Military Theory, Strategy, and Praxis
Abstract
Strategy today is not what it was during the Cold War or even during World War II. There is a radical difference between strategy formulated to fight conventional wars and deter nuclear wars and that necessary to conduct armed struggle in the post-modern world. The state no longer defines the nature of the conflict in the latter case. An earlier theory of warfare based on the nations-at-war model emphasized the primacy of conflicts between nations and saw constabulary functions, such as countering brigands and pirates, as a necessary but secondary task. However, contemporary theory has had to give a central place to combating nonstate actors. Since 2001, with the exception of a few weeks in the spring of 2003, the United States and its allies have been making war on nonstate actors, quasi-organizations beyond the brigand or pirate status, but clearly not state actors. Their persistence on the scene suggests that in some parts of the world the Western concept of the nation-state born with the Treaty of Westphalia is under challenge. Indeed, the territory of these nonstate actors encompasses that of several states, even though they formally control little of it. (Although the agents of these nonstate actors impose their control over local judicial systems and religious practices, they carry out few functions of a state.) This different sort of conflict is challenging the way armed forces organize, equip, and conduct themselves in the face of this threat.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA538798
Entities
People
- Jacob W. Kipp
- Lester W. Grau
Organizations
- United States Army Combined Arms Center