One of the more intriguing aspects of conflict and war since World War II is the paradox of conventional or limited war in an atomic or nuclear age. One war theorist argued that as soon as the atomic bomb or nuclear bomb came into the picture, the assumption or even the myth that the atomic bomb and nuclear bomb made land warfare obsolete or that the bomb “conferred either immunity from attack or exceptional power” was dispelled.
Conventional war, however, is meant to be “limited” in the nuclear age “in order to avoid either direct conflict with [Russia] or a drawn-out war with China.” There was both the effort to limit war in the West and the fact that the number of wars continued to diminish as the centuries and decades passed. Thus, the basic aim in the nuclear age was to prevent war rather than wage it. But of course, the continuation of conventional warfare since the advent of the atomic and nuclear bomb meant that the atomic and nuclear bomb has proven to be largely “irrelevant” to conflict and war and its continuation and perpetuation.
Moreover, with decolonization and the “rollback” of the West as the mainstream theme of world history, war is now very much a “long game” whereby actors or parties or players are willing to wait a long time for the achievement of their basic aim or goal. Also, what was common between all the various conventional limited wars that have been fought since the advent of the atomic and nuclear bomb during World War II is that no atomic or nuclear weapons were used and all were limited “both from fear of reprisal and from fear of a hostile domestic and international reaction to inflicting casualties on noncombatants.”
Arguably, conventional and limited war is “rational” whereas chemical and nuclear war is “irrational.” As one scholar wrote: “War…if it is to be a rational ‘other means’ of the continuation of state policy, will have to be conventional and limited. If it is to be limited in its effects, it must, as Clausewitz recognized, be limited in its aim.” But in conventional and limited war, there is ultimately a “correlation of forces” which puts one party on the offensive and one on the defensive. It follows that: “It is in this climate that the two superpowers [America and Russia] face each other.”
It follows that the United States “has no choice” when it comes to this “correlation of forces” between itself and Russia, even though the United States is the party “who is not prepared to go as far as his opponent” as the scholar highlighted. What results from this “correlation of forces” is that Russia will not “observe limits” when it comes to the prosecution of its war against the West. The goal is that “some other method of achieving a stable balance between the two rival political and economic systems is to be preferred” over direct conflict between them, even though we “cannot expect a war between them to observe limits.”
Hence, we have highlighted not only the paradox of conventional war in a nuclear age, but also the dilemma which is inherent in it.
Adam A. Azim 