Art of War Studies Essay

What is situate of fight?In social club to describe what state of contend is wholeness has to correct it. According to The Collins Dictionary contend is1. open fortify troth in the midst of two or more(prenominal) parties, nations or states 2. a particular fortify conflict the 1973 war in Middle East. 3. the techniques of armed conflict as a study, science, or profession. 4. and conflict or contest the war against crime. 5. (modifier) of, resulting from a char toyeristic of war war damage war history.This is obviously true(a) to the point, only does non go into equal detail to fully describe what war is. Cla subprogramwitz chooses non to follow the definitions put down before by, what he calls, publicists, in Vom Kriege. Instead he puts forward his own view that it is zilch but a collectl on an extensive scale. To fully understand what war is you redeem to look at the quad main factors in war pound, the agents tortuous, excitement and duration, and teleology.The use of force and the violent reputation of it is arguably the nigh obvious baffle got of war. However, one has to retrieve what force in reality is, the answer to this creating signifi goatt disagreement. When talking some the use of force as a feature of war one flat considers this force to be of military form, whereby weapons argon use to look at down their opponents. This is of play true to an extent, but is not the compose force used in war. hale enkindle also be governmental or ideologic force, as follown in the beginnings of the Cold contend. Here, the Soviet Union uses their ideological ties with new(prenominal) countries in Eastern atomic number 63 to force them to reject the Marshall fancy in their war against the United States of the States (US) for dominance.Clausewitz Total contend, whereby the nations uses all of their riches and resources, putting them on the line, in clubhouse to put down their enemys armies, berth and even their citizens, ties in with this use of force. Here, force is e precisething that the crusade group piece of ass call together together in order to destroy the other groups get prohibited to employment and tot up a quick, fateful victory, and can involve killing soldiers as well as destroying classical buildings.Wars atomic number 18 not of all time worry this, and with the entre of nu clean-living weapons, wagon train Creveld believes that accomplished war is effectively at its end. Also, if this Total War was true consequently more groups would use nuclear weapons in order to grow the war, but they do not. This is due to inversely assured destruction and the risk of a backlash from other nuclear powers. in that respect has been plans to try and incorporate nuclear weapons into effected war, but this was unsuccessful.When considering what is war, it is not expert a case of the use of force by the attacking party, but one has to consider in account the debate forc e. Without this opposed force it would not be war, it would just be a massacre or perhaps genocide. The form of opposition force, deal an attackers force, can vary, whether they respond in an foul-smelling or defensive manner. If they are fend for the war leave alone be confine to their own turf and their forces concentrated on preventing attack and protecting certain raft or buildings. However, the run intoensive force of the attacking party can be met with corresponding offensive force. The war go away lastly begin on their turf as they are being attacked, but they entrust attempt to obliterate the threat and then attempt to destroy them as in Clausewitz Total War.If force is hence the use of weapons, then one has to consider what sort of weapons are used in war. Weapons have changed through time, becoming increasingly sophisticated to the point of nuclear weapons that could remove all humans off the subject of the earth, but they have not been used to their full e xtent as of yet. The larger powers tend to use weapons much(prenominal) as aircrafts with bombing and firing capabilities, tanks and battleships, whilst the soldiers involved volition carry such things as accelerators and grenades.Martin new wave Creveld puts forward his thesis that in incoming wars weapons allow become less forward-looking due to the types of groups involved. With this, he believes the production of hi-tech weapons will stop and cheaper, but still effective weapons, will be used. This is already happening in the war in the midst of Al-Qaeda and the West, where they are trying to bring down the US and the whole western sandwich system. They did not kill people with lofty-tech weapons in their most devastating strike against the US, which killed thousands of people, but as well ask over two aeroplanes nearly New York and flew them into two buildings, which were among the most important in the West, showing it does not have to be all guns and bombs in war s. other important part of war is the agents involved in it. In todays world, since the Peace of Westphalia, one would find it very tempting to say that war is a game compete out by states. However, it is increasingly emerging to be not just a game played by states, but other groups are emerging that take refuge in sympathetic states that wage war on other states or groups. One such group is Al-Qaeda, which took refuge in Afghanistan in their fight against the West.If it is states fighting wars then this will be very similar to Clausewitz Trinitarian war, which is do up of a trinity of the government, the multitude and the people. In this situation, the government decides whether to go to war but they do not fight it. The army are strictly the players in the game and the ordinary civilians are not allowed to join in at all. If and so this is true then all wars in the world would be an army versus an army.However, in todays world we see wars break out between armies and a group o f civilians, like the situation in Iraq at the moment and the War against terror. Wars can even break out between two non-army organisations, such as a gang warfare between Mafia groups, although obviously the scale will not be as heroic as van Crevelds conventional war. These wars which do not add up between armies does not fit into Clausewitz Trinitarian war, but is more an element of van Crevelds non-Trinitarian war. He sees a decline of the state and with this the liquidation of boundaries between the trinity. This means that it will not only be armies that fight wars, but also groups of civilians, as seen with groups like Al-Qaeda.This arises some other important part of war, which is how severe or how long it has to go on for in order for it to be classed as a war and not a skirmish of any other act of violence that is not a war as such. A war cannot simply be a single gun fight between two gangs as this is just a one off event. It has to be a series of events or battles between two or more groups for a certain cause. The saying you may have won the battle, but you have not won the war, although is a very dramatic saying, is perhaps the most obvious quote that war cannot just simply be one battle, that would be a skirmish. War is number of these skirmishes and would lastly be more than two. The intensity is another matter, and this varies from war to war depending on the strength, nature and will to destroy of the groups involved. Wars do not necessarily have to be high intensity, although Clausewitz Total War would be, where as Van Crevelds Low Intensity fighting would not.War would not happen if it was not fought for a certain reason, for that fact one has to understand what means war is fought for. This can be seen in Clausewitz definition that war is the continuation of politics by other means. War is not always going to be fought for political reasons and can in fact be due to such things as ideological and frugal factors.In conclusion one can see that the definition of war in a dictionary is not hard-core enough. Saying war is an open armed conflict between two or more parties, nations or states is much too thin an answer to discuss what war is in who is involved. Discussing fully the four factors in the introduction brings about a clear definition of war, which cannot really be put into a few sentences as it varies a great degree and is ever ever-changing through time, whether it be who is involved, the weapons used or the means of which it is fought for.BibliographyMartin van Creveld Transformation of WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarLawrence Freedman WarThe Collins Dictionary