Surrogate warfare: the art of war in the 21st century?

Airpower, drones and cyber-weapons are employed by states in conjunction with local armed non-state actors in an effort to coercively intervene in the crises of the twenty-first century. While the externalization of the burden of warfare is a return to pre-modern war, it is the change in the underlying socio-political relations between the state and its military agent that is a novel phenomenon in surrogate warfare. This article demonstrates that in a post-Westphalian era characterized by non-state violence, globalized conflicts, a prioritization of risk management in a mediatized environment, the state has to explore new ways to remain relevant as the primary communal security provider. Thereby, the organization of violence has departed from the employment of the state’s soldier as the primary bearer of the burden of warfare to a mode of war where technological and human surrogates enable the state to manage the risks of post-modern conflict remotely. In this article, we conceptually explore surrogate warfare as a socio-political phenomenon within the context of globalized, privatized, securitized and mediatized war.     

Drone usage by militant groups: exploring variation in adoption

Judging by recent media reporting and pronouncements by senior US military and security officials, the use of drones by militant groups is both reshaping conflict between armed non-state actors and state parties and now presents a grave and direct threat to nations in the West and elsewhere. But does this threat warrant the attention it is currently receiving? To answer this question, this article surveys how various militant groups have used drones both tactically on the battlefield and for wider strategic purposes. Closely examining how drones have been employed and by whom provides a basis for understanding variation in adoption. The article shows how drone usage or non-usage is highly contingent on the setting of the conflict, the aims of different groups, and the capacity of groups to adopt the technology. Though advances in drone technology could make the use-case more appealing for militant groups, drones will be subject to the same back-and-forth, techno-tactical adaptation dynamic between adversaries that have accompanied prior military innovations.     

Another manifestation of cyber conflict: attaining military objectives through cyber avenues of approach

Cyberspace is an avenue of approach through which a military force can attain objectives of value. Through these cyber avenues of approach, military forces can engage, vet, organize, and direct human agents to accomplish specific activities. Although the objectives of these activities could differ from traditional military objectives, they still have military relevance. This particular manifestation of cyber conflict is neither a new domain of war nor something outside of warfare. Rather, it can be viewed as an emerging avenue of approach in the larger context of military operations, auguring benefits in the integration of cyber activities with operations.     

The continuing resonance of the war as risk management perspective for understanding military interventions

In the late 1990s and 2000s, a slew of books and journal articles proposed that a nexus between risk management and warfare was emerging. This article argues that risk management ideas continue to shape recent campaigns against Libya, Islamic State, Syria, and the war on terror from Niger, Yemen to Somalia. It uses existing literature on risk and warfare to examine four key aspects of contemporary interventions. First, the article evaluates the overall strategic context as security concerns shift from terrorism toward renewed great power competition. Second, it re-assesses the risk calculus for military action through the language and grammar of risk invoked by politicians. Third and fourth, it addresses the continuing reliance on air power and the managerial ethos of military operations as important features of war as risk management.     

The legality of unmanned aerial vehicles outside the combat zone: a case study of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan

The drone is the latest tool to promote interests of a nation-state. It is clear that USA as well as other major powers anticipate that robotics will play a key role in future warfare. Today, more than 70 countries have already acquired drone technology and many others are desperate to join the ranks. This urge for drone technology will ultimately lead to a “boundless and borderless war without end.” In the case of Pakistan, the US drone campaign has raised some important issues regarding how their use could, or should, be regulated in the future. This article analyses the legal issues raised by the US's use of drone technology in non-combat zones, such as Pakistan. It is argued that a reckless disrespect of Pakistan's sovereignty has had adverse implications and consequences for the legitimacy of the Pakistani government. Drone strikes have prompted instinctive opposition among the Pakistani population, hurt their feelings and estranged them from the government. This in turn has added to Pakistan's instability and stimulated a ground-swell of animosity toward the USA.     

United States defence contractors and the future of military operations

ABSTRACT

The United States’ global strategic outlook has shifted markedly since the end of major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the United States’ strategic posture shifts, the nature of military operations is simultaneously changing rapidly. Many analysts predict that cyber-operations, autonomous weapons systems, artificial intelligence, and clandestine special forces operations will be central features in future conflicts. Although often overlooked by scholars and policy analysts, defence contractors are integral to the development and implementation of these emerging categories of warfare. This inquiry examines the evolving nature of the American defence industry and the roles corporations play in current theatres of conflict. Surprisingly, rather than becoming less reliant on defence contractors after their much-maligned performance in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American military and intelligence agencies have become more dependent on the private sector as technology becomes increasingly central to warfare.     

Holmes’ front: constructing a new face of battle for America’s Civil War

ABSTRACT

In his seminal study of the changing nature of warfare between Agincourt and the Somme, military historian John Keegan proposed that future historians might consider combatants’ emotions in their assessments of the impact and nature of conflict. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of the history of emotions as an analytical approach, but rarely, if ever, is this directed toward the study of military history, far less the history of insurgencies and counter-insurgencies. This paper examines America’s civil war (1861–1865) as a case study of the ways in which an emotional history approach might illuminate not the physical experiences of but rather the immediate and longer-term reactions to counter-insurgency conflict through a focus on one specific individual, the future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. It proposes that Holmes, whilst not a man of the ranks, nevertheless can reveal the wider ramifications of civil war and its emotional impact, both individually and culturally. As a relatively limited internecine war, one not fought by professional armies but by volunteer forces, America’s civil war highlights the ways in which the soldier’s response points us toward the kind of emotional revolution that has, to date, mainly been located within the European nations.     

Modern Irregular Warfare: The ISIS Case Study

ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has become a key political and military actor in the Middle East and in North Africa. This essay aims at outlining ISIS warfare through an analysis of its operations in the frame of hybrid warfare theory proposed by Frank Hoffman. Therefore, the paper deals with: the role of terrorist tactics in ISIS warfare and the relationship between terrorism and insurgency; ISIS use of technology, mainly with regard to suicide attacks and to drones; and the relevance of urban warfare. Finally, the paper highlights how ISIS operates and the most threatening features of its warfare.     

浅谈网络中心战

网络中心战是未来战争的主要作战样式,首先依次介绍网络中心战的概念、体系结构、优势,然后通过伊拉克战争实例说明网络中心战的优越性,最后指出网络中心战存在的问题及我军面对军事变革挑战应如何应对。     

Vicarious warfare: The counterproductive consequences of modern American military practice

This article examines contemporary modes of American warfare. It posits the concept of “vicarious warfare” as a means of capturing prominent patterns in warfighting approaches. Although rooted in long-standing traditions of military practice, vicarious warfare is sufficiently novel as to be identifiable as a distinct phenomenon. The precise manifestation or combination of vicarious methods vary according to the specific circumstances and political contexts prevailing in different theaters. However, America’s general preference is to fight its wars by delegating tasks to proxies and limiting exposure of its own military to danger. Where U.S. forces are employed directly, this takes place largely in the shadows. Such approaches have clear attractions, offer undoubted tactical advantages, and permit successive administrations to maintain a persistent tempo of operations that evades rigorous democratic scrutiny. Yet, prominent cases and numerous studies suggest that vicarious warfare has a high potential to generate counterproductive effects and significant strategic harm.     

Military intelligence and the problem of legitimacy: Opening the model

This brief essay looks at some of the emerging dilemmas facing the Intelligence Community (IC), and suggests a model for action that is based on the growing importance of legitimization now evident in all phases of US military activity abroad. The challenge for the IC is to satisfy the needs of a demanding and highly varied set of consumers while maintaining a clear priority on missions of military concern. When the legitimization priorities of broadly varied mission tasks are disaggregated and linked with the intelligence cycle, we see that total war, limited war, and operations other than war (OOTW) have distinct and incompatible priorities. Rather than try to adapt the existing system to fish‐out‐of‐water applications, and in the process degrade the capabilities of the IC to conduct total warfare support operations effectively, it may be time to envision a new, parallel intelligence agency for the support of limited war and OOTW.     

Moving the techno-science gap in Security Force Assistance

This paper looks at the impact of military technology diffusion on military assistance operations (MAO), in the United States known as Security Force Assistance or SFA. The discussion looks conceptually at the role of technological change and how it interacts with martial cultures in military assistant operations. I argue that growing trends in science and technology suggest potential conflicts between culture and technology. Relying on a culture-technology model drawn from anthropology, the paper contends that new technologies will present increasing challenges for the emerging MAO landscape. The paper will illustrate that the techno-science gap will continue to grow as innovations such as robotics, sensors, and networks continue to develop. Finally, the paper will look at ways to overcome this conflict between culture and technology.     

THE HUMAN CAPITAL PEACE: DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT

This paper explores the relationship between human capital and international conflict. In theory, human capital may increase the opportunity cost of military service and the economic cost of injury and loss of life in combat; it may decrease the benefits of conflict as human capital cannot be easily appropriated or transferred; it may affect societal norms toward peace and war; and it may alter military productivity through new technology and complementarities between military technology and personnel. Using a panel of politically relevant dyads, I find robust empirical evidence that human capital may significantly decrease the likelihood of militarized conflict between nations. In short, the findings suggest that promoting human capital‐oriented development may help to increase peace in the world.     

No war,no peace

The armed conflict over crude petroleum oil in the Niger Delta has raged for several decades. A host of peace initiatives have been adopted by the Nigerian state to address it, but with minimal impact. The amnesty offer to repentant militias in 2009 by President Umaru Yar'Adua's administration is one of the most recent and broadest peace initiatives by the Nigerian government intended to end the general tendency to warfare and the absence of peace in the Niger Delta. This article, based on secondary sources of data, examines the components of the amnesty, its critical problems and their implications for peacebuilding in the Niger Delta. It finds that though the programme has engendered relative peace, the issues and grievances that occasioned the general tendency to warfare and absence of peace in the region – such as inequitable distribution of oil revenue, environmental degradation, and underdevelopment – are not properly articulated in the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration components of the programme. Thus, it holds that the prevailing situation in the region largely approximates a swinging pendulum of no war, no peace.     

On the production of victory: Empirical determinants of battlefield success in modern war

Using a data set of historical battles from 1600 to 1973, this paper analyzes the empirical determinants of tactical success in modern war. Based on a reduced form approach we consider key elements of military theory as production factors for combat success as an output of a military production function. The paper focuses on the relationship of material and non-material factors to battlefield success, and especially on the role of superior force strengths. Contrary to the emphasis on technology which can be found in the recent literature, our estimation results indicate that numerical superiority has retained its crucial role for battlefield performance throughout history. In general, human elements of warfare, like leadership, morale and surprise, have continued to be important determinants of battle outcome despite technological progress in weapons.     

Currency Warfare and Just War: The Ethics of Targeting Currencies in War

ABSTRACT

Is Currency Warfare defined as, the use of monetary or military force directed against an enemy’s monetary power as part of a military campaign, a just way to fight a war? This article explores the ethics of waging currency warfare against the Just War Tradition’s principles of jus in bello (just conduct in war) and its criteria of discrimination and proportionality. The central argument is that currency warfare is inherently indiscriminate but may be proportionate when policy makers consider the nature of the threat confronted and the targeted currency's level of internationalization, that is, to what degree it is used in foreign transactions or used as a foreign currency reserve. I evaluate this argument against historical cases during the Second World War (1939–1945), the Gulf War (1990–1991), subsequent operations against Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s, and the ongoing campaign against ISIS.     

Through the Looking Glass: The Soviet Military-Technical Revolution and the American Revolution in Military Affairs

The roots of the information technology Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) can be traced to the mid-1970s, when the West capitalized on scientific-technological developments to neutralize the threat posed by Soviet second echelons. However, the cultivation of the technological seeds of the American RMA preceded the maturation of the conceptual ones. Although it was the US that was laying the technological groundwork for the RMA, Soviet, rather than the American military theorists, were the first to argue that the new range of technological innovations constituted a fundamental discontinuity in the nature of war, which they dubbed the ‘Military-Technical Revolution’ (MTR). About a decade later, this fundamental Soviet approach to the transformations in military affairs was analyzed, adapted and adopted by the US, and designated the RMA. This article deals with the intellectual history of the Soviet MTR and the American RMA.     

Hybrid War and Its Countermeasures: A Critique of the Literature

This article examines critically the literature of hybrid war and evaluates the countermeasures often proposed. It explains the concept of hybrid warfare and its varied interpretations, illustrating how it is a manifestation of current anxieties in armed conflict. The selection of the literature is based on works that are referenced, that offer a scientific approach, and which review either the phenomenon of hybrid warfare or its countermeasures empirically. Unscientific works have been omitted. The analysis of the literature presented here shows that the antidotes to ‘hybridity’ lie not in the operational or tactical sphere but in strategic and political domains.