Lecture 1
Williams, P. D. (2013). Security Studies (2nd ed., pp.187-205), “Chapter 13: War”. New
York: Routledge.
War is much more than the strategies/tactics of warfare; it is the full spectrum of social phenomena far
beyond warzones and wartime in social/cultural/political/economic relations in a society. And most
fatalities in armed conflicts are indirect deaths through disease and/or malnutrition.
The three philosophies of war describe war as follows:
● Political: war is a game of strategy (Clausewitz)
● Eschatological: war is a mission
● Cataclysmic: war is a disaster
Clausewitzian thinking is contested in the modern era for several reasons:
The first is that the modern battlefield is no longer the same as what Clausewitz theorised with. The
urbanisation of warfare, the reach of terrorist organisations and the hybridisation of warfare all
contribute to this. The second reason is that, for example, with the war on terror, both sides have often
rejected the political narration of the war. Instead, what they did in their rallying cries was focus on
Eschatological concepts, such as the cry for global jihad.
Thirdly, the introduction of nuclear weapons goes way further than the political reasoning of war. It is a
mutual suicide pact for both sides. And finally, we see that insurgencies, revolutions do not call for the
classic approach of destroying your opponent’s military forces, as often the enemy is blended within the
civilian populations.
The functions of war:
War seems to be the effort to win a violent contest against an enemy as soon as possible; however, studies
have shown that this is not always the case and that other functions of war play an important role.
Several functions other than victory are:
● Limiting violence: The aim is to limit your own exposure and your constituency to the violence.
This is achieved by outsourcing the war to your proxies, fighting the war outside your own
territory and/or avoiding battles against a better equipped army.
● Immediate gains: two ways economic gain through accumulating resources, or psychological gain
by giving people the sense of playing an important role in society.
● Weakening political opposition: can be the enemies or own political opposition. Suppressing,
dividing or delegitimizing of potential critics within your own camp.
Trends in armed conflicts since 1945:
● Decline in interstate conflicts, rise in intrastate (between a state and an internal opposition
group) conflicts.
● State based armed conflicts have declined significantly, partially due to the end of colonialism,
the end of the Cold War, increased level of international activism by for example, the UN and
finally the increased popularity of global norms.
, ● Sharp decline in battle deaths.
● Sharp increase in non-state armed conflicts.
● Shifting regional spread of armed conflicts, meaning that the historic constraint of climate and
geography have become less important.
Is the nature of warfare changing?
The total war: The concept revolves around the notion of increased escalation and participation. The
fear is that once a war is started it is hard to contain and control, the increased participation refers to the
growing involvement of civilians in warfare both as combatants and labourers for supplies, and the fear
that they would be targeted in a war. But in reality there have always been restraints in war, morally and
or practically.
“The new war”: The idea that “new wars” are distinct from “old wars” in terms of their goals, methods
and systems of finance, which all would reflect the erosion of the state’s monopoly on organised violence.
Some of the fears are that these “new wars” are financed through a decentralised global system, use of
guerrilla and insurgency tactics and the goal of eradicating certain identity groups. But many of these
fears are contested, wars have been globalised for a long time and insurgency tactics have been used for a
long time as well.
The contemporary Western way of war: The trend of mostly Western countries changing their
warfare ambitions to spectator sports. Using a limited aid of advisors or small expeditionary forces to
achieve a goal. The reasons for this development are the new definition of Western states of the enemy,
which used to be a state, but now is much narrower. The enemy is now often just a single leader or its
regime. And the delegitimization of civilians as acceptable targets, which means Western states want to
minimise collateral damage. And finally these wars do not require full societal participation such as the
First and Second World War for example. Instead they are fought by a small number of professionals.
,Gray, C. (2012). War, Peace and International Relations “Chapter1: Themes and contexts
of strategic history”.
Conditions in which war occurs, six themes:
1. Strategic historical continuity and discontinuity: War has an unchanging character,
changes often move through evolution rather than revolution. The morale, discipline and training
are the most important aspects in a fighting power.
2. The relationship between politics and war: Strategic history is all about the threat or use of
organised violence carried on by political units against each other for political motives. Strategic
history moves to the political calculations of a certain time, war has and should not have any
more reason to occur than a political reason. The strategy is the bridge between military power
and political purpose.
3. The relationship between war and warfare: War is a legal concept, warfare refers to the
conduct of war in its military dimension. There is an important distinction, you can be good at
warfare but still don’t achieve your political goals. Napoleon is an example, of this or the Germans
during the Second World War, they had the best army in the world but lost the war due to
overstretching and bad practices in the war while being good at warfare. As Clausewitz argues,
warfare is just the means to an end, in this case the end being to coerce the enemy into accepting
your will.
4. The relationship between politicians and soldiers: Military and political actors have
different values, skills, perspectives and responsibilities and therefore often have a troubled
relationship. And usually both camps draw their actors from different kinds of personalities. You
see this clearly in military operations where soldiers don’t have clear political guidance and/or
soldiers being given impossible tasks by policy makers.
5. The dependence of war on society: War is a social institution and it is not only fought by the
state but by the whole society. Since the nineteenth century it has become increasingly important
to take into account public opinion. Societies were increasingly participating and mobilising
during a war. This total war principle has decreased in the last 75 years but audiences are
increasingly fed dis/misinformation about wars.
6. The relations between war and peace, and between peace and war: One must analyse
the consequences of wars for the peace order/disorder that follows. And one must understand the
consequences of periods of peace for the succeeding periods of war. The waging of war is
ultimately to achieve your political goal, so one must prepare for when the war ends and what the
world and its relations will look like. Ideally after a war a better international order should rise
than the one it preceded before the war. We must understand the cycles of peace to war and so on
and learn from them. Why does peace occur and why does peace stop, what are the triggering
events? What is the Balance of Power and where do we stand regarding Thucydides’ trap? The
ability to master times of peace is as important as the ability to master times of war.
, ● Contexts of strategic history:
○ Political: Decisions of war are the products of an political process
○ Socio-cultural: Decisions of war impacted by values and beliefs.
○ Economic: The economy can be an enabler or stopper of war, financing is done through
taxation or debt.
○ Technological: All wars have technological opportunities and limitations.
○ Military-strategic: The state of military affairs and capabilities will help determine
whether to go or not to go to war.
○ Geographical: The geographical location of political units, the identity/characteristics of
neighbours and arrangement of land and sea have major influences on war.
○ Historical: The people making strategic history were formed by their historical context,
it helped shape the military identity of a country.
Williams, P. D. (2013). Security Studies (2nd ed., pp.187-205), “Chapter 13: War”. New
York: Routledge.
War is much more than the strategies/tactics of warfare; it is the full spectrum of social phenomena far
beyond warzones and wartime in social/cultural/political/economic relations in a society. And most
fatalities in armed conflicts are indirect deaths through disease and/or malnutrition.
The three philosophies of war describe war as follows:
● Political: war is a game of strategy (Clausewitz)
● Eschatological: war is a mission
● Cataclysmic: war is a disaster
Clausewitzian thinking is contested in the modern era for several reasons:
The first is that the modern battlefield is no longer the same as what Clausewitz theorised with. The
urbanisation of warfare, the reach of terrorist organisations and the hybridisation of warfare all
contribute to this. The second reason is that, for example, with the war on terror, both sides have often
rejected the political narration of the war. Instead, what they did in their rallying cries was focus on
Eschatological concepts, such as the cry for global jihad.
Thirdly, the introduction of nuclear weapons goes way further than the political reasoning of war. It is a
mutual suicide pact for both sides. And finally, we see that insurgencies, revolutions do not call for the
classic approach of destroying your opponent’s military forces, as often the enemy is blended within the
civilian populations.
The functions of war:
War seems to be the effort to win a violent contest against an enemy as soon as possible; however, studies
have shown that this is not always the case and that other functions of war play an important role.
Several functions other than victory are:
● Limiting violence: The aim is to limit your own exposure and your constituency to the violence.
This is achieved by outsourcing the war to your proxies, fighting the war outside your own
territory and/or avoiding battles against a better equipped army.
● Immediate gains: two ways economic gain through accumulating resources, or psychological gain
by giving people the sense of playing an important role in society.
● Weakening political opposition: can be the enemies or own political opposition. Suppressing,
dividing or delegitimizing of potential critics within your own camp.
Trends in armed conflicts since 1945:
● Decline in interstate conflicts, rise in intrastate (between a state and an internal opposition
group) conflicts.
● State based armed conflicts have declined significantly, partially due to the end of colonialism,
the end of the Cold War, increased level of international activism by for example, the UN and
finally the increased popularity of global norms.
, ● Sharp decline in battle deaths.
● Sharp increase in non-state armed conflicts.
● Shifting regional spread of armed conflicts, meaning that the historic constraint of climate and
geography have become less important.
Is the nature of warfare changing?
The total war: The concept revolves around the notion of increased escalation and participation. The
fear is that once a war is started it is hard to contain and control, the increased participation refers to the
growing involvement of civilians in warfare both as combatants and labourers for supplies, and the fear
that they would be targeted in a war. But in reality there have always been restraints in war, morally and
or practically.
“The new war”: The idea that “new wars” are distinct from “old wars” in terms of their goals, methods
and systems of finance, which all would reflect the erosion of the state’s monopoly on organised violence.
Some of the fears are that these “new wars” are financed through a decentralised global system, use of
guerrilla and insurgency tactics and the goal of eradicating certain identity groups. But many of these
fears are contested, wars have been globalised for a long time and insurgency tactics have been used for a
long time as well.
The contemporary Western way of war: The trend of mostly Western countries changing their
warfare ambitions to spectator sports. Using a limited aid of advisors or small expeditionary forces to
achieve a goal. The reasons for this development are the new definition of Western states of the enemy,
which used to be a state, but now is much narrower. The enemy is now often just a single leader or its
regime. And the delegitimization of civilians as acceptable targets, which means Western states want to
minimise collateral damage. And finally these wars do not require full societal participation such as the
First and Second World War for example. Instead they are fought by a small number of professionals.
,Gray, C. (2012). War, Peace and International Relations “Chapter1: Themes and contexts
of strategic history”.
Conditions in which war occurs, six themes:
1. Strategic historical continuity and discontinuity: War has an unchanging character,
changes often move through evolution rather than revolution. The morale, discipline and training
are the most important aspects in a fighting power.
2. The relationship between politics and war: Strategic history is all about the threat or use of
organised violence carried on by political units against each other for political motives. Strategic
history moves to the political calculations of a certain time, war has and should not have any
more reason to occur than a political reason. The strategy is the bridge between military power
and political purpose.
3. The relationship between war and warfare: War is a legal concept, warfare refers to the
conduct of war in its military dimension. There is an important distinction, you can be good at
warfare but still don’t achieve your political goals. Napoleon is an example, of this or the Germans
during the Second World War, they had the best army in the world but lost the war due to
overstretching and bad practices in the war while being good at warfare. As Clausewitz argues,
warfare is just the means to an end, in this case the end being to coerce the enemy into accepting
your will.
4. The relationship between politicians and soldiers: Military and political actors have
different values, skills, perspectives and responsibilities and therefore often have a troubled
relationship. And usually both camps draw their actors from different kinds of personalities. You
see this clearly in military operations where soldiers don’t have clear political guidance and/or
soldiers being given impossible tasks by policy makers.
5. The dependence of war on society: War is a social institution and it is not only fought by the
state but by the whole society. Since the nineteenth century it has become increasingly important
to take into account public opinion. Societies were increasingly participating and mobilising
during a war. This total war principle has decreased in the last 75 years but audiences are
increasingly fed dis/misinformation about wars.
6. The relations between war and peace, and between peace and war: One must analyse
the consequences of wars for the peace order/disorder that follows. And one must understand the
consequences of periods of peace for the succeeding periods of war. The waging of war is
ultimately to achieve your political goal, so one must prepare for when the war ends and what the
world and its relations will look like. Ideally after a war a better international order should rise
than the one it preceded before the war. We must understand the cycles of peace to war and so on
and learn from them. Why does peace occur and why does peace stop, what are the triggering
events? What is the Balance of Power and where do we stand regarding Thucydides’ trap? The
ability to master times of peace is as important as the ability to master times of war.
, ● Contexts of strategic history:
○ Political: Decisions of war are the products of an political process
○ Socio-cultural: Decisions of war impacted by values and beliefs.
○ Economic: The economy can be an enabler or stopper of war, financing is done through
taxation or debt.
○ Technological: All wars have technological opportunities and limitations.
○ Military-strategic: The state of military affairs and capabilities will help determine
whether to go or not to go to war.
○ Geographical: The geographical location of political units, the identity/characteristics of
neighbours and arrangement of land and sea have major influences on war.
○ Historical: The people making strategic history were formed by their historical context,
it helped shape the military identity of a country.
