"Everything You Think You Know About Limited War is Wrong" Topic

"One of the critical problems with much of the writing on strategic subjects is a failure to define the terms being used in a clear and universally applicable manner. When we fail to explain what we mean when we use terms such as "limited war" or "total war," we build in a potentially fatal underpinning for the formulation of policy and strategy. This error also robs the discussion of any firm ground for critical analysis. Moreover, if we don't understand what we mean by "limited war," we don't understand what we mean when we describe any war. Shoddy thinking lays a foundation for defeat.

The fuzziness of our approach to defining limited war can be seen even in classic texts on the subject. In 1981, John Garnett, one of the founders of modern strategic studies, wrote: "Only conflicts which contain the potentiality for becoming total can be described as limited." Diplomat Robert McClintock wrote in 1967: "Limited war is a conflict short of general war to achieve specific political objectives, using limited forces and limited force." Both of these typical definitions explain limited war in relation to other types of conflict ("total war" and "general war") that also lack clear, generally agreed upon definitions. In his classic 1957 work, the best-known theorist of limited war, political scientist Robert Osgood, defined this kind of conflict in terms of the objective sought and (among other things) by the fact that the combatants "do not demand the utmost military effort of which the belligerents are capable." This description is nebulous at best and fails to offer a firm and usable explanation of "effort," or what some would term the means used. The definitions haven't improved with the passing decades. A 2010 book noted…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Nice title, but I suspect a very inaccurate one.

The writer, Donald Stoker, is essentially saying that the scope of the political goals of a war and not the scale of commitment of resources to the war's prosecution is what should determine its 'limited status'. The author objects to using the descriptor of limited to denote limited geographical or limited military effort in war because he sees a disconnect between such limits and the goals for entering into wars which he argues are often unlimited.

He also argues that limiting wars leads to losing wars and admits that in some cases wars seem to be designed so as not to be winnable. Unwinnable wars are a characteristic of rampant militarism in my opinion, where the purpose of the war is to have war itself and the goals of any specific war are secondary to maintaining a de facto state of war as constantly as possible – the Forever War. What the author never seems to consider is avoiding wars and trying to find other non-military means to settle international disputes.

In the end what he argues is that the ends justify the means and that if a warring state's leadership really wants a victory then that state's leadership should prosecute the war to its fullest ablity regardless of the political will within the warring state's body politic. That is a very dangerous notion but does align well with the goals of commercial, military, security and power-centralising interests (I.e. fascists).

Rod Robertson.

Thanks for that Rod, I've been back 3 days and you're calling me a fascist already. I wonder what your opinion would be if Canada was ever invaded, you might even appreciate those who lay down their lives for your freedom. Or maybe not.

Welcome back foxweasel. Nice to have you back. I look forward to you shouting at me once again.

Are you Donald Stoker? No, you are not, so I have called you nothing. You have not been in my mind of late and you were definitely not on my mind when I read and commented on Stoker's article. If you see yourself in what I have described, well that's on you and the choices you have made in your life to date.

I'm glad you have returned from your training mission safe and sound and wish you and yours a Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings and a happy New Year. Be well.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Hi Rod, if I were shouting the text would be in upper case. The last sentence of your post was yours, not Donald Stokers.

That is a very dangerous notion but does align well with the goals of commercial, military, security and power-centralising interests (I.e. fascists).

Rod Robertson.

Worm your way out of that one

foxweasel:

No need to worm or wiggle about. I believe in what I said and stand by it. Militarism and the proliferation of war does serve those named interests and given the hierarchical and authoritarian/top-down structures of commercial, military, security and power-centralising organisations, 'fascists' seems to me to be an apt word to my mind. Nowhere did I identify you by name or circumstance in my post and if you see yourself reflected in such a description, that's hardly my fault, now is it?

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Nice synopsis, Rod.

Wars should not be waged by the elites without consent by the people. I agree with the author that virtually all wars after WWII are limited wars often with unclear objectives or the goal of "playing not to lose" but not winning either. Most of them are also unnecessary and only serve the need of our Military-Industrial-Congressional-Think Tank complex for enemies to justify its continued existence.

Do I infer correctly that all commercial, military, security and "power-centralising interests" = fascists?

And what exactly is a "power-centralising interest"?

Just curious.

B

Blutarski asked:

Do I infer correctly that all commercial, military, security and "power-centralising interests" = fascists?

And what exactly is a "power-centralising interest"?

Some, yes; perhaps many in some parts of the world. All, no. The key is that their centralising practices are accelerating and growing in force and political inertia. These heirarchical structures are not monolithic and are not all aligned in any one direction but some, especially the most powerful, tend to have a predilection towards authoritarian behaviour and bullying to reach their goals – i.e. fascism. They will often try to circumvent laws and practices designed to limit their power and to tip the levelled playing field with their competing interests. They will also try to change the social climate through fear mongering, promoting xenophobia and scapegoating to further their goals.

Vertical and horizontal integration of commercial entities leading to powerful oligopolies and monopolies or monopsonies, which use their dominant position in markets to control and exploit those markets and use some of their considerable wealth/revenue to lobby/bribe political organs and governments to bend to their will. The failure of pro-competition and anti-trust/anti-combines laws to halt this process is testament to the power of this process.

The military-industrial-media-management complexes which have grown up around the world do this. Military gendarmeries which coercively enforce statist power on unwilling populations are another example. Military coups and oppressive military aid to a civil power are probably the most egregious abuses but many more subtle proto-fascist practices exist too.

The abuses against privacy and the practice (at the time of first implementation) of illegal mass data collection like those of CSEC in Canada, GCSB in New Zealand, GCHQ in the UK and the NSA among other security apparati in the USA. The Brits even went so far as to retroactively change the laws of the UK in the "Snooper's Charter" to protect GCHQ from legal action for past illegal actions.

Power-centralising interests is a catch-all term for any other corporate body which works to centralise power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. It includes political organisations, some think-tanks, some labour unions, some lobbying institutions, some interest groups, certain religious groups and any other groups or individuals who forcefully work towards the centralisation and concentration of power in the hands of already powerful institutions.

I hope that clears things up.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

The difference is that in total war there are no overriding goals more important than victory. Korea and Vietnam had a higher goal 'don't draw China or Russia into the conflict.' WW2 the highest goal was to force the enemy into surrender, There was no overriding concern. And truth be told, limited wars have been around for centuries. It was only the rise of nationalism that caused everyone to ignore the possibility of using war to achieve limited goals.

Tis also a good definition for communists.

"I hope that clears things up."

Yes it does. It describes a classical trajectory toward socialism.

B

Mako 11 and Blutarski:

I have to agree with both of you to a point. The tendency of authoritarian governments and states to centralise power is the same anywhere along the political spectrum. The end product also remains the same, a growing totalitarianism which stifles political liberties and personal freedoms. What is different is how you get there.

The alliance between the state, the military, the means of communication/indoctrination (Church or Media) and concentrations of capital leads to fascism. The combination of the state, the military, the means of communication/indoctrination (The Party or media) and some ideological elites is typical of a left-wing totalitarian state. In fascism the populace is harnessed as a labour force but political awareness is deemed a problem and is tamped down, except for the chosen few who wear the coloured shirts. In Marxist/Maoist flavours of extreme socialism the populace is harnessed as an ideological collective as well as a labour pool and is deliberately and widely indoctrinated with the presiding ideology of the authoritarian state.

These are minor differences to Joe and Jane Six-pack who have their necks stepped on either way. It does however matter in clearly seeing the process unfold and taking steps to stop or reverse it. The problem isn't capitalist or socialist, it's authoritarian statism, no matter it's flavour. If Soviets/workers' councils were forming all over the West, I would be loudly warning against that, but they are not and corporate power is the force driving forward the western authoritarian experience in the present context.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Rod, call me a gadfly if you must, but I would suggest that no truly capitalist economic system has really existed in the West since the decade of the 1930s ….. and I would very much include the USA among that group. In the USA, government has intruded itself progressively more deeply into every crevice of the economy and the business environment. Businessmen in America now wake up every morning faced with the possibility that their businesses may have been dramatically altered by the decision of an unaccountable bureaucrat or an arcane entry in the Federal Register. And, the bigger the business, the bigger the stakes. That is why corporate America pays to maintain 20,000 odd lobbyists in the District of Columbia and "donates generously" to various politicians. Some of them pay just to try to stay alive in the game; others pay in the hope of being able to game the system through political favoritism. But, whichever way one looks at it, the economies of the West today consist of two bed-partners lying in an uneasy fascist-socialist embrace, with both wondering what the other is really thinking. And it is all thoroughly riddled with corruption reaching to the highest levels.

That assessment is based upon 45 years in international commerce and banking. FWIW.

Meanwhile, Happy Holidays to all ….. whatever you choose to celebrate.

B

So the last time we had "true capitalism", we had robber barons, a crushing depression and bread lines.

I think I'll go with the mixed economy, if it's all the same to you ;-)

@Weasel: Capitalism does need some regulation, or you get robber barons and monopolies, which are harmful to the general public.

While I think the US is a bit too regulated at the present, there are too many [expletives deleted] that will walk right up to the edge of what is legal, regardless of whether or not it's ethical. And it's those [expletives deleted] that cause more regulations to happen. I'm expecting some major regulations regarding drug prices to come down the pipe pretty soon, for example.

Weasel – I don't hold myself out to be an economist, but, although the "Age of the Robber Barons" did see financial panics from time to time, they were quite short-lived and imposed no long-lasting effects upon the country at large. Between 1850 and 1910, the US GDP and standard of living made enormous gains. That age came to an end with the implementation of the Federal income tax program in 1913, with federal tax rates quickly sky-rocketing on all types of income – earned, corporate and capital gains. The "crushing depression and bread lines" and the economic malaise that crippled the nation for nearly a decade only came along after that.

Nowadays, of course, we no longer have "depressions"; we have "recessions" and "economic downturns" that quietly linger for three, four, five years or more. Do you really believe that the we are recovered from the 2008 market collapse?

Meanwhile the fact that American family incomes are said to have fallen by 30 pct in real terms is just wall-papered over with Potemkin-style federal statistical dissimulations. What's the "official" unemployment rate this year – under 6 pct? Suuuure. Nothing in today's official economic reporting can be trusted; nothing is on the level anymore.

Happy Holidays.

B

Blutarski:

Please read the following link and then reflect on your analysis above.

link

Then we can debate the big government vs. big business issue.

As to the financial panics, recessions and depressions of the past, some of them were quite pronounced and had long term effects on the US public. The 1807-1814 financial crisis comes to mind but my memory of the dates may be off.

Cheers and Season's Greetings.
Rod Robertson.

Blut –

link

We literally had financial panics and depresions every few years.

Sure, being a grunt in an office sucks today, but it's a lot nicer than being a coal miner when the national guard is called in because you stood up for an 8 hour work day.

@Lion – For sure.
Everything in moderation right?

Companies can be expected to do everything they can away with and then a bit more if the fines are lower than the expected profit.
Sometimes, things get over-regulated and sometimes we miss the ball.
Sometimes, we don't keep up with the times.

We know from practical experience that the public having no control over what business can do is awful and we can't have bureaucrats controlling every aspect of it either, so it's all dialing in the right factors.

beat me to it Weasel

from 1870 to 1900 1/2 the years where recession years.

the gold standard over the silver standard and Farmers and ranchers will tell you it lasted 20 years straight. 11880 to 1900

Weasel wrote – "We literally had financial panics and depressions every few years."

Weasel – I consider the "Age of the Robber Barons" (or "The Gilded Age", as it was otherwise known) to have spanned the period between the end of the ACW and the imposition of the federal income tax scheme. During that period of fifty years or so, the US economy made gigantic strides, from global also-ran to the top of the international heap for all practical purposes. There was a reason why millions of foreign immigrants streamed to the US in pursuit of better lives.

In that period of time, as I think I mentioned earlier, economic down-turns were quite brief in duration and did not materially influence what was otherwise a steep curve of economic improvement over time; the crash of 1873 (like the crash of 1987) can be connected in large part to a decision on the part of the federal government to change the rules of the game in mid-stream.

A lot of hyper-ventilating criticism been written about that period, much of it dwelling on cut-throat competition in pursuit of "monopolism" (like Bill Gates and Micro$oft or Andy Grove and Intel?) and "persecution of the working class". The story is, as usual IMO, a good deal more complicated. For example, this period was not only marked by the rise of "big corporations"; it was also marked by the rise of "big unions".

go here –
PDF link
- for a more dispassionate assessment of the labor issue. There was a very healthy "competition" between these two factions.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

Rod wrote – "Please read the following link and then reflect on your analysis above.

link

Then we can debate the big government vs. big business issue."

>>>>> Read it with interest and do not disagree with its salient points; nor do I find it in any way inconsistent with what I wrote earlier – certain parties do try to "game the system". But I would argue that the truth of that does not in any invalidate my position.

- – -

Rode wrote – "As to the financial panics, recessions and depressions of the past, some of them were quite pronounced and had long term effects on the US public. The 1807-1814 financial crisis comes to mind but my memory of the dates may be off."

>>>>> See my post to Weasel.

On a side note – the 1807-1814 financial crisis can be traced directly to the comprehensive economic blockade imposed upon the US by Great Britain during the War of 1812 and the British blockade of trade between the USA and continental Europe (and French Caribbean possessions in the period preceding.

- – -

Rod wrote – "Cheers and Season's Greetings."

>>>>> Indeed. The very same to you and yours, sir.

B

Blutarski:

I read the Princeton piece you linked to and while very thorough in its statistical approach to analysing the US organised labour waxwings and awnings of progress, it did seem to be a bit off topic.

The article makes it clear that the union movement in the US remained a workers movement and did not morph into a wider political movement with pro-Union parties following an explicit pro-labour political agenda as happened in Europe or Canada. The paper clearly demonstrates that part of the reason for the limited success of the union movement was that it was unable to gain real political power as opposed to political influence. Labour's progress was stymied by both state and federal government unwillingness to support most workers' rights and also the hostility of the court system and the growing reliance of using court injunctions to undermine collective action during collective bargaining.

Just to take the year of 1900 by way of example, between 25,000 and 35,000 workers lost their lives in that year alone due to industrial accidents or illness and between half a million to a full million were badly injured in that same year. Despite these numbers the state and the court systems would not hold employers liable for most injuries and fatalities of their employees while injured at work. Why? Because the state and the court system were packed with people sympathetic to business owners and either indifferent or hostile to workers' concerns.

So, the article, by limiting itself to an econometric approach misses some of the big points. It would be like examining WWII ammunition expenditures of the Axis and the Allies and concluding that the Allies were the paramount aggressors based on the volume of munitions they produced and used during the war. It's not a sound analysis, as the numbers do not reflect the human, ideological and moral dimensions of the tug of war between capital and labour.

It was however a very interesting read, with excellent data, so thank you for posting that.

Cheers and best wishes for the new year.
Rod Robertson.

Agree that this has been an interesting chat.

My reason for posting the labor document was simply to show that labor during the period in question was quite well organized and on a large scale and that business was not the only organism that had become "big". Whether or not late-19thC US labor movement had become "political" (however that should be precisely defined), industrial labor unions had become sufficiently large and powerful to be able to effectively negotiate contracts with even the largest corporate owners. The American steel industry, for example, was extensively unionized. It was not a one-sided "tug of war", as you have aptly put it.

Can't speak to the worker industrial safety issue, as I have never looked into it.

This discussion, as interesting and refreshingly civil as it has been, has wandered rather far from the original starting point.

Hope you had a nice Boxing Day.

B

Blutarski:

Yup, that was quite a tangent we were on.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

My thought is … that "limited war" does not generally always get the job done and makes the conflict last longer … Costing more blood & treasure in the long run …

ISIS being systematically forced back and on their last legs in Iraq?

Seems to have worked out pretty well actually.

It is possible I might be wrong, but my belief is that anyone who is relying upon the reporting of the mass media to follow and understand the current situation in the Mideast (specifically Syria and Iraq) has placed himself at a great disadvantage. What is being represented to the Western public as a simple "campaign against terrorism" has, I believe, numerous and profoundly deeper geo-political layers.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

ISIS being systematically forced back and on their last legs in Iraq?

Seems to have worked out pretty well actually.

Yes, it has. But only with a lot of US/Western/NATO, etc., help. Now many, like Dr. Gorka etc., and I agree, see this is one of the best ways/methods in defeating jihadis, etc. With using Western units to train, assist and support the locals. To take the fight to the enemies in their homelands. That was primarily been what the US SF was designed to do.

But as I said, limited war does not always get the job done. However, I strongly support what the West is doing to eliminate Daesh and other islamists. As well as whenever possible, use drones and air strikes to eliminate Daesh, etc., assets. And limit CD, but even than that may still occur in this type of conflict.

Now if you are one of 400 US troops in Syria, 5000 in Iraq and @ 10,000 in A'stan. Plus all the other Western forces involved in those locations and others. It may not always feel like a limited war. But in this cases, again, IMO, in this conflict Daesh is being attrited, little at a time. And keeping Western, etc. losses very low. I'd rather expend ordinance than US/Allied lives … The only lives IMO that are "expendable" are Daesh, AQ, and other jihadis, islamists, etc., that threatens the West, etc., …

And of course, I agree with you B … The media seems to write the story, regardless of it's veracity, accuracy, etc., in many cases. Seems almost everyone in the media wants to be another Woodward & Bernstein !