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Low-intensity Conflicts: Whythe Gap Between Theory andPractise?Avi KoberPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Avi Kober (2002) Low-intensity Conflicts: Why the GapBetween Theory and Practise?, Defense & Security Analysis, 18:1, 15-38, DOI:10.1080/07430170120113712

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When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War came to an end, many expected thestability of the international system to increase. Within a short time, however, it becameclear that con� ict and war had not become obsolete and that there could even be anincrease in violence. This was most likely in “zones of turmoil”1 or “Second-Tier”countries2 – de� ned as those areas and countries which had previously not been cate-gorized as Third World, such as the former Soviet republics and Yugoslavia – and thiscould lead to an era of general instability and war.3

Conventional, inter-state war has become a rare phenomenon in the post-Cold Warera. Most of the con� icts have taken place below the level of traditional conventionalwar – often called ‘high-intensity con� ict’ (HIC) – but above that of routine, peacefulcompetition among states. Such conflicts are often referred to as “low-intensitycon� icts” (LICs).4 Both the pervasiveness of LICs and their importance justify seriousintellectual attention. The intellectual energy devoted to LIC, however, has beenmarginal, compared with that spent on conventional or non-conventional war. Thetheoretical fruit of the study of LIC has remained unsatisfactory in terms of quantityand quality, content and methodology. Theory of LICs still does not suf� ciently occupythe pages of leading forums for theoretical discourse in the � eld of internationalrelations and security studies. Consideration of LICs is of a doctrinal or policy-orientednature, rather than a theoretical one. The concept also suffers from a primitive image,as expressed explicitly by scholars such as Van Creveld5 and implicitly by others.

This article addresses the following questions:

1. Why is it that strategic thinkers have done such an unsatisfactory job in crystalliz-ing a theory of LIC?

2. What needs to be done to � ll the gap between the importance of LICs and their the-oretical coverage, if anything?

Defense & Security Analysis Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 15–38, 2002

Low-intensity Con� icts: Why the GapBetween Theory and Practise?

Avi KoberDepartment of Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel

ISSN 1475-1798 print; 1475-1801 online/02/010015-24 © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd 15DOI: 10.1080/07430170120113712

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The following key arguments are presented:

1. The main reasons accounting for the poor theoretical treatment of LICs are: theirimage as being something less than the apparently “real thing”, i.e. conventional ornon-conventional war; the fact that they absorb a broad spectrum of con� icts, thedelineations between which are often blurred and combinations whereof are common-place; their multi-dimensional dynamic nature; and the subjective and autocentristicnature of the thought on LICs, due to the unique strategic circumstances of the partic-ular actors and the personal experience of the theoreticians and practitioners involved.

2. LIC is a highly signi� cant phenomenon, and, as such, it deserves to be the focus ofmore study and research. Its importance lies in the fact that LICs are the mostcommon con� icts in the international system. Despite their name, they can have adevastating effect on the peoples involved; they can threaten the stability of states, sub-systems, and the international system as a whole; they put the instrumental value offorce in question; and they might even negatively affect the future of the nation-state.

3. The lacuna in the theoretical treatment of LIC notwithstanding, one does notnecessarily need a speci� c set of theoretical tools for the purpose of analyzing thisphenomenon and devising ways of coping with it. One can employ the existing setof general theoretical tools in the � eld of war and strategy.

The structure of this article is as follows: I shall � rst characterize the theoreticaltreatment of LICs and try to explain why it has been so poor. I will then discuss theimportance of LICs, with the aim of explaining why they deserve to be treated moreseriously from a theoretical point of view. Finally, I will address the question of whethera new, unique set of concepts and variables is needed for the sake of � lling in the theo-retical lacuna.

LICs IN THE LITERATURE

LIC, as a concept, has had to compete with a plethora of concepts related to it in oneform or another. Some of the concepts had preceded LIC and had stood for somethingsimilar to the types of con� ict or strategies referred to by LIC.6 “Popular warfare” wasdeveloped in the nineteenth century by thinkers who had experienced it in the courseof their career, such as Clausewitz,7 Jomini,8 Moltke,9 and Engels.10 It took on themeaning of a war conducted with the participation of the population, wherein actionswere carried out by men not having military status, in order to tie down enemy forcesand possibly serve as a support for their own armies.

With the proliferation of wars connected with political and social revolution, afterthe Second World War, the terms “revolutionary war”,11 “subversive war”, “insurrec-tion”, and “insurgency”12 became central. Whereas revolutionary war expressed astruggle for the transformation of the political or social structures of the state, subver-sive war and insurgency referred to struggles against the established authorities, usuallywith the help of the people.

Of the many concepts related to LICs, guerrilla warfare and small wars, in particu-lar, have proven survivability throughout the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries,

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including the Cold War era, though both concepts have a relatively narrow meaning anda limited explanatory value. Guerrilla warfare focuses on the strategy used by the weakagainst the strong. Guerrilla and counter-guerrilla warfare have become pivotalconcepts since the Second World War, particularly in the context of anti-colonialist andrevolutionary struggles. They have served as axes around which relevant types ofcon� ict have been dealt with, such as national liberation and revolution (often referredto as “guerrilla revolutionary warfare”), civil war, and insurgency.13 The term “smallwar”, which is literally a translation to English of guerrilla, emerged in the nineteenthcentury. It, too, referred to asymmetrical war, but from the stronger side’s point of view.Small wars usually took place far from the homeland and necessitated a form of militaryaction which was different from those that conventional forces were equipped, struc-tured, and trained to meet. As such, the concept anticipated much of the recentliterature on low-intensity con� icts.14 Indeed, small war is closer to LIC than all otherconcepts related to it.

Four concepts which have attracted the attention of many researchers and practi-tioners in the post-Cold War era and which can be considered types of LIC are “internalwar”, “sub-national con� ict/war”, “ethnic con� ict” and “operations other than war”(OOTW). “Internal war” needs no explanation. It quite explicitly refers to the shift fromwars between states to war within states that has taken place during the latter half of thetwentieth century in general. In the last decade in particular, “civil war”, a term that hasbeen used for many years for internal war, is still valid and often used.15

“Sub-national con� ict” and “ethnic con� ict” both refer to the causes of con� ict andwar and the actors involved, rather than the place where they occur. They concentrateon domestic divisions, most of which are caused by the ethnic factor, especially in stateshaving arti� cial borders and, consequently, heterogeneous societies. Division withinstates is an old phenomenon,16 but, whereas during the Cold War it was typical of theThird World, and was quite successfully controlled and contained in Europe, in thepost-Cold War era it has also occurred in the heart of Europe, where it has caused insta-bility.

Unlike the concepts mentioned above, OOTW, which emerged in US Army’sdoctrine in the early 1990s, is very problematic. It is a post-modern concept, whichconfuses traditional missions ful� lled by the military, such as “support for insurgenciesand counterinsurgencies”, typical of LICs, and missions that do not require anycombat, ranging from “support to US, state and local governments, disaster relief,nation assistance, and drug interdiction to peace-keeping, noncombatant evacuation,and peace enforcement”.17 The latter certainly do not deserve to be included in theframework of LIC.

LICs, under their various names, have been approached from different angles.First, they have been addressed by theorists interested in the general nature of con� ictand war, such as Clausewitz, Jomini, and Liddell Hart18 on the one hand, and doctri-naires looking for ways of effectively conducting war, on the other. Second, they havebeen considered by military professionals (either theorists or practitioners) on the onehand, and ideologists-strategists mainly interested in the effectiveness of sub-conven-tional warfare – particularly in guerrilla and terrorism in the framework of arevolutionary struggle – such as Engels, Lenin,19 Mao,20 Giap,21 and Guevara,22 on the

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other. Third, they have been contemplated by those representing the militarily weakerside’s point of view, as opposed to those representing the stronger side’s point of view inits struggle against the so-called insurgents. Professional thinking related to thestronger side is represented by works by Callwell, Thompson23 or Trinquier.24 Profes-sional thinking from the weaker side’s point of view is represented by Lawrence ofArabia. A professional-ideological mixture especially typi� es works by Marxists such asEngels, Lenin, Mao, Giap, and Guevara, but also others, like Debray.25

LIC, like small wars, has been received with “much apathy and disdain frommilitary professionals”.26 Many of them have believed that the concept “possesses noreferential framework of its own”, that its meaning is “highly relative”, or that it has“many possible connotations”. No consensus as to the “upper and lower limits of therealm” has ever existed. Instead, there has been “endless debate over the number andtypes of con� ict elements that should be included”, and “considerable disagreementover fundamental causes and critical centers of gravity within each of the con� ictelements”.27 Most of the works on LIC deal with the doctrinal or policy aspects of thephenomenon, rather than theory. Despite this practical orientation, however, it hasoften been claimed that LIC “lacks utility in precisely those instances where anunequivocal understanding is crucial to national security – in pinning down the types oflow-intensity con� ict that must be addressed through policy, strategy, doctrine, andforce structure initiatives”.28 True, new professional journals specializing in LICs haveappeared in recent decades, such as the Journal of Small Wars, Studies in Con� ict andTerrorism, and Insurgency and Counterinsurgency. This encouraging trend has, however,been overshadowed by the general neglect of LICs on the part of leading journals in the� elds of international relations, security studies and military affairs.29

WHY IS LIC THEORY SO POOR?

The main reasons accounting for the aforesaid state of the theory of LICs are theirimage of being marginal; the fact that they apply to a whole spectrum of con� ictsbetween which the borders are often blurred and combinations of which are common-place; their multi-dimensional, dynamic nature; the impact of the speci� c conditions ofthe theorists’ countries; and the theorists’ personal experience (if any).

Although LICs are no novelty, they are sometimes treated as such, since, fordecades, they have been perceived – especially in the West – as something less than the“real”, “substantive” con� ict, which is conventional or non-conventional war. As such,LICs have apparently not merited being treated in the most serious manner. Nine-teenth-century British thinkers treated small war as an asymmetrical con� ict entailing“campaigns other than those where both the opposing sides consist of regular troops”.30

For them, small war was something less than a confrontation between armies, although,in practise, their country made no serious provisions for HIC on land, either. In thetwentieth-century US, small wars have been de� ned as “con� icts waged against theforces of the lesser powers, to include indigenous guerrilla-type movements [and] warswaged against the proxy forces of other great powers”.31 LIC has been referred to as “alimited undertaking that required neither national mobilization nor an extensive com-mitment of resource”.32 Nowadays, it is still perceived of in the US as belonging to a

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so-called “C-list” – a category of con� icts representing a signi� cantly lesser challengethan both global existential threats and intermediate threats such as the Gulf War (A-list and B-list, respectively).33 Israelis have traditionally considered “current security” –until the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, their name for LICs – to be a minorchallenge relative to the “basic-security” challenges posed by the regular armies of Arabstates. As Peres once put it, “referring to current security as the major [Israeli] securitychallenge [ . . . ] would be like � xing an unstitched dress when the entire body is indanger”.34 For years, Israeli decision-makers and experts used to point out the fact thatthe volume of casualties in� icted by guerrilla or terrorist activities has never exceededthose incurred in car accidents. The Soviets, who, during the Cold War, were used towaging surrogate wars against the West, did not even bother to develop their owndoctrine for LICs.

LICs absorb a whole spectrum of con� icts. The delineation between them is oftenblurred, and combinations of types of con� ict are commonplace. At different stages ofthe same con� ict, one may � nd different types of LIC. For example, Afghanistan, from1979 to 2001, has witnessed a struggle for national liberation vis-à-vis the Soviets,insurgency vis-à-vis the pro-Soviet Afghan government, Islamic revolution against thesecular Marxist regime, and – once the Soviet forces evacuated the country and thesecular regime supported by them collapsed – a civil war between the major Islamicfactions. The problem of classi� cation, affected by the subjectivity of those involved inthe con� ict, complicates things even further. For example, what the weaker side mightde� ne as a struggle for national liberation may be referred to by the stronger side asinsurgency. If, in the past, it was unrealistic to imagine that an overall theory of war orparadigm might some day emerge, the many faces of LICs have even further decreasedthe likelihood of reducing the phenomenon to a concise theoretical format with clear-cut concepts.

War, in general, is a dynamic phenomenon. Like a chameleon, it takes on differentforms.35 The dynamic nature of conventional war since the Industrial Revolution canprimarily be attributed to technological changes which have, in turn, affected war’soperational, logistical and societal dimensions.36 Changes in HICs – such as the range,precision and destructive power of weapons systems, their impact on the relative weightof � repower and maneuver and, consequently, on the relative strength of offense anddefense; new meaning of time and space as a result of technological changes; or theobliteration of the borderline between rear and front – are all very important but alsorelatively easy to detect and forecast. The dynamic nature of LICs, on the other hand,is more heavily affected by political, societal and ideological factors. In most LICs, thesocietal dimension, in general, and the struggle to win the hearts and minds of thepeoples concerned or put their resilience to test, in particular, play a major role. Assuch, LICs are both more modern and much more dif� cult to capture and conceptual-ize in the framework of a comprehensive and coherent theory.

The dynamic nature of LICs can be demonstrated by the following processes theyhave undergone in the twentieth century. From an auxiliary military activity, theybecame an independent phenomenon. Their stakes have slowly but consistently shiftedfrom national liberation to revolutions and struggles for political domination withinstates, and, subsequently, from secular to religious stakes. As for strategies and tactics,

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LICs have witnessed a shift from guerrilla and counter-guerrilla warfare to terrorismand post-modern terrorism.37 The arms used in LICs by non-state actors, which in thepast were relatively primitive, have gradually become more sophisticated; at times, evenhighly destructive. Finally, as far as place is concerned, most LICs have becomeinternal rather than external; in other words, they take place within the borders of statesand are either intra-community or inter-community con� icts.38

In many cases, thought on LICs has re� ected the speci� c conditions of the thinkers’countries. This association with speci� c contexts, rather than universal characteristics,has caused much thought on LIC to be ethnocentric, or autocentristic in nature,39 andto take on the characteristics of doctrine or policy rather than theory, in other words, acollection of or guidelines for practical use, which is oriented towards the strategic cir-cumstances of the speci� c country or army.40

Most of the examples of strategic thought intrinsically related to place refer toguerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare in particular re� ects the speci� c circumstances ofthe thinker’s countries: Engels was thinking in terms of the proletariat in industrializedcountries such as Germany or England, so he and Marx assigned a central role to theproletariat in their revolutionary doctrines. Lenin, on the other hand, due to the verydifferent socio-economic conditions in Russia, was, for tactical reasons, constrained tointegrate the peasants into the revolutionary process. Mao Tse-tung deviated evenfurther from Engels by building his doctrine on the common Chinese agrarian heritage.The sheer size of China enabled the guerrilla forces to disperse and keep their distancefrom the hostile regular army. Thus, in the Chinese socio-economic and physicalcontext, the peasantry played a key role in the revolution and guerrilla warfare.

A similar tendency can be traced with regard to counter-guerrilla or counter-insur-gency thinking, which emerged in the wake of the French, British and Americanstruggles against local groups and organizations in Asia and Africa during the de-colonization period and the Cold War, especially in Indochina/Vietnam, Algeria, andMalaya. The Soviets, unlike Western powers, never had to conduct counter-insurgencywarfare of their own until 1979 (the civil war excluded). They, therefore, almostignored the theoretical and doctrinal aspects of LIC, distinguishing only betweenglobal war, on the one hand, and local war, on the other, the latter category consistingof both conventional and sub-conventional wars.41 No distinction was made betweencounter-insurgency operations and large-scale conventional operations typical of warssuch as the Arab–Israeli wars, the utility of which was limited vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Theresult was that counter-insurgency operations were far beyond Soviet intent or capabil-ity. Their military forces in Afghanistan abstained from playing any kind of political roleand from making any real effort to win the hearts and minds of the people of thatcountry. They were surprised by the nature of the war, particularly by the fact that“there were no front lines, no tactical anti-air defense zones, no outstanding targets,and so forth – all of which were the staples of Soviet tactical training”.42

American theorists have dominated strategic thinking since the Second World War.As Americans, and of course against the background of both the Cold War and theVietnam War, many of them believed that Third World insurgency in combinationcould endanger the US and the West. They thus assumed responsibility for the counter-insurgency paradigm.43 However, in marked contrast to the quality of American

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thinking on conventional and non-conventional warfare, American strategic thoughtfailed to produce a signi� cant theory of LIC. In the post-Cold War era, there areAmerican researchers who emphasize the irrelevance of the Third World to USinterests.44 On the other hand, there are researchers who hold a dissenting view,claiming that “the Third World still matters”.45

In their thought on LIC, the armies of highly technological countries often demon-strate the naive belief that their technological edge will enable them to cope effectivelywith irregular forces and at relatively low cost. They sometimes fail to grasp and inter-nalize the complexity of LICs and all too often put their faith in airborne weaponsystems, pointing at their qualitative and operational advantage; particularly theirsuperior � repower, higher maneuverability and greater � exibility in comparison withground counter-insurgency forces. Airborne weapons systems are believed to reducethe number of casualties in� icted on counter-insurgency forces, thereby easing theproblem of legitimization for conducting LICs, which is particularly important to openWestern societies. Examples include the Americans in Vietnam and Kosovo, the Israelisin Lebanon,46 and even the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Russians in Daghestan.

Modern theoretical thinking on LIC, which started as far back as the nineteenthcentury, has been affected by the personal experiences of the thinkers – frequentlysenior army of� cers whose main interest has been the solution of the practical, speci� cand concrete problems of their countries and their armed forces, rather than the for-mulation of theory. As one analyst put it, “many theorists and practitioners have a fuzzyvision of what small wars are [ . . . ]. Their descriptions are often based on personalexperience with a few actual systems rather than generalizations based on broad surveyand analysis.”47 To mention only a few among many examples: Engels developed hisnegative views on barricade warfare from his personal experience during the Germanuprisings in 1848–49.48 Jomini and Moltke, each in his own time, fashioned their viewson popular warfare on the basis of their own experience. Jomini, as Marshal Ney’s Chiefof Staff in Spain, had witnessed the disastrous consequences of this kind of warfare forregular armies. His conclusion was that, “no army, however disciplined, can contendsuccessfully against such national resistance unless it is strong enough to hold all theessential points of the country, cover its communications, and at the same time furnishan active force suf� cient to beat the enemy wherever he may present himself”.49 Bycontrast, Moltke, who had observed a similar phenomenon during the Franco–Prussian War, tried to distinguish between his morally positive approach toward anation attempting to avoid its subjection, on the one hand, and the practical conclusionhe had developed on the basis of his personal experience, on the other, to the effect thatpopular uprising has no real chance when confronted by a well-trained and disciplinedregular army.50

Lawrence of Arabia derived many of his theoretical conclusions about guerrillawarfare, such as the importance of secure base areas and the exploitation of space bysmall and highly mobile forces furnished with good intelligence, or the importance ofmorale and popular support, from his experience during the Arab revolt in the years1916–18.51 Thompson based his analysis of insurgency and his recommendations as tothe ways of ef� ciently coping with it – such as the importance of the political, social andorganizational aspects of the struggle – on his personal experience in Malaya and

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Vietnam. Trinquier’s counter-insurgency doctrine, too, initially emerged from his ownexperience in Indochina and Algeria.

WHY DO LICs DESERVE TO BE TREATED MORE RESPECTFULLY?

LICs are currently the most common con� icts in the international system. Despitetheir name and the inclination to portray them as less dangerous than HICs,52 they maybe highly intensive and in� ict destruction on the peoples involved. They also threatenthe stability of the international system. Furthermore, they put the value of force as aninstrument of politics into question and might even negatively affect the future of thenation-state.

Frequency

Inter-state war has become a rare phenomenon. Some 80 percent of the con� ictsduring the Cold War were LICs, as were 95 percent of the con� icts that took place inthe period 1989–96.53 The various causes of LICs have also accounted for their perva-siveness. Both can be explained by factors at the international system and state levels.

The systemic level

The de-colonization period after the Second World War featured a series of strugglesfor national liberation all over Asia and Africa which, in most cases, resulted in theemergence of new nation-states. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, in its turn,brought about the creation of new nation-states. In both cases, the collapse of an empirereleased ethnic energies that had been suppressed in the former colonies and in statessuch as the multi-ethnic Soviet Empire or Yugoslavia. However, many of the nation-states that emerged from the ashes of the old empires after having struggled forindependence in the name of ethnicity have been weak, arti� cial constructs. Ironically,the ethnic energies that had in the past been mobilized against occupiers are now beingdirected either against the government or against rival ethnic groups within the newstates.

World order, both during the Cold War era and its aftermath, has nurtured LICs,though the LICs of the respective periods were due to different factors. During theperiod of East–West rivalry, violence was channeled away from Europe, where neithersuperpower could risk confrontation, to the peripheral areas of the Third World, wherethe superpowers were involved, sometimes even � nding it necessary to intervene,whether directly or by proxy. During the post-Cold War era, by contrast, LICs have,instead, been encouraged by the marginalization of local con� icts. The global powershave lost much of their incentives to be involved – let alone intervene – in local con� icts,except in extreme cases.54 Their decision to ultimately do so has, in some cases, beenaffected by the general belief that today’s wars are less dangerous to � ght.55

The new isolationism or inclination toward disengagement on the part of the greatpowers has often left the scene open for local forces to use violence against each other

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and for regional powers to intervene in LICs even more than they used to during theCold War era. Intervention has taken place for interests such as self-defense (e.g.,Turkey in northern Iraq against rebel Kurds in 1995), protection of ethnic groups, be itbrethren or not (e.g., Serbia vs. Croatia and Bosnia, Armenia vs. Azerbaijan overNagorno-Karabakh, since the early 1990s), or support for either friendly governmentsor rebels (e.g., Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia for the governments of Congo,Uganda, Rwanda and UNITA for the rebels in 1998).56 The phenomenon of state-sponsored guerrilla and terrorist activities is still commonplace.

Even in Africa, where – due to the multi-ethnic structure of the states concerned –the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states used to be widelyrespected, especially by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), that principle hasbeen eroding in recent years. There has been a growing inclination on the part of statesand regional organizations to intervene, as exempli� ed by the military intervention bythe Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Liberia and theNigeria-led West African peace-keeping force (ECOMOG) intervention in the civil warin Sierra Leone. Transnational organizations, too, have been involved in internalcon� icts. For example, the World Council of Churches and the All-African Conferenceof Churches have been involved in the con� ict in South Sudan, so as to bring the partiesto the negotiating table.

The unit level

The disintegration of empires has shifted the focus from international war to intra-national, sub-national, or sub-state war within the newly emerging countries. ManyThird World countries reached independence while lacking effective institutions,socio-political cohesion, and popular legitimacy. They also inherited extremely com-plicated social and economic structures. The fact that these countries have sufferedfrom so many weaknesses has enabled LICs to � ourish.

The internal causes of LICs have been various. First, there is the level of indepen-dence of the states concerned. During the colonial period, the lack of independencehad encouraged struggles for national liberation. Once the new states gained their inde-pendence, however, the divisions within their sometimes artificial borders andheterogeneous societies brought about new LICs. A similar process has been takingplace since the end of the Cold War. Weaknesses in the domestic scene have eroded thefull independence of many countries, thus accounting for the decision by groups toresort to violent struggle so as to provide for their own defense and gain political rightsor even independence. It has sometimes led to a situation wherein there emerged oneor more competing power centers within the country, each dominating an autonomousterritorial base, a condition typical of civil war. In a few cases, a situation of almostcomplete political vacuum has developed, like the one that has existed in Somalia sincethe early 1990s.

Most of the countries in the international system are heterogeneous. Third World orSecond-Tier countries in particular feature ethnic, tribal, or religious divisions andoften suffer from contentious minorities seeking the right of self-determination andstriving for secession. In many Asian and African countries, such divisions are a result

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of their arti� cially drawn boundaries. The state-to-nation ratio in those countries isasymmetrical: national challenges to the existing state-system from below the level ofthe state lead to strong claims, on national grounds, that there are too few states in theparticular region.57

It often happens in Third World or Second-Tier countries that socio-economicexpectations can barely be met by the government. Many of these countries also sufferfrom crippled economies, which unavoidably leads to cutbacks in social spending. Suchconditions can easily thwart political reform and economic development, serve asfertile ground for the growth of a sense of relative deprivation, and eventually lead to de-legitimization of the ruling élite, instability, and violent struggle.58

Con� icting ideological convictions, competing economic interests, and outrightpower struggles between and among competing élites driven by personal, politicalmotivations are most common in the Third World. They, too, contribute to the perva-siveness of LICs there, especially when three conditions exist: vulnerable politicalélites, antagonistic group histories, and mounting domestic economic problems.59

Given the fact that many of the states beset by internal instability are also least able togovern effectively in any event, government incompetence encourages resistance on thepart of opposition groups. When central authority declines, even relatively peaceful andsatis� ed groups become fearful for their security and are driven to become moreviolent.60 This is an extension of the concept of the security dilemma to LICs.61

Furthermore, the nature of the struggle in LICs, particularly the sharp divisionwithin the state re� ected by them and the lack of constitutional and political processesfor settling internal conflicts, often makes LICs much less amenable to conflictreduction, let alone con� ict resolution, than the traditional international con� icts andwars.62 For example, between 1940 and 1990, enemies in civil wars almost always failedto reach successful negotiated solutions to their con� icts, unless outside power guaran-teed the safety of the belligerents during a transition period.63

Most Third World or Second-Tier countries have mixed regimes. They are nolonger tyrannies or closed societies but have not yet become enlightened, fully demo-cratic, open societies with a tradition of constitutional rule. As such, they lack either thetight control typical of tyrannies or the pluralistic spirit and the inclination towardpeaceful bridging over differences typical of deeply rooted, mature democracies.Violence proneness in democratizing countries is therefore relatively high.64

Finally, in countries where the territory is “rough and inaccessible”, to use Clause-witz’s words,65 either because of natural obstacles or because of “the local methods ofcultivation”;66 where the country is “fairly large”;67 where the country is rural ratherthan urbanized; and where the population is located in peripheral areas beyond thecontrol of the central power – all of the aforesaid being typical of many Third World orSecond-Tier countries – there exist relatively good conditions for groups hostile to thegovernment to effectively confront it using protracted rural-based guerrilla warfarewith relatively high impunity.68 Under the category of dif� cult terrain, one can includemountains, typical of countries like Greece, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Cyprus, Kurdistan, orAfghanistan; deserts, such as the Arabian desert or the Sahara; swamps, such as theMekong Delta; and forests and jungles, typical of countries such as Vietnam, thePhilippines, or Malaya. For many years now, we have been witnessing a shift from

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guerrilla warfare to terrorism or a combination of guerrilla and terrorism. This can, toa large extent, be attributed to both urbanization processes and the perceived effective-ness of terrorism in built-up areas, by virtue of both the sensitivity and vulnerability ofmodern states and societies (particularly of developed Western democracies) and thehigher impunity for terrorists operating in urban environments in comparison withguerrillas.69

Devastating effect on the peoples involved

Intensity of con� ict and war is the product of many interactive variables. It may beaffected by factors such as the interests involved, the level of violence, the quantity of� repower and/or forces concentrated in a given area or into a given amount of time, orthe casualties involved. Whether to portray a con� ict as a LIC may suit one party butnot another. From the perspective of the militarily stronger side, LICs often meaninterests less vital, a relatively small quantity of � re or forces, and, as such, a relativelylow level of violence and consequent relatively low attrition (casualties, losses) rates.However, if one takes the view of a Third World or Second-Tier party, the so-calledLIC usually means something that is rather highly intense and destructive.

First, the con� ict may often entail vital interests such as survival. Second, morepeople have been killed in LICs, or “small wars”, in more than 50 years than died in theSecond World War.70 During the Cold War, LICs in� icted millions of casualties onpeoples involved.71 For the � rst time, in the period 1975–94, intrastate war deathsexceeded the interstate war deaths – and by a wide margin.72 While civilians accountedfor 10 percent of those killed during the First World War, and 52 percent of those killedin the Second World War, they make up some 90 percent of contemporary war deaths.73

Third, LICs may bring about the displacement of up to millions of people. The worldtotal of refugees grew from around two million in 1970 to over 16 million in 1995, with20 to 30 million people displaced within their own national borders.74 In other words,for too many people, the con� ict has been a high-intensity rather than a low-intensityone.75

Danger to the stability of the international system

The borders between domestic and foreign policy have blurred, and the strong linkagebetween the two has become commonplace. Foreign policy tends both to re� ectdomestic politics and aim at the domestic scene of other states, by way of involvementand intervention. Third World or Second-Tier states are characterized by domesticinstability that can bring about not only internal war but international war as well.76

LICs can spread across state borders in two main processes: diffusion and escala-tion. Diffusion occurs when LICs affect the stability of neighboring countries in variousways, such as: refugees radicalizing ethnic populations abroad, rebel activities in neigh-boring countries undermining state control over its territory and provoking militaryclashes, hot pursuit operations and interdiction campaigns on other countries’territory, success of insurgents or revolutionaries in one country encouraging furtherspread to other countries (the so-called demonstration effect), etc.77 These have been

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typi� ed by the Vietnam War during the Cold War era and the cases of Rwanda andBurundi and Kosovo in the post-Cold War era. In cases where revolution breaks out, ittends to create a heightened sense of insecurity in the revolutionary state and in othercountries, by shifting the balance of power, encouraging malign perceptions of intentand spirals of suspicion, and fostering powerful perceptions of offense dominance,based both on military overcon� dence and the belief that revolution is likely to spread.78

If in the past it was Marxist revolution that the West feared most (such as the revolutionsin Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua or Ethiopia), nowadays it is Muslim revivalism79 andMuslim revolution.

LICs can also spread through escalation. Escalation usually occurs when a con� ictin one country brings in new, foreign belligerents.80 Since LICs are largely determinedby the relative success of each party in � nding external allies, the parties involved in LIChave strong incentives to drag great powers or local ones into the con� ict. Such powersoften take advantage of the con� ict to realize foreign policy either through involvementor intervention. A few among many examples are: Egypt’s support for the FLN inAlgeria and intervention in Yemen; US support for the Contras against the Marxistregime in Nicaragua or for the Mujahedin in Afghanistan against the Soviets, and ofcourse its intervention in Vietnam; Syria’s invasion of Lebanon in the initial stages ofthe civil war; Rwanda’s intervention in the LIC in Congo on the side of the Tutsis; thecon� ict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, or Romania andHungary over the Hungarian population in Transylvania; and Western intervention inBosnia and Kosovo against Serbia, that brought about Russian threats to come toSerbia’s help.81

But there is also the danger that LICs might escalate to non-conventional con-frontation. For example, LIC in Kashmir may escalate to HIC between India andPakistan, which both countries wish to avoid, especially in light of their respectivenuclear capability. Another source of concern is the dangerous combination of sub-conventional and non-conventional warfare, as represented by the phenomenon of“grand-terrorism”. Arms in general have become more readily available, and the abilityto control their spread is limited. This is true not only for small arms but also for somekinds of WMDs. WMDs are mostly threatening when in the hands of sub-state groupssuch as religious extremists or terrorists, whose behavior can hardly be predicted. Thetendency of some LICs to be non-purposeful; in other words, to produce threats thatare unintended or threats that do not stem from a government but rather from a groupor organization within the country, may make them undeterrable.82 This problembecomes critical in case that such actors possess WMDs. Unfortunately, the probabil-ity of sub-state or sub-national actors possessing WMDs has become higher. Theexistence of “loose nukes”, the accessibility to information regarding the production ofnon-conventional weapons, and the relatively easy ways of producing chemical and bio-logical weapons, make it even more likely.

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The instrumental use of force in crisis

It has been widely accepted that war ought to be the servant of politics. In the wars ofthe past, e.g. the Napoleonic wars, the American civil war, the First World War, or theSecond World War, which were conventional, there used to be a relatively high correla-tion between the military and the political achievements. In our time, however, thepreviously clear linkage between the two has been disconnected. One of the outstand-ing characteristics of LICs is the gap between the military capabilities on the one handand the ability to achieve victory – in other words, realize the war objectives – on theother. In the Vietnam War, for example, as one of its outstanding analysts put it,

on the battle� eld itself the Army was unbeatable. In engagement after engagementthe forces of the Viet Cong and of the North Vietnamese Army were thrown backwith terrible losses. Yet, in the end, it was North Vietnam, not the United States,that emerged victorious.83

After the bloody Tet offensive of early 1968, Walter Cronkite warned the Americanpublic that the only way out would be negotiating with the North Vietnamese, but “notas victors”.84 Time magazine, too, considered that “victory in Vietnam [ . . . ] maysimply be beyond the grasp of the world’s greatest power”.85 And indeed, in many LICs,military achievements have not been a prerequisite for the realization of the politicalwar objectives. The latter could be achieved merely by the use of force, short of battle-� eld decision, as exempli� ed by many cases such as Vietnam, Algeria, Afghanistan, orLebanon.

The strategy of attrition, often adopted by the militarily weaker side in LICs, is inmany cases responsible for its political effectiveness. The logic of attrition is “death bya thousand small cuts”,86 and it requires both readiness to wage a protracted war87 anda very high cost tolerance.88 The military encounters tend to take place at the tacticallevel, where they are usually limited in terms of forces, time, and place, whereas theobjectives of those engaged in the con� ict, and sometimes also the targets they aim to,tend to be outside the direct battle� eld, at the grand-strategic level. The society andeconomy of the enemy have become the center of gravity. The strategic and operationallevels of war are usually bypassed by the militarily weaker side so as to compensate forits weakness at these levels, and, at least to some extent, try to balance the militarilystronger side and expose its societal weakness, which in turn affects political persever-ance.

There have been cases, though, where the stronger did defeat the weaker. Forexample, the Peruvian government managed to defeat the “Shining Path” in the early1990s. Among colonialists, the British have been famous for having managed to adaptto sub-conventional challenges. Unlike the French in Indo-China and Algeria, or theAmericans in Vietnam, they coped with LICs quite ef� ciently. South Africa,89 Palestine(1936–9), Malaya, Cyprus, Kenya, the Persian Gulf and Northern Ireland have allbecome symbols in this respect. However, even as far as Britain goes, the fact that iteventually decided to disengage from its colonies created a situation in which itsmilitary achievements were almost irrelevant. Again, it was the weaker side that won.

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LIC and the demise of the nation-state

“The � rst duty of any social entity is to protect the lives of its members. Either modernstates cope with low-intensity con� ict, or else they will disappear.”90 LICs threaten toerode the basis upon which the social contract and the nation-state had been founded –the belief of the individuals in the ability of the society and the state to provide for theirsecurity.91 In the age of globalization, many nation-states have already been losing themonopoly over economical and social interactions, which have nowadays been growingout of control and have been taken over by individuals and the private sector.92 Themonopoly over the use of force is something that the nation-state is still trying topreserve. One of the ways of maintaining that monopoly is to prove to the citizens thatthe state can effectively protect them from both foreign and domestic threats. LICs alltoo often bring the war home, thereby exposing the anachronistic role played byborders as a barrier between a state and its enemies. This fact, combined with manygovernments’ inef� ciencies in preventing LICs or effectively coping with them, maybring about loss of faith on the part of citizens in the institution of the nation-state.Along these lines, it has been argued that LICs are responsible for making the tradi-tional Clausewitzian war – based on the Government–Army–People triangle so typicalof the modern nation-state – obsolete.93 Nevertheless, for the time being we are ratherwitnessing the emergence of many new nation-states.94

CONCLUSION: SHOULD WE WORRY ABOUT THE GAP?

A gap has existed between the pervasiveness and importance of LICs and their repre-sentation in current strategic thought. While an effort should be made to � ll this gap,there can be no hope of crystallizing a comprehensive theory of LICs. If no compre-hensive paradigm-like theory of conventional war has ever emerged over the thousandsof years of military thought, it can persuasively be argued that, given the dynamic andcomplex nature of LICs, there is little hope that such a comprehensive theory of sub-conventional war will possibly develop in the foreseeable future. However, theory hasnever lost its role in the thinking and practice of war in general and LICs in particular.On the contrary: the more complex war becomes, the lesser the chances that existingdoctrines and plans will be suf� cient for coping with its challenges, and the moreessential it is to employ a set of universal, theoretical tools. Using such tools, one canstudy the characteristics of each particular case, conduct comparative studies, and sortout practical ways for dealing with speci� c con� icts as appropriate to the idiosyncrasiesof each case, in the form of new doctrines and plans.

It has been the dream of most warfare theorists to be able to offer a universal set ofrecipes for successfully conducting war, of whatever kind, place or time. The fact thatreality has shattered this dream95 should not be reason for criticism or despair. It isprecisely at this point that Clausewitz comes to our assistance. Unlike many other greatthinkers, he was skeptical as to the direct practical value of theory. Indeed, according toClausewitz, it is the “more general – indeed, a universal – element with which everytheorist ought above all to be concerned.” One should, however, not fail to “considerthe nature of states and societies as they are determined by their times and prevailing

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conditions.” Every age has “its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its ownpeculiar preconceptions.”96 For anyone who wants to learn about war, theory “will lighthis way, ease his progress, train his judgment, and help him to avoid pitfalls.”97

LICs are different from HICs in many ways. It is both necessary and feasible todistinguish between traditional conventional war and sub-conventional war, as repre-sented by LIC, from the points of view of why, by whom, where, and how they areconducted. But LICs cannot – and should not – be treated as a revolutionary phenom-enon. There is no reason to believe that one would necessarily need a special set oftheoretical tools for the purpose of analyzing their particular features or thinking ofways of coping with them. One could, rather, use the existing set of theoretical tools inthe � eld of security studies, such as the dimensions of war (Clausewitz’s govern-ment–military–people triangle), the dimensions of strategy (Howard’s quadranglecomprising the operational, technological, societal and logistical dimensions98), thelevels-of-war pyramid (grand-strategy, strategy, the operational level, tactics), thesecurity dilemma, strength versus cost tolerance, attrition, battle� eld decision versusvictory, and the like, applying them in accordance with the nature of LICs. Forexample, stressing the signi� cance of the people in such con� icts, the role played by thesocietal dimension in their conduct, and the relevance of the levels at the two extremesof the levels-of-war pyramid – grand-strategy and tactics – rather than the operationallevel and strategy. Should new concepts, dimensions, variables, distinctions andmodels emerge from the study of LICs, they will be considered desirable by-products,as was the case with the thought on nuclear war after World War II. Terms such asgrand-terrorism, info- (or cyber-) terrorism, narco-terrorism, or cyber-civil disobe-sience, and distinctions such as First- versus Second-Tier countries, too-few versustoo-many states, sub-national versus international con� ict, or inter-community versusintra-community con� ict, and even OOTW, would only enrich the intellectual pre-occupation with war in general and LIC in particular.

As for future study of the phenomenon, it seems that future LICs study could bestbe directed to certain issues of their causes, management, ending and settlement.Understanding the causes of LICs is essential for efforts aimed at their prevention andtheir settlement. One of the questions worth exploring relates to the common assump-tion that a combination of economic prosperity and open borders between states,typical of developed countries, tends to moderate ethnic and religious tensions and blurethnic af� liations. If this is true, then why is it that alongside European or NorthAmerican ethnic groups who have been satis� ed with cultural, social, economic andsemi-political autonomy – such as the Catalans in Spain or the French-Canadians – one� nds other groups – such as the IRA in Northern Ireland or ETA in Spain – which havebeen using violence in their struggle for national liberation? Another question relates tothe spread of democratic values through the international system and its impact onethnic and religious tensions: is the spread of democratic values and procedurescapable of lowering the probability that LICs will erupt in the Third-World or Second-Tier countries, or will the spread of democracy instead stimulate an outburst of ethnicaspirations by legitimizing debate on ethnic issues?

As far as the management of LICs is concerned, one of the most intriguing foci forresearch seems to be the asymmetries between the adversaries and their in� uence on

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the strategies and tactics employed by them and on the gap between military andpolitical achievements. A question of great interest is: do liberal-democratic societiesreally tend to suffer from a chronic perseverance problem when conducting LICs, or isit rather the lack of will on the part of politicians, misinterpreting societal resilience,that all too often accounts for the low-cost tolerance attributed to such societies?Another issue which deserves more attention relates to the means liberal democracieshave at their disposal in handling LICs: as such states can, nowadays, conduct LICswith almost no casualties – thanks to precision-guided munitions, thereby overcomingtheir societies’ aversion to war – isn’t the strong side again becoming the one that hasbetter chances of winning LICs, as was the case in the pre-World War II era? Are we notnow facing a new paradox, whereby “peace-loving democracies” are no longer quite asdeterred from waging small wars as they used to be? On the other hand, one shouldexplore the new force multipliers which might enable the weak side to compensate forits weaknesses, with many of these multipliers, unlike in the past, also being based ontechnology, such as info-terrorism or cyber-civil disobedience. Other questionsregarding the management of LICs to which study might be directed are, for example:as it is outside the direct battle� eld that LICs are won, what should one expect of themilitary, and what would be the desired labor division between military and non-military means? To what extent does high combat effectiveness affect societalperseverance? How can one cope with the tension between the contrasting commandand control needs in managing LICs – the need to bestow discretion on the tacticallevel, on the one hand, and the need to closely command and control tactical missionsbecause of the possible implications of tactical encounters for policy, on the other?

The third group of issues relates to ending and settling LICs. Two main dilemmasdeserve further attention on the part of researchers. The � rst is faced by third parties.Should they let the adversaries “burn themselves out”, as cruel as this may be, so as tocreate favorable conditions for a long-lasting, stable settlement, or should they ratherintervene with the aim of imposing, � rst, cease-� re, and then a settlement? What are thechances of a peace enduring if it is either imposed on the parties from the outside ormaintained by outside forces? Would imposed settlement not merely suppress ethnicenergies until such time as they erupt at some point in the future? The second dilemmarelates to integration, separation and political stability in the long run: what would bemore conducive to political stability – keeping warring ethnic groups integrated in onepolitical entity or, rather, separating them? And how can one possibly compromise twocompeting norms: the notion of self-determination – which entails the disintegration ofexisting states – on the one hand, and the principle of the territorial integrity of states –dictating their integration – on the other?

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NOTESI wish to thank Stuart A. Cohen and Efraim Inbar for their useful comments on an earlierdraft.

1. As opposed to “zones of peace”. Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky, The Real WorldOrder: Zones of Peace, Zones of Turmoil, Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1993, p. 3.

2. As opposed to “First-Tier countries”. Donald M. Snow, Uncivil War, Boulder: LynneRienner, 1996, p. 11.

3. See for example: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of theTwenty-First Century, New York: Macmillan, 1993.

4. The term LIC � rst appeared as one of the many attempts made in the US in the post-Vietnam era to conceptually cope with the reality of con� icts short of either large-scaleSecond World War-like war or direct nuclear confrontation with the Soviets. During the1970s, an awareness grew in the US of the possibility that, under the nuclear umbrella,there might develop different types of con� ict between East and West. The asymmetri-cal and complex nature of the war in Vietnam, its non-military aspects, and thedifficulty of coping with the Vietcong served as catalysts to thinking about suchcon� icts. The US Army was one of the � rst to undertake a conceptual effort in order tocope with the new challenge. One of the outstanding intellectual outcomes of this effortwas the concept of LIC. However, the way LIC was de� ned by the US defense estab-lishment re� ected the problem of encompassing the variety of dimensions and variablesthat deserved to be taken into consideration in the framework of this type of con� ict orwar, which is neither conventional in the traditional sense nor non-conventional. LICwas defined as a “limited politico-military struggle to achieve political, social,economic, or psychological objectives. It is often protracted and ranges from diplo-matic, economic, and psychological pressures through terrorism and insurgency.Low-intensity con� ict is generally con� ned to a geographic area and is often character-ized by constraints on the weaponry, tactics and level of violence.” Department of DefenseDictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Washington DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1979;Joint Low-Intensity Con� ict Project Final Report, Executive Summary Fort Monroe, VA:US Army Training and Doctrine Command, August 1986, p. 3. In 1991, a Low-Intensity Con� ict Proponencies Directorate (LIC-PD) was established in the US,charged with developing, coordinating and documenting concepts, doctrine, organiza-tional designs, material requirements and training programs.

5. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War, New York: The Free Press, 1991.6. As one scholar put it, “a small war [ . . . ] may be intense but short, or long but charac-

terized by low levels of violence [ . . . ]. In most cases, they involve con� icts withinstates.” W. J. Olson, “Preface: Small Wars Considered”, Annals of the American Academyof Political and Social Studies, Vol. 541, September 1995, p. 9.

7. See the chapter “The People in Arms”. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 479–483.

8. Baron de Jomini, The Art of War, Westport: Greenwood, 1977, pp. 29–35.9. Jehuda L. Wallach, Kriegstheorien , Frankfurt am Main: Bernard & Graefe Verlag Fur

Wehrwesen, 1972, pp. 25, 83–84.10. See, for example: Sigmund Neumann and Mark von Hagen, “Engels and Marx on Rev-

olution, War, and the Army in Society”, in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy,Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 262–280.

11. Revolution has many meanings. However, it usually refers to “a sweeping, suddenattack upon an existing order”. Sam C. Sarkesian, “Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare”,in Sam C. Sarkesian (ed.), Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare, Chicago: Precedent, 1975,p. 1. Operationally, it entails the “seizure of power that leads to a major restructuring ofgovernment or society and the replacement of the former élite by a new one”, unlike

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coup d’état which involves “no more than a change of ruling personnel by violence or athreat of violence”. Lawrence Stone, “Theories of Revolution”, in Sarkesian (ed.),op. cit, p. 27.

12. Insurgency has been de� ned as “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow ofconstituted government through the use of subversion and armed con� ict”. Dictionaryof Military and Associated Terms, JCS Publication No. 1, Washington DC: Joint Chiefs ofStaff, 1979, p. 123; or as “a struggle between a non-ruling group and the ruling author-ities in which the non-ruling group consciously uses political resources (e.g.organizational expertise, propaganda, and demonstrations) and violence to destroy,reformulate, or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of politics”.O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, p. 13; or as “unconventional warfare waged for thepurpose of overthrowing and replacing an existing regime or to secede from an existingstate”. Snow, op. cit., p. 65.

13. See Sarkesian’s edited volume Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare.14. Stuart A. Cohen and Efraim Inbar, “A Taxonomy of Israel’s Use of Military Force”,

Comparative Strategy, Vol. 10 No. 2, April–June 1991, p. 128.15. As far as civil wars go, there have also been many de� nitions. For example: “con� ict

within a society resulting from an attempt to seize or maintain power and symbols oflegitimacy by extra-legal means. It is civil because civilians are engaged in it. It is warbecause violence is applied by both sides. Civil war is intra-societal and may take placewithin a group, some parts of which either desire to maintain or wish to initiate separateethnic and/or political identity or wish to change the government.” J. K. Zawodny,“Civil War”, in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York: Macmillan, Vol. 7, 1968,p. 499. Cited in Sarkesian, “Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare”, p. 4. Another de� nition:“military con� ict between two or more approximately equal governments for sover-eignty over people and territory native to both”. Lyford P. Edwards, “Civil War”, inEncyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York: Macmillan, Vol. 3, 1935, p. 523. Cited inibid. p. 5. A more concise and compelling de� nition is the following: “[a war] betweentwo groups in the same nation”. Douglas Pike, Viet Cong, Cambridge: MIT Press,1966, pp. 32–33. Cited in ibid., p. 5.

16. For a comparison between ethno-political con� ict in the Cold War era, on the one hand,and the post-Cold War era, on the other, see: Ted R. Gurr, “People Against States: Eth-nopolitical Con� ict and the Changing World System”, International Studies Quarterly,Vol. 38 No. 3, September 1994, pp. 347–377.

17. FM-100-5: Operations, Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1993. It is assumedthat OOTWs would be sensitive, complex, protracted operations, and would demandspecial units in order to carry them out. As far as OOTWs go, there are almost noboundaries between conventional and sub-conventional activities. Very much unlikeLICs, OOTWs are perceived of both as an integral part of war – preceding it, followingit, or occurring simultaneously with war in the same theater or in conjunction withwartime operations – and as an autonomous channel of operations. As such, OOTWsrequire small, versatile units capable of operating vis-à-vis a variety of small challenges,either conventional or non-conventional. Such units, sometimes referred to as SpecialForces carrying out special operations, are often suited to the conduct of LICs,however, they also have applications in conventional and non-conventional war. FM-100-5, p. 13-0-13-1.

18. B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Indirect Approach, London: Faber & Faber, 1967.19. See, for example: Vladimir I. Lenin, “Partisan Warfare”, Sarkesian (ed.), op. cit., pp.

187–203.20. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1954.21. Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War, People’s Army, Hanoi: Foreign Languages, 1961.22. Che Guevara, On Guerrilla Warfare, New York: Praeger, 1961.23. Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, New York: Praeger, 1966.

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24. Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View on Counterinsurgency, New York:Praeger, 1967.

25. R. Debray, Strategy for Revolution, London: Jonathan Cape, 1970.26. Roger Beaumont, “Small Wars: De� nitions and Dimensions”, Annals of the American

Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 541, September 1995, p. 33.27. Jerome W. Klingaman, “US Policy and Strategic Planning For Low-Intensity Con� ict”,

in Stephen Blank et al., Low-Intensity Con� ict in the Third World, Maxwell Air ForceBase, Alabama: Air University Press, 1988, pp. 162–164.

28. Klingaman, “US Policy and Strategic Planning For Low-Intensity Con� ict”, p. 163.29. In the period 1991–7, the international relations and security studies community was

generally interested in other problems, ignoring the fact that some 95 percent of thecon� icts in the international system were LICs. Articles that in one way or the othertouched upon aspects of LICs, such as the ethnic factor in Second-Tier countries,foreign involvement or intervention in such countries, or some speci� c internal war,constituted between 2 percent and 20 percent of the articles published by distinguishedjournals. Only a small number of articles were dedicated to the theory of LICs, if at all.Examples include: International Organization – 2 percent, World Politics – 6 percent,Security Studies – 6 percent, Military Review – 6 percent, International Security – 11percent, Parameters – 12 percent. Even Survival, which made a very serious effort todeal with the phenomenon, dedicated only 20 percent of its articles to LICs. Statisticsby the author.

30. Charles E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice, Wake� eld: E.P. Publish-ing, 1976, p. 21.

31. Eliot A. Cohen, “Constraints on America’s Conduct of Small Wars”, InternationalSecurity, Vol. 9 No. 2, Fall 1984, p. 151.

32. Thompson, “Low-Intensity Con� ict: An Overview”, p. 1.33. Ashton Carter, “Responding to the Threats: Preventive Defense”, paper presented at

the Conference on “Challenges to Global and Middle East Security”, Jaffee Center forStrategic Studies & Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Herzlia, 15–16June 1998; America’s National Interests, A Report from the Commission on America’sNational Interests Washington DC, 1996. The report distinguishes between “vital”,“extremely important”, “just important”, and “less important” national interests.

34. Shimon Peres, The Next Phase, Tel-Aviv: Am-Hassefer, 1965, p. 11.35. Clausewitz, On War, p. 89.36. Michael Howard, “The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy”, in Michael Howard, The

Causes of War and Other Essays, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984, pp.101–115.

37. Walter Laqueur, “Postmodern Terrorism”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75 No. 5,September/October 1996, pp. 24–36.

38. Whereas intra-community con� icts are primarily about ideology (e.g., the Greek, Viet-namese, and Nicaraguan civil wars), inter-community ones are driven primarily byethnic division (e.g., the Nigerian, Yugoslav, Sri Lankan, Rwandan, and Chechnyancivil wars). Chaim Kaufman, “Intervention in Ethnic and Ideological Civil Wars”,Security Studies, Vol. 6 No. 1, Autumn 1996, pp. 62–100.

39. On ethnocentrism in strategic thinking, see: Ken Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism;Alastair I. Johnson, “Thinking about Strategic Culture”, International Security, Vol. 19No. 4, Spring 1995; Colin S. Gray, War, Peace and Victory, New York: Simon &Schuster, 1990, pp. 44–45; Yitzhak Klein, “A Theory of Strategic Culture”, Compara-tive Strategy, Vol. 10 No. 1, January–March 1991, pp. 3–23.

40. On LICs as requiring “an ad hoc set of operational procedures” and the development of“one-place/one-time adaptive doctrines and methods”, see: Edward N. Luttwak,“Notes on Low-Intensity Warfare”, in William A. Buckingham (ed.), Defense Planningfor the 1990s,Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 1984, p. 206.

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41. Stephen Blank, “Soviet Forces in Afghanistan: Unlearning the Lessons of Vietnam”, inStephen Blank et al., Responding to Low-Intensity Con� ict Challenges. Maxwell Air Base,Alabama: Air University Press, 1990, pp. 53–176.

42. Blank, “Soviet Forces in Afghanistan”, p. 87.43. Steven Metz and James Kievit, “The Revolution in Military Affairs and Con� ict Short

of War.” 44. For example: Robert H. Johnson, “Exaggerating America’s Stakes in Third World

Con� icts”, International Security, Vol. 10 No. 3, Winter 1984/85, pp. 32–68; Richard E.Feinberg and Kenneth A. Oye, “After the Fall: US Policy Toward Radical Regimes”,World Policy Journal, Vol. 1 No. 1, Fall 1983, pp. 201–215; Jerome Slater, “Dominoeson Central America: Will They Fall? Does It Matter?” International Security, Vol. 12No. 2, Fall 1987, pp. 105–134.

45. Steven R. David, “Why the Third World Matters?” International Security, Vol. 14 No. 1,Summer 1989, pp. 50–85; Steven R. David, “Why the Third World Still Matters”,International Security, Vol. 17 No. 3, Winter 1992/93, pp. 127–159.

46. For such an approach, see for example: Shmuel Gordon, The Vulture and the Snake:Counter-Guerrilla Air Warfare: The War in Southern Lebanon, Ramat-Gan: BESA Centerfor Strategic Studies, 1998.

47. Beaumont, “Small Wars: De� nitions and Dimensions”, pp. 31–32.48. See his introduction in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Die Klassenkampfe in Frankre-

ich, 1848–1850, Berlin: 1895.49. A. H. Jomini, “Summary of the Art of War”, in Roots of Strategy: Book 2, Harrisburg:

Stackpole, 1987, p. 445.50. Wallach, Kriegstheorien, pp. 25, 83–84.51. T. E. Lawrence, Revolt in the Desert, New York: G. H. Doran Co., 1927.52. Edward N. Luttwak, “A Post-Heroic Military Policy”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75 No. 4,

July/August 1996, p. 40. 53. Ruth L. Sivard (ed.), World Military and Social Expenditures, Washington DC: World

Priorities, 1987, pp. 29–31; ibid., 1989 edition, p. 22; Peter Wallensteen and MargaretaSollenberg, “The End of International War? Armed Con� ict 1989–95”, Journal of PeaceResearch, Vol. 33 No. 3, August 1996, pp. 353–370; Klaus J. Gantzel, “War in the Post-World War II World: Some Empirical Trends and a Theoretical Approach”, in DavidTurton (ed.), War and Ethnicity: Global Connections and Local Violence, San Marino:University of Rochester Press, pp. 125–138.

54. David, op. cit., pp. 142–144. On foreign involvement and intervention in LICs, see forexample: Michael E. Brown, “The Causes and Regional Dimensions of InternalCon� ict”, in Michael E. Brown (ed.), The International Dimensions of Internal Con� ict,Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996, pp. 571–601; Bruce W. Gentleman and Ariel E. Levite,“The Analysis of Protracted Foreign Military Intervention”, in Ariel E. Levite, BruceW. Jentleson and Larry Berman (eds), Foreign Military Intervention: The Dynamics ofProtracted Con� ict, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992, pp. 1–22; Eliot A.Cohen, “Dynamics of Military Intervention”, ibid., pp. 263–284; Robert Cooper andMats Berdal, “Outside Intervention in Ethnic Con� icts”, Survival, Vol. 35 No. 1,Spring 1993, pp. 118–142; Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, Washington DC:Brassey’s, 1990, pp. 11–124.

55. Luttwak, “A Post-Heroic Military Policy.” 56. Brown, “The Causes and Regional Dimensions of Internal Con� ict.”57. On state-to-nation ratio and its impact on war and peace, see: Benjamin Miller, “The

Sources of Regional War and Peace”, paper presented at the 1999 annual meeting of theAmerican Political Science Association, Atlanta, September, 1999; Stephen Van Evera,“Hypotheses on Nationalism and War”, in Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller(eds), Global Dangers: An International Security Reader, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995.It is precisely against this background that the notion that keeping warring ethnic

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groups integrated paradoxically promotes escalation of violence has been gainingground, suggesting that separating them might be more conducive to peace andstability. See: Chaim D. Kaufman, “When All Else Fails: Ethnic Population Transfersand Partitions in the Twentieth Century”, International Security, Vol. 23 No. 2, Fall1998, pp. 120–156.

58. W. W. Rostow, United States in the World Arena, New York: Harper & Row, 1960; Ted R.Gurr, Why Men Rebel, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973; James C. Davies,“The J-Curve of Rising and Declining Satisfactions as a Cause of Some Great Revolu-tions and a Contained Rebellion”, in Sarkesian (ed.), Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare,pp. 117–141; Mancur Olson, “Rapid Growth as a Destabilizing Force”, Journal ofEconomic History, Vol. XXII, December 1963, pp. 529–552. “Poor men, used to hard,strenuous work and deprivation, are generally more vigorous and more warlike,”Clausewitz diagnosed some 200 years ago. Clausewitz, On War, p. 480.

59. For the importance of this factor, see: Brown, “The Causes and Regional Dimensionsof Internal Con� ict.”

60. David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild, “Spreading Fear: The Genesis of TransnationalEthnic Con� ict”, in David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild (eds), The InternationalSpread of Ethnic Con� ict, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998, pp. 8, 18.

61. For an application of the concept of the security dilemma to ethnic relations, see: BarryR. Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Con� ict”, Survival, Vol. 35 No. 1,Spring 1993, pp. 27–47.

62. As one researcher put it, “revolutionary or separatist struggles, in which the combatantshave mutually exclusive ideas of who should govern and on what principles, are notori-ously savage and dif� cult to resolve by peaceful means”. W. J. Olson, “Preface: SmallWars Considered”, p. 15.

63. Barbara F. Walter, “The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement”, International Organi-zation, Vol. 51 No. 3, Summer 1997, pp. 335–364.

64. Edward D. Mans� eld and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and the Danger of War”,International Security, Vol. 20 No. 1, Summer 1995, pp. 5–38. Mans� eld and Snyderdifferentiate, however, between the democratization processes within formerCommunist European states, which, in their view, should cause far less internationalinstability, and the liberalization of Third World feudal states, which threatens interna-tional stability far more. See also Steven R. David, “Democracy, Internal War andIsraeli Security”, paper presented at the Conference on “Democracies and TheirArmed Forces Towards the 21st Century”, BESA Center for Strategic Studies, Ramat-Gan, 8–10 June 1998; Jacob Rösel, “Nationalism and Ethnicity: Ethnic Nationalismand the Regulation of Ethnic Conflict”, in Turton (ed.), War and Ethnicity, pp.160–161.

65. Clausewitz, On War, p. 480.66. Ibid.67. Ibid.68. On the important role played by geography, see for example: Arthur Campbell, Guer-

rillas: A History and Analysis, London: Arthur Barker, 1967, pp. 282–284.69. The “mushroom-like spread of slums and shanty towns” encircling many Third World

cities by “misery-belt of huts patched together out of odd bits of cardboard, tin andtimber” have served as fertile soil on which political violence in general and terrorism inparticular could grow relatively easily. Robert Moss, “Urban Guerrilla Warfare”, inSarkesian (ed.), Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare, p. 483.

70. Olson, “Preface: Small Wars Considered”, p. 8.71. Sivard (ed.), World Military and Social Expenditures.72. Wallensteen and Sollenberg, “The End of International War?” p. 356.73. David Turton, “Introduction”, in Turton (ed.), War and Ethnicity, p. 3.74. Ibid., p. 2. Prominent examples include: Afghanistan (as of 1978): 5.2 million people;

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Angola (1975– ): 2 million; Azerbaijan (1990– ): 1.7 million; Bosnia (1992– ): 2.5million; Liberia (1989– ): 1.7 million; Rwanda (1990– ): 2 million; Somalia (1990– ): 1million; Sri Lanka (1983– ): 1.2 million. Michael Brown, “Introduction”, in Brown(ed.), The International Dimensions of Internal Con� ict, pp. 4–7.

75. As one researcher put it, “for those unfortunate enough to be involved in the sufferingcaused by insurgency or chronic terrorism, the phrase low-intensity con� ict does notbegin to capture the trauma and tragedy of their lives. [ . . . ] As one might expect, thephrase does not enjoy similar popularity in Afghanistan, or Angola, or El Salvador, orLebanon, or anywhere else that war is tangible reality.” Loren B. Thompson, “Low-Intensity Con� ict: An Overview”, in Loren B. Thompson (ed.), Low-Intensity Con� ict:The Pattern of Warfare in the Modern World, Lexington: Lexington Books, 1989, pp. 1–2.The devastating effect of Vietnam was summarized by Eliot Cohen in the followingwords: “The war in Vietnam, for example, killed 60,000 Americans, bred turmoil in theUS society, devastated Vietnam for a generation, left Laos a backwater and was at leastindirectly responsible, in neighboring Cambodia, for one of the greatest horrors of thetwentieth century.” Eliot A. Cohen, “The ‘Major’ Consequences of War”, Survival,Vol. 41 No. 2, Summer 1999, p. 143.

76. David, “Why the Third World Still Matters”, p. 131; Lake & Rothchild, “SpreadingFear”, pp. 3–32. The suggestion that ethnic con� icts are prone to spread like wild� re isquestioned by Fearon, who claims that ethnic con� icts have properties that should tendto make them self-limiting in geographic extent, such as their particular rather then uni-versalist nature. James D. Fearon, “Commitment Problems and the Spread of EthnicCon� ict”, ibid., pp. 109–14.

77. See: Brown, “Causes and Regional Dimensions”, pp. 590–595.78. Stephen M. Walt, Revolution and War, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.79. See, for example: Deborah J. Gerner, “Islamic Revivalism and International politics”,

Mershon International Studies Review, 40, April 1996, pp. 104–108.80. Lake and Rothchild, “Spreading Fear”, pp. 23, 29–32.81. It has recently been argued by a group of researchers that third party involvement or

intervention had better be avoided so as to enable the adversaries to “burn themselvesout and establish the preconditions for a lasting settlement”. See for example: EdwardN. Luttwak, “Give War a Chance”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78 No. 4, July/August 1999,p. 36. According to Luttwak, Bosnia, for example, was condemned by the Daytonaccords to “remain divided into three rival armed camps, with combat suspendedmomentarily but a state of hostility prolonged inde� nitely”. Ibid., p. 37.

82. David, “Democracy, Internal War and Israeli Security.” 83. Harry C. Summers, On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context, Pennsylvania: US Army

War College, 1981, p. 1.84. Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, London: M. Joseph, 1984,

p. 352.85. Ibid.86. John Shy and Thomas W. Collier, “Revolutionary War”, in Paret (ed.), Makers of

Modern Strategy, p. 852.87. Many LICs last more than ten years. For example, in Asia: the struggle of the Muslim

militias against the USSR in Afghanistan lasted ten years (1979–89); the Tamils havebeen � ghting against the government of Sri Lanka for more than 18 years (1984– ); thestruggle of East Timor against the Indonesian government has been conducted foralmost 27 years now (1975– ); the Communists in the Philippines fought against thegovernment for 17 years (1972–89); the Vietnamese had to fight for nine years(1945–54) to gain independence from France; and it took the Vietcong and the NorthVietnamese 15 years to get the Americans out of Vietnam and defeat the South(1960–75). In Africa, too, LICs have been protracted: the FLN against France – eightyears (1954–62); West Sahara against Morocco – 12 years (1975–87); the Eritreans vs.

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the Ethiopian government – 15 years (1974–89); Angola’s independence from Portugal– 14 years (1961–75); the civil war in Angola – 14 years (1975–89); Mozambique’sindependence from Portugal – ten years (1965–75); the civil war in Mozambique – eightyears (1981–9); South Sudan vs. Government – 18 years (1984– ); Guinea-Bissau’sindependence from Portugal – 12 years (1962–74). In Latin America: insurgents vs.Government in El Salvador – ten years (1979–89); Contras vs. Sandinistas in Nicaragua– seven years (1981–8); Shining Path vs. Government in Peru – 13 years (1983–96);Liberals vs. Government in Colombia – 13 years (1949–62).

88. Stephen P. Rosen, “War and the Willingness to Suffer”, in Bruce M. Russett (ed.),Peace, War and Numbers, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1972, pp. 167–183. In the “savage war ofpeace” in Algeria it was France, which lost about 25,000 soldiers killed – some 0.05percent of its population – that was the � rst to tire of the war, whereas the Algerians,who suffered approximately 600,000 dead – about 6 percent of Algeria’s non-Europeanpopulation – were apparently quite ready to continue � ghting. Peter Paret, French Rev-olutionary Warfare from Indochina to Algeria: the Analysis of a Political and MilitaryDoctrine, London: Pall Mall Press, 1964; Edgar O’Ballance, The Algerian Insurrection1954–1962, London: Faber & Faber, 1967; David Schalk, War and the Ivory Tower, NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1991; Robert B. Asprey, War in the Shadows: TheGuerrilla in History, New York: Morrow, 1994, Ch. 55; Nathan Key� tz and WilhelmFlieger, World Population, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1968. p. 335; JoachimJoesten, The New Algeria, Chicago: Follett, 1964, p. 14. Apparently the wiser for theexperience of their failure in Indochina, the French army and French military thinkersattempted to adapt elements of the doctrines of Mao and Giap for the purposes of thecountry’s struggle against the movement for national liberation in Algeria – developingthe doctrine of “la guerre revolutionaire”. From a military standpoint, this doctrine rep-resented an improvement over the manner in which France had previously dealt withthe Vietnamese. As for the challenges in Algeria, the French thinkers showed that theypossessed something of an understanding of the important role that was likely to beplayed in LICs by the political element and attempted to integrate it into the militaryconsiderations in the form of psychological warfare, re-education, indoctrination oftheir own cadres, and shaping of government policy. Peter Paret and John W. Shy, Guer-rillas in the 1960s, New York: Praeger, 1962, pp. 39–40. They endeavored tocompensate for the feeble will earlier evinced by French society in Indochina byinsisting that French citizens demonstrate strength of will over the struggle in Algeria.But the very fact that this demand was issued also served to reveal its less admirableaspects. Above and beyond the fact that the doctrine re� ected Fascist tendencies and acertain undisguised contempt for democracy, by giving its army the task of educatingthe French people towards demonstrating a strong stand, it showed that the govern-ment had misinterpreted the mood among the French people, who detested the longwar and its high price – expressed in the prolonged conscription of hundreds ofthousands of their countrymen, the tens of thousands of casualties among the Frenchforces, the war costs amounting to about a billion dollars a year, the deep rift that hadopened up across society, and in the chaos that has developed within the political system– and who had lost most of their sympathy for the army. In Vietnam, too, the effortsmade by the Americans to in� ict destruction on the North Vietnamese eventuallybecame progressively less relevant. In the � nal analysis, victory was achieved off theactual battle� eld by the side that had been more willing to tolerate casualties and haddemonstrated greater social resilience, precisely as Ho Chi Minh had predicted. SeeJohn E. Mueller, “The Search for the ‘Breaking Point’ in Vietnam: The Statistics of aDeadly Quarrel”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 24 No. 4, December 1980, pp.497–519. The prediction of Ho Chi Minh was that “in the end, the Americans will havekilled ten of us for every American soldier who died, but it is they who will tire � rst”.Rosen, “War Power and the Willingness to Suffer”, p. 168. As one researcher put it,

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“Hanoi bent but never broke because it preferred endless war to defeat; Washingtonbent and � nally did break because the public preferred defeat to endless war.” RichardK. Betts, “Comment on Mueller: Interests, Burdens, and Persistence: AsymmetriesBetween Washington and Hanoi”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 24 No. 4,December 1980, p. 523.

89. For a comparison of the British and American responses to similar challenges, see forexample: Debora D. Avant, “The Institutional Sources of Military Doctrine:Hegemons in Peripheral Wars”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 37 No. 4,December 1993, pp. 409–430. Avant explains the differences in adaptivity to LICsdemonstrated by British and Americans by the distinct structure of civilian institutionsand their effect on the development of military organizations.

90. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War.91. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, New York: Collier, 1962; Jean Jacques Rousseau, The

Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1997.

92. For an analysis of such processes, see: Martin van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of theState, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

93. Van Creveld, The Transformation of War.94. According to those who foresee the end of violent interstate con� ict, there will be a

change in the nature of war, as we know it. Wars will no longer be fought between theregular armies of nation-states, and nation-states and their regular armies will insteadgradually disappear, with the focus shifting to low-intensity con� icts. These latter,however, will not resemble the low-intensity con� icts currently familiar to us, in whichthe hostilities are waged between the regular armies of nation-states, on the one hand,and groups or organizations struggling for self-determination or national liberation, onthe other. They will constitute a more far-reaching type of low-intensity con� ict wagedprincipally between the irregular forces belonging to such groups and organizations,most probably on the basis of some ethnic, ideological or other dispute. Ibid.

95. Avi Kober, “Nomology vs. Historicism: Formative Factors in Modern MilitaryThought”, Defense Analysis, Vol. 10 No. 3, December 1994, pp. 267–284.

96. Clausewitz, On War, pp. 586, 593.97. Ibid., p. 141.98. Howard, “The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy”.

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