Winds of change reshaping principles of war
Principles of War are an educational guide to the conduct of warfare, derived from four sources: first, analysis of wars; second, scientific developments and their influence on the means of war; third, perceived ways of applying the means as the nature of conflict changes; and fourth, changes in the security environment.
Principles of War are a valuable tool to analyse wars, learn lessons and plan future operations and campaigns.Knowledge of the principles of warpromotes military expertise regarding developments and effects on the battlefield. The principles of war are also suitable standard of comparison for the evaluation and assessment of completed operations, plans for operations, and new concepts.
These principles have emerged from considerable diversity of experience, perception and analysis in an environment of rapid development and change. New threat environment in changing political systems together with continuous progress in military technologies has kept transforming the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) making wars sharp, short and more lethal.
The confluence of the 20th and 21st Century was quite eventful with changes in the international political systems leading to new threat environment. After the end of the Cold War, when intellectual circles were pondering over redefining their national security settings, the world was taken aback by the attack on the Twin Towers unleashing ‘neo-unconventional asymmetric war without frontiers’. ‘Terrorism’, a new threat, went global.
The end of bipolarised power politics transformed the threat environment into ‘multi source’ making the global security environment more unstable. Sources of global threat shifted from Al Qaeda to ‘ISIL-ISIS-IS-Daesh’ which was created in the vortex of the Arab Spring and the Iraq War 2003. While the asymmetric threat from ‘global terrorism’ was gradually seizing, emergence of politico-military competition in theAsia-Pacific forewarned the arrival of a potential second wave of bipolar world. Since then the region is being frequented by short and repetitive contentious presence by military powers from far and near.
Wars in the recent past have brought in newer thoughts in the conduct of warfare. The Gulf War 1991 and the Iraq War 2003 have shown that legal issues of armed conflict and humanitarian laws got into prominence. These wars have also shown how technology, both hardware and software have advanced the military affairs. It showed that the “mother of all battles’ ended in rather one sided battle in the face of superior concentration and application of forces. It also showed the way‘synchronized offence and defence’ led to quick victory. Technology and its application have modified the old concept ‘offence is the best defence’ into ‘synchronize defence and offence’. Offence and defence are the two sides of the same coin. Best defence gives way to good offence. Both defensive and offensive actions together assure quick victory.
‘Surprise’ is a major skill in tactical defence and offence. Innovative applicationof modern weapon systems having increased speed, range and accuracy, can confuse a military commander. Weapons at the speed of light are inching toward reality. This will revolutionise offensive and defensive actions in the battlefield. Information technology has made the battle space management efficient to the degrees not seen before. Target prioritisation with focus on attacking the ‘center of gravity’ and pushing the enemy to a culminating point, are tools assuring quick victory.
Evolving changes in international politics, military doctrine and technology will not invalidate Principles of War but will certainly demand a revision of the principles before the 21st Century’s RMA render them outdated. Last but not the least, commanders being educated on borrowed principles of war in the developing countries should consider military development and education on home grown principles of war to back respective national interest oriented geo-politics.
* Mohammad Abdur Razzak is a retired Commodore of Bangladesh Navy. He can be reached at [email protected].