THE TRANSFORMATION OF WAR – MARTIN VON CREVELD - 1991
1.CONTEMPORARY WAR
At present, four-fifths of the world’s military power is controlled by a handful of industrialized
states: the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies in NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The
principal military states also “own” 95% of all military expertise
Nuclear war
By far the most important armaments of the principal military powers are nuclear weapons.
Though the first two atomic bombs were primitive devices, each one was a thousand times more
powerful than anything previously employed in war. US was the first country to acquire the bomb.
In 1949 that monopoly was broken by Stalin’s USSR. The testing of hydrogen bombs by the
superpowers in the 50s represented an important development. After the explosion of the two
bombs, other countries started developing their own nuclear programs. Developing a nuclear
program has put a tremendous strain on the technical and financial resources of poor countries
such as China, India, and Pakistan. Thus, China has not been able to recover the lost province of
Formosa, nor even has been able to punish Vietnam, a smaller military power. The bomb has not
helped India solve either the separatism problems neither in Sri Lanka nor in Kashmir. Pakistani
officials justify their nuclear program by their fear of conquest at the hands of India.
The bomb has not helped either Britain or France to regain its former great-power status. The
bomb came too late to prevent the loss of their colonial empires.
The superpowers have derived a large part of their status from their powerful nuclear arsenals.
Still, translating this status into tangible political benefits has proved problematic. The American
nuclear monopoly failed to stop the Soviets from consolidating their East European Empire. The
bomb could not prevent China from falling to Mao Tze Dong, an event which was regarded as the
greatest defeat ever suffered by the West in its struggle with world Communism. Since also the
Soviet Union had nuclear arms, the likelihood of such arms being used declined. Having neutralized
each other, the superpowers’ next discovery was that nuclear weapons do not confer great
advantages even in relation to countries not possessing them. Since 1945, both US and USSR have
seen their influence subject to many fluctuations, especially in the Third World. US first “lost,” then
“won,” a series of countries from Egypt to Indonesia and from Somalia to Iraq. USSR “lost” Chile
and temporarily “gained” Ethiopia—assuming that having one of the world’s poorest countries as
an ally does, in fact, constitute a gain. The reason why the political impact of nuclear weapons has
been so small is that nobody has yet come up with a convincing idea as to how a nuclear war could
be fought without blowing up the world. Serious strategists spent time calculating that, if the
superpowers’ populations could be evacuated in time and evenly dispersed over their respective
continents (one person per so many square meters) most of them would survive the blast of
nuclear weapons. Billions were invested in early-warning installations, blast- and radiation-proof
bunkers, and communication networks. There have been many attempts to find ways to make the
world safe for nuclear war by imposing limits on it. An early suggestion was that the nuclear
powers agree not to use bombs with a yield greater than a certain level of kilotons. Another idea
was to agree to use them only against selected targets, such as military installations. The attempt
to ban the most powerful weapons and avoid cities was commendable. However, it begged the
question as to why belligerents should go to war at all, especially one that threatened to terminate
the existence of both.
How to conduct a war with nuclear weapons was not the only problem confronted by military
planners. It was equally important to consider ways by which conventional forces could operate in
such a war and still survive. In the US, the introduction of “tactical” nukes during the 50s led to the
“pentomic era.” Traditional divisions were carved up into smaller and more mobile units, which
were supposed to operate in a decentralized and dispersed mode. In the 1970s, technical means
for “limiting” the damage were available, but also more dangerous. The secretary of defence under
Richard Nixon, was known for his ability to “articulate strategy.” He designed ways to use the new
devices then being deployed, namely the MIRV (Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles) and cruise
missiles, known for their pinpoint accuracy. The capability of pinpointing hardened targets as small
as missile silos permitted the power of the warheads to be reduced by an order of magnitude
without any loss of destructive effect. The problem was how to use the accurate warheads now
available for a “surgical strike” against the USSR. US Government was worried about the USSR
using its MIRV missiles to “take out” America’s land-based missiles. For several years many
different ideas were proposed to prevent this from happening. One was to station American
missiles under the sea or on moving platforms that would crawl over the bottom of lakes. Another
was to lead them on giant trucks and shuffle them from one firing position to the next along an
underground “racetrack”. A third idea was to dig deep holes which would be sealed, and the
missiles inside them would be able to screw their way up to the surface. None of these proposals
was ever adopted. In the 1980s, this particular wave of nuclear war-fighting doctrines died.
Conventional war
By the mid-fifties, with each superpower now in control of the larger part of a hemisphere,
conventional attacks against each other could only be successful if they were launched on a very
,large scale. A large attack would surely be answered with nuclear weapons. The American
secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, suggested that an attack might be quite small and still elicit
such a response. Known as “brinkmanship” and “massive retaliation,” this doctrine was designed
to make sure, as far as possible, that even small attacks would not be attempted in the first place.
From the 1948 Berlin blockade to the last West Berlin crisis in 1963, the superpowers tested each
other’s resolve. The testing ultimately did not work, and both sides ended up conceding defeat,
when one side erected the Berlin Wall and the other tacitly accepted it. The de facto division of
Europe into two zones closed the doors of the most important theatre in which conventional
warfare might still be waged. In 1953 the end of the Korean War created a similar situation on the
other side of the globe, and this time too it was soon cemented by permanent fortified lines.
Basically, this left only two places where large scale conventional fighting could still take place—
one along the Indo-Pakistani border, and the other in the Middle East. Thanks partly to racial
circumstances and partly to geographical ones, they were not considered close allies. Thus, the
effect of nuclear weapons has been to push conventional war into the faults between the main
tectonic plates, each dominated by the superpowers. The faults tended to be located in the
“rimlands”, which are a broad belt of territory stretching from west to east and dividing Asia into
two regions, northern and southern. Whatever their size, the danger always existed that the tail,
comprising some third-rate country, would end up by wagging the superpower dog. This was
brought home during the October 1973 War when President Nixon put America’s forces on nuclear
alert to stop an alleged Soviet threat to Israel. The threat seems to have left both Washington and
Moscow disinclined to repeat the experiment. As the small nations—e.g., Israel and her neighbours
—fought each other, the superpowers stood on the side-lines. Their military establishments had
invested millions of dollars finding ways whereby a superpower could engage in large-scale
conventional warfare in a nuclear world. The U.S. Army in the late 50s carried out a series of field
tests with nuclear weapons, with the result that decades later the American Government was being
sued for exposing its troops and civilians to the effects of radiation. None of these experiments
offered convincing proof that conventional forces could survive on the nuclear battlefield. If
conventional forces were to stand the slightest chance of surviving a nuclear war they would have
to disperse and hide. However, by discarding much of their heavy equipment in the process, they
would no longer be capable of waging conventional war. Thus the effect of nuclear weapons was to
threaten the existence of conventional forces, especially ground forces. Yet if fighting was to take
place at all, the only forces that could engage in it without threatening to blow up the world were
conventional ones. The solution of the Kennedy Administration consisted of plunging all out for
conventional war, nuclear weapons be damned. A new strategic doctrine known as “flexible
response” articulated this approach and was officially adopted by NATO in 1967. Henceforward
preparations for conventional war were to proceed as if the threat of nuclear escalation did not
exist. The purpose of flexible response, namely safeguarding the continued existence of
conventional forces, was achieved. The doctrine led to massive investments on surface ships,
submarines, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, fighter bombers, and attack helicopters. NATO
forces stationed in West Germany carefully tried to prevent their massive machines from damaging
civilian property. Given the alleged Soviet superiority in conventional forces, and the West German
refusal to fortify their borders, most Western analysts believed a determined Soviet attack could
only be stopped by using “tactical” nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons make their dampening
effect felt in such wars even when nobody threatens their use. As a result, US has only been able to
employ its conventional armed forces in cases where its vital interests were not at stake. The war
fought in Korea, a small appendix of Asia several thousands of miles away, provides an excellent
case in point. USSR deployed naval forces to cover the Cuban landing in Angola in 1976, helped the
Ethiopians defeat the Somalis in 1979, and sent some advisers to Central America during the
eighties; all of these were marginal issues, far removed from the centre of Soviet power. After
China developed a nuclear arsenal, the clashes along the Sino-Soviet border—clashes that at one
time threatened to escalate into a major war—came to an end. France, since its defeat in Algeria,
has been fairly active in Africa. However, it did not have the occasion to employ forces larger than
a regiment. After the unhappy experience of Suez in 1956, Britain’s career as a conventional power
appeared to be over. The nuclear threat apparently affected even the countries around Israel. If
internationally published sources can be credited, Israel, with French aid, started developing the
bomb during the late 50s. This may have limited the 1973 War. Though the Arabs had missile
delivery systems, Israeli territory was scarcely attacked at all. A final case in point, demonstrating
the very limited role still left to conventional war in the nuclear age, is provided by the Gulf Crisis.
Since 1945 no superpower has engaged in conventional hostilities. The superpowers’ non-nuclear
allies have also been virtually immune to conventional war, except when launched by the side
which claimed to offer them “protection” (e.g., the Soviets in East Germany, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia). Countries not in possession of nuclear arsenals have engaged each other in
conventional war more frequently. The most important clashes took place in the Middle East,
between China and Taiwan (1954, 1958), India and China (1962), and along the Indo-Pakistani
border. However, during the 1970s nuclear weapons have been introduced into these regions.
Since then the incidence of conventional war has undergone a marked decline. Egypt and Israel
, have signed a peace treaty. Israel and Jordan were unofficially at peace. China has declared its
intention of using only peaceful means to achieve reunification with Taiwan, a country that has
nuclear potential. India and Pakistan in January 1989 agreed to refrain from bombing each other’s
nuclear installations in the dispute of Kashmir.
Very few conflicts have led to internationally recognized territorial changes. One exception was the
1948-49 war in the Middle East which led to the establishment of Israel; even so, Jordan’s
annexation of the West Bank was not recognized by the international community at large. Another
was the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 which, though it led to the establishment of Bangla Desh, did
not result in the drawing of new frontiers. “Employing armed force for acquiring territory” has, after
all, been declared unacceptable by formal, written, international law.
Low-intensity war
Compared to conventional forces, nuclear ones are a lot cheaper. The principal reason why military
powers for many years devoted so much effort preparing for conventional conflict in a nuclear age
was the imperative desire to prevent a nuclear war from breaking out. This line of reasoning,
embodied in the doctrine of “flexible response,” was adopted by NATO: unless they have
conventional forces at their disposal, decision makers could find themselves unable to respond to a
crisis. Even a small crisis might force them to resort to nuclear weapons, a less attractive
possibility still. The obligation of maintaining strong conventional forces was to prevent this awful
dilemma from arising. In case it did arise, starting the war with conventional forces would hopefully
buy time for negotiation. Since 1945 there have been perhaps 160 armed conflicts around the
world. Of those, perhaps three quarters have been of the so-called “low intensity” variety. The
principal characteristics of low-intensity conflict (LIC) are:
- they tend to unfold in “less developed” parts of the world
- They very rarely involve regular armies on both sides: it is often a question of regulars on
one side fighting guerrillas, terrorists, and even civilians, including women and children, on
the other.
- They do not rely primarily on the high technology weapons.
LICs have also been far bloodier than any other kind of war fought since 1945. For example, up to 3
million people are said to have perished during the Nigerian Civil War from 1966 to 1969. Out of
several dozen “conventional” conflicts waged since 1945, almost the only one which resulted in the
establishment of new frontiers was the 1948 one between Israel and its neighbours, and even then
the outcome was not an international border but merely an armistice line. Perhaps the best
indication of the political importance of LIC is that its results, unlike those of conventional wars,
have usually been recognized by the international community.
After 1945, the principal colonial powers fought very hard to maintain the empires they created
during the previous four centuries. They were also utterly ruthless. Entire populations were
decimated, shut in concentration camps or turned into refugees. However, the
“counterinsurgency” forces failed in every case. Only to mention the most important places, the
British lost India, Palestine, Kenya, Cyprus, and Aden. The French spent years fighting in Indochina
and in Algeria; having failed in both cases, they gave up the rest of the empire without a struggle,
a few minor possessions only excepted. The Belgians were forced to surrender the Congo. The
Dutch lost Indonesia. The Spaniards yield the Sahara without a struggle. Even the South Africans,
who held out longer than anybody else, ended up by agreeing to withdraw from Namibia. There is
just one example of a former colonial power “winning” a struggle in the Third World. The British
armed forces in Malaysia successfully put down a communist insurgency. It was the only time in
history when a country, far from using war for expansionist ends, from the beginning announced its
intention of not doing so. The British Conservative Government headed by Churchill promised that
Malaysia would be evacuated once the insurgency was defeated. The British kept their word.
For nine years the Americans fought in Vietnam. Over 2 million troops were sent out. Yet,
catastrophic defeat had become evident. A rich and powerful country had tried to trample on a
poor, weak Third-World society, and once again it had failed. The failures of conventional forces
during the period 1975-90 have been numerous. Perhaps the outstanding case was that of the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan. When the invasion took place in 1979, there was the belief that the
Russians could take the Persian Gulf. US set up a Deployment Force, even though it never stood
the slightest chance of repulsing the Soviets by conventional means. Inside Afghanistan, opposition
to the Red Army consisted of guerrilla organizations. Their members had little formal training, yet
nine years later, that Army was staggering back across the border.
Nor have armies belonging to less developed countries done much better against LIC. Perhaps
most interesting of all is the case of the Israeli Army which, in 1982, invaded Lebanon. They also
pushed back the Syrians, inflicting a heavy defeat on the Syrian air force in particular. Their tanks,
aircraft, artillery, missiles, and remotely piloted vehicles were of no use against the kind of
opposition which they now confronted.
The record of failure
The great majority of wars since 1945 have been Low Intensity Conflicts. In terms of both
casualties suffered and political results achieved, these wars have been more important than any
others. Due to the colonial legacy, Western states have been much more involved than those from
1.CONTEMPORARY WAR
At present, four-fifths of the world’s military power is controlled by a handful of industrialized
states: the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies in NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The
principal military states also “own” 95% of all military expertise
Nuclear war
By far the most important armaments of the principal military powers are nuclear weapons.
Though the first two atomic bombs were primitive devices, each one was a thousand times more
powerful than anything previously employed in war. US was the first country to acquire the bomb.
In 1949 that monopoly was broken by Stalin’s USSR. The testing of hydrogen bombs by the
superpowers in the 50s represented an important development. After the explosion of the two
bombs, other countries started developing their own nuclear programs. Developing a nuclear
program has put a tremendous strain on the technical and financial resources of poor countries
such as China, India, and Pakistan. Thus, China has not been able to recover the lost province of
Formosa, nor even has been able to punish Vietnam, a smaller military power. The bomb has not
helped India solve either the separatism problems neither in Sri Lanka nor in Kashmir. Pakistani
officials justify their nuclear program by their fear of conquest at the hands of India.
The bomb has not helped either Britain or France to regain its former great-power status. The
bomb came too late to prevent the loss of their colonial empires.
The superpowers have derived a large part of their status from their powerful nuclear arsenals.
Still, translating this status into tangible political benefits has proved problematic. The American
nuclear monopoly failed to stop the Soviets from consolidating their East European Empire. The
bomb could not prevent China from falling to Mao Tze Dong, an event which was regarded as the
greatest defeat ever suffered by the West in its struggle with world Communism. Since also the
Soviet Union had nuclear arms, the likelihood of such arms being used declined. Having neutralized
each other, the superpowers’ next discovery was that nuclear weapons do not confer great
advantages even in relation to countries not possessing them. Since 1945, both US and USSR have
seen their influence subject to many fluctuations, especially in the Third World. US first “lost,” then
“won,” a series of countries from Egypt to Indonesia and from Somalia to Iraq. USSR “lost” Chile
and temporarily “gained” Ethiopia—assuming that having one of the world’s poorest countries as
an ally does, in fact, constitute a gain. The reason why the political impact of nuclear weapons has
been so small is that nobody has yet come up with a convincing idea as to how a nuclear war could
be fought without blowing up the world. Serious strategists spent time calculating that, if the
superpowers’ populations could be evacuated in time and evenly dispersed over their respective
continents (one person per so many square meters) most of them would survive the blast of
nuclear weapons. Billions were invested in early-warning installations, blast- and radiation-proof
bunkers, and communication networks. There have been many attempts to find ways to make the
world safe for nuclear war by imposing limits on it. An early suggestion was that the nuclear
powers agree not to use bombs with a yield greater than a certain level of kilotons. Another idea
was to agree to use them only against selected targets, such as military installations. The attempt
to ban the most powerful weapons and avoid cities was commendable. However, it begged the
question as to why belligerents should go to war at all, especially one that threatened to terminate
the existence of both.
How to conduct a war with nuclear weapons was not the only problem confronted by military
planners. It was equally important to consider ways by which conventional forces could operate in
such a war and still survive. In the US, the introduction of “tactical” nukes during the 50s led to the
“pentomic era.” Traditional divisions were carved up into smaller and more mobile units, which
were supposed to operate in a decentralized and dispersed mode. In the 1970s, technical means
for “limiting” the damage were available, but also more dangerous. The secretary of defence under
Richard Nixon, was known for his ability to “articulate strategy.” He designed ways to use the new
devices then being deployed, namely the MIRV (Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles) and cruise
missiles, known for their pinpoint accuracy. The capability of pinpointing hardened targets as small
as missile silos permitted the power of the warheads to be reduced by an order of magnitude
without any loss of destructive effect. The problem was how to use the accurate warheads now
available for a “surgical strike” against the USSR. US Government was worried about the USSR
using its MIRV missiles to “take out” America’s land-based missiles. For several years many
different ideas were proposed to prevent this from happening. One was to station American
missiles under the sea or on moving platforms that would crawl over the bottom of lakes. Another
was to lead them on giant trucks and shuffle them from one firing position to the next along an
underground “racetrack”. A third idea was to dig deep holes which would be sealed, and the
missiles inside them would be able to screw their way up to the surface. None of these proposals
was ever adopted. In the 1980s, this particular wave of nuclear war-fighting doctrines died.
Conventional war
By the mid-fifties, with each superpower now in control of the larger part of a hemisphere,
conventional attacks against each other could only be successful if they were launched on a very
,large scale. A large attack would surely be answered with nuclear weapons. The American
secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, suggested that an attack might be quite small and still elicit
such a response. Known as “brinkmanship” and “massive retaliation,” this doctrine was designed
to make sure, as far as possible, that even small attacks would not be attempted in the first place.
From the 1948 Berlin blockade to the last West Berlin crisis in 1963, the superpowers tested each
other’s resolve. The testing ultimately did not work, and both sides ended up conceding defeat,
when one side erected the Berlin Wall and the other tacitly accepted it. The de facto division of
Europe into two zones closed the doors of the most important theatre in which conventional
warfare might still be waged. In 1953 the end of the Korean War created a similar situation on the
other side of the globe, and this time too it was soon cemented by permanent fortified lines.
Basically, this left only two places where large scale conventional fighting could still take place—
one along the Indo-Pakistani border, and the other in the Middle East. Thanks partly to racial
circumstances and partly to geographical ones, they were not considered close allies. Thus, the
effect of nuclear weapons has been to push conventional war into the faults between the main
tectonic plates, each dominated by the superpowers. The faults tended to be located in the
“rimlands”, which are a broad belt of territory stretching from west to east and dividing Asia into
two regions, northern and southern. Whatever their size, the danger always existed that the tail,
comprising some third-rate country, would end up by wagging the superpower dog. This was
brought home during the October 1973 War when President Nixon put America’s forces on nuclear
alert to stop an alleged Soviet threat to Israel. The threat seems to have left both Washington and
Moscow disinclined to repeat the experiment. As the small nations—e.g., Israel and her neighbours
—fought each other, the superpowers stood on the side-lines. Their military establishments had
invested millions of dollars finding ways whereby a superpower could engage in large-scale
conventional warfare in a nuclear world. The U.S. Army in the late 50s carried out a series of field
tests with nuclear weapons, with the result that decades later the American Government was being
sued for exposing its troops and civilians to the effects of radiation. None of these experiments
offered convincing proof that conventional forces could survive on the nuclear battlefield. If
conventional forces were to stand the slightest chance of surviving a nuclear war they would have
to disperse and hide. However, by discarding much of their heavy equipment in the process, they
would no longer be capable of waging conventional war. Thus the effect of nuclear weapons was to
threaten the existence of conventional forces, especially ground forces. Yet if fighting was to take
place at all, the only forces that could engage in it without threatening to blow up the world were
conventional ones. The solution of the Kennedy Administration consisted of plunging all out for
conventional war, nuclear weapons be damned. A new strategic doctrine known as “flexible
response” articulated this approach and was officially adopted by NATO in 1967. Henceforward
preparations for conventional war were to proceed as if the threat of nuclear escalation did not
exist. The purpose of flexible response, namely safeguarding the continued existence of
conventional forces, was achieved. The doctrine led to massive investments on surface ships,
submarines, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, fighter bombers, and attack helicopters. NATO
forces stationed in West Germany carefully tried to prevent their massive machines from damaging
civilian property. Given the alleged Soviet superiority in conventional forces, and the West German
refusal to fortify their borders, most Western analysts believed a determined Soviet attack could
only be stopped by using “tactical” nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons make their dampening
effect felt in such wars even when nobody threatens their use. As a result, US has only been able to
employ its conventional armed forces in cases where its vital interests were not at stake. The war
fought in Korea, a small appendix of Asia several thousands of miles away, provides an excellent
case in point. USSR deployed naval forces to cover the Cuban landing in Angola in 1976, helped the
Ethiopians defeat the Somalis in 1979, and sent some advisers to Central America during the
eighties; all of these were marginal issues, far removed from the centre of Soviet power. After
China developed a nuclear arsenal, the clashes along the Sino-Soviet border—clashes that at one
time threatened to escalate into a major war—came to an end. France, since its defeat in Algeria,
has been fairly active in Africa. However, it did not have the occasion to employ forces larger than
a regiment. After the unhappy experience of Suez in 1956, Britain’s career as a conventional power
appeared to be over. The nuclear threat apparently affected even the countries around Israel. If
internationally published sources can be credited, Israel, with French aid, started developing the
bomb during the late 50s. This may have limited the 1973 War. Though the Arabs had missile
delivery systems, Israeli territory was scarcely attacked at all. A final case in point, demonstrating
the very limited role still left to conventional war in the nuclear age, is provided by the Gulf Crisis.
Since 1945 no superpower has engaged in conventional hostilities. The superpowers’ non-nuclear
allies have also been virtually immune to conventional war, except when launched by the side
which claimed to offer them “protection” (e.g., the Soviets in East Germany, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia). Countries not in possession of nuclear arsenals have engaged each other in
conventional war more frequently. The most important clashes took place in the Middle East,
between China and Taiwan (1954, 1958), India and China (1962), and along the Indo-Pakistani
border. However, during the 1970s nuclear weapons have been introduced into these regions.
Since then the incidence of conventional war has undergone a marked decline. Egypt and Israel
, have signed a peace treaty. Israel and Jordan were unofficially at peace. China has declared its
intention of using only peaceful means to achieve reunification with Taiwan, a country that has
nuclear potential. India and Pakistan in January 1989 agreed to refrain from bombing each other’s
nuclear installations in the dispute of Kashmir.
Very few conflicts have led to internationally recognized territorial changes. One exception was the
1948-49 war in the Middle East which led to the establishment of Israel; even so, Jordan’s
annexation of the West Bank was not recognized by the international community at large. Another
was the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 which, though it led to the establishment of Bangla Desh, did
not result in the drawing of new frontiers. “Employing armed force for acquiring territory” has, after
all, been declared unacceptable by formal, written, international law.
Low-intensity war
Compared to conventional forces, nuclear ones are a lot cheaper. The principal reason why military
powers for many years devoted so much effort preparing for conventional conflict in a nuclear age
was the imperative desire to prevent a nuclear war from breaking out. This line of reasoning,
embodied in the doctrine of “flexible response,” was adopted by NATO: unless they have
conventional forces at their disposal, decision makers could find themselves unable to respond to a
crisis. Even a small crisis might force them to resort to nuclear weapons, a less attractive
possibility still. The obligation of maintaining strong conventional forces was to prevent this awful
dilemma from arising. In case it did arise, starting the war with conventional forces would hopefully
buy time for negotiation. Since 1945 there have been perhaps 160 armed conflicts around the
world. Of those, perhaps three quarters have been of the so-called “low intensity” variety. The
principal characteristics of low-intensity conflict (LIC) are:
- they tend to unfold in “less developed” parts of the world
- They very rarely involve regular armies on both sides: it is often a question of regulars on
one side fighting guerrillas, terrorists, and even civilians, including women and children, on
the other.
- They do not rely primarily on the high technology weapons.
LICs have also been far bloodier than any other kind of war fought since 1945. For example, up to 3
million people are said to have perished during the Nigerian Civil War from 1966 to 1969. Out of
several dozen “conventional” conflicts waged since 1945, almost the only one which resulted in the
establishment of new frontiers was the 1948 one between Israel and its neighbours, and even then
the outcome was not an international border but merely an armistice line. Perhaps the best
indication of the political importance of LIC is that its results, unlike those of conventional wars,
have usually been recognized by the international community.
After 1945, the principal colonial powers fought very hard to maintain the empires they created
during the previous four centuries. They were also utterly ruthless. Entire populations were
decimated, shut in concentration camps or turned into refugees. However, the
“counterinsurgency” forces failed in every case. Only to mention the most important places, the
British lost India, Palestine, Kenya, Cyprus, and Aden. The French spent years fighting in Indochina
and in Algeria; having failed in both cases, they gave up the rest of the empire without a struggle,
a few minor possessions only excepted. The Belgians were forced to surrender the Congo. The
Dutch lost Indonesia. The Spaniards yield the Sahara without a struggle. Even the South Africans,
who held out longer than anybody else, ended up by agreeing to withdraw from Namibia. There is
just one example of a former colonial power “winning” a struggle in the Third World. The British
armed forces in Malaysia successfully put down a communist insurgency. It was the only time in
history when a country, far from using war for expansionist ends, from the beginning announced its
intention of not doing so. The British Conservative Government headed by Churchill promised that
Malaysia would be evacuated once the insurgency was defeated. The British kept their word.
For nine years the Americans fought in Vietnam. Over 2 million troops were sent out. Yet,
catastrophic defeat had become evident. A rich and powerful country had tried to trample on a
poor, weak Third-World society, and once again it had failed. The failures of conventional forces
during the period 1975-90 have been numerous. Perhaps the outstanding case was that of the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan. When the invasion took place in 1979, there was the belief that the
Russians could take the Persian Gulf. US set up a Deployment Force, even though it never stood
the slightest chance of repulsing the Soviets by conventional means. Inside Afghanistan, opposition
to the Red Army consisted of guerrilla organizations. Their members had little formal training, yet
nine years later, that Army was staggering back across the border.
Nor have armies belonging to less developed countries done much better against LIC. Perhaps
most interesting of all is the case of the Israeli Army which, in 1982, invaded Lebanon. They also
pushed back the Syrians, inflicting a heavy defeat on the Syrian air force in particular. Their tanks,
aircraft, artillery, missiles, and remotely piloted vehicles were of no use against the kind of
opposition which they now confronted.
The record of failure
The great majority of wars since 1945 have been Low Intensity Conflicts. In terms of both
casualties suffered and political results achieved, these wars have been more important than any
others. Due to the colonial legacy, Western states have been much more involved than those from
