Modern Warfare Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The Chinese strategist Sun Tzu offers a very different vision of war from that known in the Western tradition. Sun Tzu’s work is influenced by the Taoist faith (Lonsdale, 2008: 47). For Sun Tzu war is a necessary evil that represents a departure from cosmic harmony. (Ibid). Western tradition is about consecutive conquests of evil and backwardness through absolute victories according to the just war theory. Sun Tzu presents a contrasting approach to the one introduced by Clausewitz with emphasis on violent clashes of arms and decisive victory (Ibid.) “When the Western tradition prized the decisive clash of forces emphasising feats of heroism, the Chinese ideal stressed subtlety, indirection, and the patient accumulation of relative advantage.” (Kissinger, 2011: 23). This paper will attempt to show that although Clausewitz’s work remains “not simply the greatest but the only truly great book on war” there are still plenty of lessons to be learned from the ancient Chinese military philosopher. Some of these lessons such as elegance, balance and flexibility could be applied in the context of present-day conflicts. If we follow some of the teachings of the great, Chinese sage we may find that there is a timeless dimension to his knowledge that could be, to some degree, applied to modern conflicts, not to increase deception in war; but rather to lead to more humane victories, end protracted wars of attrition, develop respect for the enemy while encouraging adoption of win-win solutions that make peace mutually acceptable and desirable. Thereby showing, even the greatest of our enemies some alternative pathways to change. This is the power of persuasive diplomacy, to bring about a consensual solution since ultimately the way you win matters not only that you win. Sunzi pointed out that being skilled at making war requires the commander to know his enemy. While the ruthlessness of the Clausewitzian military mindset is encapsulated in the words of the main character of the Ender's Game series, when Ender says, "In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also... I think it is impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them... I destroy them." Ender was both loving enough to know his enemies and ruthless enough to defeat them. His empathy and compassion allowed him to think like his enemies anticipating their actions. Ender's ruthlessness drove him to defeat his enemies in ways they could not recover from. But if so, he was guided not by love, but by stubborn doggedness or violent vengeance. Ender possessed a genial, tremendous strategic-military talent, but it was a double-edged sword, he is a hero only to his lieutenants not in his own eyes. Although he saved the Earth and the human species, he lost morally because his emotions took charge. As a consequence, he has forgotten the proportionality of response. As a result of Ender's Clausewitzian victory, an entire race has been annihilated through genocide (in this case, extraterrestrial species, so that would be xenocide). He killed thinking that his space campaign was a game. Afterwards, he has regretted his decision. He admitted that had he known that it was not a game he would not have done it. Clausewitzian victory reveals the brutal ways of war and how it destroys soldiers' conscience and innocence by turning them into ruthless killing machines without any compassion or deeper thought process. Gandhi said that "an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind." Thus, it seems that tolerance is the highest degree of strength and desire to take revenge is the first sign of weakness. Militarism and revanchism usually lead to war which in the extreme becomes a mechanical mass murder process causing unnecessary human suffering. War and cruelty were the fate and occupation of many ruthless dignitaries and conquerors, e.g.: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great. Mostly, they were cold, heartless killers desiring nothing but conquest and fame. Post factum they regretted their decisions. Alexander, for instance, came to regret the destruction that many of his invasions caused. Coming across the plundered tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargad near Persepolis, he was much distressed by what he found and immediately ordered repairs to be made. The most difficult task for any leader who aspires to change the world is both to win the support of the peoples, but more importantly, to win in the race with time. Retrospectively, people had to appreciate all the wonderful works the leader has initiated even if they were not fully completed. This is a considerable challenge for contemporary leaders because often they wrongly choose decisions that are in essence not humanistic and not sufficiently inclusive, i.e. taking into account the common good or the well-being of the entire planet. Most contemporary political leaders are clearly unable to address key critical issues including climate change. Such leaders focus on current issues, often discounting the future of the children, they are beholden to tribal loyalties, lack understanding of the complexity of issues posed by surging science and technology (Dror, 2017: 19). Many leaders are also morally corrupt giving more weight to staying in power, to materialistic values and to enriching themselves and their close families rather than appreciating the urgency of the global challenges (Ibid.). To address global issues effectively such leaders need to overcome political divides and put into action the idea of bipartisanship what requires a degree of farsightedness, long-term thinking and abandonment of egoism, tribalism and fame. In some cases, this may seem like a Herculean effort, but nothing is impossible when motivation is soaring and there is hope to pursue our dreams. It is achievable, but requires consistency and sticking to the leader's guiding principles. To solve the world's biggest problems requires also a measure of unity within civilisation and not only paying attention to the personal character traits of individual leaders, what visits they make and what cars they travel in. These global challenges seem to be like a Rubik's Cube-like puzzle that could be solved if only people could find determination and if leaders or their advisers could swivel the right blocks of the ultimate solution in the right order and time sequence. Reducing food waste, using urban gardening, adopting better supply chains and popularising solar-powered air travel are small pieces in this puzzle. Together, they showcase how innovative technologies can emerge and pave the way for a wider change in sustainability. The top priority is to upgrade the grand-policy crafting qualities of leaders so they could abandon their ego-centred character traits and equip themselves with the sensitivity towards the Earth - recognition of the raison d' humanite and the need to build bipartisan solutions for foreign policy challenges what hopefully could result in avoiding chaos (Dror, 2002). Civilisation needs to unite and one hopeful idea is that the change-enabling force is in the collective power of millions of voices calling for change to shape political outcomes. Therefore, this paper treats the Chinese sage's approach to be much more civilised and more compassionate than the Clausewitzain approach. If humanity wants to transition from a planetary species to an interstellar species while ushering an age of exploration and expansion on an unimaginable scale, then we must eliminate short-term political gains and conflicts between countries or block of countries (alliances) that will not matter in the long-run, in categories of the bigger picture for the planetary preservation. If this assumption is true, namely that to progress to a more advanced level of civilisation (Kardashev Scale) humanity must eliminate what sets us apart and focus attention on unity in the name of solving common challenges, then ancient Chinese ideas alongside with Western ideas could help us to build a more sustainable civilisation, which will be more peaceful. Humanity must find a ways to end wars and build empires of peace. Innovation and creativity could help along the way since they are the wellspring of improvements in a society. The future commander must be skilled in peace since in the Nuclear Age, the true enemy is war. When human imagination is joined by intelligence magical things can happen, the two have proved to be engines of progress leading to many breakthroughs and innovations. So if humanity solves the challenges that are necessary to be solved while uniting the East and the West, the North and the South, then we could potentially become the first species in the universe to create a structure with the scope of the star. If we do it, the only limitation left will be our imagination.