A Study Of Warfare During The Modern Era

The War on Terror can readily be compared to WWI.  The following analysis will compare and contrast these two important historical occurrences.  It will also examine just a few of the many consequences of both.

Over the course of history, the strategic environment has changed rapidly and is now more complex than ever before – it is currently characterized by unpredictability and disorder, and may yet manifest itself in the collapse of nuclear armed nations, destabilizing conflict in geo-politically vital regions, and humanitarian crises. A world of disparate actors – not all nation states – now exists. Unpredictable events will continue to cause strategic surprise. The widespread effects of past conflicts such as World War II, Vietnam and the Iraq war are still being felt and have created significant strategic repercussions. The failures of these conflicts are the result of our military and political leaders’ failure to quickly adapt to wartime conditions. This occurs because of a general refusal to commit to a military culture of learning that encourages serious debate, critical assessments of our military operations, and challenges to our doctrine in the face of emerging change. Additionally, leaders have struggled with the critical responsibility of forecasting and providing for a ready force, one that is well-resourced and prepared to conduct future operations. It is the responsibility of our military and political leaders to send our military to war with a ready force, and a strategy that will ultimately result in victory. But understanding war and warriors is critical if societies and governments are to make sound judgments concerning military policy.

From the time when the first English colonies were established in North America until now, there has been some form of armed fighting force in place to protect the interests of the United States and its colonial progenitors. During the roughly four centuries in which this fighting force has existed, it has undergone numerous changes of varying degrees of significance. Technological advances have changed the nature of both defensive and offensive warfare, political advances have changed the nature of the relationship between the civilian population and its protectors, and geostrategic shifts have changed the role of the United States military with respect to the rest of the world. The most lasting and meaningful changes have occurred

Perhaps there 's no getting away from our awesome political gap, a perpetual conflict of armed forces, and any endeavors to change the guidelines of engagement are purposeless. Alternately perhaps the trivialization of governmental issues has achieved a final turning point, so that the vast majority consider it to be only one more preoccupation, a game, with legislators our paunch-bellied combatants and the individuals who try to focus just fans on the sidelines: We paint our confronts red or

Originally influenced by the strategic events seen throughout the Napoleonic Wars in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the nine principles of war derived from the United States’ Army’s “Principles of War and Operations” outline a basic strategic guide on waging war. Shortly before the military adopted these guidelines, however, the United States of America saw civil unrest as the Southern states seceded to form the Confederate States of America. As the Union Army of the North battled the Confederate Army of the South, strategic principles similar to those outlined in the U.S. Army’s doctrine began to appear on the battlefield. Although the armies of the Union and the Confederacy both utilized strategic elements outlined in the United States’ Army’s “Principles of War and Operations”, the Union army’s stricter adherence to certain strategic principles resulted in their ultimate success.

War. A familiarity. An ambiguity. As a human, it is almost as if this three letter word has become synonymous with existence itself. From the earliest wars in the ancient world between the Sumerians and the Elamites, to the Crusades, to conflict between the Greeks and the Ottomans, to numerous civil wars, up until the disastrous wars of the modern world, it seems as if the temptation to raise a weapon against a perceived hostile force is one that humanity has never been able to resist.

There are no universal theories to explain the true nature and character of war, and any war theories are not a fact or absolute truth. All strategic principles are dynamic and contextual, so “every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.” The battlefield environment of the 21st century will be the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and nature of war will be completely different because of the Revolution in Military Affairs. Highly advance communication and information technologies, a dramatic increase in computing capabilities, developed of precision munitions, dominant air and space power ‘war could be waged by the projection of

Has the nature of terrorism changed over the last thirty years? Answer this question with reference to three specific examples of terrorist campaigns.

As you look back into history you see that war is created for several different reasons. In this paper I will be reviewing the relationship between war, territory, and arms races on a dyadic level of analysis. Scholars have come to various conclusions on different aspects of these two theories and I will discuss and evaluate a few different perspectives or angles of each theory to see how they help contribute to the creation of war between two interstates.

When the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred the United States responded in a manner which was seen as a traditional reaction to such an attack; it used its overwhelming superior military to invade the nation of Afghanistan. As Afghanistan was the operating base of the terrorist group responsible for the attacks, Al Qaeda, the invasion all but destroyed the group's operating capacity. But in response to the United States' apparent victory the terrorists have re-organized themselves into a looser confederation and turned to alternative methods of finance and operation. One could say that the success of the American military's answer to the September 11th attacks have created a new environment in which terrorists currently operate. This includes the use of the internet, unconventional alliances with international criminal organizations, as well the inception of the "lone wolf" terrorist. Faced with these new type of threats, the United States and its allies must find a way to identify and deal with them.

Martin van Creveld wrote The Transformation of War book in 1991 when he detailed a predictive hypothesis about the changing character of war into what he called ?Nontrinitarian War. There were conflicts arise as intrastate wars and were not based on the simplified version of Clausewitz?s ?remarkable trinity? of government, people and military forces (Van Creveld, 1991, pg. 49). In his book, Van Creveld offers an account of warfare in the previous millennium and suggests what the future might hold. The drive was that major war was draining and the emergence of forms of war ?that are simultaneously old and new? now threatened to create havoc.

Giulio Douhet, in his seminal treatise on air power titled The Command of the Air, argued, “A man who wants to make a good instrument must first have a precise understanding of what the instrument is to be used for; and he who intends to build a good instrument of war must first ask himself what the next war will be like.” The United States (US) military establishment has been asking itself this exact question for hundreds of years, in an attempt to be better postured for the future. From the Civil War, through the American Indian Wars, and up until World War II (WWII) the American military’s way of war consisted of fighting traditional, or conventional, wars focused on total annihilation of an enemy. Since that time, there has been a gradual shift from the traditional framework towards one that can properly address non-traditional, or irregular wars. While the US maintains a capability to conduct conventional warfare, the preponderance of operations where the US military has been engaged since WWII have been irregular wars. Therefore, this question articulated by Douhet, as to understanding the character of the next war in order to properly plan, train, and equip, is certainly germane to the current discussion of regular war versus irregular war. In today’s fiscally constrained environment, the questions remains, which will dominate the future and therefore, garner further funding and priority. Based on the current threats and the US role as a superpower, the US

However, this definition was found inaccurate since the terms such as “violence” and “political unit” were not explicitly defined. Further, if states were considered as the “political units” in this definition, recent years have seen an increase in intra-state wars, wars between the government and non-state actor, to be simple. Therefore, this definition is relatively vague and does not define modern armed conflicts after the Second World War. Though the definition by Clausewitz, as aforementioned, is rather abstract, another definition repeatedly appears in his book Vom Kriege was that “war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse” (Clausewitz, 2008, pp.: 87). This explains the great political impacts on military confrontations, but ignores modern warfare, like ethnic conflicts. Correlates of War Project (COW) provides a most accepted definition that “a military conflict waged between (or among) national entities, at least one of which is a state, which results in at least 1000 battle deaths of military personnel” (Singer and Small, 1972, pp.: 31). The scope of this definition is limited, as it describes only inter-state war but does not include the intra-state war, which resulted from the enormous change of the characteristics of war itself (Heywood, 2014, pp.: 241). Therefore, it is clear that the proliferation of intra-state war cannot be ignored. Modern intra-sate conflict is “a contested

From swords and shields to nuclear standoff with triad of long-range bombers, and even space exploitations offering information dominance in communications and intelligence. War has changed from a more personal approach to a long range one. One that offers a quicker, faster way to eliminate the enemy. The change of nature is better elucidated in in the individual, state, and international system of analysis illustrated by realist, liberals, radicals and constructivist. Perceiving different theoretical viewpoints allows us to see that throughout time the states have shifted from intrastate conflict to a more interstate spectrum inside international relations, and in recent

“Not every Truth is good” but can the truth be denied or be hidden from the society is a question that arises. The relation between warfare and mankind is undeniably interwoven which is asserted by our knowledge. Humans have utilized their ability to question, improvise and create remarkable technologies but at the cost of their own destruction. Disease, battles, injuries have accounted for a large number of deaths and loss of conflict capability than the actual war itself. With the developing technologies being generated man has left no stone unturned in utilizing biological agents for the destruction of the enemies, however to some extent it has also benefited the society which stands true in history. These weapons created make use of biological agents or pathogens such as bacteria and viruses, plant toxins, venoms, and other poisonous substances. For this very reason, they are dangerous and can slay everything from living beings to agriculture. Back in the 18th century the very first incident of using such bioweapons was recorded which resulted in the extermination of humans by driving the victims of plaque into the enemy lands. There were incidences of using parasitic fungus and herbs by certain Assyrians in order to poison the enemy’s water supplies so as to obtain victory. In addition small pox was also used as a weapon by the Japanese during II world war [1].This was a general approach that was persistently employed through many European wars and even in