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Title: Forms of War Author: FishHead Language: en Topics: war, civilisation, progress, violence, history, strategy
The question I attempted to answer in this smallish essay was not
conceived in the beginning of its making, rather it is the culmination
of several differing interests, or perhaps even experiments, if I could
call them so. First, it was bewilderment, I guess, of the dangerous
reality I'm living in, which took quite a while to mature, and the
latent interest in history which led me to ask how did it come to this,
that the world stands in an equilibrium of flimsy mutual trust between
political actors holding the keys to unlocking the destruction of human
civilisation. Scary, no? But true.
Now any attempt to find order in history will surely be dashed away;
rightly so, because man has learned to beware of wishful interpretations
of it, recognising in it potential harmfulness. Interpretations of
history can and are abused for various causes and purposes, but as doing
contrary would mean just an empty listing of events and dates without
meaning to humanity as a whole, I am willing to take the risk as many
have before and try to set my own interpretation of it, or at least a
part of it. The answer I wanted required a certain order, a certain way
or direction of how things developed and why.
Let us be clear; I am neither a historian nor a scientist of any kind,
and my attempt could at best be called a philosophical experiment, and
not caring as I do for proper citations, make of this work as you will.
If anything, it may be interesting, or serve a psychologist as an
inquiry into the workings of a mind unemployed into anything but idle
thought. Whatever the case, I should now explain properly how I
approached my conundrum.
What caught my attention first, or what I thought I should find out
first, was to find the essence of war, or plainly speaking, an element
of it that stretches and appears throughout its history, without which
there would be no war; its law or cause, if you will. An inquiry into
its origins was due, but as I saw later, it was, from the beginning, a
philosophically naive question, and useless at that. Finding the essence
of war, or its cause, is like searching for the Philosophers stone. Oh,
if only knew the causes, cry the pacifists, we could end it forever! No
more war! But, as it seems, the causes are many (some would say
overpopulation, economic imbalance, biological or mental coding, class
difference, etc.), and besides them, there is the very simple fact that,
as long as human beings have the possibility to fight wars, they will.
They, sometimes, do not even need a concrete reason for doing so.
Psychologists have long searched for causes of man's aggression, and
seem to agree that it is innate, as it is. But mixing up aggression of
one man or his tribe with the cause of war between nations is utterly
wrong, as it is no longer (and has not been for some time) a matter of
individuals bickering over borders between villages, but people being
sent to fight other people from the other half of the globe, people they
have never seen nor hold any malice to, except maybe by means of
coercion and propaganda.
Whatever the case may be, war is out there. Being a matter of groups
rather than two individuals, it is different than simple aggression in
that regard, also. It would appear that any group of animals capable of
organisation and architecture is also capable of war. By this I mean
primarily ants, wasps, and so on, and by architecture I mean in the
sense of their hives and burrowed halls. These creatures, of course,
organise and communicate in a manner fundamentally different from that
of humans, but the fact remains that the group is what is the driving
force for both war and peacefull endevours.
So, given that the origin of war, or its essence, is a useless question,
I began to wonder instead, on the essence of its change, or, by what
means, and why, did war change? It is plain to see, the way wars were
conducted in the past is different from the way they are fought today.
Looking further, it quickly became apparent to me that there as a divide
in history, a point, or a period, that made not a rough difference, but
a clear one; a change that swept away former forms of war, and brought
one to the extreme, which is where we are now.
Now, what are these "forms of war," you may be asking, and what is the
divide? First I will answer the latter question, because it is already
well known-I am referring to the invention and improvement of firearms
in the late middle ages to early Renaissance. Now, as I lay this bare,
it may seem that I am stating the obvious (in a way, I am), but the
matter, at least for me, was much more complicated. You see, as much as
it is a well known historical fact, for me it was a matter of fitting it
in an organic, historical development, crucial to our present. Great
changes do not come out of the blue, or so it seemed to me. They must
have a ready bedrock, a foundation, if you will, made of needs and
purposes. I did not find such a foundation laid bare in what I've so far
read, at least not how I wanted it. So I looked for it myself. I hope I
will manage to explain myself better further in the text.
Therefore, what is a form of war, or what constitutes it?
I
Here I articulate several elements of war, that appear more or less,
throughout history. They answer the question, when a man is given to
war, how does he go about it, or, by what principle/s does he fight it
(how and why does he pick the weapons he picks, or ensemble in
formations as he does, and so forth)? What are these principles?
First of all, for all recorded time, war served primarily to destroy the
enemy, as said by Clausewitz; all else is subordinate to it. Wars are
not always fought for that purpose, but that is only when they serve an
external cause. Wars in themselves, in an abstract, "pure" form, serve
only this-annihilation of the enemy. This destruction, of course, while
a goal in itself, in war, ensures the safety of the destroyer. So,
destruction was always the means, but the true goal was triumph,
bringing renewed safety.
The second is the case of the weapon. Weapons in whatever form is used
in all recorded wars. By weapons I mean both what a sword is for a
soldier on an individual level and a legion is for a strategic,
state-level. The soldier is himself a weapon. These weapons are used in
the following manner: they are set to be a much as destructive as
possible on the smallest scale possible. We could call that
simply-effectiveness.
Thirdly, there is distance. The increase between combatants is seen to
constantly fluctuate in early forms of war; then it rapidly starts to
increase, leading up to the present day, when one could blast another
city to smithereens from half way across the globe.
These three would be meaningless if they did not tie into each other, if
they were not bound between each other. Greater distance gives greater
safety, but also allows for greater destruction. Greater destruction
provides the safety through the elimination of the enemy. The following
diagram should clarify.
[]
These determine the form of war in the following way: The greatest
destructive power is concentrated on the smallest unit; this determines
the weapon (on all levels, individual; army-level). Distance is a vital
element in determining all of this, as we shall see later.
This unit, this weapon, and its way of fighting, within its sphere of
influence or interaction, dominates, and sets the form of war for a
duration of time. Of course, if one form of war meets with another, one
should triumph, and so this "rule" is not broken.
One might object that arms race could deftly explain change in, well,
arms and the way of fighting, but there was no such thing, at least as
we know it in ancient times; arms race is a relatively recent
phenomenon, picking up its pace as it reaches today, when it is in full
swing.
These at first glance simple observations may seem contrived for an
obscure purpose (or none at all), but they are there to explain what
guided man in an attempt to realise his intentions, in this case, war.
They are, by all means, abstract and deduced as underlying history, its
pavement, not the feet that walk upon it; they are not the "rules" that
man consciously abided by when making weapons, but neither are they
truly unconscious impulses, either. They are what may be read from
history, but between the lines.
Now, accepting with reservation, perhaps, all of the above, you may
wonder, what was so revolutionary about the "divide," besides the
obvious? It is in what came prior, that is, in that it favoured one form
over others, developing it to the extreme; that form then finally slowly
losing, for quite some time now, any sense of internal order, maybe even
being enveloped in its own retardation, and certainly its confusion.
I mentioned that it favoured one form over all others; this means that
none was favoured before, that is, none remained so long in use, none
dominated in such a long time. The diagram above may seem simple, but it
is not so straight forward as it appears. Looking at it one could
rightly say: well, we've progressed this far, of course, our most
powerful weapons are the our atom and nuclear bombs-they require the
greatest distance to be used safely, but they are also the most
destructive we have. It is natural we should have arrived at this stage.
This is, of course, due to another element of war-technology. It is
technology that allows for greater distance and greater destruction. But
it is external-it is what we give to war so it can be waged. Of its
interaction with war much has been said, but its influence is without
coincidence of the greatest magnitude today; in periods of more or less
technological "stagnation" it was certainly a crucial determinant of
war, but as we already explained, one that is brought into its internal
logic; war uses technology; sometimes they feed on each other-but war is
not technology, nor its sole source of inovation, as is popularly argued
(this is however today becoming more and more true).
Yet, these periods of stagnation are what take up much of military
history; true, improvements are made; something is changed, and yet,
things remain much the same; the instruments of war, the sword, the
spear, the bow, and so on, are still there. The next question is, how
did these provide the bedrock for the extraordinary jump and later
development of the dominant-firearm based form of war of the
post-Renaissance, and how could it be, that it could exist before
itself?
This is because, as the forms are numerous and diverse, it is only by
external classification that they can be recognised and supported. This
is necessarily an artificial separation, as nothing stays fundamentally
the same throughout history; It is important to remember that forms are
created, they in no way constitute reality.
They may be, however, simplified according to their weapons; from there,
one can determine the way of fighting, and consequently the form itself.
So, forms depend whether one man can do a job of a 100 people or not;
or, one unit the job of a hundred units, and so on. One or a hundred,
according to different needs and circumstances. Maximally useful, for
each time and age. Its important to know that people aren't
important-the weapons are, or rather, the people are important, but as
the controllers of weapons. If they weren't irreplaceable bound to
weapons they wouldn't be so mercilessly slaughtered during wars. But
they primarily serve to operate the weapons-whether axes or pistols. The
form determinants aren't the best soldiers of an era, but ones that
force change. They are not the best trained; they are the most
effective, the ones that one cannot go to war without. And, each form is
a unity of mutually influencing elements: from the weapons used to the
strategies employed; this much is common sense.
However, even if determining the domineering forms according to the
principles that define it is easy enough, it is not what I set out to do
or find out, and that is, as is laid out above, answering the question
of what provided the bedrock for a more or less easy transition to the
era of firearms?
II
As one recognises various forms one also perceives (limited by material
and technical possibilities) in the pre-firearm era two opposing
tendencies, which seem to both balance and counteract each other. These
opposites are best illustrated in their extremes, which would meet for
the perhaps last time in the late Renaissance: the phalangite and the
knight.
The examples are of course picked from history and they represent the
two philosophies of approaching war that were available to the
pre-modern man. Different gradations between the two are found
throughout history, and the examples themselves do not completely
represent the abstract qualities that I prescribe them, but they were
chosen because they were according to my opinion the closest to what I
had in mind.
Remember the "rule" of concentrating destructive power? Well, it still
stands, but can be utilised on different levels, and different manners.
So, the phalangite, on a personal, individual level, actually disperses
power, while concentrating it on the level of a functional "unit" or
phalanx. The knight on the other hand, concentrates destructive power on
an individual level, while dispersing it on the level of a unit. He does
indeed fight together with other knights, but he was primarily trained
to be an all-round individual fighter, a "one-man army," in a sense
(even if it is, of course, an exaggeration).
These tendencies were formed by the primary weapons the warriors
employed: the phalangites sarissa (a long pike) and the knights, for
simplicity's sake, sword (I am of course aware that the knight employed
a plenitude of weapons, including the lance, but the way it was used
makes no bearing on my argument, at least on a rudimentary level).
The phalanx is made for attack. An effective, organised unit (the
phalanx), has for its goal destruction, which means that its primary
function was attack, not defense. The phalangites usually wore partial
armor, that is, forward facing body parts were most defended. Its
sarissae were comletely turned to the front; the sides and back of the
phalanx were completely exposed, which meant that the phalanx had to
advance and force the enemy on its pikes.
It is reasonable that an effective organisation of the army requires
distance between the army and its enemy, as out of the battlefield and
so on it. The phalanx could not be organised as it is without having the
leeway to operate without the sarissae, but without the organisation the
sarissae could not be properly used. This is why distance was added as
an element crucial to determining a form of war, and we will see its
significance latter on.
Instead of the knight lets compare something more historically close to
the phalangite, something somewhat between the two - a late republic to
early empire Roman legionary-and their methods of conquest.
Both were made conquering armies, but the way they went about doing it
was different. I already mentioned the phalanx as made for attack;
contrary to it, the legion is a defensive force. How can that be, you
may ask, when the legions did their fair share of invading and
conquering? As I said, it was the way they went about the problem of
conquest that differentiates them.
The main difference is obvious- the legionary fights at a minimal
distance, in close combat after throwing the pila (or darts in the Late
Empire); he is efficient in one on one combat, but most effective within
the shield order with his comrades (the knight on the other hand, is
mostly self-sufficient); the phalangite is near uselles alone, and he
fights at a distance (the length of the sarissa).
The legion attacks by fortifying the invaded area, and then dealing with
whoever doesn't agree with them taking over; from these fortresses
spring cities. The romans bring order (law) of their crossed streets
(the military camp is designed with four sides and four gates on each
side; the roads from each gate meet in the middle, this is the basis of
the city); the locals soon find it attractive and populate it.
The phalanx is a moving fortress. Alexander founded cities as he went
and where he wanted them. The Greeks conquered not with law/order, but
by culture. The Persian and the Egyptian soon found themselves
surrounded by Greek columns and going to Greek theaters.
Such are their distinct methods of conquest, exaggerated, of course, for
illustration, but I believe still fundamentally true.
We see how the Roman method was brought to the extreme by the middle
ages, but was still different. The knights fortified to the extreme, but
as the example of conquest are sparse, as Europe was from the get go
populated by castles, we can see it happen in the Holy Land, where
powerful fortresses were built after conquest. The way and reason this
was being done is as said different from the roman. The Romans
established civic order (the city plan), the knights and lords brought
hierarchical order (the fort on the hill; the farmland and village
bellow).
Given we accept all of this, the two tendencies may be named according
to the two modes of acting in a war: the attacking and the defensive.
These are unfortunate names, because we should not associate the way
someone would use an army with one or the other tendency that the army
is associated with, but that the army is itself (through its weapons and
organisation) invested with the "spirit" of attack or defence.
Therefore, I would place the phalanx as the example of an attacking
tendency, and the knight as of the defensive tendency.
So much for that. It's also important to have a word on the weapons
(available to the pre-modern man) themselves. First off, I placed the
pike or sarissa as exemplifying the attacking tendency because by its
length (or distance) it permits (or demands) organisation, organisation
allowing for greater control, and greater control allowing easier
fulfillment of the objective of war-destruction, and an army equipped
with it cannot allow itself to get walled up; it attacks, even in
defence. This is simple reasoning. Weapons like the axe, the short
spear, the hammer, the mace, the sword, and a myriad of other such
weapons, instead, while when used are usually grouped, are most often
thrown in the fight without much order, much like the Gauls and Germans
the Romans faced in their conquests. Swords (developing as it seems from
knives and daggers) seem to be on the other extreme; they are versatile
and individual weapons; Musashi credits them as spawning the first
(weapon-based) martial art. A person best uses them while alone. A pike
"gives" itself to the opponent; the sword keeps to its owner. Simply
put, the shorter the weapons, the more defensive they are.
I hope the reader is getting a clearer picture of what I am getting at.
Let us continue. I hope that by this, these tendencies, as exemplified
in the former examples, and manifested on various levels of
organisation, are explained.
III
I deliberately omitted ranged weapons from the above listing of weapons
for a purpose. I placed the pike as the example of the attacking
tendency by virtue of the organisation allowed by its distance from the
enemy. But doesn't a ranged weapon, such as the bow or the javelin or
the sling also allow such a distance? The answer is yes, but it doesn't
allow for an equivalent organisation. Why can be primarily seen through
the physical characteristics of the mode of using the weapon itself and
its effectiveness; also, importantly, its decisiveness.
First of all, the bow never or extremely rarely made up most of the
army, except in the beginnings of tribal warfare (I will explain in a
bit). In order to be effective, it had to be used in great quantities.
The bow is an effective weapon on its own, but in battles where the
enemy is approaching in great numbers, great speed and adequate
shielding from the arrows, it couldn't be truly used to its full
potential, whatever the exceptions may be. Favorable terrain, weather
and the use of spiked barricades allowed for a brilliant victory of the
English at Agincourt, where the longbow made up most of the English
army. Nevertheless, even if we count in other battles around that time,
all of this, even if it could be called an exception, is still not a
very clear one.
As I said, though ranged weapons were very useful and extremely
effective weapons, they never did quite operate as the pikes did. Ranged
weapons in the long end lacked the directness of pikes; this can be seen
with the utilization of the mass volley, which peppers the enemy from
the above, in an arc. Directness simply asks for decisiveness, and thus
naturally dominates.
There are other reasons, such as the time it took to train an English
longbowman or a Rhodian slinger, but although significant, I believe
these are of minor value in contrast to the way these weapons are
actualy utilised. One must remember, although I speak of what are
considered indispensable elements of a well equiped army, be it ranged
weapons or sometimes cavalry, they are nearly always not the decisive
element or one that forms the true core of a force. Speaking of the
cavalry, much has been said of the knight and his horse, but the horse
is a way of giving such like warriors an artificial dynamism and
mobility that they normally lack. Just as the bow makes up for the lack
of available distance, so the horse makes up for the lack of mobility
and impetuousness. It can be the determinant form, but generally never
for too long.
The early firearms are the successors of pikes, not bows or crossbows.
They rendered both obsolete, eventually, but the bows were the first do
die not because the firearms replaced them directly, but because they
expanded the tendency inherent in the pikes, extending the reach of the
pike square, in a direct manner. In a way, the pikes were directly
replaced, the bows indirectly. The arquebus and the musket inherited the
pike formation, and then simplified it, thinning it more and more as the
gun became more and more powerful and its range increased. This is
divide I was writing of.
Before we continue on the nature of firearms and its succession of pike
warfare, a general, highly-simplified history of the development of
weapons may be given. This is tricky, of course, because most weapons
coexist at the same time. Nevertheless, if we make a historical sandwich
with ingredients from various "times" in history, we can make something
that seems to follow progression according to what we know to be its
highlight, the ending of a cycle-the formation of the phalanx. Why is
this the ending? Because we see it develop continuity in history only to
always later disappear back into obscurity; generalised (of mixed
weapons) forms of warfare that preceded it again succeed it; the
phalanx, when it appears, seems not to last long (we will explain why
this is so). Also-because from it proceeds the form that broke with all
other previous ones, and was favoured by technological progression above
all others.
Formerly I wrote that ranged warfare constituted the most of unorganised
tribal warfare. This is somewhat true, or at least seems to be in
principle. We can deduce this from the conclusion that ranged warfare is
not made to be decisive (though it can be). "Primitive" villages engaged
in continuous warfare with their neighbours for what for us can seem
ridiculously long periods of time, not one village emerging as the
decisive victor. We indeed have examples of primitive people using
mainly ranged weapons in these tribal wars. There are casualties-these
weapons are indubitably deadly; but it rarely happens that entire
villages are slaughtered. When this does happen, it is a sign of
organisation, whether it is a momentary inspiration or a sign of things
to come. Instead of shooting and hiding from each other, one side came
up close and eliminated the enemy without mercy. Something like that is
reported of Shaka Zulu and his "reforms." It is said that his neighbours
used to throw their spears; Shaka kept these weapons but also made ones
for hand to hand combat. Using such weapons requires rudimentary
organisation and the use of crude formations. These were also developed
by Shaka, with which he defeated his enemies and formed a kingdom. This
is why I believe that tribal-level peoples mostly utilised ranged
weaponry-because of the millitary and civilisational achievements of
higher organisation that came after it.
After this initial stage of the "common battle order" with simple
formations, there is I believe an increase in armor, fortification, and
shorter weaponry. I have in my mind the warriors of the Nuragic
civilisation and the Sea Peoples. Then the simple formations evolve into
the first proper phalanx, seemingly not of the same complexity as the
Macedonian one, but still pretty close. This is the Homeric phalanx, and
also as it seems the Hawaiian pike formation. The Homeric phalanx
answers the increase of armor and counters it successfully. And then, it
is no more! The Greeks will not fight in a phalanx until the time of
Philip (Diodorus Siculus says he was inspired by the Homeric) and his
son Alexander. The phalanx will be used until the Diadochi kingdoms were
conquered by the Romans. It appears again in the Swiss pike square, the
tercio, and in the Netherlands in the innovations of Maurice of Nassau,
who was inspired by the Macedonian phalanx, but this was already the
beginning of pike and shot warfare. To note, even if all of these
innovators were inspired by earlier models, the time must have been ripe
to put them into practice, and therefore I would suggest that the
innovations would have "naturally" come by themselves, even if no
inspiration was at hand.
The historian would jeer at my rushed history of the phalanx and its
variants, for a good reason. But I believe I am correct when I say that
I didn't have much choice if I wanted to gather just such a history.
There is still debate over how combat was conducted in the Homeric era,
however, given the material evidence I don't think the testimony of
Diodorus should be doubted too much.
In any case, the reason the phalanx was abandoned each time (the Greeks
used shorter spears after the Homeric phalanx, and this entailed a
slightly different way of fighting) is simply because it was not
unbeatable. The Romans beat the phalanx proving this. It is thoroughly
balanced by different ways of fighting, by different forms of war, and
by a different tendency. We know this because it was only after its
reach and power were so extended and amplified that it could so firmly
set its place in history. Formerly it never was the "ultimate" way of
fighting.
Following the repetitive appearances of the phalanx, and the logic of
improving armor and weapons with the available technology, the history
goes as follows. From the hypothetical tribal warfare with ranged
weapons, close combat weapons were utilised. An improvement in armor
(shields, helmets, cuirasses) followed, along with more powerful weapons
to combat them. Fortification happens also at this time. Then the pike
is developed. This is the Homeric phalanx. Bronze age collapse happens.
This is the ending of the first cycle. The neighbours of the Greeks do
not advance militarily in significant ways, because they do not need to.
Egypt remains perhaps the most primitive in military technology of the
ancient civilisations. Skip to the Golden age of Greece. Greco-Persian
wars occur. The Greeks fight within a "shield wall." The Peloponnesian
war occurs and other related conflicts; Greeks fight the Greeks. The
Macedonians develop the phalanx and conquer Greece; they defeat the
Persian empire. The wars of the Diadochi occur; the Romans defeat their
greatest enemy Mithridates and all the Diadochi kingdoms. This is the
ending of the second cycle. Rome is destroyed by barbarians. Slowly the
kingdoms of Europe are formed. Paralleling the first cycle, there is a
slow increase in armor and fortification. Similar weapons are developed
by the end of these phases; the Late-medieval zweihander and the Nuragic
great-sword are remarkably similar. The schiltron, the pike square and
such formations are developed. The spear becomes the pike. Other such
weapons are developed, the halberd, for example. This is the ending of
the third cycle. There will not be a fourth.
The cycles are not fancifully produced; I am thoroughly aware that they
do not parallel each other perfectly-they are a product of circumstance,
availability of technology and materials. What I am trying to point out
is that given these resources, the development of forms of war usually
follows this path. This didn't need to happen, and didn't always happen.
Civilisations may utilise the same forms of warfare and never reach the
stage of the phalanx.
IV
Therefore, this is the cycle that firearms broke up with when they
appeared. We often wonder, why did so many commanders prefer the attack
or "pressing the initiative" given that such destructive weapons were
invented, in both the tactical and the strategic level? The reason is
rather simple-they still weren't maximally effective. The pike took a
long time to disappear (this is why Maurice de Saxe wanted to revive the
Roman soldier; he didn't consider the firearms available to him as very
effective). It would remain an element of the rifle-its bayonet, for
quite a while. Until the rifle reached its full potential, charges were
frequent. Clausewitz explained it deftly: the attacker is the mover, the
defender the moved. The attacker acts, the defender reacts. The attacker
sets the rules, and that is why attack was favoured over defence.
Besides, by attacking one fulfills the primary purpose of
war-destruction. In any case, just because I credited the knights as the
symbol of defensive warfare doesn't mean they never attacked. Closing in
on the enemy is the primary goal, on any level. Either one brings the
figurative weapon (the knight) close or the true weapon (the pike)
close. But as I said earlier, the pike is the attacking weapon. I
already explained why.
Paradoxically, man moved further away from the target in order to attack
and destroy it better. One already knows what happened after the era of
pike and shot warfare was over. Artillery was developed next, becoming
more and more deadly. Machine guns were developed next. And then all the
niceties of war familiar to us: tanks and airplanes. With the airplane
came back in a very constrained form an element or former
chivalry-honor. This is not just popular imagination-any form of war
that allows for one on one duels will contain such an element. This
lasted briefly, however.
It is interesting to note what happened to defensive walls at that time.
Formerly, sieges were hard and costly, and commanders seldom engaged in
them unless wanting to starve out he defenders or having a great
advantage. When a city was taken, the walls were not demolished, except
when the city was to be completely humiliated. City walls stood for the
independence and freedom of a city to govern itself; its demolishing was
a symbolic act of taking that freedom away. When most of Europe was
under absolute monarchies, this happened much more often, for the reason
of establishing royal control over these cities and their trade.
Rebelling cities often also suffered such a fate. But what mostly
happened is that these walls outlived their use-the city spread beyond
their confines.
Walls served not only to protect but also to regulate the expression of
violence and aggression of the city itself. Remember that Sparta had no
walls, as was decreed by Lycurgus. Its men were its walls. This had an
important influence on Spartan foreign politics. Because Sparta had no
fixed lines of defence meant that it unleashed its own aggression.
Remember also that the Greek hoplite is the predecessor of the phalanx,
and had many of its qualities. Similarly to the phalanx, the Spartans
are forced to attack because there is no defence behind their backs. The
citizen-warriors of Sparta are a mobile unit being human beings, not
stone. By that mobility man is dispositioned for attack, by the inherent
potentiality he possesses. This is why Spartans usually fought to the
last man-the city always stood defenceless behind them.
Modern man is this Spartan, I claim, because modern civilisation and
modern firearms forever proclaimed the uselessness of towers and walls,
thus placing man in a state of perpetual aggression.
About the social and political order it seems to me that they in
themselves, whatever they may be, do not influence the military order
significantly. That is, ideological differences do not mark
militarily-structural ones, because it seems that a functional army
operates according to its own rules; not doing so would mean it is not
fulfilling this function and would therefore not be a useful tool for
serving the social or political order in the first place. War is to me
something that Shmitt would perhaps place in the realm of the
supralegal, or even further, suprasocietal.
So, the spatial characteristics of political units that make up or
produce military units are crucial, not the ideology.
Whatever the ideology in question, a professional army means a
consolidation of authority. This is not strange if we remember that
revolutionary armies are popular in nature. Heterogeneous armies of
feudal states are so because of their distinct territories, but under
one command. This is true "decentralized" government. Its advantages are
in defence, as it seems to me. Likewise, a centralised unified
government has an advantage in attack.
It can be seen that decentralizing and regionalising the state (and its
army) is often done in history to better respond to foreign invasions,
making flexible, rapid-response armies, able to answer on their own or
at least contain the threat for long enough for reinforcements to
arrive. This is what happened in the Roman and Byzantine empires.
Politically and economically, this is the foundation of feudalism.
Contrary to that, centralised authority is strengthened by conquest, and
it doesn't matter what philosophy one follows.
The way a realm defends itself in feudalism is based on individual forts
and castles; unified empires like the Roman and the Chinese instead
build large walls to keep out the barbarians. It is all a matter of
scale.
What I said may make one think that war influenced man alone; the so
called "state of exception." To that I may answer that I am not certain,
but believe that even if its influence is great, we must remember that
without society in general it would never exist.
V
A state or authority that projects its army on the battlefield, creates
a separate part of its self that can be destroyed (used and sacrificed)
without (or not crushing) consequences to that state. It is vulnerable,
but it also has a chance to recover, as the Romans did after Cannae. So
the state creates a separate body for purposes of war.
If a weapon is individual (more defensive) in nature, it necessarily
draws and represents the entire state or authority in conflict, or at
least its head. It's not about the quantity of individual weapons
(whether these are knights or rockets), but the mode or form of warfare
that the destructiveness of these weapons entails. If it is the
"ultimate" weapon, or more accurately the determinant of form, it is
inevitably bound to the decision of not only the military but also the
civil leadership. At the time of knights, that is during the period of
their domination, they were both the leadership of the realm and the
"weapon of choice." The dictum: "War is the continuation of politics by
other means" whether or not wrongly translated, stands as true. Modern
weapons are the direct tool of the state, not its separate body, which
means that if powerful modern states truly went to war, they would be
doubtlessly staking their very existence. This is of no surprise to
anyone, given we are aware of what these weapons are, but the philosophy
underlying it is I hope a bit clarified.
Increasing distance doesn't necessarily mean increasing individual
weapons. But in the case of modern weaponry, it does. The distance needs
organisation to be properly used, correct? And the organisation
presupposes a dispersal of destructive power. But you see, as the
distance between warring forces increased, so did the counter effect of
higher destructive power kick in, thus slowly individualising the
weapons used. Modern war machines and modern weapons in general are
quite capable to stand on their own. I am aware of the enormous
organisation of supply lines and communications used to bring them
together, but this is not what I speak of.
Finally, we created weapons of mass destruction. By this the fate of
state was bound to such weapons. All subsequent forms of war were and
still are an attempt to return war to its functional state as a useful
tool of government and retaining the military leading it as a separate
body. This is no longer possible.
In the conditions wrought by total war, each and every person is
involved; the means of production cannot be ignored. Military and
civilian targets are getting harder to differentiate. Schmitt analysed,
for example, the consequences of guerrilla warfare. Others analysed
other aspects of modern warfare. To recap what they said is not in my
interest. Make no mistake, though-we are living in a state of total war.
Due to global interconnectedness, it is no longer possible not to suffer
the consequences of physically distant conflicts. The line between war
and peace is blurred.
Take this example: In creation of total war (in which production centers
are a military target), long-ranged weapons regained their potential in
the sense of making up for their impression or rather, lack of full
potential by not separating civilians and soldiers. When military drones
were introduced, this lack of "precision" seemed to disappear, but the
civilian and military targets were again not separated. This is because
it was revealed that human bodies are greater threats than industrial
centers. Kill the hand the holds the gun is the principle both of
tactics and international strategy. Such is modern warfare.
An the end of this essay, let me give a fanciful interpretation of
modern warfare. You see, I liken it to a theomachy, a battle of the
gods. In the Illiad, the gods rarely engage each other directly-they
prefer mortals to do their dirty work. They guide and endow their
weapons with strength. The gods are wounded-ichor dripping from their
wounds, but they never die. But if the gods ever truly decided to war
against each other, mighty Olympus would topple.
Some are expecting a bright future for humanity; some say that war could
disappear in this future. I am not so sure. I used to think that there
may have been a possibility for something like that, but now I think
that these people might be a little mad, given what our nearest past had
in store for our ancestors. Two horrific world wars scarred the planet.
If that is progress, then one must consider its actual use for the human
species, or the world as a whole.