Hello all:
Well, 'school' is about to start again. I'm looking forward to it. I'm always grateful for a break but then I'm always eager to start on something new. I hope that you will all enjoy this upcoming course. The general pattern of it is similar to what we did last year but obviously we're looking at morer contemporary issues.
Some of you know me already (and vice versa) from last year. Others do not, so let me say a few words about myself. I'm Canadian by nationality but I've lived in the UK since 1998, did my PhD here, have had two kids here(Charlie 2, Lily 1) and bought a house here. If nothing else the mortgage payments on the last means that I can never leave, although to be honest I have no intention of doing so anyway. I love my job. I can't imagine teaching anywhere or anything else. Basically, I feel very British--mind you my accent remains resolutely Canuck, evidently some things do not change for some people.
My academic interest is generally focussed on the conduct of contemporary warfare and, more specifically, on the intersection of what is called the technologically-oriented 'Revolution in Military Affairs' which is, I would argue, the apotheosis of the Western way of war, and irregular warfare, or insurgency, which I tend to think of as the antithesis of the Western way of war. I get preoccupied by seemingly banal questions like 'how does war work?' because it strikes me that as a tool of policy right now it doesn't work very well at all. There are complicated reasons for this but for my part I think they can be boiled down in three ways:
1. significant changes in technology have vastly increased the capacity of high-tech militaries to 'kill people and break things';
2. but this does not mean that victory is easier or cheaper to attain because alongside technological change in the conduct of warfare there have been equally significant non-technological changes which can be crudely summarized 'the East has solved the riddle of the Western way of war'--not by matching its traditional strengths but by bypassing them;
3. and, at the same time, victory or 'strategic success' is elusive because the current zeitgeist of the West is ambivalent or hostile to the notion of war as an instrument of politics in any form because rightly or wrongly, probably wrongly, it feels that it is beyond the need for strategic choice.
This being the case the kinds of things which I research and write about are a bit of a mixed bag. I think a lot about military technology, doctrine, culture and training--and that mostly in terms of land warfare because, for one, that's where wars are decided and, for another, because as a former infantryman I'm biased. I love the infantry, basically. I have a major interest in counterinsurgency and irregular warfare, as well as information warfare, which I've been writing about recently. And finally, I have a new but growing interest in ethics of war and the Just War tradition which in the past I have tended to ignore because it struck me that the principles of Just War were more often than not applied as a bludgeon to delegitimize and undermine warlike policies with which people disagreed. I've come to realize, however, that people like me who are interested in making war 'work' as a tool of policy have no chance of doing that without engaging in debate with those who are ambivalent or hostile to the notion. Which, of course, means learning the terms of ethical debate on war--a steep learning curve for me!
Personal interests: I enjoy swimming, climbing and running and generally being out of doors in bad weather. I love the idea of sailing arouond the world; unfortunately the reality is I get seasick on the Thames River if the wind is up; thus it has always been my dream one day to cruise the world by Zeppelin or submarine--whichever is steadiest. I find painting military miniatures very stress relieving. Oh and I love beer in rather the same way as, for example, fish love water. Bear that in mind if you're ever in London around marking time!
That's enough about me. How about you?
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5 comments:
Hi David,
I have just posted a response to your Michael Howard quote on my own blog - enjoy!
Like you - I can't wait to get stuck in again this coming term.
As a starter on what you have just posted ... Clarke talks about "war" simply being the means of making the peace but that it is the means of keeping it that is the challenge - no shit Sherlock! But what is really interesting is that he goes a stage further to discuss the fact that peace used to thought of as "self implementing" but that peace (and the longevity and stabilty of it) is actually now more related to the realtinoships between the various actors (victors and vanquished if you prefer)and how they are conducted. When we get to terrorism I'm sure that we will start looking at whether the West is making terrorists quicker than it is removing them. I would argue that until the U.S. gets rid of "secret CIA jails", stops carpet (precision?) bombing as a quick fix answer, etc, the answer is probably that we are. The British learned this in Northern Ireland when acting outside (at least the spirit) of the law because GWBush would maintain that secret CIA prisons are actually within the law although I suspect because they are not on the U.S. mainland. Surely there must be a longer term view taken i.e. make your system better (or at the very worst look better) than the altenative. Interestingly, maybe this is already working as more Muslims entered the U.S. last year on long term visas than in any other year in the last twenty. However much it hurts - keep to the moral high ground for surely that is where long term success (and enduring peace) is to be found.
Sorry to bang on but just itching to get going again....
David
Welcome back from your holidays.
I too enjoyed your intro piece as I can also admit to a certain attraction to the whole debate over the technological RMA. Indeed, I found your statement that 'significant changes in technology have vastly increased the capacity of high-tech militaries to kill people and break things' particularly exciting. Being a bit of a sceptic, I would probably conclude that the principle aim behind the development of military technology (or at least that part of it which is actually realised), may not be 'more bang' (ie 'more killed people and more broken things') but 'less buck' (eg greater accuracy and range = less assets required, efficient systems = reduction in supply reqts etc).
Of course, in terms of the pursuit of the ultimate in 'kill people and break things' technology, the nuclear bomb (which is arguably obsolete) was the zenith of that particular brand of military potential. So perhaps the West is not experiencing anything like the 'vast increases in capacity' that you describe. Even if it was, would the West have the will to actually use it?
I reckon that, for the West at least, we may be witnessing a resurgence of a low-level and relatively low-tech approach to operations where a doctrine that recognises the politic and people parts of the equation might have rather more sucess than the ability to lazer-guide a bomb up someone's trouser leg.
Nick
A few quick thoughts. I am waiting to catch a flight to Germany for a NATO exercise and don't have much time.
This is a very interesting topic (RMA) to begin with and one which I am learning more about everyday. I agree with Nick that greater killing/breaking capacity might not necessarily be the aim. Much of the literature I've read on RMA ties in the idea of nodal analysis and effects based warfare. The idea being that enhanced battlespace awareness (via a mass of networked sensors) combined with precision munitions allows you to bypass attrition style warfare and hit key nodes that bring victory sooner, with less effort and lower collateral effects. I think however that the lower cost motive probably doesn't fit, at least for the US conception of RMA. The cost to realize things like netcentric warfare is immense - billions upon billions.
On the question of why war doesn't work so well at the moment: perhaps it is due to a shift in salience of the state itself. Its cliché to say now, but globalization increased the power of individuals and groups vis a vis states. Individuals and groups have come to the fore as key players and are less dependent on states to further their goals. So if the new key players are individuals and sub-state groups then the target set (state militaries) that the west has used to organize its militaries around has shifted. The RMA is nice only when you have a defined battlespace and defined targets you want to cue your sensors to, such as tanks and uniformed personnel. It is much more difficult to pick out an Iraqi insurgent from a crowd in the cities where they operate.
Add to this the heavy political aspect to these types of conflict and the US military becomes further out of step with this current mode of warfare. To fight this style of war ideas like the British COIN doctrine (discussed to some degree last term) should probably be integrated into grand strategy. It would take integration of political, economic, criminal and military tools to fight more effectively.
This course is fun already and it hasn't even begun.
sean
I think you are all right concerning the RMA. In one sense it works--as we saw in March-April 2003 in Iraq it's possible to rapidly take down opposing armed forces. In a larger sense it doesn't because the configuration of forces in low-intensity conflict, or to use Rupert Smith's better term, 'war amongst the people', is, first, generally not easily targetable, and second, even when you do have something to shoot at it is often wiser not to. Fundamentally, it strikes me that there have been several 'revolutionary' things happening in warfare lately. The West chose the one that played to its strengths, 'the RMA', while more or less ignoring the one which did not--the evolution of insurgencies, intensely political, savagely violent, but basically psychological contests.
No doubt the UK is less guilty in this respect than the US. It had Northern Ireland to remind it of the need to maintain their light infantry skills and, as opposed to the US, it had a peacekeeping tradition which meant it understood better that the flip side of killing people and breaking things, mopping the blood and sweeping up the glass , wasn't an optional extra but a vital step to strategic success. But it's all relative--you can see the same problems in the UK and some similar mistakes.
No doubt you've all got lots of reading to do but if you're interested in following this more I'd recommend:
Frank Hoffman, 'Complex Irregular Warfare', Orbis (I can't remember the volume but the year was latet 2005 early 2006)
Also google his name and look for his articles on '4 Block War' and 'hybrid warfare'.
David Kilcullen, 'Countering Global Insurgency', Journal of Strategic Studies (2005, i forget the volume and number)
Sean, you might find interesting this article:
Jim Storr, 'A Critique of Effects-Based Thinking' Rusi Journal, Vol. 150, No. 6 (December 2005)
I've read a number of things by him--very clever and insightful guy.
David
I think Sean has highlighted important differences between US and UK politics and especially our relative economies. However, I stand by what I said about 'less cost', especially as it came with the caveat '[or] at least that part of it which is actually realised'. I like to think that a significant difference between UK and US economic attitude exists and that this difference is evident in defence. Where the US appears to lean towards risk-taking, adding value and spending money to make profit (where, in defence, profit = capability), the UK seems to be more attracted towards maximising this profit by reducing costs, making savings and efficiencies and generally being a bit cheap. This, I believe, may be true in all areas and is pronounced in defence procurement. As any visitor to the UK's Defence Logistics Organisation or Defence Procurement Agency might testify, the focus appears to be on the means (efficiency) rather than the ends (capability).
Nick
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