Everything began with Washington’s limited wars, and in the end, everything will revolve around them as well. And what followed is a failure of “deterrence,” with deterrence amounting to stopping others from doing what they wish to do. Washington’s core objective for decades has been to stop others from doing what they want to do. From deterrence, the context became one based on “Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD). In turn, the Cold War went from being based on a military focus to being based on a psychological focus, with the psychological focus and the basic aim of both sides being to “extricate” themselves from all-out war or total war, to borrow from Kissinger. As a result, nothing is “worth the price” of total war, given the weapons and destructive capabilities of both sides.
However, and as Kissinger noted, Russia has capitalized on the diminution of the threat and the value of all-out war as a result of modern weaponry and modern destructive capabilities. In turn, Russia is the proactive power, whereas the United States is the reactive power. Russia initiates the strategic moves, and the United States is put in an uncomfortable position to respond. And given that any response on the part of the United States would amount to “national suicide” to borrow from Kissinger, what follows is that “absolute security is no longer possible” for the United States.
Smaller wars between smaller countries are also contingent and dependent upon the level of conflict or the intensity of conflict between Washington and Moscow. And by default, given the destructiveness of modern weapons and capabilities on the part of Washington and Moscow, wars between Washington and Moscow are kept at limited wars. And with limited wars come limited objectives, as Kissinger highlighted, at least on the part of the United States. To borrow from Kissinger:
“A limited war…is fought for specific political objectives which, by their very existence, tend to establish a relationship between the force employed and the goal to be attained. It reflects an attempt to affect the opponent’s will, not to crush it, to make the conditions to be imposed seem more attractive than continued resistance, to strive for specific goals and not for complete annihilation.”
There is always a “relationship” between military objectives and political objectives which need to be accounted for, as Clausewitz highlighted, which in turn renders limited wars as something very complex and complicated. However, it is “outside the control of planning officers” when it comes to how limited wars will turn out. On one hand, there is the “desire” to keep wars limited, and then there is the reality of the wars spiraling out of control as a result of unintended consequences. Whether they like it or not, people in Washington “will devise plans for limited war which insensibly approach the level of all-out conflict.”
It follows that: “The prerequisite for a policy of limited war is to reintroduce the political element into our concept of warfare and to discard the notion that policy ends when war begins or that war can have goals distinct from those of national policy.” Those who know and stick to the basics and fundamentals of war will tell you that the military and war are means to an end, with the end being one’s basic and core policy goal or objective. In the end, it is all about goals and objectives, and in Washington, the goals and objectives are out of whack to say the least.
Adam A. Azim 