The Echo of the Light Brigade

“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”
       Winston Churchill [1]

“... when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use.”
       Hal Abelson [2]

While Professor Abelson was talking about how the field of Computer Science gained its name, his thinking generalises not just to the label “International Relations;” it is also significant to how the subject itself thinks about war. Ask people if war has changed, and those answering in the affirmative might justify themselves by the technology used, others would address how - on a higher level - the conduct of wars has changed over time. These perspectives - technology and conduct - are incisive and interrelated; they are also distracting. They make the answer trivially true by answering a different question: has warfare changed? If warfare has changed then so has war, yet war's more encompassing - contextual - view makes such low-level changes of far less consequence. Those who enter wars and the worlds they are fighting for deserve more attention. [3]

Even limiting our attention to the years since the end of the Cold War, warfare has obviously changed. This discussion will suggest that changes in the context of wars over the same period can only be elucidated with regard to a longer time-frame. Given the previous century, it is advanced that appropriating the Christian concept of an ecumene, “people tied together by a common belief that crosses borders,”[4] is helpful in evaluating modern wars of global reach. What seems to be the current ecumene of the United States and its allies, manifesting as the - inappropriately named[5] - ‘Global War on Terror’ has succeeded their Cold War-era ecumene supporting capitalism. Juxtaposing the two makes it clear that if prior to 1989 war was considered a constant feature of international relations, then our current - indefinite[6] - war must reflect not only the same constancy but - due to its deep and broadly-rooted nature - also a substantially more absorbing one.

Due to its global reach, this discussion focuses mainly on the ‘War on Terror.’ With post-9/11 conflicts being in total the most expensive since World War II[7], if any war is to reveal insight on how global conflicts have changed it will be that one. To aid this process, the discussion must first resolve what an ecumene is; it may then be seen how the concept reveals connections between various wars of recent history. These connections are looked at in greater depth to see how a changing ecumene has in turn affected war. Following this, it is considered what our current ecumene may have to say about the near future of war. Each step of the way, it is seen that the characteristics of the War on Terror coincide both with previous wars and express futures glimpsed by theoretical models of warfare. Winding down the discussion are thoughts on why ecumenes are a useful descriptive approach in analysing war, and what their weaknesses may be.

The notion of an ecumene describes relatively recent means by which social identities have been formed. Between the time of our hunter-gatherer ancestors and the development of agriculture, kin groups, tribes, and clans have been the units of society. With the rise of less egalitarian communities, allegiance to a King united even larger numbers of individuals. The natural evolution from allegiance to mortal leaders was belonging to cities that could withstand their passing. With the fall of the Roman Empire, Civis Romanus Sum (“I am a Roman citizen”)[8]no longer stood as the exemplar expression of unity. The intangible, immortal idea, the ‘Word’ of the Bible in particular, provided a new banner to rally under.[9] The twentieth century reveals a parallel shift in the pretexts for major wars as the influence of globalization permeates societies. From the network of treaty obligations drawing World War I’s traditional balance of territorial powers[10], to the ‘Cold’ War clash of two ideas - capitalism and communism - spearheaded by two proper nouns, the United States and Soviet Union, enticing allies with currency or socialist unity. This century sees the latest evolution: a secular coalition against a transnational common noun, ‘terror,’[11] strongly bankrolled by the debt of the main player to former enemies.[12]

The shift to this more encompassing ecumene has important consequences; it blurs the difference between war and peace[13], between soldier and civilian[14]. Hedley Bull tersely defined war as “organised violence carried on by political units against each-other,”[15] yet this neglects at least two practical problems, one long-standing and the other relatively new: over a long period of conflict, when does one ‘war’ end and another begin?[16] Secondly, what happens when ideas are the intended target of attack, and political units are merely their temporary vessels? When Sir Michael Howard remarked of a “terrible ... error” in calling the United States’ response to the World Trade Center attacks a ‘war,’[17] he highlighted the term’s rhetorical reach far beyond Bull’s literal meaning. By abstracting the conduct of war sufficiently from its political context, Bull reveals more about warfare than he does about war.

This is not to diminish the intimate relationship between the two; anyone in doubt of warfare’s impact on society need only look at the baby boomers, yet the more insightful half of Churchill’s observation that opens this discussion demands that we also consider society’s influence on warfare. Lind et al present what may be a prescient vision of warfare - what they call its ‘fourth generation’ - fitting to the emerging ecumenes: “widely dispersed and largely undefined ... [warfare] will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts ... Actions will occur concurrently throughout all participants’ depth, including their society as a cultural, not just a physical, entity.”[18] Of particular note is the authors’ suggestion that these principles are relevant across groups with very different standards of technological advancement and/or resources.[19] This bolsters their description by justifying its relevance to all sides in the modern ‘Global War on Terror.’ That this war reaches home territories has been starkly clear to Iraqis, and has seen high-profile manifestations in such places as Manhattan, Amman, Bali, Delhi, Denmark, Madrid, Sharm-el-Sheikh, and London[20].

What are the adversarial ecumenes in this ongoing conflict, and why not just call them ideologies as is often done for Cold War-era forces? In conversation, Newt Gingrich and Christopher Hitchens have grouped those perpetrating terror under the labels “reactionary Islam” and “theocratic fascism”, respectively, and Hitchens identifies its enemy as those advancing “secular cosmopolitan multicultural values”.[21] In the first labelling, Hitchens’ term is preferred both for its enlightening connection with World War II-era Axis forces, and its convenient distinction of those seeking or in possession of political power from those practicing Islam solely as a religion[22]. In discussing these two groupings, this essay favors the term ecumene for three reasons: it comprehends the organisation of those holding certain views, not just the views alone; in doing this ecumenes can also usefully illustrate how the same peoples’ views have changed over time. Finally, its borders are defined by the beliefs in question, not the states of individuals holding them. To both war and the peace it seeks, these considerations are crucial in a globalized world.

These qualities could also serve to highlight some of the concept’s weaknesses. There are parties to many wars that may not belong to an ecumene’s community of belief. While mercenaries are outlawed by the United Nations Charter[23], long-employed Private Military Companies (PMCs) - which for their “largely extralegal”[24] status earn that designation from some critics - grew in prominence an estimated five- to 30-fold between the Gulf and Iraq Wars, providing up to between (an estimated) one tenth to one half of all military personnel[25]. Moreover, the extent to which they are used for the political convenience of war-makers could imply a limited ecumene backing the war. It is only remarked that this is an illuminating variable in itself, and that this problem would still exist when considering ideology alone.

This discussion has adopted the Christian concept of the ecumene, finding it of use in analysing the past, present, and possible future of war. This cross-section of perspectives has revealed both commonalities and differences between wars of the 20th and early 21st centuries. A version of the duck test on the ‘War on Terror’ has been implied throughout: if it looks like a war, acts like a war, and spends money like a war, then it probably is a war. Together, these findings support the assertion from the essay’s beginning that the changes in war deserve more attention than changes in warfare. The only matter left unresolved is war’s constancy in international relations; given the war that we find ourselves in, winnable or not, until it is over it will always be too soon to tell.




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References

[1] The Churchill Centre and Museum (2012, October 8). Famous Quotations and Stories.
[2] MIT (1986, July). 1A: Overview and Introduction to Lisp [Video].
[3] Gray, C. S. (2005). How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War.
[4] Myers, PZ. (2012, April 15). Sacking the City of God (Transcript).
[5] Hoover Institution (2002, July 18). Christopher Hitchens and Newt Gingrich: What kind of war are we fighting? [Video].
[6] Ibid.
[7] Daggett, S. (2010). Costs of Major U.S. Wars (RS22926).
[8] Second Pleading of Cicero in Gaius Verres Trial. (n.d.).; Cicero, M. T. (n.d.). Cicero: In Verrem II.5.
[9] Myers, PZ. (2012, April 15). Sacking the City of God (Transcript).
[10] Crossley, P. K., Lees L. H., & Servos, J. W (2012). Global Society: The World since 1900, 3rd ed., pp. 66-69.
[11] Hoover Institution (2002, July 18). Christopher Hitchens and Newt Gingrich: What kind of war are we fighting? [Video].
[12] Bartlett, B. (2009, November 26). The Cost Of War - Forbes.com; U.S. Department of the Treasury (2013). Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities.
[13] Lind, W. S., Nightengale, K., Schmitt, J. F., Sutton, J. W., & Wilson, G. I. (1989). The changing face of war: Into the fourth generation. Marine Corps Gazette.
[14] U.S. Embassy, Moscow to Department of State - CULTURAL PRESENTATIONS: POPULAR MUSIC GROUP (1975MOSCOW00360_b). (1975).
[15] Bull, H. (1995) The Anarchical Society 2nd Ed., p. 178.
[16] Sambanis, N. (2004). What Is Civil War?: Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an Operational Definition: p. 816.
[17] Howard, M. (2001, October 31). Mistake to declare this a 'war'. London Evening Standard Online.
[18] Lind, W. S., Nightengale, K., Schmitt, J. F., Sutton, J. W., & Wilson, G. I. (1989). The changing face of war: Into the fourth generation. Marine Corps Gazette, pp. 4-5.
[19] Ibid, p. 7.
[20] Desai, M. (2007). Rethinking Islamism: The Ideology of the New Terror: pp. 28-29.
[21] Hoover Institution (2002, July 18). Christopher Hitchens and Newt Gingrich: What kind of war are we fighting? [Video].
[22] Desai, M. (2007). Rethinking Islamism: The Ideology of the New Terror: pp. 11-12,23-24.
[23] Kidwell, D. C. (2005). Public war, private fight? The United States and private military companies, p. 12.
[24] Ibid, p. 12.
[25] Leander, A. (2005). The power to construct international security: on the significance of private military companies, p. 806.