Fleming, Colin 2009, New or Old Wars Debating A Clausewitzian Future

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New or Old Wars? Debating a Clausewitzian Future

Colin M. Fleminga
a
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
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The Journal of Strategic Studies
Vol. 32, No. 2, 213–241, April 2009
New or Old Wars? Debating a

Clausewitzian Future
COLIN M. FLEMING
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
ABSTRACT Over the last 18 years or so, much of the debate about modern
Downloaded By: [University of Oxford] At: 19:43 26 May 2010
warfare has been about whether it should be described as ‘old’ or ‘new’.

However, there has not been a definitive answer as to which best reflects war in
the modern world. Increasingly, the alternative arguments are polarised into
opposing camps. Indeed, it would be fair to say that there is little in the way of
debate at all. By revaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each argument, this
paper aims to reinvigorate that discussion by examining whether changes in the
way we understand war are really required. Finding that the ideas are not in fact
mutually exclusive, it suggests that future research could benefit from a combined
approach.
KEY WORDS: Strategy, Clausewitz, New Wars
Since the end of the Cold War, the literature focusing on strategic
studies has highlighted a multiplicity of changes affecting war as it
enters a supposedly post-modern age. It has even become customary to
hear that transformational changes within the international system
have altered the very nature of war itself. Consequently, an increasing
number of scholars have repudiated traditional theories of strategic
thought. Clausewitzian theory, in particular, has taken a bit of a
bashing. As Paul Hirst notes, ‘we are living in a period when the
prevailing political and economic structures are widely perceived not
merely to be changing but subject to radical transformation’.1 In this
‘new’ era it is broadly accepted that the political and economic forces
reshaping international relations are causing equally profound changes
in the nature and conduct of war. Moreover, since the end of the Cold
War, speculation about a future not set neatly by the parameters of the
East/West stand-off has resulted in varied interpretations of both
present and future. Would it be a radically different world to that
which had passed? What would replace the Cold War rivalry? What
1
Paul Hirst, War and Power in the 21st Century (Cambridge: Blackwell 2001), 1.
ISSN 0140-2390 Print/ISSN 1743-937X Online/09/020213-29 Ó 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/01402390902743175
214 Colin M. Fleming
would define international relations (IR) as it entered a new

millennium?
Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the ‘West’s’ Cold War
victory, Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History famously heralded the
triumph of capitalism over communism as confirmation that the world
had entered an age free from the antagonisms of ideology. According to
Fukuyama, Western liberalism now held the trump card as the global
cure to war, inequality and domestic insecurity.2 Indeed, as the
international system reacted to the freedom afforded by the West’s
success, the strength of capitalism and Western liberal values seemed to
indicate that a truly transformational and progressive period was
underway. Driven by economic and liberal values, what is now termed
as the ‘globalisation’ of world politics has become one of the central
features of contemporary international politics. It is widely accepted
that these changes are also affecting the nature of war.

Although not without its weaknesses, the argument that the state –
hitherto the central actor in international relations – is in terminal
decline, has stimulated claims that war in the twenty-first century is
undergoing profound change. A growing cosmopolitanism and a sense
that economic interdependence now restricts the actions of states has
ensured that many analysts query previously accepted approaches to
understanding international relations (IR). It has even been argued that
economic interdependence and a rising intolerance to the horrors of
conflict – resulting from a Revolution in Attitudes towards the Military
(RAM)3 – has produced an era in which war between the major states is
obsolete.4 By the late 1990s, commentators such as Michael
Mandelbaum were claiming that the trend towards obsolescence had
accelerated.5 Mandelbaum even suggested that ‘the rising costs of war,
and the diminishing expectations of victory’s benefits, have trans-
formed its status’.6 In short, major war was thought to be a thing of the
past.
2
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and The Last Man (London: Penguin Books
1992).
3
James C. Kurth, ‘Clausewitz and the Two Contemporary Military Revolutions: RMA
and RAM’, in Bradford A. Lee and Karl F. Walling (ed.), Strategic Logic and Political
Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London: Frank Cass 2003),
274–98.
4
John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York:
Basic Books 1989).
5
Michael Mandelbaum, ‘Is Major War Obsolete?’ Survival 40/4 (Winter 1998–1999),
1–2.
6
Ibid., 23.
New or Old Wars? 215
Furthermore, when war does take place it has been argued that it will
differ fundamentally from the rest of strategic history; it is even claimed
that the nature of war itself is changing. For proponents of this view,
war has ceased to be a political and rational undertaking. Conse-
quently, the claim is made that new ways of comprehending war’s
modern dynamics are required to cope with political, cultural and
technological transformation.7 Yet, though a range of ideas seem to be
affecting wars’ utility, and have thus been presented as grand narratives
in their own right, it is the salience of what is now termed the ‘new war’
thesis which has done most to undermine traditional ideas about the
nature of war. Attacking the traditional position propounded by Carl
von Clausewitz, that ‘war is the continuation of policy’, the new war
idea focuses on changes in the international system stimulated by
globalisation – particularly the perceived decline of the state.
As new war theorists believe Clausewitzian theory is coterminous

with the state, they repudiate his work as a result. However, the debate
between these competing ideas has been ongoing from the early 1990s,
without definitive answer as to which offers the greatest success of
understanding modern war. This paper will revaluate the strengths and
weaknesses of each, consider whether changes are required, and suggest
ways in which the debate can be reinvigorated.
New Wars: Into The Fourth Generation?

While the new war argument is diverse, its primary claim is that
modern conflict differs from its historical antecedents in three major
ways: (i) structure; (ii) methods; and (iii) motives – each element
interpenetrates the other.8 Moreover, though what is now termed the
new war thesis is in fact a collection of different ideas about war in the
modern world, the notion of a new, emergent type of warfare has been
primarily attributed to scholars and practitioners such as William S.
Lind, Martin van Creveld, and Mary Kaldor, among others.9 Like
7
For a comprehensive examination of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and its
historical underpinnings, see: MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray (ed.), The
Dynamics of Military Revolution 1320–2050 (Cambridge: CUP 2001).
8
For an alternative classification, Mary Kaldor claims that ‘new wars can be contrasted
with earlier wars in terms of their goals, the methods of warfare and how they are
financed’. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars (Oxford: Polity Press 2001), 6.
9
See William S. Lind, Keith Nightengale, John F. Schmitt, Joseph W. Sutton, and Gary
I. Wilson, ‘The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation’, Marine Corps
Gazette (Oct. 1989), 22–6; Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New
York: The Free Press 1991); and Kaldor, New and Old Wars. It was Kaldor who coined
the term ‘new war’. See also: Herfried Munkler, The New Wars (Cambridge: Polity
Press 2005).
fellow advocates, Lind’s claim that future war will be markedly

different from the past is premised on the decline of the state. Lind’s
argument focuses on his concept of fourth-generation warfare (4GW),
which he claims is part of an historical process that has already
produced first, second, and third generation war. Although attention is
now focused on 4GW, it is only a step towards the fifth, sixth and
seventh generations of warfare at some point in the future. This
irregular mode of conflict is believed to be a return to the way war
worked before the state monopolised violence.10
Lind’s 4GW analysis starts from the Peace of Westphalia (1648),
when the state monopolised mass violence. The First Generation of
War (1648–1860) was one of line and column – battle was perceived to
be orderly and there was an increasingly clear distinction between
combatant and civilian.
Second-generation warfare addressed mass firepower first encoun-

tered in the Great War (1914–18) by maintaining order despite the
increased indirect destructiveness of artillery fire. Mass firepower
inflicted huge damage on the enemy, followed by the advance of
infantry.
Third generation war, another product of World War I, was
developed from 1916–18. Exemplified by the Blitzkrieg of the German
Army in the opening campaigns of World War II, third generation war
is based on speed rather than attrition and firepower. The primary
emphasis is to attack the enemy’s rear areas and ‘collapse him from the
rear forward’. For advocates of this idea, despite the high tempo,
technologically dominated ‘effects’ based warfare practised by the
richest modern armies, contemporary state/military structures encap-
sulate and practise third generation war. For many, this is precisely why
victory in modern war appears so elusive. Colonel Thomas X. Hammes
of the US Marine Corps explains:
Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) uses all available networks –

political, economic, social, and military – to convince the enemy’s
political decision makers that their strategic goals are either
unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit. It is an
evolved form of insurgency. Still rooted in the fundamental
precept that superior political will, when properly employed, can
defeat greater economic and military power, 4GW makes use of
society’s networks to carry on its fight. . .Fourth-generation
10
William S. Lind, ‘Understanding Fourth Generation War’, Military Review 83/5
(Sept.–Oct. 2004), 14.
wars are lengthy – measured in decades rather than months or

years.11
A new type of emergent warfare is also envisaged by Martin van

Creveld, who argues that declining state power is eroding the
traditional structures of IR. Van Creveld predicts that a breakdown
of political legitimacy will transform war from a rational pursuit of
states into an irrational, unstructured activity – fought not by armies
but by groups with varying motivations. He also argues that war will
lose its political purpose. Instead, it will be ‘driven by a mixture of
religious fanaticism, culture, ethnicity, or technology’.12 In his opinion,
the demise of state primacy accelerates the obsolescence of the
traditional Clausewitzian model which posits war as a political
instrument. This assumption has formed the cornerstone of the
majority of studies shaping the literature of war. Indeed, Clausewitz

argues that despite wars’ violent proclivities, it is bound by political
objectives; war should be fought for the rational pursuit of political
goals. As he reminds readers: ‘The political object is the goal, war is the
means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation
from their purpose.’13
The idea that political rationality interpenetrates all aspects of
warfare is thought to have been encapsulated in Clausewitz’s
‘Remarkable Trinity’. This concept continues to court controversy.
Indeed, the sense that the nature of military conflict has changed stems
directly from debate about the contemporary role of the Trinity in
understanding modern war. Clausewitz wrote that:
War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its

characteristics to a given case. As a total phenomenon its
dominant tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity –
composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity which are to
be regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and
probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of
its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which
makes it subject to reason alone.14
11
Col. Thomas X. Hammes USMC, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st
Century (St Paul: Zenith Press 2004), 2.
12
Creveld, The Transformation of War, 69.
13
Carl von Clausewitz, On War [1832] trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (New
York: Knopf/Everyman’s Library ed. 1993).
14
Clausewitz, On War, 101.
He continues:
The first of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; the
second the commander and his army; the third the government.
The passions that are to be kindled in a war must already be
inherent in the people; the scope which play of courage and talent
will enjoy in the realm of probability and chance depends on the
particular character of the army; but the political aims are the
business of government alone.15
By marrying the ‘Trinity’ to sections of society, many scholars have

assumed that the concept is fundamentally linked to the state. Creveld’s
argument that a new type of war is emerging rests with the fact that
there has been a decline in the number of inter-state conflicts and that
there has been a subsequent rise in the number of wars within states.
For Creveld, the proliferation of Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) in
conflicts within states is evidence that Clausewitz’s Trinitarian concept
no longer represents a coherent explanation why war is a rational
instrument of the state. With state decline, the political base is
redundant – leaving the ‘people’ as the only remaining component of
the ‘Trinity’.
In other words, war would be stripped of its rational elements. As it
is thought that the ‘people’ will form armed militias or mobs, which do
not have structures able to promote rationality in the advance of their
conflicting cultural aims, it is assumed that war can no longer be
described as a rational political activity. This is because the rational
elements of the Clausewitzian Trinity, the military and principally the
government, are no longer present. Consequently, the appropriate
‘rational’ component of the concept cannot restrict the irrational traits
that all wars exhibit. With the end of the state, and therefore the
international system of states, only violent and non-Trinitarian, non-
political war will remain.16
Entwined with changes in the structure of modern conflict is the
argument that war’s distinctive character, of a clash between opposing
armies, has been replaced. In short, just as the structure of war has
changed, so too have the methods; modern wars rarely follow
conventional norms and are thought to be distinguishable by their
sheer brutality and lack of strategic rationality. The increasing use of
irregular warfare by terrorist organisations and weaker powers is also
claimed to loosen the bonds between state and military, thus
15
Ibid.
16
Non-Trinitarian war is a term coined by Creveld to express the redundancy of
Clausewitz’s Trinity.
accelerating and exacerbating the original problem of state decline.

This gives credibility to the claim that state war between recognizable
belligerents is a thing of the past – a post-Clausewitzian approach is,
therefore, an immediate requirement. As this trend accelerates
traditional armies will become increasingly like their enemies in order
to tackle the threat that this poses. According to Creveld, ‘armies will
be replaced by police-like security forces on the one hand and bands of
ruffians on the other’.17
Following the publications of both Lind’s and Creveld’s theses, war
in the former Yugoslavia, Caucasus, and throughout Africa seemed to
substantiate their claims with much needed evidence. Mary Kaldor has
even claimed that ‘the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has become the
archetypal example, the paradigm of the new type of warfare’.18
Ostensibly, this argument is accurate. These conflicts do appear to
exhibit irrational traits and they often seem to be guided by factors

other than governmental policy. In Rwanda and in former Yugoslavia it
is argued that ethnic hatred exacerbated the tense political context; it is
also claimed that in Bosnia, war was driven by criminal gangs intent on
maintaining lucrative profit margins.19 After all, during the 1990s,
‘traditional militaries’ rarely loomed large as central players. As such, it
has become common for commentators openly to envisage a world
where ‘conventional’ armies cannot function properly against a new
type of enemy. It is thought that this trend will be accelerated by
demographic problems exacerbated by economic and environmental
problems. The feared result is an overspill of unorganised violence from
the developing world.
Throughout the 1990s wars in the Balkans, Caucasus and Africa
propelled the idea of transformative change in IR. Highlighted by
Robert Kaplan’s provocative thesis The Coming Anarchy, it is argued
that global economic inequality and the destabilising effects of failed
states are the primary danger awaiting the modern world – especially
when ‘factions’ resort to communal violence in order to restore ‘group’
security. For Kaplan, the implications necessitate analysis of, ‘the whole
question of war’.20 Moreover, he mirrors Creveld’s position; he too
rejects the Clausewitzian argument that war is governed by politics.
17
Creveld, The Transformation of War, 225.
18
Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 31.
19
Important works include: Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Paul Collier, ‘Doing Well out
of War: An Economic Perspective’, in Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed and
Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2000),
91–111; David Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, Adelphi
Paper 320 (Oxford/London: OUP for IISS 1998).
20
Rober D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy (New York: Vintage Books 2000), 44.
Like other ‘new war’ writers, Kaplan warns that a preponderance of

‘high-tech’ weapons is useless in a world where ‘conventional’ war is
outmoded. He cautions, ‘something far more terrible awaits us’.21
Wars will not be characterised by the large-scale industrial con-
frontations of the twentieth century, or be subject to any notion of
legality; there will certainly be no rules of war as understood
today. Rather, devoid of battles, the primary target in new wars is
the civilian population. From 1991, population displacement and
genocide was intertwined both in the war in former Yugoslavia, and in
Rwanda/Congo. It seems to have been sadly repeated in Kenya in
2008.22
If the present conflict in Iraq is any measure, attacking civilians has
become the tactic of choice for the non-state actors operating there.
Leaving multinational forces (MNF) aside, a cursory assessment of the
situation suggests that direct targeting of civilians has accelerated since

February 2006.23 Prior to 2005 it has been estimated that there were
1,300 police and military fatalities. From January 2005 until January
2008 the number of police and military deaths has risen to an estimated
6,568 – a total of 7,868. When compared with the total numbers of
civilian fatalities in the same period from January 2005 until January
2008 the results are compelling – estimated civilian deaths during
this period are a staggering 41,068.24 According to the Brookings
Institute’s ‘Iraq Index’, the figures for civilian deaths during conflict are
even more telling. From March 2003 until June 2006, the index
estimates the total number of civilian fatalities as a result of conflict at
151,000.25
Certainly, the recent experiences of the United States and its allies in
Iraq and Afghanistan appear to suggest a trend towards difficult
irregular warfare. These examples seem to compound the argument
that future war will be asymmetrical, at least on one side.26 In terms of
21
Ibid.
22
For a study into this tactic, see: ‘Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence during the
Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath’, Human Rights Watch, retrieved 1 Nov. 2006,
from 5www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Rwanda.htm4
23
Interview with Claire Fleming, Senior Intelligence Analyst: Middle East and North
Africa, AKE Limited, 10 Jan. 2007.
24
‘Iraq Coalition Casualty Count’, 5www.icausalties.org/oif/IraqDeaths.aspt4, in-
formation retrieved 15 Jan. 2008. Figures compiled from data from published news
articles.
25
‘The Brookings Iraq Index, Jan. 11, 2007’, 5www.brookings.edu/iraqindex4,
retrieved 14 Jan. 2007.
26
The fact that future war will have an asymmetrical component is reflected in: US
Marine Corps Doctrine, MCDP 1-1, Strategy, 1997, Ch. 3. Additionally, the US has
begun to look seriously at how changes in IR affect the way it fights. Perhaps the most
purely intra-state conflict, some commentators have even suggested that

using the term ‘war’ at all, gives it a credibility that belies its
unorganised character.27 After all, these ‘new internal wars’ do not
exhibit military objectives; at least, not ones we are used to seeing.28
According to Kalevi Holsti:
War has become de-institutionalized in the sense of central

control, rules, regulations, etiquette, and armaments. Armies are
rag-tag groups frequently made up of teenagers paid in drugs, or
not paid at all. In the absence of authority and discipline, but quite
in keeping with the interests of the warlords, ‘soldiers’ discover
opportunities for private enterprises of their own.29
Rupert Smith, a retired top British general with direct experience of war
in the Balkans, Northern Ireland and the Middle East, goes even
further, claiming that:
War no longer exists. Confrontation, conflict and combat un-

doubtedly exist all round the world – most noticeably, but not
only, in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo and the Palestinian Territories – and states still have armed
forces which they use a symbols of power. None the less, war as
cognitively known to most non-combatants, war as battle in a field
between men and machinery, war as a massive deciding event in
a dispute in international affairs: such war no longer exists.30
famous model to emerge from this discussion is that of the ‘Three Block War’. See Gen.
Charles C. Krulak, ‘The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War’,
Marines Corps Gazette 83/1 (Jan. 1999), 18–22. The debate about modern war has
also generated or revived studies into counter-insurgency techniques. Important works
include: David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice [1964]
(Westport, CT: Praeger 2006); and John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife:
Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago
Press 2002).
27
Monty Marschall, ‘Systems at Risk: Violence, Diffusion, and Disintegration in the
Middle East’, in David Carment and Patrick James (eds.), Wars in the Midst of Peace:
The International Politics of Ethnic Conflict (Pittsburg, PA: Univ. of Pittsburg Press
1997), 82–115.
28
David M. Snow, Uncivil Wars: International Security and the New Internal Conflicts
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1996), 106–7.
29
Kalevi J. Holsti, ‘The Coming Chaos? Armed Conflict in the Worlds Periphery’, in
T.V. Paul and John A. Hall (eds.), International Order and the Future of World Politics
(Cambridge: CUP 1999), 304.
30
Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London:
Allen Lane Books 2005), 1.
Mary Kaldor, perhaps the best known of the new war advocates,
explains the difference inherent in new wars:
In contrast to the vertically organized hierarchical units that were

typical of ‘old wars’, the units that fight these wars include a
disparate range of different types of groups such as paramilitary
units, local warlords, criminal gangs, police forces, mercenary
groups and also regular armies including breakaway units of
regular armies. In organizational terms, they are highly decen-
tralized and they operate through a mixture of confrontation and
cooperation even when on opposing sides.31
For new war proponents, globalisation’s pervasive nature stimulates

dissonance between those able to play a part in a globalised world, and
those who are not. Central to this is the idea that the more competitive
aspects of globalisation are exacerbating cultural and political
fragmentation. As Mark Duffield argues: ‘The changing competence
of the nation-state is reflected in the shift from hierarchical patterns of
government to the wider and more polyarchial networks, contracts,
and partnerships of governance’.32 It is an opinion championed by
Kaldor, who claims the process of globalisation is tearing up the
previously stable state system – a system which for many has provided a
starting point for understanding war and its role in IR.33 As a result, she
too rejects the Clausewitzian paradigm.34
As the 1990s opened up new opportunities for international peace
and prosperity, the wars grabbing the front pages seemed totally at
odds from their historical antecedents. There seemed to be a general
feeling that wars stemmed from cultural and religious factors.35 This
argument gained immediate currency when the wars in countries such
as former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda hit Western television
screens. It became increasingly common to talk about war in the 1990s
as if it were an inexplicable mistake, as an emotional and irrational
malady; an historical curse. In other words, they were thought to lack
rationality.
31
32
Mark Duffield, ‘Globalisation, Transborder Trade, and War Economies’, in Mats
Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars
(London: Lynne Rienner 2000), 71.
33
34
Ibid., 86–9.
35
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
(London: Simon & Schuster 1997).
Like other commentators, Kaldor believes the pervasive nature of

globalisation is the root cause of modern political instability and war.
As globalisation erodes the state system, there will be a parallel trend
highlighting an increase in identity politics. Just as there has been a
change in structure and methods so too are there changes in the
motivations of modern war. With socially ostracised communities
unable to express their political grievances, it is thought they will
employ war as the most attractive expression of their local cultural/
religious needs.36 To grab power, this process is supported by political
elites.37
An additional new war argument hinges on an acceptance of
substantive difference between the economies of old and new wars.
Whereas the wartime economies found in ‘old’ Clausewitzian conflicts
were centralised by state authority to maximise resources, in ‘new wars’
the economy is pervaded and supported by organised crime. In contrast

to ‘old’ war economies, in new wars the opposing forces favour the
continuation of conflict as an exercise in economic enrichment.
The purpose of war is not to win a knockout blow, but to perpetuate
the cycle of violence in order to protect profit margins. David Keen even
claims that ‘war is not simply a breakdown of a particular system, but a
way of creating an alternative system of profit, power and even
protection’.38
Several studies into the economies of new wars suggest that ‘greed’
plays a large role in contemporary civil conflict.39 They also agree that
the economic element found in new wars is directly linked to why the
distinction between war and peace has become blurred.40 For Mark
Duffield, ‘war is no longer a Clausewitzian affair of state, it is a
36
Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 69–89.
37
For Yugoslav example, see V.P. Gagon, The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia
in the 1990s (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2004) and Eric Gordy, The Culture of Power in
Serbia: Nationalism and the Destructions of Alternatives (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania
State UP 1999). For an account of the situation in Rwanda see: ‘Leave None to Tell the
Story: Genocide in Rwanda’, Human Rights Watch (1999), 5www.hrw.org/reports/
1999/rwanda/Geno1-302.htm4
38
Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, 11.
39
Important works include: Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Keen, The Economic
Functions of Violence in Civil Wars; Collier, ‘Doing Well out of War’; and Indra de
Soysa, ‘The Resource Curse: Are Civil Wars Driven by Rapacity or Paucity?’ in Mats
Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2000), 113–28.
40
See William Reno, ‘Shadow States and the Political Economy of Civil Wars’, in
Berdal and Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, 43–68.
problem of underdevelopment and political breakdown’.41 Moreover,

as Paul Collier observes, ‘if economic agendas are driving conflict, then
it is likely that these groups are benefiting from conflict and that these
groups therefore have some interests in initiating and sustaining it’.42
Ethnic violence, the disintegration of the state, and the shadow
economy which is established by the ‘have-nots’, act as a precursor, as a
force that drives and deepens war. Additionally, the return to identity
politics exacerbates the warfare itself. It is even claimed that the
warring actors can survive only as long as the war continues; it is in
their interests to perpetuate the cycle of violence. It is best reflected by
their shadowy wartime economies, where drugs, warlordism, and the
creation of wealth through extortion form a central pillar of the new
security environment. It is a situation recognisable in conflicts ranging
from the wars of former Yugoslavia to the decades-long Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency against the elected

government in that country; not to mention current wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
There are problems with this argument, however. For example,
Kaldor’s chapter on the Bosnian war is intended to mirror other
experiences of modern war, thus demonstrating that organised crime
perpetuates conflict, prohibiting any meaningful political settlement.43
Yet, her case study of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) only
demonstrates that it was different to the widely accepted picture of a
wartime economy – modelled on the total wars of the twentieth
century. One obvious problem with this approach is that there is an
overwhelming sense that war can only be viewed through the lens of a
world war. Can such an historical rarity be used as a model for
understanding future wars? That some forms of modern war do not
resemble the model of a world war, even a inter-state war, does not
necessarily mean that the nature of war, what Clausewitz called its
‘logic’, has changed.
Kaldor views the war economy in BiH as a Mafioso-style protection
racket, for her a true reflection of the altered nature of post-modern
war. This fails to demonstrate the whole picture. The very fact that war
fragmented the state made the implementation of an ‘organised’
wartime economy impossible. While it is axiomatic that the situation in
BiH did not mirror a ‘world’ war, neither did it resemble an altogether
different activity. Moreover, though there is evidence that organised
crime proliferated throughout all of the wars of former Yugoslavia, and
41
Mark Duffield, Global Governance And The New Wars (London: Zed Books 2001),
44.
42
Collier, ‘Doing Well out of War’, 91.
43
Kaldor, New and Old Wars, 90–111.
though there are undoubtedly examples when politics merged with

criminality, evidence that organised crime restricted strategic ration-
ality is exiguous.
On their own, it is uncertain whether such factors automatically
herald an emergent type of war. The very idea that looting, certainly a
problem in the Balkans, is a characterisation of a new type of war lacks
substance. As Stathis Kalyvas argues, ‘the concept of looting is
analytically problematic because it is unclear whether it refers to the
causes of war or to the motivations of the combatants (or both)’.44 He
continues: ‘The first problem is the distinction of causality – do people
wage war in order to loot or do they loot to be able to wage war?’45
Anyway, although organised crime proliferated in the Balkans, it is
striking that when the Bosnian Army (ARBiH) stabilised its position,
after a shaky start, it suppressed and subsumed the very groups that
suggest something new.46 Furthermore, the argument that ‘looting’

heralds something new lacks historical foundation and is easily refuted
by reference to conflicts such as the Thirty Years War; and much of
medieval warfare.
Of course, for writers such as Kaldor or Creveld this is the very point;
war is returning to a form found before the birth of the modern state. It
is thus returning to a period that lacked strategic rationality. Thought
to be irrational, favouring plunder and murder over battle, many
modern wars seem to resemble their medieval and early modern
antecedents. Yet, although ostensibly accurate, the strength of this
claim seems somewhat diminished by the fact that medieval and early
modern historians have, concurrently, been advancing the argument
that war in these periods were in fact driven by political and strategic
rationality.47 Looting and plunder were certainly characteristics of
medieval warfare; however, they were implemented strategically.
Brutality, and political and social complexity, does not determine
whether war is devoid of political rationality. Even when war stems
from irrational impulses, it does not follow that it will be fought
44
Stathis N. Kalyvas, ‘‘‘New’’ And ‘‘Old’’ Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction?’ World
Politics 54/1 (Oct. 2001), 103.
45
Ibid., 103–4.
46
See: Marko A. Hoare, How Bosnia Armed (London: Saqi Books 2004). In one
pertinent example during Operation ‘Trebevic’ in 1993, the ARBiH purged the 10th
Mountain Division and 9th Motorised Brigade which had formed a criminal fiefdom in
Sarajevo.
47
For a study which dispels the myth that medieval war was somehow un-strategic, see:
Sean McGlynn, ‘The Myths of Medieval Warfare’, History Today 44/1 (Jan. 1994),
28–34; see also J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the
Middle Ages, trans. S. Willard and S.C.M. Southern (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell
Press 1997).
irrationally – as the role of Al-Qa’eda and the Taliban in contemporary

wars in Iraq and Afghanistan indicate.
Clausewitz Returns?
Despite enthusiasm for the fashionable ‘new war’ idea, several questions
remain unanswered. This is especially true of the conviction that current
trends in warfare alter its nature. One of the key new war claims is that it
attacks the traditional Clausewitzian notion that the nature of war is
political. It is a position which requires further examination. Even if the
‘new war’ writers are correct, and the state is entering its final demise, an
argument that seems premature, it is unclear why this should transform
the nature of war. While there is plenty of evidence to verify the claim that
non-state actors participate in modern war, evidence explaining why these
should be irrational or unusually apolitical is scarce.

As noted above, the apparent decline of the state is thought to negate
the rational base upon which war is founded. Consequently, it is thus
argued that the rational element of the Clausewitzian ‘Trinity’ is erased.
As such, the other two elements, ‘the people’ and ‘the military’, are left
without direction, a situation thought to provoke irrational violence.
Without the stabilising, governmental, rational, element of the Trinity,
conflict becomes an increasingly irrational activity driven more by
ethnicity and culture than political expediency. As the detractors of the
Clausewitzian model contend, ‘new wars’ are about ethnicity and
particularistic identity, which is assumed to be apolitical and irrational.
As a result, these wars can no longer be thought of in the Clausewitzian
sense, as a ‘continuation of politics’.
Yet, while it was Clausewitz who married his Trinity with
corresponding sections of society, it is important to remember that at
its basic level the concept comprises (i) passion, hatred and enmity, (ii)
the play of chance and probability, and (iii) war’s subordination to
rational policy. According to Clausewitz, if one is truly to understand
the non-linear maelstrom of war, it will be by assessing the interplay of
these three tendencies. While the Trinitarian concept is thought by
many to be premised on the state, there seems little reason why the
‘core’ Trinity cannot continue to inform this esoteric subject – these
forces exist independently of the state structure.48 Anyway, that
48
Michael Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, Third Revised and
Expanded Edition (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 2004), 102. See also Christopher
Bassford and Edward J. Villacres, ‘Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity’, Parameters
25/3 (Autumn 1995), 9–19; and Antulio J. Echevarria II, ‘War and Politics: The
Revolution in Military Affairs and the Continued Relevance of Clausewitz’, Joint
Forces Quarterly (Winter 1995–96).
modern war displays irrational proclivities is not something terribly

unusual, nor can it be confined to war in one particular period. As
Michael Handel remarks:
It has often been argued that Clausewitz emphasizes the need to

view war as a rational instrument, as a means for the leaders to
promote and protect their state’s vital interests. From this accurate
interpretation, however, some readers have erroneously inferred
that Clausewitz also considers it possible for war itself to be
waged as a rational activity. In fact, Clausewitz, repeatedly
reminds us that this is not so, for he knows that war in all of its
dimensions is permeated by non-rational influences, or what he
calls ‘moral factors’ (moralische Grössen), ‘spiritual forces’
(geistigen Kräfte), or ‘spiritual factors’ (geistigen Grössen), which
‘cannot be classified or counted’.49
Although Clausewitz’s Trinity does not require the state for it to

continue as an explanatory model, the ‘new war’ focus on the
redundancy of the state is understandable. In the years immediately
following the Cold War there was evidence that war within states,
rather than between them, was becoming more prevalent. As the
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS) reported in 2001, ‘The most marked security phenomenon
since the end of the Cold War has been the proliferation of armed
conflict within states.’50
During these wars it was often hard for outside observers to
understand the inherent regional complexities frequently displayed. It
was equally difficult to distinguish between political groups or their
military forces. Moreover, their origins seemed to exhibit an irrational
predilection towards religion, culture and ethnicity as motivating
factors in conflict causation. Though clearly war, they were at variance
with common perceptions of what ‘it’ should look like. This appears to
have been a particular problem for those approaching the subject from
an international relations background.
Since the foundation of IR as an academic discipline following the
Great War (1914–18), conflict has been explained as a military clash
between two or more opposing states. Moreover, following the ‘Great
Debate’ of the late 1930s, realism, with its focus on the state, became
49
Handel, Masters of War, 81.
50
The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on
Intervention and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Development Research
Centre 2001), 4.
the dominant theoretical approach. Sceptical that the interwar liberal

theorists had fully accounted for the scramble for power that led to
World War II, a wave of realist writers began to shape the discipline by
emphasising the competitive nature of states. Arguing that realist
maxims provided a better account of the workings of world politics,
scholars such as Hans J. Morgenthau and E. H. Carr, among others,
began to dominate the new discipline of international relations.
It was a theme developed by Kenneth Waltz, whose structural neo-
realism became the mainstream approach in the second half of the
twentieth century.51 In his seminal work, Man the State and War,
Waltz identifies the causes of war in (i) man; (ii) the state; and (iii) the
international system of states.52 Of these three levels he views the
international system of states as the most critical; it is this level that has
been crucial to understanding war causation.
Since the inception of IR as an academic discipline, scholars have

sought to understand the contours of war. In the majority of studies
they have looked at the relationships between states as their starting
point. The ‘new war’ theorists are part of a much larger group of
writers who have historically viewed military conflict as an activity
performed by states – anything other than this is deemed to be out of
the ordinary, indeed new. Of course, a major problem with such state-
centric accounts is that they fail to encompass a broad enough range of
warfare under their scope. Although it is evident that the state retains
its special place as the primary political unit in IR, too much research
posits the origins of wars exclusively at the feet of states. This is equally
true for theorists who by concentrating on ‘hegemonic war’ – war
between the great powers and their alliance systems – reject the reasons
for war in other systems or periods.
One problem with such attitudes is that when forms of conflict that
do not correspond with hegemonic or inter-state war arise, it is either
discounted or presumed to be something transformational. Writing in
the 1960s, Quincy Wright observed that:
International lawyers have attempted to elaborate precise criteria

for determining the moment at which a war begins and ends, but
they have not been entirely successful, and, furthermore, they have
been obliged to acknowledge the occurrence of interventions,
51
Important works include: Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 5th ed.
[1973] (New York: Knopf, Rosecrance, Richard 2001); and E.H. Carr, The Twenty
Years’ Crisis [1939], introduction by Michael Cox (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave
Macmillan 2001).
52
Kenneth N. Waltz, Man the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis [1954] (New
York: Columbia UP 2001).
aggressions, reprisals, defensive expeditions, sanctions, armed

neutralities, insurrections, rebellions, mob violence, piracy, and
banditry as lying somewhere between war and peace as those
terms are popularly understood.53
In the twenty-first century, arriving at suitable criteria can prove even

more elusive; a fact that for many seems to confirm the idea that the
transformation of war is ongoing. The difficulty in finding an
appropriate framework with which to understand the causes of war
is a reflection of the problems finding an adequate definition. It is a
problem that lies in the level of analysis.54 However, although it is
evident that models viewing war as a state activity fail to account for
other types of warfare, this is not a criticism that ‘should’ be attributed
to Clausewitz. It is possible to find in the writing of the classical war
thinkers definitions that cover war in all its many guises. It is unclear
why these ‘classical’ writers cannot be used as a guide in the modern
era, Clausewitz in particular.
In terms of conflict causation, one thinks also of Thucydides;
especially his claim that the answer to understanding the motivations
for war is posited in his own trinitarian formula: honour, fear, and
interest. It may be that this type of framework is as close as we come to
finding the answer to – why war? Thucydides’ formula is as relevant
today as it was for the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) he sought to
understand.55
The idea that war is a result of political action comes directly from
the pages of On War. As Clausewitz himself put it, ‘war is not merely
an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of
political intercourse, carried on with other means’.56 Though Clause-
witz was certainly a product of his time – formulating his theory
through his own experiences as a soldier in the French Revolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars, for many his ideas resonate throughout the
history of warfare. For the Prussian general, the symbiotic relationship
between war and politics stems from the very essence of what conflict
is – it plays a vital and functional role. Indeed, as Clausewitz is at pains
53
Quincy Wright, A Study of War [1942] abridged by Louise Leonard Wright
(Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press 1966), 114.
54
Handel, Masters of War, 33.
55
Robert B. Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to
‘The Peloponnesian War’, trans. Richard Crawly, rev. ed. (New York: Free Press
1996), 43.
56
to remind readers, war is ‘an act of violence intended to compel our

opponents to fulfill our will’.57
From this starting position the Prussian general understood war as a
continuation of politics. He was cognizant that if war is intended to
compel an enemy to accept your will, it should be remembered that ‘the
political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means
can never be considered in isolation from their purpose’.58 Clausewitz
may have famously conceptualised an ‘ideal’ type of war with no limits
on the levels of violence, however, he was acutely aware this theoretical
ideal existed abstractly only. Though violence drives violence, real war
is restricted by political aims – and the physical ability to coerce one’s
opponent. By conceptualising his real/ideal war dichotomy it becomes
clear that war’s proclivity towards violence must, at some point, be
curtailed by policy. If it does not, then it has become something other
than war.59 As Colin Gray puts it:
Some confused theorists would have us believe that war can

change its nature. Let us stamp on such nonsense immediately.
War is organized violence threatened or waged for political
purposes. That is its nature. If the behaviour under scrutiny is
other than that just defined, it is not war.60
In terms of the ‘Remarkable Trinity’, Clausewitz intended his famous

concept to act as a model with which to comprehend the complexity of
war once hostilites had begun. In short, when one understands that war
is shaped by the interplay of complex forces – passion and hatred,
chance, and rationality – it is clear that strategic calculations must be
constantly re-correlated to account for ‘ends and means’. What is the
political aim of the conflict, and how do we reach that outcome? As
war is a reciprocal activity, its fluid and unpredictable nature ensures
not just that prescription is difficult, but that prediction about the
outcome of a particular war founded upon anything other than political
dexterity, will, sooner or later, end disastrously.61 The Trinitarian
concept simply describes the forces that make war so unpredictable,
comprehension of such complexity in turn focuses attention towards
finding a suitable strategy, albeit one which needs constant reflection
and adaptation. According to Christopher Bassford, ‘the Trinity is the
57
Ibid, 81.
58
Ibid., 99.
59
Ibid., 83–4.
60
Colin Gray, Another Bloody Century (London: Weidenfeld 2005), 30.
61
Alan D. Beyerchen, ‘Clausewitz, ‘Nonlinearity and the Unpredictability of War’,
International Security 17/3 (Winter 1992/93), 59–90.
concept that ties all of Clausewitz’s many ideas together and binds
them into a meaningful whole’.62
Furthermore, just as there is a proliferation of ‘new war’ adherents,
there is also a growing body of literature supporting the position
propounded by Clausewitz. Scholars such as Colin Gray, Christopher
Bassford, Alan Beyerchen, Antulio J. Echevarria, Hew Strachan, and
Andreas Herberg-Rothe, among others, have revitalised Clausewitzian
scholarship in response to the ‘new war’ polemic.63 Indeed, building on
a conference paper delivered in 2005 to an Oxford University
conference on ‘Clausewitz in the 21st Century’, Christopher Bassford’s
working draft, ‘Tip-Toe Through The Trinity’, demonstrates the
relevance of the Trinitarian concept by returning to the original text
of Clausewitz’s On War.64 Our comprehension of the Prussian’s true
meaning of the Trinity has been aided even further by the meticulous
analysis given to the subject by Echevarria’s Clausewitz and Con-

temporary War, and Andreas Herberg-Rothe’s excellent Clausewitz’s
Puzzle, both of which rightly place the concept at the heart of On War.
Though much of the debate surrounding modern war stems from
debate about the role of the Trinity, few ‘new war writers’ can
demonstrate an appreciation of the core concept. Most simply
accept that Clausewitzian theory is premised on a position of state
primacy.
By reflecting on Clausewitz’s original arguments, these writers have
been able to generate a new corpus of Clausewitzian scholarship. In the
process they have demonstrated that the core Trinitarian concept is in
fact comprised of (i) hatred passion and enmity, (ii) the play of chance
and probability and (iii) wars subordination to rational policy, rather
62
Christopher Bassford, ‘Tip-Toe Through the Trinity, or The Strange Persistence of
Trinitarian Warfare’, 3 Oct. 2007, p.4 5www.Clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/TRI-
NITY/TRINITY8.htm4. An earlier version is published as: Christopher Bassford, ‘The
Primacy of Policy and the ‘‘Trinity’’ in Clausewitz’s Mature Thought’, in Hew Strachan
and Nadreas Herberg-Rothe (ed.), Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford:
OUP 2007), 74–90.
63
Important works include: Beyerchen, ‘Clausewitz, Nonlinearity and the Unpredict-
ability of War’; Antulio J. Echevarria II, Clausewitz and Contemporary War (Oxford:
OUP 2007); and Hew Strachan, Clausewitz’s On War (New York: Atlantic Monthly
Press 2006); Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Clausewitz’s Puzzle (Oxford: OUP 2007); and
Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Decoding Clausewitz: A New Approach to On War (Lawrence:
UP of Kansas 2008).
64
The proceedings of the conference are now available as an edited volume. See Hew
Strachan and Andreas Herbeg-Rothe (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century
(Oxford: OUP 2007).
than the people, army, government model favoured in the wider new
war literature.65 As such, they claim that the real Trinity is universally
applicable and can thus be used to analyse war in the modern world.
Though the second model – people, army, government – is widely
thought to encapsulate the state, and is thus open to criticism in a world
where war can be fought increasingly by a range of actors, the core
Trinity championed by Bassford can account for war between any
variety of actors. Crucially, by building on the important work of Alan
Beyerchen, scholars such as Bassford, Gray and Echevarria have
highlighted the non-linear focus of Clausewitzian theory. As such, they
have revivified Clausewitz’s ideas just when international politics
regularly displays its non-linear characteristics. The Trinity is not a
staid expression of state war from the Napoleonic period; rather, it
expresses the very complexity of war itself.
As noted already, part of the confusion surrounding Clausewitzian

theory is the widely held assumption that it is coterminous with the
state. Therefore, in an era when the primacy of the state is thought to be
in decline, the traditional Clausewitzian position is thought to be
redundant. Yet, as has been highlighted, it is perhaps true that too often
commentators declare transformational changes in the nature of war
when in fact what is changing is the way it looks. Although war’s
characteristics may change, it is unclear why such transformation
should affect its nature.
Examples of this misconception are widespread throughout the
current literature. For example, in The Utility of Force retired British
General Sir Rupert Smith reflects upon his operational experience with
the British Army, concluding that a trend away from interstate conflict
has resulted in the need for a new paradigm which can account for ‘war
amongst the people’.66 This is a useful discussion; debate about the
utility of force is greatly welcomed, especially by someone with direct
operational command experience. Certainly, his claim that Western
militaries are employing force wrongly, and often counterproductively,
merits closer attention – especially at a time when UK and US forces
grapple with the problems of overcoming a complex ‘irregular’
opponent. However, that a completely new approach is required must
65
Like Bassford, Handel and Echevarria support the continued use of the Trinitarian
concept. However, even supporters of Clausewitz disagree on its exact use. While
Handel argues that the Trinity should be ‘squared’ to account for the role of
technology, Echevarria, like Gray and Bassford, claims that technology does not
undermine the original concept. A very good account of this debate can be found in:
Echevarria, ‘War and Politics: The Revolution in Military Affairs and the Continued
Relevance of Clausewitz’.
66
See Smith, The Utility of Force, 1–26.
be queried. When considering the possible developments of future war,

one must ask what it is that will make it so fundamentally different?
Like other writers, Smith shares a predilection which associates
Clausewitz directly with wars between states. Yet, his ideas are not
exclusive to the state and they do not exclude other types of war. Like
his contemporary, Lieutenant General Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini,
Clausewitz was aware of the role that ‘people’s’ war could play. In fact,
he dedicated an entire chapter in Book 6 of On War to this very issue,
and lectured on the subject of ‘small wars’ at the Berliner Kriegsschule
during 1811–12.67 Jomini, who had participated in a guerrilla war in
Spain himself, even noted that:
As a soldier, preferring loyal and chivalrous warfare to organised

assassination, if it be necessary to make a choice, I acknowledge
that my prejudices are in favour of the good old times when the
French and English Guards courteously invited each other to fire
first, – as at Fontenoy, – preferring them to the frightful epoch
when priests, women, and children throughout Spain plotted the
murder of isolated soldiers.68
The classical war thinkers may have desired a return to an era when
conflict did not deviate from the strict parameters imposed by the ruling
elites of the eighteenth century, yet they were acutely aware of other
modes of warfare. Indeed, as Clausewitz made clear in Chapter 3 of
Book 8, every age has its own kind of war, ‘its own limiting positions,
and its own peculiar preconceptions’.69 Clausewitz’s assessment of the
changing character of war throughout history illustrates his awareness
that the character of war was constantly changing, often dramatically,
from one age to the next. The very point that the Prussian was making
was that despite war’s evolving character, its special nature is universal.
Returning once more to his Trinity, Clausewitz reminds readers that:
‘War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its
characteristics to a given case. As a total phenomenon its dominant
tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity.’70 By stressing that
67
Christopher Daase, ‘Clausewitz and Small Wars’, in Strachan and Herberg-Rothe,
Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century, 183. For further information of Clausewitz’s
conception of guerrilla war, see Werner Hahlweg, ‘Clausewitz and Guerrilla War’, in
Michael Handel, Clausewitz and Modern Strategy (London: Frank Cass 1986),
127–33.
68
Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini, The Art of War [1838] ed. with an introduction by
Charles Messenger (London: Arms & Armour Press 1992), 34–5.
69
70
Ibid., 101.
war is ‘more that a chameleon’, Clausewitz informs readers that war’s

nature should not be confused with the way it looks. That it alters its
appearance and character ‘to a given case’ is neither here nor there.
The unifying element that ensures the universality of the nature of war
has nothing to do with the way war is conducted; instead it relates
directly to the fact that its nature comprises the interplay of the
different elements within his Trinitarian concept: emotion, chance, and
reason.
As such, thinking that irregular conflict is somehow a modern
phenomenon which must recast our understanding of the nature of war
may be a big mistake. Thomas Hammes, for example, argues that the
architects of 4GW ‘convince the enemy’s political decision makers that
their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly’.71 As a
strategy, this hardly seems revolutionary. In his On Guerrilla War Mao
Tse-tung argues that protracted conflict is a critical stage in his ‘three-

phased war’.72 Moreover, that belligerents use a long-term strategic
approach questions the idea that modern war lacks political rationality.
As Beatrice Heuser highlights, ‘Clausewitz made quite detailed
prescriptions for the use of the guerrilla’.73 She even asserts that he
‘laid the foundations of our thinking on asymmetric warfare’.74 She
continues:
He realised that while the best way to victory is unquestionably to

have larger armies and to defeat a smaller or weaker enemy army
utterly in one main battle, other factors can favour smaller or
weaker power. Apart from morale, this could be a greater stamina
and patience, so that a larger enemy might not be prepared to
invest the same amount of time to a particular conflict as the
weaker force.75
Employing irregular warfare as a mode of fighting a technologically or

quantitatively superior opponent, a belligerent is subject to the same
strategic logic as their ‘conventional’ opponents. Though the char-
acteristics of such a conflict will be different to war between states, it is
unclear why it should delimit war’s political nature. As Sir Michael
Howard remarks, after ‘allowances have been made for historical
differences, wars still resemble each other more than they resemble any
71
Hammes, The Sling and the Stone, 2.
72
Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare [1936], trans. Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Griffith
[1961] (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press 2000), 51–7.
73
Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico 2002), 136.
74
Ibid., 137.
75
Ibid.
other human activity’.76 In fact, as M. L. R Smith argues: ‘As

Clausewitz above all recognised, the elemental truth is that, call it what
you will – new war, ethnic war, guerrilla war, low intensity war,
terrorism, or the war on terrorism – in the end, there is really only one
meaningful category of war, and that is war itself.’77 Indeed, it is clear
that Clausewitz’s principles relating to ‘small wars’ are evident in the
tactics employed by forces in those contemporary conflicts described as
‘new’:
A general uprising, as we see it, should be nebulous and elusive; its

resistance should never materialize as a concrete body, otherwise
the enemy can direct sufficient force at its core, crush it, and take
many prisoners.. . . On the other hand, there must be some
concentration at certain points: the fog must thicken and form a
dark and menacing cloud out of which a bolt of lightning may

strike at any time.78
As to the claim that we have entered into an era of ‘constant conflict’,

with individual wars petering on without end, with the distinction
between peace and war is blurred, qualification is badly needed. War,
as Clausewitz was aware, is an extremely volatile activity – he was at
pains to remind readers that it should not be entered into lightly. When
war was joined he cautioned that it should be the means of reaching a
better political settlement. As the Prussian observes: ‘the ultimate
outcome of a war is not always to be regarded as final. The
defeated side often considers the outcome merely as a transitory evil,
for which a remedy may still be found in political conditions at some
later date.’79
Again, it is left to Michael Howard to remind us that even during
what is thought of as the epitome of Clausewitzian conflict in the
nineteenth century, war frequently proved indecisive. It was a situation
regularly repeated during the twentieth century.80 That war in the
twenty-first century should also be regularly indecisive should not come
76
Michael Howard, The Causes of War and Other Essays (London: Temple Smith
1983), 214.
77
M.L.R. Smith, ‘Guerrillas in the mist: reassessing strategy and low intensity warfare’,
Review of International Studies 29/1 (2003), 34.
78
79
Ibid., 89.
80
Michael Howard, ‘When Are Wars Decisive?’ Survival 41/1 (Spring 1999), 126–35. It
is widely accepted that grievances at the end of World War I led to another, more
destructive, conflict in 1939. In the aftermath of World War II, the world was faced
with a new and potentially more dangerous Cold War.
as a great shock. Yet again, the notion that war has become unusually
inconclusive rests with the idea that war is solely the domain of states.
Yet again, it is a claim that depends on the level of analysis.
Even after acknowledging a higher than usual incidence of war
within states at the end of the twentieth century, should this herald the
end of existing explanations of strategic theory? As already highlighted,
a growing number of commentators have proclaimed that these existing
paradigms are now superfluous and must be superseded in favour of
new models. If new explanations offer a better understanding of why
wars begin, and of the strategic calculations that must ultimately
follow, then they are gladly welcomed. However, as alluded to already,
the problem is that it is not at all clear whether these new explanations
are better than their predecessors. Even if modern theories demonstrate
new strategic realities, should it follow that traditional models are now
useless?
For example, in Kalevi J. Holsti’s The State, War, and the State of
War he grapples with the idea that war within states has radically recast
the security environment.81 The increase in ‘civil’ war and the
subsequent decrease in interstate wars have brought him to the opinion
that the predominant realist explanations for war are unfounded. Yet,
though Holsti produces a highly articulate argument, it is not clear why
realist maxims pertaining to causative theory should be set aside so
readily. In many of the situations motivating civil conflict, state-like
actors are clearly affected by regional security dilemmas. Indeed, it is
often the case that the collapse of central authority results in an
‘emerging anarchy’, where power, greed and fear are exacerbated by
the lack of any overriding political authority.82 All of these factors
serve as motivation towards warfare; all are entwined with the wider
realist tradition.
Geoffrey Blainey’s penetrating argument, that war is about the
measurement of power, is another example to reflect upon. Intended as
an insight into war between states, it retains its potency in the modern
world. As Blainey argues:
War itself provides the most reliable and most objective test of
which nation or alliance is the most powerful. After a war which
ended decisively, the warring nations agreed on their respective
strength. The losers and the winners might have disagreed about
81
Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge UP
1996).
82
Barry Posen, ‘The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict’, Survival 35/1 (1993),
27–47.
the exact margin of superiority; they did agree however that

decisive superiority existed.83
This is equally true of Clausewitz’s remarkable Trinity. Although at

some point in the future the state may lose its central status, his concept
is as equally relevant to any polity engaged in warfare.
This does not imply that the trends flagged by the ‘new war’ writers
are not important. They highlight important developments which
appear to be changing the conduct of modern conflict; and these trends
must be taken seriously. The very fact that non-traditional security
concerns exacerbate traditional security calculations is in itself enough
to warrant significant attention. Furthermore, focusing attention on
non-state conflict, the ‘new war’ theorists have opened up a more
complex strategic environment for analysis. At the very least, they have
reignited debate about warfare in the modern world, so long shaped by

the contours of the international state system. If one is truly going to
grasp the complexity of war, then reflection of what factors are
critical to understanding it is a positive step. Nonetheless, despite
apparent prescience, there is a danger that many of the ‘new war’
claims become exaggerated. Moreover, the founding premise that it
offers an insight into a non-Clausewitzian universe is on very shaky
ground indeed.
Understanding Modern War: A Clausewitzian Future?

Although the intention of the ‘new war’ idea was to offer a modern
insight into contemporary conflict, in order to distinguish ‘old’ wars
from ‘new’ it needs to repudiate the traditional position of Clause-
witzian theory. Yet, while this is a perfectly acceptable scholarly
enterprise, its major flaw is that it wrongly presumes that Clausewitzian
theory is premised on state primacy and the rational actions of
governments. As we have seen, not only is the core Clausewitzian
Trinity – the major object of ‘new war’ criticism – not in fact
coterminous with the state at all, the Prussian writer also understood
and assessed the contribution of other modes of warfare. The central
‘new war’ claim that modern war is post-Clausewitzian is therefore
unfounded. Yet, does this necessarily mean that the entire ‘new war’
idea is now irrelevant? Indeed, in light of Clausewitz’s seemingly
universal model, what direction should future research adopt?
Of course, the obvious answer is to pursue a Clausewitzian analysis
of war in the modern world. After all, this latest challenge to
Clausewitz has again demonstrated the timelessness of his core
83
Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: The Free Press 1988), 118.
principles. It would be less than prudent to discard his ideas as

irrelevant to our own period. This is not to suggest that we do not
continue to test the centrality of Clausewitzian ideas against modern
examples. After all, this is something clearly in keeping with
Clausewitz’s own belief that theory should be studied, rather than
become doctrine on its own. As he reminds readers, it is ‘inquiry which
is the most essential part of any theory’.84 To garner a greater
awareness of the complexity of war we must continue to test and assess
contemporary problems. Indeed, if Clausewitzian theory is to retain its
primacy it must continue to demonstrate its modern salience.
Moreover, in terms of the Trinity, there is room to build from the
platform offered by Clausewitz – both to test the strength of his ideas
against contemporary examples, and if appropriate refine them to
enable a modern analysis of war. The Clausewitzian Trinitarian
model may have demonstrated that it is not coterminous with the

state, but for it to be a useful analytical tool its supporters must
illustrate its strengths by using it to generate a better understanding of
modern war. Put simply, it must prove itself against hard empirical
evidence.
Though possibly less obvious, and though certainly more
intriguing, is to draw on the strengths of Clausewitzian and ‘new
war’ theory as a means of generating a fuller understanding of
modern conflict. Though there is a danger that the ‘new war’ idea
becomes exaggerated, it nevertheless highlights trends that if correct
will impact, if not on the nature of war, then certainly on its
character and conduct. Too often the two competing approaches
polarise themselves as rivals. In fact, as this paper has demonstrated,
the new war thesis false premise means that they are not, in fact,
mutually exclusive at all.
In short, as they do not inhabit separate worlds there is little reason
why analysts cannot draw on a combined approach. Clausewitzian
concepts can be used as analytical tools in ostensibly new wars, just as
the ‘new war’ trends can open up the complexity of war and the
requirement to find a political solution to contemporary humanitarian
and conflict situations. If anything the complexity of ‘new wars’ require
that the primacy of politics, rather than violence, is even more essential
than in wars between ‘states’. Such conflicts require a Clausewitzian
approach even more than ‘conventional’ war. Rather than competition,
there is room for finding common ground, essential if an esoteric
subject such as war is to be better understood.
84
Clausewitz, On War, 162–3.
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New or Old Wars? Debating a

Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

warfare has been about whether it should be described as ‘old’ or ‘new’.

KEY WORDS: Strategy, Clausewitz, New Wars

ISSN 0140-2390 Print/ISSN 1743-937X Online/09/020213-29 Ó 2009 Taylor & Francis

would define international relations (IR) as it entered a new

that these changes are also affecting the nature of war.

As new war theorists believe Clausewitzian theory is coterminous

New Wars: Into The Fourth Generation?

fellow advocates, Lind’s claim that future war will be markedly

Second-generation warfare addressed mass firepower first encoun-

Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) uses all available networks –

wars are lengthy – measured in decades rather than months or

A new type of emergent warfare is also envisaged by Martin van

majority of studies shaping the literature of war. Indeed, Clausewitz

War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its

By marrying the ‘Trinity’ to sections of society, many scholars have

accelerating and exacerbating the original problem of state decline.

exhibit irrational traits and they often seem to be guided by factors

Like other ‘new war’ writers, Kaplan warns that a preponderance of

situation suggests that direct targeting of civilians has accelerated since

purely intra-state conflict, some commentators have even suggested that

War has become de-institutionalized in the sense of central

War no longer exists. Confrontation, conflict and combat un-

In contrast to the vertically organized hierarchical units that were

For new war proponents, globalisation’s pervasive nature stimulates

Like other commentators, Kaldor believes the pervasive nature of

the economy is pervaded and supported by organised crime. In contrast

problem of underdevelopment and political breakdown’.41 Moreover,

Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency against the elected

though there are undoubtedly examples when politics merged with

suggest something new.46 Furthermore, the argument that ‘looting’

irrationally – as the role of Al-Qa’eda and the Taliban in contemporary

should be irrational or unusually apolitical is scarce.

modern war displays irrational proclivities is not something terribly

It has often been argued that Clausewitz emphasizes the need to

‘cannot be classified or counted’.49

Although Clausewitz’s Trinity does not require the state for it to

the dominant theoretical approach. Sceptical that the interwar liberal

Since the inception of IR as an academic discipline, scholars have

International lawyers have attempted to elaborate precise criteria

aggressions, reprisals, defensive expeditions, sanctions, armed

In the twenty-first century, arriving at suitable criteria can prove even

to remind readers, war is ‘an act of violence intended to compel our

than war.59 As Colin Gray puts it:

Some confused theorists would have us believe that war can

In terms of the ‘Remarkable Trinity’, Clausewitz intended his famous

analysis given to the subject by Echevarria’s Clausewitz and Con-

As noted already, part of the confusion surrounding Clausewitzian

be queried. When considering the possible developments of future war,

As a soldier, preferring loyal and chivalrous warfare to organised

war is ‘more that a chameleon’, Clausewitz informs readers that war’s

Tse-tung argues that protracted conflict is a critical stage in his ‘three-

He realised that while the best way to victory is unquestionably to

Employing irregular warfare as a mode of fighting a technologically or

other human activity’.76 In fact, as M. L. R Smith argues: ‘As

A general uprising, as we see it, should be nebulous and elusive; its