The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World

Rupert Smith reviews the last 200 years of military history and clearly defines the nature of interstate, industrial war. He correctly identifies the end of the utility of such war as August 5th, 1945 - the day before the Enola Gay dropped her atomic bomb - and goes on to describe the dissonance between defense planning and actual conflicts in the ensuing 60-odd years. He uses the concept of War Among the People as an umbrella concept to describe the actions of guerrillas, revolutionaries, terrorists and other non-state actors; and identifies the people as the key objective in post-industrial war. He believes that failure to understand the change in the nature and purpose of conflict - on the part of both policy makers and the military - has been at the root of the failure of nations, alliances and coalitions to effectively employ force over the past half-century. Smith goes on to identify a model for political/military interaction in fighting War Among the People. The model itself is revolutionary, in that it departs from the concept of handing diplomatically insoluble problems over to the military and calls for the employment of diplomacy, force, aid and assistance as an integrated effort. In effect, he calls for 'force structuring' which would include elements of several cabinet departments - not just the military services - under a single theater commander (who probably would not be an officer of any service). Smith's work is a useful antidote to some of the less disciplined and more technologically oriented discussions of "Fourth Generation Warfare" and "Transformation" that have appeared over the past few years. It is an important work - one that should be required reading for all of the 2008 Presidential candidates. The book is, as others have noted, not an 'easy' read. It certainly could have been improved by better/more editing; but the content is more than worth the 'slog'.

"War no longer exists" states author/general Rupert Smith, who spent some forty years in the British Army and retired in 2002. Indeed, confrontations between mass national armies are unlikely to occur, replaced by diplomatic efforts that hold more promise than military force. Modern examples from armed interventions that have failed to deliver resolution show why modern conflicts need a different kind of analytical focus -one that blends political and military events - rather than a traditional model of warfare fought on battlefields. Coming from a seasoned general, THE UTILITY OF FORCE: THE ART OF WAR IN THE MODERN WORLD holds much hope for the modern world and is a pick not just for military libraries but for general-interest lending collections and college-level holdings strong in social issues, as well.

Smith takes the reader through a well-designed account of the history of war before moving into the current situation facing the commander and the warfighter. I found the focus on the work of Napoleon, Clausewitz and Bismarck revealing and it sets the tone for the next phase of the discussion, focussed on, for eample, the Boer War and the specifics of that conflict. The two World Wars are covered in just enough detail so as to keep the arguments going (appreciated!!) before showing how the Cold War (or rather confrontation) set the scene for our current dilemma. Smith is crisp in his accounts. He builds a clear picture of every stage of the development of conflict and confrontation from the tactical and strategic perspective. The book is essential reading if you want to comment on force design, if you are involved in mission effectiveness studies or even if you want to develop new ideas around doctrine and command and control in a complex environment. As an engineer and scientist involved in simulation based studies of new warfare I found this book supported my growth towards a more holistic view of concepts.

General Smith's book can be summarized as EXTRAORDINARY. There are probably no more than a handful of generals in our country that understand what Smith is getting at, and that is most unfortunate. For this man has the capacity to completely alter the way we conduct our wars, and our policies, which precede war, but then again, the politicians would have to be listening - wouldn't they? What Smith does in an absolutely brilliant, seductive, and necessary way is help lift you up to a different level where you can understand for the first time a TEMPLATE to explain how these wars worked. What was the REAL DEAL? What did they have in common? INDUSTRIAL WAR The theme of this book is that for hundreds of years, everyone involved in thinking about war had a solid understanding of war as an INDUSTRIAL WAR. This is a war where all the resources of a nation are mobilized, including the industrial capacity of a nation in the action of war. You fight army against army in an open field, if you win, you continue to advance until such time as you dominate the opposing country's capital, and then they capitulate. First GULF WAR was INDUSTRIAL The first Gulf War in 1990 was an Industrial War. Saddam's armies had uniforms, tanks, and artillery, fought in formation, and communicated as any industrial army would communicate. In 2003, for the first 29 days of our second invasion into Iraq, we also fought an INDUSTRIAL WAR. We destroyed his army, and marched to the capital Baghdad, the same way we marched to Berlin in World War II. Once we were successful in destroying Saddam's government however, a new war emerged, what General Smith refers to as WAR AMONG THE PEOPLE. Our generals are the best in the world at waging INDUSTRIAL WARS, but they were totally unprepared for this new paradigm. Even though they had spent years fighting this new type of war in Viet Nam, they just continued to imagine to themselves that they were fighting an INDUSTRIAL WAR, and therein lays our problem. WAR AMONG THE PEOPLE The author points out that our entire psyche as a country and our military and political leadership thinks in terms of every war, every action as Industrial War. It is this template, this paradigm that has led to serious miscalculations, and even in the case of Viet Nam a most UNSATISFACTORY result. The new war is called a WAR AMONG THE PEOPLE, similar to Guerilla Wars. It involves an enemy who doesn't wear uniforms, doesn't fight in formations like brigades, regiments, or battalions, and doesn't fight for physical territory like towns and cities. The enemy LIVES WITH INNOCENT MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN, and camouflages himself by blending in. WARS AMONG THE PEOPLE have included: 1) Peninsular War 1808 - 1814 2) Boer War 1899 - 1902 3) The Arab - Ottoman Turk War remember Lawrence of Arabia in 1916 4) Malaysian War 5) Indonesia late 1950's - early 60;s 6) Algerian War late 1950's 7) Viet Nam - 1945 - 1975 8) Iraq 2003 to Present In the eight instance

Rupert Smith is not only a strategic thinker, but a former strategist and military commander. He has written a trully impressive book on the nature of war in the 21st Century which should be read by military professionals everywhere, and taken to heart and used to influence military operations in the pursuit of political goals, but probably won't. More on that at the end. Smith's book has to do with war paradigms. I disagree with the use of the term, since following Thomas Kuhn it is questionable whether the term can be applied to the social sciences at all, and would prefer to use the term "ideal types" to describe Smith's concepts. Smith is however aware of the pitfalls but insists that we have essentially entered into a new form of war that although linked with the past (as Smith points out, Clausewitz identified the beginnings of this paradigm in the early 19th Century), is diffent from what we knew as "war" before. One will look in vain for buzzwords such as "4th Generation Warfare" or "Network Centric Warfare", since these dubious concepts only confuse the issue rather than clarify. This new paradigm he describes as "war amongst the people" is related to "guerrilla warfare" and "revolutionary war" but is different from both due to the distinction of ossillating between "conflict" and "confrontation". Also due to the destructive nature of modern weapons, almost all combat in this paradigm takes place at the tactical level. Smith reserves intelligence and policy operations for the operational level. A regular military force operating in "war amongst the people" must first of all achieve stability and then impose and maintain the rule of law within the political community they are operating. To ruthlessly utilize maximum military force and thus destroy the structures one is attempting to save, kill the people one is attempting win over, is self-defeating and most likely to increase the support of one's opponent. Smith compares and constrasts "war amongst the people" with the conventional (and in Smith's mind outmoded) paradigm of "industrial war", which also dates from the early 19th Century. An interesting survey of the tactical innovation of industrial warfare runs from Napoleon through to World War II. Smith is not only a theorist of note, but knows his military history as well. "Industrial war", unfortunately serves as the paradigm in which we conceive of war, the weapons of industrial war - tanks, jet fighters, aircraft carriers - are the icons of war, even though the actual wars we wage are completely different than the wars these weapons systems were designed to fight. We fight "wars amongst the people" with the weapons, doctrine, military organization and thinking associated with the old paradigm of "industrial war", and spend a good bit of time defeating our own political purpose in the process. So, why is this book liable to have little influence? Given the sad state of strategic thought in the US or even UK today,