The Changing Nature of Warfare
Abstract
The conference was about warfare, that is, violence, killing, and coping with these phenomena, not particularly geostrategic matters, or deterrence, or arms races, though some of those subjects inevitably came up. If there were one major debate at the conference it was between those who said, Its Clausewitz foreverwar will always be the same, across the spectrum, vs. those who straight-lined todays concerns to the future and argued, Its insurgencies that well be explained to mean war in the context of everything else, including social, cultural, economic, and political dynamics .It was generally recognized that theres a migration of conflict down from the state-on-state level to internal conflicts and down to individuals, though one presenter made a strong case that Asia (from India-fighting mostly from now through 2020, including global terror as a form of insurgency. But the discussions were really more subtle than that and Clausewitz was Pakistan to Korea) is a potentially threatening place for classic state-on-state warfare in the future. Much of the discussion turned to the current situation in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, and thus to insurgency and terror, and so to the biggest current geostrategic problem, that of the Islamic world. As Art Cebrowski said, the invasion of Iraq was a master strategic move, right into the heart of the Gap, but Martin Van Creveld called it a huge blunder and said that the United States should get out.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2004
- Accession Number
- AD1014542
Entities
People
- Henry H. Gaffney
- Ken E. Gause
- Michael A. Mcdevitt
- W. E. Cobble
Organizations
- Center for Naval Analyses