Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare [Hardcover]

All in all an excellent book, well written and covering all of the major facts. For those who want to see beyond many of the current fads in military thinking - from 4GW to Effects Based and Network Centric Warfare - an excellent book. Coling Gray covers the basics of Clauswitzian Theory, and constantly brings us back to the fact that the future is not yet determined. We should, he argues, prepare for the unexpected, whilst accepting that history does provide us the best tools to analyse what we see today. Colin Gray does have a tendancy to use long words when short ones would do the job, but this does not detract from the book.

For those soon to attend their MA(C) module (you know who you are if you know what I'm talking about!) then it should be recommended reading. Covers some of the syllabus and much more beyond.

War will not dissapear in the coming century. It will not be erased by the goodness of humankind or the mutual respect that we're all supposed to have for one anothers cultures. It will expand and become even more virolent as both Western power declines and Eastern power particularly Asian [China, India,] moves in too fill the gap. Even Space will become militarized according to Colin S Gray's hefty if intriguing book.

A depressing read but it really says that this is how it ever was between humans. One group dominates militarily and culturally before decline and fall beset them then someone else comes along to do pretty much the same. Determinists might enjoy a lot of this book but those with more humanists ideals will find little joy here.

Warfare is almost always political in it's outset merely achieving through violence a political goal that the aggressors have all agreed upon is necessary whether that be territorial gain or defending against a percieved invader. The politics always come first, then the warfare so remember that when our leaders come up with their excuses over Iraq and I suspect Afghanistan too.

My main interest is international relations, but I thought I would have a go at reading something by Colin Gray to expand my knowledge of strategic issues. Gray is a well known strategic theorist, known in particular for his view that war is an intrinsic part of international relations and his defence of a nuclear war-fighting strategy. Yes, war-fighting, not deterrence. So, not a writer known for shying away from controversy or for sugaring the pill. Indeed, hard headed and even bluntly pessimistic analysis is what you get with Gray's treatment of future warfare. War, he asserts, will remain with us in future and, furthermore, the nature of war will not change. The way in which war is fought may change in certain respects: new technologies promise to open up space and cyberspace as new battlefields; terrorists might get hold of nuclear weapons; network-centric warfare may place information at the centre of any conflict. But according to Gray, war remains war. Drawing on the Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz, Gray emphasizes that war remains a duel between adversaries locked in a contest of wills, a conflict characterised by fear, danger, exertion and uncertainty. No technological advance, no new kind of adversary can change this. Gray is particularly compelling in his argument that tactics, the achievement of purely military goals on the battlefield, cannot replace strategy, the use of force to advance political objectives. He consistently criticises US defence planners for confusion on this issue and indeed, with hindsight one can point to just such problems in the 'strategy' that gave us the Iraq debacle. It isn't hard to evaluate Al-Qaeda in a similar fashion: for all the damage they have inflicted, what have they actually acheived?

Gray warns against complacency, planning for the future cannot truly remove the enduring element of uncertainty from conflict, as the saying goes, the enemy always gets a say. Culture matters, and it is arrogance to believe that your enemy will think like you or be motivated by the same considerations. It is thus impossible to predict how war will be fought ahead of time. On this point I think Gray has been proven right: the rise of the UAV was generally unforeseen by the airpower establishment and emerged from conditions on the ground in the current US occupations. Likewise, Giustozzi has shown how the Taliban has rapidly adapted its tactics and strategy since the beginning of the Afghanistan conflict.

I wonder however, if Gray doesn't focus a bit much on terror in his discussion of irregular conflict. He makes a good case for doing so, even expressing his own missgivings in appearing to go along with the zeitgeist, but I wonder if he doesn't underplay the importance that insurgencies and 'people's wars' will play in the next century. Already the Taliban have taken on tactics developed by Mao, the Niger delta simmers and India's 'red corridor' is ablaze. Those marginalised by modern values, by the global economy and by their own nation states (or just the ruthless with an eye for power and profit) seem likely to turn to the gun (or UAV or laptop?) and head to the hills just as such groups did last century. Likewise much conflict is likely to be 'irregular-irregular' between semi-organised groups of militias. What role will the forces of established military powers play in such conflicts, how will technological change affect them?

My largest misgiving with Gray's account is, however, with his account of the relation between political goals and the use of force. He gives some compelling reasons why warfare will not be ended through arms control or through international legal fiat. He also gives some convincing considerations about how warfare could be controlled without being eradicated. Chief amongst these is his insistance that strategy mandates that force is used to acheive a definite political goal. War conducted for its own sake barely deserves the name. Yet he doesn't truly provide a persuasive argument that states will have the kinds of political goals that can be secured by force: WTO negotiations cannot be concluded through the deployment of helicopter gunships. The problem for Gray is that there isn't a huge amount for many states in the world to fight over at present. I agree that nationalist conflicts will not go away rapidly, but territorial conquest seems to have become near obsolete: it is not only universally condemned but seems to create intractable problems for the occupier. Contemporary advanced industrial societies are simply not the same as those of the early 20th century and the wider context in which force is used to acheive political objectives has changed. Nothing is certain, change is constant, but there remains a hole in Gray's argument. He mentions a threat from China, but his reasoning why it would challenge the US is sparse. These are important issues: war is about politics and if we don't have a handle on the political issues of the new century we can't understand future warfare.

Despite Gray's insensitivity to such political questions, this is an excellent overview of contemporary strategic issues. Ultimately, because the book emphasizes the eternal verities of Clausewitz's thought, it is about the essentials of strategy not an excercise in prognostication. Whatever the purposes for which it is conducted and whatever the dimensions in which it will take place, war will remain war.