This changing nature of the battlefield essentially means that war as a conclusive event in an international conflict has become obsolete. The facile Clausewitzian wisdom that military action ultimately leads to a political solution is no longer convincing.
"Victory" cannot bring peace, simply because there will always be a war after the war.
Thus, for example, the conventional war in Kosovo lasted for two months, only to usher in a six-year asymmetric conflict. Likewise, the US' three-week "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003 ended in "victory," but opened the gates of hell for occupiers and ordinary Iraqis alike.
And six months after the merciless pounding of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is as strong as it was before. Nor does the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan six years after their overthrow now seem far-fetched.
It is during the war after the war that the occupier's inferiority is revealed, with constant reinforcements increasing the number of targets for the insurgents far more quickly than the occupier can adapt to the changing battlefield. The insurgents in Iraq, as the British admit, were able in just three years to cope with their enemies' technological superiority in a way that the IRA in Northern Ireland was unable to do in 30 years.
The Iraq war and Israel's wars with Hamas and Hezbollah show the limits of what military power can achieve, as well as vindicate diplomacy and conflict resolution. When it comes to tackling complex political and cultural conflicts, forging international and regional alliances around a legitimate objective is more important than sheer military capacity.
That said, it would be dangerously naive to believe that the exercise of power and the capacity to intimidate are unnecessary. But the objectives of the use of force need to be linked to the recognition that in today's asymmetric conflicts, victory is no longer achieved on the battlefield. Only better-informed foreign policies that can address the genuine anxieties of civilizations in crisis will yield more sustainable results.
Shlomo Ben-Ami, is a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as the vice-president of the Toledo International Centre for Peace.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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