Scholars and policymakers have been vexed over the question of how wars can be prevented. Political scientist James D Fearon went looking for rationalist explanations of war because he realised that “The central puzzle about war, and also the main reason we study it, is that wars are costly but nonetheless wars recur.”
This much is obvious: wars and violence have continued and the question of how one can escape violence or prevent wars, whether intra- or interstate remains moot. The paradox is that almost invariably we have to resort to violence to put an end to it. This is what Jean-Paul Sartre meant when in response to his own question, “Will we recover?” in his Preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, he replied “Yes. For violence, like Achilles’ lance, can heal the wounds that it has inflicted.”
It is important, therefore, to understand why, if wars are found to be costly and inefficient ex-post, leaders cannot settle the disputes ex-ante? Also, if they are inevitable, how does one win? For my present purpose, since the problem of war is multifaceted, I will confine myself to the idea of innovation as central to winning. I will also leave aside the more troublesome question of what winning means because very often it is either subjective, strictly temporal, or deals with situations where tactical victories may still result in a strategic loss.
In Book VI of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, after the first day of the great war in Heaven, the rebel angels, having been beaten back, gather for the next move. Satan is convinced that the grievous injury they have suffered is owed to inferiority in weapons: “... perhaps more valid armes/Weapons more violent, when next we meet/May serve to better us, and worse our foes/Or equal what between us made the odds/In Nature none…”.
The technical development of the implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict… it is a game that bears no resemblance to whatever war games preceded it. Its ‘rational’ goal is deterrence, not victory.
After hearing of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Bernard Brodie, then a young Assistant Professor at Yale, is reported to have said to his wife, “Everything I have written so far has become redundant.” Later, in The Absolute Weapon, he summarised the situation in these words: “Thus far, the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on, its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other purpose.”
Hannah Arendt reached a similar conclusion as she noted the coming of the nuclear age in On Violence: “The technical development of the implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict… it is a game that bears no resemblance to whatever war games preceded it. Its ‘rational’ goal is deterrence, not victory.”
The rebel angels thought they needed “more valid arms”. That is one way of winning, bringing a weapon to the fight the adversary simply cannot offset. When Charles VIII invaded Italy, the city-states took to the safety of their castles’ impregnable high walls. What they didn’t know was that Charles VIII had bombards that shot wrought-iron balls with accuracy and to a devastating effect. Bombards had been in existence but the French had developed easily transportable bombards, giving to the warfare the earliest concept of field artillery.
The other way to victory is the innovative employment of forces and tactical innovations. Hannibal was a master tactician. He realised the rigidity of the Roman phalanx early on and beat them through manoeuvre warfare which relied on speed and surprise. His tactics gave him stunning victories at the battles of Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and Cannae. To this day, double-envelopment in tactical literature is known as the Cannae movement.
In response, the Romans adopted the Fabian strategy: avoiding direct contest of arms against Hannibal, frustrating him, burning crops, diverting their forces to fight Hannibal’s allies and other Carthaginian armies and defeating them, draining the morale of Hannibal’s army and inducing fatigue. The final push came when Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal’s army was defeated and Hasdrubal was killed after the Roman army marched at night to engage Hasdrubal’s troops. With Hannibal’s reinforcement army defeated, he was left with no choice but to vacate his strongholds and sail back to Africa.
Inventions and innovations are at the core of winning victories. They are also vital to mitigating violence. Sometimes, they are decisive; other times the adversary too learns and we have a pingpong situation. The basic idea, however, is simple: how to degrade the enemy while defending against counter-destruction
Innovation is also about creating one’s own asymmetric advantage in the face of the adversary’s advantage. When the Philistines sent Goliath, their most fearsome warrior, to challenge the Israelites in single combat, the Israelites were awed and cowed. No one but David, a shepherd boy, was prepared to face Goliath. Goliath, armed with a sword, a javelin, and a spear was a giant. If David were to get close to Goliath, he would be dead. But David had no intention of doing that. He was going to hit Goliath with a slingshot, striking him between the eyes while staying clear of Goliath’s terrible strength and the reach of his sword. But he had to act fast before Goliath could resort to his javelin or his spear. David used the sling, the rock hitting Goliath between the eyes and killing him.
In the Star Wars series, the most fearsome and destructive weapon used by the Galactic Empire is the Death Star. The Death Star had a superlaser that could destroy entire planets. The objective was to instill fear and awe in the rebels by demonstrating to them the incredible power of a destructive platform. That demonstration came with the destruction of planet Alderaan. How can the rebels confront the Death Star? The young Jedi Luke Skywalker realised that the platform had a weakness, a small thermal exhaust port linked to its main reactor. The rest was execution. Skywalker managed to fire a torpedo through the port and destroyed the platform.
Experts call this a system’s critical vulnerability. Highly expensive, complex systems where a vulnerability can be exploited. The ability to find one and exploit it is innovation.
Inventions and innovations are at the core of winning victories. They are also vital to mitigating violence. Sometimes, they are decisive; other times the adversary too learns and we have a ping-pong situation. The basic idea, however, is simple: how to degrade the enemy while defending against counter-destruction. In other words, how to have both Achilles’ lance and his shield. In modern parlance, how to have offensive power against the adversary and a defensive shield against his offensive capabilities.
Innovations are not just restricted to tactics and weapons. They are also non-kinetic. The use of penicillin and blood plasma in the field helped save many lives. With advances in medicine and surgical and casualty evacuation techniques, many lives are today saved even after grievous injuries.
Information is vital. Which is why investing in intelligence gathering is crucial. If you know where your enemy is and where he will be, you have won two-thirds of the battle. The remaining one-third is execution. Israel’s targeting strikes in Lebanon, Damascus, and Iran are examples of wedding real-time intelligence to kinetic execution and getting the desired results.
From Herodotus’ history of Greco-Persian wars to this day, while the conduct of war has undergone many changes, its nature hasn’t changed: how to achieve victory and subjugate the enemy.
Whether tactical victories can lead to strategic success is of course a different matter altogether.