the Middle East.
What these conflicts do show as a precursor to any war, is the true potential amorphous uncontrollability of the next war, its unpredictability with the different involvement of unresponsive factions and indicates just how any future war could be fought, lost or won.
Any future war will cost. The financial and structural damage that could occur can cripple a healthy culture and the victor may not have the strength or resource to either rebuild, asset strip the opponent or stave off another challenge, spun off from a different conflict.
To the question can a war be won? Well yes it can in the short term on two fronts.
1. A complete destruction of assets, people etc. Win by the complete annihilate of the whole of the opponents structure and society – everything. This is the cheap option.
2. A measured controlled action by both parties that must be prepared to mediate to a solution and thrive by consolidated absorption with shared amalgamation where one power may naturally supersede another over time yet maintain an element of cultural identity. The price and effort required though is huge. Unfortunately in disputes, reason only supersedes when ideology is killed off, ideology will leap into the abyss of war and reason may pull away.
Practically though with point 1, a total annihilation of an enemy will forever be a torment in the global knowledge, in that the ‘victor’ eradicated a whole culture. This knowledge will form a silhouette in time and the victor will be made to suffer at some future point as other cultures develop and become capable of a challenge. To forestall such a challenge the victor has to be locked into a supreme military capacity for as long as they are reliant on external resources and there are competing cultures. As no civilisation has managed yet to be wholly self sustaining or self replicating, this in the long term is not a feasible outcome. In this situation it is most unlikely that the superior force would want to utilise resources to achieve economic compatibility to break out of such self defeating spiral.
With point 2, the challenge is to reach a state of equanimity whereby reason overrides material, political and emotive divides so that each can measure the losses they could have in war as against the joint benefits with peace. To this end they have to develop a shared strategy to meld a common co-operative in all things as in the current nascent EC. The logical extension of this is that this system can only really work and be successful in the long term by being inclusive to as many cultures willing to co operate as a single entity to the extent required to be as near self sustaining as possible. This will also mean market forces can no longer rule.
Clearly on a global scale there will be countries that are not capable of geographically participating in such an entity, economically or politically until they see mutual benefit or are nurtured into compatible position. This state of co operative existence in the long term has to include the whole world, for in just having a few separate power blocks, disconnected from each other, that do not coexist, they cannot avoid sociological and cultural divergence over time (even if they can all become self sustaining) ultimately leading to conflict and war.
The best way to win a war is to win before the shooting starts. This means a need to foresee likely events / stress lines that could have an impact on county’s interest and aim to avoid being in the weak dependence position. The west has come to rely too much on external resources; this is a major stress point. Therefore it must use resources to become self sufficient. This is a useful dynamic to adopt before the stress point reaches a war point. An alternative view could be to either have no impact or interest in the opposite culture, (isolationist) this can only work if self-sufficiency is in play. Or be prepared to participate in ameliorating their difficulties that may give rise to conflict. A short term tack is to have a position of strength that is unassailable; this might be economically or military but used to direct constructive consolidation of mutual benefit. This initial superiority of one civilization though, again is not sustainable without absolute control of everything, unlikely in any market economy.
If in a war situation, attention has to be given, even though it is premature in not knowing the final outcome, to the after effects. It is not possible to eradicate the stain of war, the knowledge of it and what happened will eventually win out. It is therefore important to fight it with a constructive end result in mind and this will involve engaging the opponents population with some level of historical and real time incontestable openness on why major target were destroyed, why productive capacity is eliminated and own up to mistakes. In this age of deceptive spin it will be hard to separate misinformation from truth so do not use euphemisms, do not target prime social structure and make it clear that this is a deliberate avoidance measure and were possible provide sustenance even in war to the opponents population.
This does not mean that aggressive force cannot be used nor that psychological opportunities can not be exploited but it has to be reasoned and truthfully explainable during and most certainly after the event.
In being involved in a controlled war if one side has the upper hand and can insert stabilising control, it may be possible to keep the communications network of the authority’s structure in place to maintain civil structures. On cessation, this has to lead to investment and rebuilding, however much greater attention has to be given to the needs of the civilian population and it has to occur immediately on cessation of war, it must be highly visible, wide spread and persistent. In doing this it should be possible to develop a governing shield to allow a strategic timely withdrawal into the background and still effect the direction of reconstruction. This is important if the victor requires access to natural resources. Currently in a global market it does not matter who owns resources the issue is getting the use of them and providing the resource flow, so at some stage they will reach the required consumer.
War between two governed cultures can be terminated but the future of ‘conflicts’ and their resolvability is more complicated. Leaving aside the usual precursors to wars what is interesting now is the way conflict arises and can escalate.
Increasingly pressure over resources is acting as a driver to conflict. Although it is disguised under the affect of religion, race, and political cultural perception it does show that there is an increasing tendency for a fragmentation of power in all cultures with the proliferation of weapons in and too uncontrolled areas. To the west this is notable in 3rd world and Middle East cultures hence the coercions for democracy to nullify such fragmentation, unfortunately democracy cannot work without historic social affiliation. This is where point 2 comes into play.
What is overlooked is the same fragmentation of power is taking place in the west. It may seem that there is a balance of democratic power and equanimity however the polarisation of social and economic ideology is shifting the foundation and allowing erratic movements in state action and fostering areas of active discontent. The traditional rule of states to do as it sees fit is being doubted, democracy is not being inculcated and in some ways states are concerned to remain in control at the expense of democracy.
States have seen an increase in organised discontent ability into numerous unconnected blocks that affect public opinion. This on its own would not have caused much concern as apathetic democracy could hold extremes in check with the usual suspect being in control. As stress builds up over an issue it is not impossible to consider that with sufficient thrust a poplar ‘uprising’ could threaten the cohesion of the state. Also with the rise in external pressures resulting in race and religious tension culminating in acts of violence, it has brought in to sharp focus just how much little in-depth control states have over its population and how open it is to the influence of external factions. Perhaps it is also the shift in who controls states machinery that will act as a precursor or precipitate a war, a sudden change in organisational structure like democracy to dictatorship or secularism to theocratic control.
To counter these effects the states and economic interest will attempt to hold onto controlling power by incrementing draconian means – In the name of peace, securing its population and defeating ‘the enemy’. This will mean imprisoning the population behind controlling laws and defeating democratic principles eventual moving towards a ‘voluntary’ dictatorship. This is not a position that would encourage statehood building with others; stress will result and can lead to conflict born out of perverse and misguided survival self interest.
War is avoidable and it is desirable not to allow stress points to develop to a war but regrettable stress points sometimes have to be fought through before reason has a chance to mature. Some stress points are obvious, like energy, environment and cultural ideology, other less so like economic self impoverishment, Taiwan, Israel, market exhaustion and genetics.
The real difficult with a future war is that it is likely to expose the internal fragmentation and weaknesses of a country so that numerous internal conflicts arise as occurred in Africa, Ireland, Palestine etc. These types of conflicts are not readily capable of being state negotiated to the complete satisfaction of all if there is no recognised governing authority guiding the faction’s actions. When a breakdown occurs the power of these factions generally resides within diverse civil population potentially uncontrollable with some elements using force and intimidation to stake a position. The different factions will want to gain some element of power leading to a continuance of long term civil disruption. This fracturing can affect even the most organised of current cultures particularly if it is socially, economical, structurally and racially of an overall pyramid like construction.
All of the stress elements, resources, cultural, economic and faction growth are in play just now, so for the moment there is little chance of avoiding another war for as the short term gain to be the dominant power seem beguiling, tensions will desire to secure its position of self interest to perhaps enact point 1 and lose.
The methodology of a future war is likely to be primarily economically driven, leading to the perversion of fundamentalism, heightened civil discord action, unresponsive and inappropriate governmental action. As states seek ways to be self sustaining against an unstoppable ecological change and maintain their power base, harsh invasive controls will be promulgated. In such a time, justification of positions will drive efforts to gain supremacy of arguments even to the extent of eventually fostering future eugenics and genetics to shape the nature and bio- sphere of humans.
If saps are clever and can read the signs, a war is winnable if a start is made on amelioration now, (point 2) but conceivably not yet. Reasons, existentialism with emerging practicalities and emotive ideology have to fight it out.
Renot31.8.06©
Is a war winnable?
What is meant by war? War is a way of describing a situation were all of a country’s resources are applied under a structured guidance system to meet and match an opposing ‘enemy’. In this case it must also mean that there is some form of dispute that is not resolvable other than the by the use of force and that the opponents are of perhaps equal strength, similarly guided and with focused determination.
The old way of fighting a war was to throw people at the task to kill one another until one has superiority over the other and one gives in. This can lead to a period of peace but if the winner does not allow for magnanimous independence and progress, the issue will break out again.
What wars have been over, at least in the past, has been varied from resources gain ability, political manipulations, dictatorial direction and religious ideology. These wars have been carried out with the deliberate intention of destroying as far as possible the ability of the opponent to disagree with the others actions or to stop them pursuing their own objectives, ultimately to win the war and disputed arguments by any means.
The ferocity of such past wars has been ‘limited’ by the tools available and latterly by a conduct code of war as in the ‘Geneva Convention’. It has not stopped wars or conflicts but has resulted in opposing party’s holding dialogue and in non participants pressing for cessation of the aggression. This attempt to control the organisation of war is a result of the two WW’s that generally resulted in the structured halt to conflict and reparation being made for the ‘victors’. This sort of war if carried out by organised controlled states can be brought to a managed end and despite the bitterness that may remain; some form of reconstruction and dialogue can commence which has shown to be the better way to avoid any further violent extremes. This is only possible between states that have strong internal organised civil, state structure and institutions to which most people recognise as being the legitimate representation of the majority of the population, as perhaps in a democracy or similar accepted authorertive structure.
The past way of war infection could be seen as a stand up fight over what might be, to each party, a clear point; over land, asset, principle, etc. Now in the 21st century it is more likely to occur over diminishing resources, economic ideology control or race.
Past wars of recent history may be seen as the last of the traditional confrontational wars. The 1st WW was the last one were manpower was thrown at the enemy until the superiority of resource and man power waste took its toll. The unsatisfactory conclusion may have laid the foundation of the next. The 2ndWW showed a shift in the use of resources with mechanisation paying a greater part in the end result yet pointed to new factors at play in war; the organised targeted slaughter of a selected people, structures and the new considerably greater measure of destructive ability.
In some ways this indicated the way a future war could be fought, by the use of hugely destructive weapons and the smart select ability of targets. The flaw of this type of possible war was that the destruction removed any chance of asset gain and potentially resulted in one party being decimated to the extent that it could no longer carry forward its re-organised plans and is forced to concede practical active defeat. With very little chance of generational reconstruction or reconciliation after a war of this nature, the population of both antagonists would likely be severely disabled; the after effect would linger on for tens of generations. This was the MAD scenario that some suggest kept the west at peace. This though does not offer any clue as to how a future war may really be fought or how it could turn out, in practice it does show that the clear destructive capability gives raise to some measure of restraint and preference of jaw jaw. However this is only possible between parties that see the economic asset waste and futility of war and are prepare to concede to joint mediation. It is part of the tension that hold western counties back from the brink and it does stimulate reluctance to participate in others disputes.
The recent conflicts such as in Yugoslavia / Balkans, Africa (Rwanda, Congo, etc) and Middle East, are not I suggest true wars as they are fought by internal factions. They are not all out country wars, are not of equal combatable standard and do not trouble the west economically too much. Perhaps because of the lack of direct economical collateral damage to the west, Europe, Asia and the USA have not actively forcefully participate in stopping them before they got out of control, hence the reoccurrences of genocide!
War as indicated above, is perhaps two sides of opposing ideas fighting over an issue generally for material gain and they are or should be of comparable strength. The application of unequal aggressive strength is not a war, it is a conflict that could be seen to be an imposition of force by one country over another for reason not linked to any direct gain or act of overt aggression rather like as has occurred and inflicted on Iraq and the continuing obscenity of the Middle East.
What these conflicts do show as a precursor to any war, is the true potential amorphous uncontrollability of the next war, its unpredictability with the different involvement of unresponsive factions and indicates just how any future war could be fought, lost or won.
Any future war will cost. The financial and structural damage that could occur can cripple a healthy culture and the victor may not have the strength or resource to either rebuild, asset strip the opponent or stave off another challenge, spun off from a different conflict.
To the question can a war be won? Well yes it can in the short term on two fronts.
1. A complete destruction of assets, people etc. Win by the complete annihilate of the whole of the opponents structure and society – everything. This is the cheap option.
2. A measured controlled action by both parties that must be prepared to mediate to a solution and thrive by consolidated absorption with shared amalgamation where one power may naturally supersede another over time yet maintain an element of cultural identity. The price and effort required though is huge. Unfortunately in disputes, reason only supersedes when ideology is killed off, ideology will leap into the abyss of war and reason may pull away.
Practically though with point 1, a total annihilation of an enemy will forever be a torment in the global knowledge, in that the ‘victor’ eradicated a whole culture. This knowledge will form a silhouette in time and the victor will be made to suffer at some future point as other cultures develop and become capable of a challenge. To forestall such a challenge the victor has to be locked into a supreme military capacity for as long as they are reliant on external resources and there are competing cultures. As no civilisation has managed yet to be wholly self sustaining or self replicating, this in the long term is not a feasible outcome. In this situation it is most unlikely that the superior force would want to utilise resources to achieve economic compatibility to break out of such self defeating spiral.
With point 2, the challenge is to reach a state of equanimity whereby reason overrides material, political and emotive divides so that each can measure the losses they could have in war as against the joint benefits with peace. To this end they have to develop a shared strategy to meld a common co-operative in all things as in the current nascent EC. The logical extension of this is that this system can only really work and be successful in the long term by being inclusive to as many cultures willing to co operate as a single entity to the extent required to be as near self sustaining as possible. This will also mean market forces can no longer rule.
Clearly on a global scale there will be countries that are not capable of geographically participating in such an entity, economically or politically until they see mutual benefit or are nurtured into compatible position. This state of co operative existence in the long term has to include the whole world, for in just having a few separate power blocks, disconnected from each other, that do not coexist, they cannot avoid sociological and cultural divergence over time (even if they can all become self sustaining) ultimately leading to conflict and war.
The best way to win a war is to win before the shooting starts. This means a need to foresee likely events / stress lines that could have an impact on county’s interest and aim to avoid being in the weak dependence position. The west has come to rely too much on external resources; this is a major stress point. Therefore it must use resources to become self sufficient. This is a useful dynamic to adopt before the stress point reaches a war point. An alternative view could be to either have no impact or interest in the opposite culture, (isolationist) this can only work if self-sufficiency is in play. Or be prepared to participate in ameliorating their difficulties that may give rise to conflict. A short term tack is to have a position of strength that is unassailable; this might be economically or military but used to direct constructive consolidation of mutual benefit. This initial superiority of one civilization though, again is not sustainable without absolute control of everything, unlikely in any market economy.
If in a war situation, attention has to be given, even though it is premature in not knowing the final outcome, to the after effects. It is not possible to eradicate the stain of war, the knowledge of it and what happened will eventually win out. It is therefore important to fight it with a constructive end result in mind and this will involve engaging the opponents population with some level of historical and real time incontestable openness on why major target were destroyed, why productive capacity is eliminated and own up to mistakes. In this age of deceptive spin it will be hard to separate misinformation from truth so do not use euphemisms, do not target prime social structure and make it clear that this is a deliberate avoidance measure and were possible provide sustenance even in war to the opponents population.
This does not mean that aggressive force cannot be used nor that psychological opportunities can not be exploited but it has to be reasoned and truthfully explainable during and most certainly after the event.
In being involved in a controlled war if one side has the upper hand and can insert stabilising control, it may be possible to keep the communications network of the authority’s structure in place to maintain civil structures. On cessation, this has to lead to investment and rebuilding, however much greater attention has to be given to the needs of the civilian population and it has to occur immediately on cessation of war, it must be highly visible, wide spread and persistent. In doing this it should be possible to develop a governing shield to allow a strategic timely withdrawal into the background and still effect the direction of reconstruction. This is important if the victor requires access to natural resources. Currently in a global market it does not matter who owns resources the issue is getting the use of them and providing the resource flow, so at some stage they will reach the required consumer.
War between two governed cultures can be terminated but the future of ‘conflicts’ and their resolvability is more complicated. Leaving aside the usual precursors to wars what is interesting now is the way conflict arises and can escalate.
Increasingly pressure over resources is acting as a driver to conflict. Although it is disguised under the affect of religion, race, and political cultural perception it does show that there is an increasing tendency for a fragmentation of power in all cultures with the proliferation of weapons in and too uncontrolled areas. To the west this is notable in 3rd world and Middle East cultures hence the coercions for democracy to nullify such fragmentation, unfortunately democracy cannot work without historic social affiliation. This is where point 2 comes into play.
What is overlooked is the same fragmentation of power is taking place in the west. It may seem that there is a balance of democratic power and equanimity however the polarisation of social and economic ideology is shifting the foundation and allowing erratic movements in state action and fostering areas of active discontent. The traditional rule of states to do as it sees fit is being doubted, democracy is not being inculcated and in some ways states are concerned to remain in control at the expense of democracy.
States have seen an increase in organised discontent ability into numerous unconnected blocks that affect public opinion. This on its own would not have caused much concern as apathetic democracy could hold extremes in check with the usual suspect being in control. As stress builds up over an issue it is not impossible to consider that with sufficient thrust a poplar ‘uprising’ could threaten the cohesion of the state. Also with the rise in external pressures resulting in race and religious tension culminating in acts of violence, it has brought in to sharp focus just how much little in-depth control states have over its population and how open it is to the influence of external factions. Perhaps it is also the shift in who controls states machinery that will act as a precursor or precipitate a war, a sudden change in organisational structure like democracy to dictatorship or secularism to theocratic control.
To counter these effects the states and economic interest will attempt to hold onto controlling power by incrementing draconian means – In the name of peace, securing its population and defeating ‘the enemy’. This will mean imprisoning the population behind controlling laws and defeating democratic principles eventual moving towards a ‘voluntary’ dictatorship. This is not a position that would encourage statehood building with others; stress will result and can lead to conflict born out of perverse and misguided survival self interest.
War is avoidable and it is desirable not to allow stress points to develop to a war but regrettable stress points sometimes have to be fought through before reason has a chance to mature. Some stress points are obvious, like energy, environment and cultural ideology, other less so like economic self impoverishment, Taiwan, Israel, market exhaustion and genetics.
The real difficult with a future war is that it is likely to expose the internal fragmentation and weaknesses of a country so that numerous internal conflicts arise as occurred in Africa, Ireland, Palestine etc. These types of conflicts are not readily capable of being state negotiated to the complete satisfaction of all if there is no recognised governing authority guiding the faction’s actions. When a breakdown occurs the power of these factions generally resides within diverse civil population potentially uncontrollable with some elements using force and intimidation to stake a position. The different factions will want to gain some element of power leading to a continuance of long term civil disruption. This fracturing can affect even the most organised of current cultures particularly if it is socially, economical, structurally and racially of an overall pyramid like construction.
All of the stress elements, resources, cultural, economic and faction growth are in play just now, so for the moment there is little chance of avoiding another war for as the short term gain to be the dominant power seem beguiling, tensions will desire to secure its position of self interest to perhaps enact point 1 and lose.
The methodology of a future war is likely to be primarily economically driven, leading to the perversion of fundamentalism, heightened civil discord action, unresponsive and inappropriate governmental action. As states seek ways to be self sustaining against an unstoppable ecological change and maintain their power base, harsh invasive controls will be promulgated. In such a time, justification of positions will drive efforts to gain supremacy of arguments even to the extent of eventually fostering future eugenics and genetics to shape the nature and bio- sphere of humans.
If saps are clever and can read the signs, a war is winnable if a start is made on amelioration now, (point 2) but conceivably not yet. Reasons, existentialism with emerging practicalities and emotive ideology have to fight it out.
Renot31.8.06©
posted by Renot at 3:45 am
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