War is about death and destruction

There is no kinder, gentler war. Its formula has never been found -- not through strategic bombing, maneuver warfare, the indirect approach, or "cyberwarfare." This is a fact to which history will attest.

In a piece subtitled "why the electronic wars of the future will actually save lives," Tim Maurer yesterday argued that "cyberwarfare" can make war less violent and destructive; the rise to prominence of what we often hear described as "non-kinetic" means could allow for a brighter, "humanitarian" future in which fewer people are killed to accomplish political change.

The prevailing view, however, holds that cyberwar is a terrifying prospect... Yet the evidence of cyberwarfare, so far, reveals a very different picture. The cyberattack on Estonia in 2007 was the first to make major international headlines. But its damage was limited: The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack overburdened servers in Estonia and brought down several websites. Something similar happened in Georgia during the war in 2008. Such attacks could theoretically cost lives if they shut down emergency hotlines, for example. But they're not the sort of thing that should keep us up at night. [...] Cyberwarfare might be how we will fight the battles of the future. The evidence so far suggests, however, that a digital Pearl Harbor would cost fewer lives than the attack 70 years ago. It might not be pretty, but from a humanitarian point of view, that's good news.

But as Thomas Rid convincingly argues in a recent article ($) for the Journal of Strategic Studies, it's hard to think of such actions as really constituting "war" at all. Rid and Maurer agree that so-called "cyberwarfare" will likely be less dangerous than many forecasters predict, but the more optimistic Maurer fails to carry this observation to its inevitable Clausewitzian conclusion: war itself exists as a political phenomenon largely because other policy means are sometimes ineffective, and "less dangerous" very often means less useful.

Clausewitz reminds us at the outset that "war is an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will." Rid is more explicit about how such compulsion is accomplished:

To achieve the end of war, one opponent has to be rendered defenseless. Or, to be more precise: the opponent has to be brought into a position, against his will, where any change of that position brought about by the continued use of arms would bring only more disadvantages for him, at least in that opponent's view. Complete defenselessness is only the most extreme of those positions.

Violence, threatened or actual, is what defines an act of war; violence is what destroys the enemy or breaks his will -- that intangible force that sustains his resistance -- and thus compels decision. The level of violence, destruction, and/or dislocation that's required to achieve this end varies according to context and the enemy's specific character: it can span from a show of force (threatened violence to deter enemy action) to a battle of envelopment and annihilation (in which "complete defenselessness" is enacted on the enemy). But all acts of war are merely means to this end.

Maurer is hopeful of a world where aggressive non-kinetic actions may be usefully employed by governments to accomplish policy aims short of violence, and I applaud his optimism. It can hardly be a bad thing if states have more ways to solve their problems short of war, and such flexibility can certainly save lives. But imprecise and misleading use of "war" vocabulary can lead us to forget that battle, death, destruction, violence and coercion remain as ever the "last argument of kings."

"Cyberwarfare" may give us a less dangerous instrument of policy, but it won't change the escalatory logic and fundamental violence of war. The "electronic wars of the future" will only save lives if the methods we develop to "fight" them can replicate the coercive power that has, to this point in history, only consistently been achieved by death and destruction.

Two different ways of thinking about war movies

I just saw "The Hurt Locker" for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was a reasonably good story, and that it did a pretty good job of capturing the look and feel of the Iraq War (or at least how I imagine it to be/to have been, as I've never been to Iraq). Recently a number of people have expressed to me their disappointment in the movie, particularly the feeling that aspects of it were not realistic; as several of these folks have spent time in theater, I took those objections to heart. At the end of the day, though, I feel like it was a reasonably entertaining movie that didn't do any great violence to the truth, and that's enough for me.

In this post on Abu Muqawama, Ex seems to agree: war movies are about entertainment, even though they're always going to miss a few details.

But I do not understand my fellow Iraq veterans complaining the Hurt Locker isn't realistic enough. When did war movies suddenly have to be realistic? Did Blackhawk Down start this? Was it the bank robbery scene in Heat? The reason I say this is that one of my best childhood friends was walking through a Walgreens in Nashville, passed a $9 DVD Double Feature of Kelly's Heroes and the Dirty Dozen and immediately thought, correctly, "Oh, man, this would make Ex's year if I bought this and sent it to him." Now there is very little that is realistic about either movie, but c'mon, they are surely two of the greatest war movies ever.

The comment thread there is interesting, as it covers a wide range of views: Ex is right, movies are entertainment; Ex is wrong, war movies should get the war parts right; and basically everything in between. Like I said before, I don't have a really strong opinion about this, but as a historian I suppose I trend towards favoring realism and authenticity.

So it was with great interest that I read this op-ed from yesterdays online Times. It was authored by Michael Jernigan, an Iraq vet who was severely wounded in Mahmoudiya. Jernigan isn't so much concerned with whether war movies are realistic or unrealistic (though he does say that he "saw a lot of reality" in "The Hurt Locker"), but rather with the entire genre's fundamental theme: that there is something commendable or positive about war. I'm going to excerpt the article at length here, because I think it helps you to understand Jernigan's criticism.

Later in the deployment my Humvee was hit by a large I.E.D. I had my forehead crushed in, lost both eyes, had to have my right hand fully reconstructed and took severe damage to my left knee. One buddy lost a foot; one of the others took shrapnel to the forehead but lived; one took superficial shrapnel wounds to the arm and one of my best friends died.

On a later deployment to Iraq that I did not go on, I lost three more friends to I.E.D.’s. One of them was the Navy Corpsman (Marine medic) who saved my life on the battlefield back in Mahmudiya. I have a tattoo over my left breast (where my heart is) that says “Semper Fidelis,” the Marine Corps motto. It is Latin for “Always Faithful” and refers to always accomplishing the mission. Around the “Semper Fidelis” are four names. “Thompson,” “Belchik,” Cockerham” and “Hodshire.” All great guys that I would let date my sister.

“The Hurt Locker” and all the other movies I mentioned, whether they are good or bad as entertainment, are still war movies and war movies glorify the acts of violence that I described above. How do you feel about that? Would you bring your children out to the battlefield to witness it live and in person? There is no happy ending. Kelly does not get the gold, Stryker does not make it to the top of Mount Suribachi and 8-Ball gets cut down by a sniper. Please remember that when you watch a war movie you are watching stories about young Americans who went far from home and risked their lives; some of them died there with only their brothers in arms to witness. Hollywood is now taking our money by walking on their graves.

Maybe that’s extreme. Of course I understand why people watch war movies. I watch them, too. But I have seen my friends die and most of the movies just bring up very painful memories.

While I agree that "taking our money by walking on their graves" is a bit "extreme," it's hard to ignore the kernel of truth in what Jernigan says: war movies, at least in some part, are profiting by offering to viewers a tiny slice of some imagined simulacrum of war, a taste of what it's like "being there" without any of the downsides. Sure, a lovable character might die, or the mission might go bad, but at the end the lights come on and you can walk away. Jernigan didn't just walk away.

It's almost certainly true that modern war movies, with more realistic effects and less societal censure for graphic violence, do a better job of at least hinting at the horror of war. "Saving Private Ryan," for example, does a better job of showing exactly how much it sucks to be an infantryman than did "Patton" or "A Bridge Too Far." Is that an improvement, or just an indulgence in the fantasy that anyone who's not been there can ever really understand just exactly how much it does suck?

It's probably not fair to suggest that these are two ends of a spectrum of opinion about war movies, because Exum and Jernigan are really answering two different questions. So do you think that the makers of war movies have a responsibility to authenticity, to exposing the awful realities of war and whatnot? To convince young people that war isn't fun, and that soldiering isn't a great adventure?

Answering these questions isn't really about movies, I don't suppose, but about morality: even in a world that needs soldiers, and that knows it needs soldiers, do writers, filmmakers, and other entertainers have some responsibility to create art that refuses to glorify war? Would it even be effective if they did? After all, we've had Stephen Crane and Robert Service and so on, and "Platoon" and "The Thin Red Line" and "Dances With Wolves" and others that make it clear that war's no picnic. But there will always be Virgil and Tennyson and John 15:13. And what about art for its own sake? Should we be similarly critical of literature and film that deals with drug abuse, or murder, or suicide?

Take a look at the AM thread and the Times piece and let us know what you think about this stuff. This is one of those rare instances where I don't have a firm, calcified opinion on the issue at hand, so take advantage!

Relatedly, here's Thomas Rid's "Great Films on Small Wars" post from Kings of War a couple of weeks ago. I should probably be embarrassed to admit I've only seen four of them.

A question for those who think the Afghan war is essential to maintaining stability in Pakistan

The argument about the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons tends to be nested into a multi-pronged rationale for why escalation in Afghanistan is necessary -- very few people will say "the one and only reason we need to be in Afghanistan is to keep Pakistani nukes out of al-Qaeda's hands." But a lot of people (including John Nagl and Dave Kilcullen, unfortunately) will tack this on to whatever other justifications they've got, toss this one in there ominously. And why not? They probably think that even the slightest risk of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists is just about the most terrifying thing most Americans can imagine, and they're probably right.

I guess I should also make it clear that I agree about Pakistani stability being important. In fact, I think it's probably the most important feature of the entire war, and I have no qualms saying that regional stability in south Asia ought to be a bigger priority for America than the utter annihilation of al-Qaeda (which, like Rid, I think is probably impossible and possibly unnecessary) or the vaunted denial of the much-talked-about terrorist safe haven.

But lemme come to the point already: if you think that keeping Pakistani nuclear weapons safe is an important reason for us to stay in Afghanistan in significant numbers, then I want you to answer a question. Ready?

Why do we imagine that a third-party counterinsurgency campaign in the country without the nuclear weapons will be more effective in guaranteeing their security than small-footprint, foreign internal defense (FID)-oriented backing for the government that actually possesses WMD?

Can't we do more to prevent weapons from getting to AQ by engaging with the Pakistani government and military than by running around Helmand shooting at opium smugglers?

The Calm in a Stormy Sea

And his name is Thomas Rid. Go read Kings of War.