The first unequivocal use of the Clauswitzian concept of Total War was during the Napoleonic campaigns enabled by the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution. These advances came to an unbridled, modern, and mechanized fruition in the First World War, which was the first true instance of war being slaughter on an industrial scale. The use of unrestricted Total War was further refined in the Second World War but, with one notable exception, has not been witnessed in Westphalian state-centric conflict since 1945.
Concept of Limited War
The preponderance of conflicts across the latter half of the 20th century have been Limited Wars. According to Robert Osgood, Limited Wars are military interventions that are bound by time, resource, political aims, kinetic effect, and geography. Moreover, Osgood also argues that Limited Wars should only be resourced to a level directly proportional to the desired objective.
Collapse of Soviet Union
The unbridled collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 heralded the end of a 46 year bi-polar era and brought the Cold War to an abrupt end. Russia immediately retreated from the world stage leaving the US as the sole global mega-power; a situation that has only began to reverse in the early part of the 21st Century with the economic rise of China and India in parallel with a tentative, and energy-price reliant, Russian resurgence.
Post Cold War Socio-Political Environment
The end of the Cold War, and the removal of much of the geopolitical glue that froze tensions and conflicts during the Cold War, radically altered the face of geo-politics and, with it, the texture of the Clauswitzian concept of the continuation of these politics by alternative means. This shift steadily precipitated the reappearance of several aspects of the Limited War paradigm couched in a modern context. Each of these created conditions ripe for Limited, rather than Total War, and are summarised below:
- The end of the Cold War unlocked the potential for the fragmenting of nation-states and the increase of transnational, ideological actors. This had the secondary effect of decreasing affiliations with the traditional nation-state by the indigenous people.
- The growth of volunteer, professional armies with a decrease in conscription and the resultant decrease in military manpower and spending.
- A decrease in the domestic populations for the toleration collateral damage on the enemy’s territory.
- Political refusal to engage in conflicts of a total, unlimited nature, with open ended commitments and no specific goals.
Has the Concept of Limited War Lost its Relevance?
The ending of the Cold War clearly precipitated a global seismic shift in the geo-political arena. However, this period has also seen a number of equally important shifts in economic, social and technological spheres that have had varying degrees of causal and correlational relationships to the end of the Cold War.
What is clear, however, is that the threat of all-out total war, whether in terms of full moblisation of resource or nuclear intervention, has diminished significantly. Thus the Limited War paradigm has, arguably increased its post Cold War relevance and is likely to feature increasingly in conflicts in the near to medium-term future.
See Also: Further Considerations on the Modern Relevance of Modern War
Paul Carcone - I am a Chartered Management Accountant with a military background who is also a freelance Management Consultant based in the United ...
