August 2000

War in Modern Times

War has changed in recent times. The causes of war, the nature of war and the way to fight a war have changed. This demands a different approach how to execute military operations in a war or a war-like situation. The new approach will differ in some parts from the old way, especially with respect to the scale of the conflict and the task of the politicians who want or feel compelled to become involved in a conflict. The modern conflict is a conflict, mostly internal between two or more factions including the government or more rarely between two countries, with very often a bad guy who is breaking all rules of civilian conduct and who has the bad luck not to possess some valuable resources or weapons of mass destruction with the appropriate means of delivery and in short he or she for that matter receives the world’s attention. This bad guy, the enemy/opponent, has to be stopped as his behaviour or the conflict he is involved in is considered as unwanted and needs to be ended. One or more nations feel the need and have the wilingness to end the conflict, thus become involved. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the interfering nations will not make the same mistakes which have lengthened previous conflicts. A new approach to war and how to deal with all the involved parties is therefore necessary.

The difficulties in the last wars, or better substitution conflicts, between the superpowers and their clientele and the problems of governments with rather agressive opposition movements are known and have been very well docmented.

In nearly all events the actors, governments, have tried to solve their problems with the use of military forces. As the first strategy and tactics failed to reach the wanted results, another strategy and tactics was chosen. But with the change of tactics or even strategy one might question if a different military tactic, strategy, would have solved the problem adequately. History learned us that the problems could not be solved by a change of strategy or tactic. On the contrary it can even be stated that if the majority of conflicts were handled more carefully, dealing with all factors of conflict, most of the conflicts could have ended much sooner and at more favorable conditions. And this will be even more valid in the conflicts of our time.

Wars/conflicts can only be partly solved by a military operation. The military will play a central role in ending a conflict but the entire environment, political, social, economical geographical and ofcourse militarily, around an operation will have to be considered. It will demand a wider scope beside a careful preparation and the proper execution of the military operation to end a conflict. The military is only part of the solution and without the right pre-conditions and political support conflicts tend to become messy and longer then needed.

The pre-conditon for success in military operations

Strategy and tactics are part of the solution, the right strategy has to be applied and the units have to use the right tactics to defeat the opponent but this will not bring a final solution as long as the fight is put in a box which clearly limits the winning capabilities of the security forces. All battles, wars and conflicts were very often confined to a politically determined space, geography. This has undoubtly the advantage that it will put clear limits on the scope of the conflict, preventing it from widening, or the escalation into a conflict between several states, but at the same time it delivers an opportunity to get support and thus lengthening the conflict. The creation of the so-called no-go areas, sanctuaries, will also not solve the conflict, it will only make the conflict harder to end and will in the end cost more casualties.

Wars, conflicts and battles are complex operations with many inputs, outputs and interdepencies. A major factor in all have been supplies, logistics, as all forces fight on support. This support can come from the logistical train, home industries or allies.

If an enemy has to be defeated its logstical support should be eliminated,thereby limiting its fighting capabilities.

Consequently it should be clear to all sides in the conflict, especially to the allies of the bad guy, that any support to the “enemy/opponent” will not be tolerated. Political, moral, support could eventually be tolerated but any material support to the parties involved in the conflict should be considered as hostile and should be ended with all available means, even if this would mean to widen the conflict.

The situation has changed dramatically since the demise of the Soviet Union which made it necessary to contain conflicts. Presently if the situation would demand it a widening of the conflict to end the support to the enemy/opponent would be preferable if not an obligation. As the support of other countries, the socalled allies/friends, could be dangerous to the success of an operation. A nation possesses nearly unlimited resources to help the enemy/opponent thereby lengthening the conflict and increasing your losses and giving the enemy the opportunity to weaken your fighting power and finding out your weaknesses and increasing his changes for success.

No conflict can be considered as an isolated incident, it is in the majority of cases a conflict between two dominant parties with at least two levels of supporters. The supporters who support a case politically and the supporters who not only deliver political support but also material support and it will grant basing rights. This will offer the enemy not only a headquarter, planning and organisational base but also a political stage to support their cause and direct political, media and military, terrorist, operations against the legitimate government, party. The first might be considered as a lesser evil the second will become an outright threat to the survival, success, of every operation.

Future military operations should be kept preferably limited in numbers and geography but above all it should be kept isolated from outside support. The contradiction of limitation and isolation is sometimes difficult to take as it is mostly a key objective to keep the conflict small and controllable. As if small conflicts are more easy to control.

The policy of isolation might in some situations enlarge a conflict instead of limiting it. As it could be necessary to attack the supporters of the opponent, the bad guy, with all means available to stop the support. This will immediately receive much political opposition as small and controllable is the normal concept. This concept will however only create a false sense of control, small is controllable is an illusion. On the contrary, it might be harder to end a small conflict as there are no large interests at stake and a solution is supposedly always around at the next corner. Unfortunately people tend to take the wrong corner and the conflict drags on.

If you are really willing to end conflicts all support must be ended as soon as possible this will limit the fighting ability and capability of the warring factions or the opponent, the bad gay. The isolation policy is therefore of a higher importance then limitation.

The execution of military operations

Future military operations demand after the preparations and the execution of isolation operations, surprise, swiftness and lethality. And ofcourse the operation has to be planned, at best, in total security. The enemy has to be kept as long as possible in the dark of any possible operation against his country. This to facilitate the success of the next two points which are more or less connected to eachother.

Surprise remains an important asset as it will get the opponent’s forces at the barracks or least not dispersed around the country side.

Swiftness is important as the operation has to be executed with speed to increase the effectivety and to limit the losses of your own forces. Your objectives have to be reached as fast as possible to minimise the chance of attrition warfare and a drawn-out conflict.

Lethality has to be achieved by pin-pointed attacks against concentrations of forces, logistic bases and infra-structures and the main traffic nodes in the country through the use of advanced precision guided munitions. Civilian casualties, collateral damage, have to be avoided as long as it does not infringe with the military objectives.

The potential targets have to be selected in advance through the use of national recconnaisance assets and humint intelligence from the region and ofcourse through the correct interpretation of the intelligence. The gathering, processing and the circulation of intelligence and the preparations of the important isolaton and informaton.measurements is just as important as the actual operation, the deploymoent of forces. The success of the operation depends on the preparations, the operation itself should be seen as a rehearsal.

The combination of surprise, swiftness and lethality should place your forces in the advantageous position of air and ground dominance. In this situation of absolute dominance the forces should be able to eliminate the enemy before it can deploy, reach their objectives or disperse in the country side. If the enemy can disperse it will become much more difficult to defeat it and making a fast execution of the operation very unlikely. Any delay in the elimination of the enemy will increase their chance on survival and success to withstand the attacking forces. Time will be advantageous for the enemy/opponent as it will increase your own losses, make attrition more likely and will allow the enemy to gather support, thus returning to the point of isolation. Any support should be at best be impossible. Outside support will not only deliver direct support but just as importantly it will motivate the enemy to continue and keep on fighting. The isolation measurements in advance will if the actual operation would take longer than planned make a succesful operation more likely as the stamina of the enemy will be limited or at least weakened.

A final note

This in someways harder and more ruthless kind of warfare has to be supported by the government which is willing or is being compelled to use military forces to solve a conflict. Political support is important as it this will motivate the armed forces to execute the operation flawlessy and without any hesitation.

The government has in turn to convince the public about the legitimacy of the operation. The public has to be informed properly and honestly about the why, how and what of a conflict from the start. If the public is comprehensively informed they will accept and even support the measures taken but do not leave them in the dark under the guise of national security or because of not endangering operations. This will make the people speculate and think the worst of it and subsequently demand an end to the involvement. Information has become a fluid and very fast commodity which can be easily manipulated in our days of global communication technologies like the world wide web and mobile phones. Use the information and the technological capabilities to your advantage and do not leave this to the other side. Thus make the people aware of what is at stake and about the fact that war is cruel and destructive but sometimes necessary. War is a nasty business and it will be impossible to make a war as clean as often is demanded by the media. The best way to limit wars is to execute the military operations as fast as possible and reach a decisive victory. Nobody will gain something from an indecisive end as this will only create new conflicts on the short to medium term. And the renewed conflict will be very often more vicious and more difficult to end.