Operation ‘enduring freedom’: a victory for a conventional force fighting an unconventional war

The track record of the US military in unconventional wars has not been good and there were fears that Operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ might suffer the same fate as previous campaigns. This contribution explores why the Taliban were defeated so easily by the US in 2001. It challenges the view that America's victory was due solely to changes in its modus operandi or that the outcome heralds a change in the fortunes of the US when fighting unconventional war. It also questions the idea that America's victory was a consequence of Taliban incompetence. Instead, it explains the defeat of the Taliban in terms of the prevailing political conditions within Afghanistan, which made them vulnerable to attack. The essay concludes that current political circumstances could, in the long run, permit the resurrection of the Taliban and undermine the US-led coalition's victory.     

Introduction: Exploring the jungle of terminology

When twentieth-century authors wrote about ‘partisan warfare’, they usually meant an insurgency or asymmetric military operations conducted against a superior force by small bands of ideologically driven irregular fighters. By contrast, originally (i.e. before the French Revolution) ‘partisan’ in French, English, and German referred only to the leader of a detachment of special forces (party, partie, Parthey, détachement) which the major European powers used to conduct special operations alongside their regular forces. Such special operations were the classic definition of ‘small war’ (petite guerre) in the late seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries. The Spanish word ‘la guerrilla’, meaning nothing other than ‘small war’, only acquired an association with rebellion with the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon. Even after this, however, armies throughout the world have continued to employ special forces. In the late nineteenth century, their operations have still been referred to as prosecuting ‘la guerrilla’ or ‘small war’, which existed side by side with, and was often mixed with, ‘people's war’ or popular uprisings against hated regimes.     

The German wars of liberation 1807–1815: The restrained insurgency

In the Age of Napoleon, ‘small wars’ and ‘revolutionary war’ were closely connected. There were, however, different strands of this phenomenon: speaking professionally, conservative officers condemned small wars as an irregular regression to previous less disciplined forms of warfare. The Prussian state continually tried to discipline and regulate spontaneous risings. Yet the irregular character of small wars offered the opportunities for a less complex way of fighting, thus enabling the arming of the ‘people’ to fight. Individual undertakings, such as Ferdinand von Schill's doomed campaign in 1809, were designed to spark off a general popular uprising. But they were cheered by many and supported by few. Meanwhile, Neidhardt von Gneisenau conceived guerrilla-style Landsturm home-defence forces, which were designed for an irregular people's war. These concepts were put into practice in the ‘war of freedom’ – or ‘war of liberation’ – in 1813. Eventually both the mobilisation and the tactics remained regular, however, despite the emphatic appeal to a national ‘people's war’.     

Lost through non-translation: bringing Clausewitz's writings on ‘new wars’ back in

While Carl von Clausewitz has generally been respected as one of the most profound philosophers of war, his expertise has been regarded as somewhat limited if not even irrelevant to the so-called ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War world. Many scholars in international relations have claimed that ‘new wars’ are essentially ‘post-Clausewitzian’ and ‘post-trinitarian’ in nature, meaning that they are no longer fathomable through a Clausewitzian framework. However Clausewitz's earlier writings were nearly exclusively dedicated to guerrilla warfare, or what he called ‘small wars’. These writings have been largely overlooked by many analysts of contemporary conflicts. By drawing on his rare and untranslated writings, the article uncovers a critical part of Clausewitz's expertise in asymmetric warfare and shows that, far from being irrelevant in an age where interstate warfare is increasingly being replaced by conflicts between states and semi-/non-state actors, Clausewitz's philosophical writings actually shed new light into the particular interactive dynamics generated during wars waged under conditions of asymmetry.     

Productive War: A Re-Conceptualisation of War

Conventional wisdom on the phenomenon of war is criticised for providing little relevant guidance to deal with the security challenges of our era. One reason is that this attitude uncritically assumes power as synonymous with force. In response, ‘productive war’ is here proposed as a re-conceptualisation of war based on Michel Foucault's alternative understanding of power. Productive war appreciates the role of violence but subordinates it to non-kinetic dynamics influencing the dimension of meaning in international security. This theoretical perspective provides a conceptual framework to deal with the dynamics of political mobilisation essential to create public support for nation-building abroad and for visions of world order.     

Z and other cinematic tales from the 30-year Greek civil war

Greek cinema has documented and debated the civil war and its repercussions under different angles, largely defined by censorship, the general political climate, and cinematic trends. This article, first, offers a retrospective that traces the evolution of Greek cinema's ‘takes’ on the civil war vis-à-vis the political changes. Second, it provides an in-depth analysis of Costas Gavras’s film Z, examining its relevance to Greece and how political conflict, in general, is cinematically depicted. The article argues that Z and Gavras’s cinema have been affected and have affected the Greek political situation. However, while Z has spearheaded an international cinematic genre (political thriller), it had minimal effect on the Greek cinema.     

The Needs of Political Policy versus the Reality of Military Operations: Royal Navy Opposition to the Arctic Convoys, 1942

It has become commonplace, especially in the post-Vietnam strategic environment, to quote Clausewitz's dictum that war is the continuation of policy by other means. We are told that military operations are dictated by, and must serve, clear political ends. Such thinking has been invoked to support everything from punitive strikes, to peacekeeping missions, to the ‘Powell’ doctrine and its political ‘exit strategies’, but at times political policy and military operations do not mix. In 1942 the Royal Navy bowed to political pressure and, against its collective better judgement, continued the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. These military operations culminated in the destruction of convoy PQ 17 in early July. This conflict between political policy and military strategy provides an object lesson of why in war issues of means and priorities must outweigh the importance of any given political policy.     

‘A Better War?’ – The View from the Nixon White House

This article examines the relationship between the White House and the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) during President Richard M. Nixon's administration. It argues that dysfunctional civil-military relations between 1969 and 1972 undermined the implementation of a sound military strategy during the United States' withdrawal from South Vietnam as Nixon attempted to achieve ‘peace with honor’ during the Vietnam War's final campaigns. By 1972, the relationship between the White House and MACV headquarters had reached the nadir of civil-military relations during the Southeast Asian conflict and had served to undercut the United States' ability to effectively disengage from a long and bitterly contested war.     

Callwell versus Graziani: how the British Army applied ‘small wars’ techniques in major operations in Africa and the Middle East, 1940–41

The period from December 1940 through to the spring of 1941 saw the British Army win a series of rapid and decisive victories over Italian and Vichy French forces in North and East Africa and the Middle East. A key feature of these operations was the extensive British use of fast-moving all-arms mobile formations utilising superior speed and mobility to out-manoeuvre considerably larger Italian formations. A number of reasons have been given for the British Army adopting this mode of warfare, but the paper contends that the best explanation is that they were an organic evolution from methods used by the British Army in ‘small wars’ throughout the early twentieth century, use of mobile ‘frontier columns’ at the operational and tactical level of war being described and recommended by Callwell himself and visible with the Army in practice in operations in India and the Middle East in particular. The inter-war period saw the combination of this model of warfare with post-First World War military technology, notably tanks, close air support and coordination by wireless. Colonial operations in this period also saw some utilisation of what would later be identified as ‘Special Forces’ – also used extensively in the Desert War – the most obvious example being Captain Orde Wingate's Special Night Squads in Palestine in 1938.     

Clausewitz and Low-Intensity Conflict

The end of the Cold War led some commentators to question the relevance of Clausewitz's thought in a strategic environment where low-intensity conflict (LIC) would predominate. On the contrary, however, Clausewitz's understanding of the intensity of warfare, and its relationship with the political environment of any given time, makes his thinking compatible with changing historical circumstances. The current War on Terror, for example, can be comfortably accommodated within Clausewitz's concept of war. However, a move away from Clausewitz in US doctrine has been coupled with a rejection of LIC in favour of the erroneous notion of ‘operations other than war’. Consequently, such doctrine lacks the clarity required for its proper dissemination.     

The British government and the end of French Algeria, 1958–62

Unlike France, Britain viewed the Algerian conflict from 1958 to 1962 primarily as a colonial war. The British government regarded Algérie française as an anachronism, which France would have to relinquish one day. Though Britain was no stranger to ‘dirty’ colonial wars, as simultaneous operations against EOKA nationalists in Cyprus continued to prove, it was not averse to displaying a certain smugness at having averted the kind of mess Algeria seemed to represent. Britain's interest in the latter stages of the Algerian conflict centred on four major areas: Perceptions of colonial warfare; de Gaulle's Algeria policy; Algeria and Britain's view of France in Europe and NATO; Negotiating the ceasefire and ending the conflict.     

Bargaining with nuclear weapons: Thomas Schelling's ‘general’ concept of stability

This article identifies a consistent approach to stability across a wide range of conflict situations at the heart of Thomas Schelling's strategic theory. It finds that there are two main aspects of this ‘general’ concept of stability. The first is the ability to strike a bargain at a mutually acceptable resting place as seen in the Korean War stalemate. The second is the ability to maintain a strategic bargain over the long term as in the stability of the balance of terror. This article finds that crucial assumptions which underpin Schelling's general concept, such as the existence of restraints on the degree of competition and the idea that nuclear weapons assist the bargaining process, hold up better in some cases than in others. Stability consequently seems more possible in a conventional conflict or crisis when nuclear weapons are a background influence than in a war where the nuclear threshold has already been crossed.     

Cultural barriers to organisational unlearning: The US army,the ‘zero‐defects’ culture and operations in the post‐cold war world

Much intellectual effort in the post‐Cold War US Army has been put into examinations of how best to conduct MOOTW and urban warfare. One of the main problems for the Army in this respect is the fact that these operations require a good deal of initiative to be displayed by troops at the lowest command levels. This has not normally been forthcoming. There is, in the Army, a ‘zero‐defects’ culture that is stymying the necessary initiative. Only when this culture has been properly appreciated and tackled will the Army that has proved itself so adept at the ‘big war’ be able to conclusively tackle the ‘small war’.     

Counter-terrorism in the Horn of Africa: New security frontiers,old Strategies

The US-led ‘war on terror’ dramatically changed America's security strategy towards Africa. But more fundamentally, it threw the Horn of Africa on the centre stage of global counter-terrorism. A double-edged blade, counter-terrorism has at once catalysed peace processes and intensified insecurity, with Islamic radicalism at the core of the regional storm. Governments utilised the threat of terrorism for political ends, defending old security paradigms that prioritised regime stability over human security. Africa integrated counter-terrorism into its emerging security agenda, but insufficient funds, operational constraints and poor coordination with international initiatives have hampered meaningful progress. Washington, laudably, launched a robust counter-terrorist campaign, but its high-handed military-heavy style put fragile democracies at risk while lapses in its overall policy risk triggering proxy wars. This essay examines the impact of counter-terrorism on security in the Horn of Africa. It argues for stronger coordination between national, regional and international initiatives to curb international terrorism.     

‘What is in a Name?’: The Role of (Different) Identities in the Multiple Proxy Wars in Syria

Abstract

Post-uprisings Middle East politics is frequently described as a ‘regional cold war’ involving proxy warfare that emphasises the role of shared identities linking external and local actors. But does the ‘content’ of identities impact proxy war dynamics? This article considers the present ‘battle for Syria’, a local conflict that became a theatre for multiple proxy wars involving actors emphasising identities on various levels, most notably national, religious/ sect and ethnic. It suggests that identity content does matter, with global powers more reluctant than regional players to back groups identifying at sub-national level, while foreign non-state actors are enthusiastic backers of sub-national identity.     

The Botswana Defence Force and the War against Poachers in Southern Africa

‘Semper aliquid novi Africa affert’ (out of Africa this is always something new) wrote the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, and that has been all too true of catastrophe and misery in modern times. Yet despite Africa's problems, the continent also offers many examples of humankind's most commendable achievements. This is one such story. It is the account of the successful struggle by a small but well disciplined and well led African army to protect a vital national resource, a role performed with dedication and consistent success since 1987. The fight against poaching in Botswana is a peculiar form of low-intensity conflict that poses significant political, operational and technical challenges. This article identifies some of those challenges and notes how the Botswana Defence Force overcame them, providing an example that may profitably be emulated elsewhere. The article also calls attention to evolution of military roles and missions in reaction to the novel threats of post the Cold War world.     

Warlords as alternative forms of Governance

Warlord is a label that currently besets us on all fronts. The 2001–2002 military action in Afghanistan is illustrative of the West's ambivalent view of armed factions in the developing world in general. The demonisation of the Taliban and the elevation of the former ‘warlords’ of the opposition to the rather more grandiose sounding ‘Northern Alliance’, at once formalising the hitherto informal nature of the warlord system, implies that the term ‘warlord’ is synonymous with anarchy, violence and a breakdown in civilised values. ‘Warlord’ has become an ugly, detrimental expression, evoking brutality, racketeering and terrorism. Analysts referring to violence across developing countries routinely refer to ‘new wars’ and ‘post-modern’ conflict, and yet the language used to describe these phenomena is usually pre-modern (medievalism, baronial rule, new feudalism). This article outlines some examples of historical warlords and draws out the common issues. In particular it emphasises the fact that warlords have been present for centuries and have periodically emerged whenever centralised political-military control has broken down. All that has changed through history is the technology available to each generation and the relative economic base. The article concludes with a series of implications for policy-makers currently considering intervention in warlord-based economies.     

Ruminations of a pachyderm or what I learned in the counter‐insurgency business

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has created a pervasive climate of fear in northern Uganda. This study addresses the purpose of this conduct. Diverging from the traditional ‘greed-grievance’ approach to the study of new wars, the LRA's behaviour is analyzed from a strategic perspective. Specifically, the article focuses on the LRA's use of mutilation, abduction, surprise, and unpredictable attacks. The conclusion is that the LRA is strategically using fear as a force multiplier, to further its organizational survival, and as a way to fight a political ‘dirty war’.