Global Issues: Conflict - Afghanistan - Measuring success in a ‘New’ War

Operation Moshtarak, the ‘military surge’ underway in Afghanistan puts the conflict back in the spotlight not least in terms of questions of strategy and what type of war is being waged in countering the Taliban insurgency. This has direct relevance to the Global Issues papers topic on the ‘changing character of conflict’. Thus it is worth looking at to what extent does the conflict in Afghanistan constitute a ‘New’ War?

Here is; 1. A quick definition from Gen Rupert Smith describing how there has been a shift to ‘New Warfare’ - or ‘war amongst the people’ as he calls it 2. A link to a BBC resource on ‘Measuring Success in Afghanistan’ 3. A link to a recent Paddy Ashdown article: “A military Rolls-Royce, but a political car crash”

We have entered into a new era of conflict, where ‘Old War’ has been replaced by ‘New War’ – one in which military and political developments go hand in hand. The British General Rupert Smith in his book The Utility of Force asserts:
“War no longer exists. Confrontation, conflict and combat undoubtedly exist all round the world – most noticeably, but not only, in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Palestinian Territories – and states still have armed forces which they use as a symbol of power. None the less, war as cognitively known to most non-combatants, war as a battle in a field between men and machinery, war as a massive deciding event in a dispute in international affairs: such war no longer exists.”

A paradigm shift has occurred: from armies with comparable forces doing battle on a field to strategic confrontation between a range of combatants, not all of which are armies, and using different types of weapons, often improvised. The old paradigm was that of interstate and industrial warfare. The new paradigm is of ‘war amongst the people’. ‘War amongst the people’ is both a graphic description of modern war-like situations, and also a conceptual framework, in that it reflects the hard fact that there is no secluded battlefield upon which armies engage, nor are there necessarily armies: definitely not on all sides. To be clear: this is not asymmetrical warfare as ‘war amongst the people’ is different: it is the reality in which the people in the streets and houses and fields – all the people, anywhere – are the battlefield. Military engagements can take place anywhere in the presence of civilians, against civilians, in defence of civilians. Civilians are the targets, objectives to be won, as much as an opposing force.

The Afghanistan conflict is understandably featuring constantly in the media, but here are two articles and resources which might be useful in terms of analysing the strategy and objectives involved and the ‘type of war’ being waged:

1. On the BBC’s website: “VIEWPOINT: Measuring Success in Afghanistan” has a useful piece on just this tied in with a helpful diagram:
“As the biggest anti-Taliban offensive in Afghanistan since 2001 continues, the challenge of how to hold on to and rebuild areas previously held by insurgents remains. Fotini Christia, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has recently spent time in Afghanistan, sets out the latest ideas on how to measure the success of such operations.”
Here is the link

2. Paddy Ashdown in the Times looks at what it takes to ‘win’ the war in Afghanistan in an article entitled: “A military Rolls-Royce, but a political car crash”. He writes:
“There are reasons to be cheerful in the latest news from Afghanistan, but battlefield success alone won’t win the war”
“… we do, at last, seem to be getting our act together on the battlefield. We are now following the right military strategy — protecting the people, not chasing the enemy. We have limited our aims to the achievable and matched our resources to our objectives.’